Notes on bird feeders
One of the delights of winter hereabouts is the bird-life, meaning those few hardy species that choose to spend the season with us by showing up at feeders. Can you name some? Mine are mostly junco (split-tail in Newfie-talk), and black-capped chickadee--not the boreal (northern) one—woodpeckers, hordes of twittering starlings, plus some mourning doves. As for the crows and ravens, they don't use feeders much. All the rest wing south each autumn to rejoin us come spring.
Well, strictly speaking, our blue jays and some other species also fly south—from farther north—and end up here. And the southbound species don't all fly to Florida. Some go no farther than New England, while others choose somewhere in between as temperature and food dictate.
Speaking of jays, I used to see the grey ones—properly called Canada jays; they're our national bird—but not any more (if you're watching, colour-wise they resemble an over-sized chickadee: grey with black and white accents). Being boreal to start with, they've likely been nudged farther north by global warming. To survive the northern winters, come autumn they stash food in hundreds of hideaways to locate and eat later.
Whatever, I miss 'em. Like chickadees they're very tame, even friendly. Which is why oldtime trappers nicknamed them camp robbers. I can vouch for that. One day, frying pancakes for lunch on a Newfoundland forest survey, I found one cake too soggy and tossed it. Moments later a grey jay swooped down-but found it too heavy to fly with, so ate it nearby, with us watching. Its other common name, whiskey-jack, is an anglicized version of the Cree word for a clever trickster.
That said, I'd still trade them any day for blue jays, pretty though they are, and equally intelligent. Why? Lately a flock of them gobbles everything I put out for the chickadees and woodpeckers, including the contents of my usual suet logs (you bore shallow one-inch holes in stovewood-sized billets, tap in a few nails for footholds, stuff the holes with suet-&-seed from Avery's in town, and hang them opposite a window to watch and enjoy).
Not any longer here. What to do? Well, last week, by coincidence, a bird-loving Beaverbrook neighbour dropped by with half a bag of sunflower seeds. “Take these,” he said sadly. “I can't use them any more.”
“Why not, Fred?” I said. “Eagles,” he said. “Hunting my birds...”
And I thought I had bird feeder troubles!
Actually, his gift helped solve my greedy-jay dilemma. Down cellar I still had an old toploading, multi-wicket plastic bird feeder. Filling it with my friend's oil seeds, I hung it in a downhill apple tree. The blue jays quickly discovered it; but being unable to extract more than one or two seeds at a time while fighting each other, it'll take them a week to empty it. Long enough to give my gentle suet-loggers half a chance.