Coventry Lake Birds, 11-13-14; Feeder feeding frenzy, trouble ahead?
A quick look at the northwest end of Coventry Lake today produced:
48 Ruddy Ducks
10 Buffleheads
6 COMMON MERGANSERS, FOS
3 AMERICAN COOT, seen here before but not reliably
8 Mallards
16 Canada Geese.
As others have noted, there has been a feeding frenzy of sorts going on at
my feeders for two months or so now. I have roughly the same numbers of
the same birds as previous years but they are not behaving normally. Birds
that hardly ever looked at suet feeders are fighting with Red-bellied and
Downy Woodpeckers, and House Sparrows (grrrrrr) are hogging the feeding ports
on my nyjer (thistle) feeders. I've never seen the HOSPs do that before. I
have 2 platform feeders for mixed seed, and on one I dump a gallon jug of
seed to fill it up. That used to last 3 or 4 days. Now it's gone in a day
and a half.
This suggests to me that although we had a great summer for the breeding
birds and presumably a good year for plants - no real dry spells or very hot
weather, perhaps some of the plants that the birds normally rely on in
fall and winter did not do well and go to seed as usual.
I do know that in my area, at least, for the third year in a row the oaks
had no acorns and the hickories produced almost no nuts, but those provide
food for only a few birds and not ones that normally frequent feeders.
Thoughts?
Don Morgan, Coventry, Ct
mntncougar@aol.com
Don, it's almost an amazing difference as, in this area (Goshen), acorns, catkins and all sorts of natural seeds and nuts are doing very well--and the birds are taking advantage of them. So far, numerous Pine Siskins have come over but not one has visited a feeder. Another, perhaps unrelated observation is that our Purple Finches bailed as of Monday. Otherwise, the feeder traffic is about average. Other observations, e.g. from Paul Carrier, could be very interesting.
Kevin Finnan
Goshen
-----Original Message-----
From: Don Morgan via CTBirds ctbirds@lists.ctbirding.org
To: nosbird nosbird@yahoogroups.com
Cc: ctbirds ctbirds@lists.ctbirding.org
Sent: Thu, Nov 13, 2014 4:52 pm
Subject: [CT Birds] Coventry Lake Birds, 11-13-14; Feeder feeding frenzy, trouble ahead?
A quick look at the northwest end of Coventry Lake today produced:
48 Ruddy Ducks
10 Buffleheads
6 COMMON MERGANSERS, FOS
3 AMERICAN COOT, seen here before but not reliably
8 Mallards
16 Canada Geese.
As others have noted, there has been a feeding frenzy of sorts going on at
my feeders for two months or so now. I have roughly the same numbers of
the same birds as previous years but they are not behaving normally. Birds
that hardly ever looked at suet feeders are fighting with Red-bellied and
Downy Woodpeckers, and House Sparrows (grrrrrr) are hogging the feeding ports
on my nyjer (thistle) feeders. I've never seen the HOSPs do that before. I
have 2 platform feeders for mixed seed, and on one I dump a gallon jug of
seed to fill it up. That used to last 3 or 4 days. Now it's gone in a day
and a half.
This suggests to me that although we had a great summer for the breeding
birds and presumably a good year for plants - no real dry spells or very hot
weather, perhaps some of the plants that the birds normally rely on in
fall and winter did not do well and go to seed as usual.
I do know that in my area, at least, for the third year in a row the oaks
had no acorns and the hickories produced almost no nuts, but those provide
food for only a few birds and not ones that normally frequent feeders.
Thoughts?
Don Morgan, Coventry, Ct
mntncougar@aol.com
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