Birds In WInter (2nd Ed)

Most of my bird watching I do with a camera. In the winter, it's hard to get pictures of birds in the wild, so I usually do my winter bird watching in a backyard feeding station. [Music] I've got several different feeders around the house and yard and some of my neighbors also have them. That way we can attract several different kinds of [Music] birds. If a bird has plenty of food to build up its body heat, and if it has water and shelter, it can stay alive in very cold weather. So feeding birds is more than just a hobby. We're also helping them to survive the [Music] winter. Some kinds of foods I just hang up on a tree. Naturally, some of the food will fall to the ground, so you'll find birds feeding there as well. In the winter, they often stay fairly close together in a loose flock. They keep up a constant chatter to help keep the flock [Music] together. Learning to identify the various birds may take some practice, although some are fairly easy. Size, color, and habits are all good clues. Can't miss this one. It's a male cardinal. Bright red color and a crest. You can't see the crest too well while the bird is moving. Maybe if I stop the picture. No, still can't see it too well. I'll try again. There. It's the tuft of feathers that sticks out at the top of the head. Now, this is also a cardinal, a female, not colored as brightly as the male, but there she has a crest and a thick beak like the male. A thick beak is the mark of a bird that feeds mainly on hard seeds. Cardinals are especially fond of sunflower seeds. In the winter, you might see a cardinal alone without its mate, but most of the year they stay pretty close together. The cardinal used to be a southern bird, but they've been spreading north, even into Canada. These are relatives of the cardinal. Evening gross beaks. Male and female are colored differently. This one's a male. Notice the bright coloring. A female gross beak. Color is much more subdued. Here she is with her mate. Gross beaks are mainly seed eaters. Notice that big beak. In fact, that's what gross beak means, big beak. It's a little unusual to find evening gross beaks in my part of the country. They're normally found in northern Canada and the evergreen forests. But if their food supply runs short in Canada, they'll come down into the United States. Sometimes you can see a robin at a winter feeder. Not the robins that were here in summer. They've flown south. But some robins breed in Alaska and northern Canada. And some of these may spend the winter in the northern part of the United States. Here's a saucy little fellow, a tufted tit mouse. I stopped the picture so you can get a good look at his crest. A tufted tit mouse is very friendly and noisy. One morning I was late in filling a feeder. A tit mouse arrived and found it empty and he gave me quite a scolding. The sew it is a good winter food for a tit mouse to substitute for the insects he eats in summer. Here's a tit mouse with one of its relatives, a chickade. The chickad is on the left. It doesn't have a crest. Another chickade. The identifying marks are a black cap and throat and white cheeks. Chickades and titmis are very quick. They move around a lot but usually don't fly very far. They're often seen together in winter, especially at a sew it feeder. The tit mouse is on the right, gray with a crest, and the chickade on the left has a black cap and white cheeks and no crest. There are always plenty of house sparrows around. Actually, house sparrows aren't really sparrows at all. They belong to a family of birds called weaver finches. Here's one kind of true sparrow, a tree sparrow. And this is a fox sparrow, another true sparrow. There are several different kinds of sparrows, 51 species, and some species are divided into several races. Sparrows and their relatives feed mainly on small seeds. Very often the seeds of harmful plants such as ragweed. Here's a relative of the sparrow, a junko. Some people call it a snowbird. They're easy to identify. Slate gray upper parts and white below. A blue j is easy to recognize. A bright blue bird with a crest. They're noisy fellas, always picking a fight with other birds. But a blue jay is usually the first bird to spot danger. If a predator, say a cat or a hawk, approaches a feeding station, a blue jay will begin a rockish shriek that warns the other small birds and they make a quick getaway. They'll eat just about anything they can get, but they're especially fond of corn and other grain. Here's my favorite, a downy woodpecker. Very sociable bird. not at all shy when people are around. This one's a male. You can tell by the red spot on the back of his head. And the females don't have the red spot. Now, this looks like a downy woodpecker, but it's not. It's a close relative called a hairy woodpecker. The hairy is larger with a longer bill. This one's a female. No red spot. A sew it feeder is likely to attract wood beckers. They feed mainly on insects during the warmer months. Notice the way he holds on to the feeder itself instead of perching on the pegs. His feet are built with two toes in front and two in back. That's different from most birds, so he can spread his toes and get a good grip on the wood. I've got one feeder with no pegs, just for the woodpeckers. Here's the little acrobat of the bird world, a nuthatch. The only bird that moves along upside down as it feeds. This is a white breasted nuthatch to be specific. It's the largest of about 30 species. Nuthatches are great hoarders. Later, when he's finished eating, he'll take some food from the feeder and hide it away somewhere. Well, those are a few of the birds I see around my place in winter. And some of them are found only in the eastern part of the country, but they have relatives in the west. It's a good hobby bird watching, identifying them, studying their habits, and with the feeding stations, there's that satisfaction of knowing that you're helping the birds to survive through the winter. [Music]