Parksville/Qualicum Beach, Tuesday bird walk December 12, 2017:

The Tuesday went to the Shelly Road side of the Englishman River Estuary in  Parksville. The morning was cloudy with calm winds. The highlight of the morning was the sighting of two Common Redpolls feeding in a tall birch tree next to the trail.  We heard a flock of Red Crossbills fly overhead.  We saw a Golden-crowned Kinglet and a Ruby-crowned Kinglet moving very quickly in the trees along the trail.  A large flock of Brant Geese were spotted on the ocean. Ten Gadwall were seen near the shore line.  We had great views of a Hairy Woodpecker feeding in a tall conifer.  A Brandt’s Cormorant, several Barrow’s Goldeneye, Common Goldeneye and Red-breasted Mergansers were seen just offshore.

Northern Shrike: Ralph Hocken Photo.

Twenty-two birders including two visiting birders from St. Albert, Alberta saw and heard the following fifty-four species:

Canada Geese

Brandt Geese

American Widgeon

Mallard

Northern Pintail

Gadwall

Surf Scoter

White-wing Scoter

Bufflehead

Barrow’s Goldeneye

Common Goldeneye

Red-breasted Merganser

Common Merganser

Hooded Merganser

Common Loon

Pacific Loon

Double-crested Cormorant

Brandt’s Cormorant

Common Murre

Belted Kingfisher

Killdeer

Great Blue Heron

Mew Gull

California Gull

Thayer's Gull
Glaucous-winged Gull

Bald Eagle

Merlin

Sharp-shinned Hawk

Northern Shrike

Anna's Hummingbird

Northern Flicker

Pileated Woodpecker

Hairy Woodpecker

Northwestern Crow

Common Raven

Steller’s Jay

American Robin

Chestnut-backed Chickadee

Brown Creeper

Bewick's Wren

Pacific Wren

Golden-crowned Kinglet

Ruby-crowned Kinglet

European Starling

Spotted Towhee

Brewers Blackbird

Song Sparrow

Golden-crowned Sparrow

Dark-eyed Junco

Common Redpoll

Red Crossbill

House Finch

Pine Siskin  

                                                  Hairy Woodpecker: Ralph Hocken Photo:

Please Note

Check this site (www.thebirdstore.blogspot.com)  early Tuesday and Sunday mornings on stormy mornings to see if the walks have been cancelled!

The Tuesday Bird walk on December 19, 2017, will be going to the Plummer Road side of the Englishman River in Parksville. Meet at the Parksville Community Park (at the parking lot in front of the Lions Club Playground) at 9:00 a.m. or at the corner of Plummer Road and Shorewood Drive on the oceanside of Highway 19A in Parksville at about 9:10 a.m.

Good Birding

Neil Robins

THE BACKYARD WILDBIRD &; NATURE STORE

314 Metral Drive

Nanaimo B.C.
V9T-2L8

Phone: 250-390-3669

Fax: 250-390-1633

Email: thebackyard@shaw.ca

Blog: www.thebirdstore.blogspot.com

Varied Thrush - By Colin Bartlett

Photo: J. Morrison

To me the Varied Thrush is a sure sign of fall and winter as they are usually the last bird to return to the feeders this time of year. Their beautiful bright markings add a splash of colour to the dull winter landscape along with a unique but eerie song.

The Varied Thrush is part of the Thrushes family, scientific name Turdidae, which also includes Bluebirds and the American Robin. They are the same size as the American Robin but have a beautiful orange colour and a few extra markings than the robin. One of the identification markings is the orange eye stripe and the orange coloured breast with a black band similar to that on the Northern Flicker. There are also noticeable orange wing markings on the thrush, compared to no markings on the robin. The colours on the males stand out with the black and orange but the female Varied Thrush is a brownish colour with the orange markings. Sometimes the Varied Thrush can be miss identified with an oriole, as they are both orange and black but the bill of the thrush is a little shorter and blunt at the tip.

The Varied Thrush has a unique call that is sometimes described as eerie, weird and mysterious but it is one that is easy to remember. They have a single whistled note which goes up in pitch and is sometimes followed by another single note that may be a higher or lower pitch. On an early foggy morning the song of the Varied Thrush can seem a little eerie like something out of an Alfred Hitchcock movie.

The Varied Thrush is a western bird with a range from Northern California up to Alaska and west to the Rocky Mountains. Varied Thrush can be seen year round along the coast of British Columbia up to Alaska and into Washington State, and they winter in Oregon and Northern California. Their preferred habitat is thick damp conifer forests but move down in the winter to find other food sources.

The Varied Thrush is very adaptable to a variety of food. They feed on berries and bugs the same as the robins but they also feed on seeds whether natural seeds or from your bird feeders. Over the years at my feeders it seemed as though all the Varied Thrush eat was white millet seed. That was in the beginning, now they prefer to feed on the black oil sunflower seed, along with the peanut halves and anything that pleases them. I even had a Varied Thrush taking some of the Steller’s Jays peanuts in the shell and the jay was not to sure as what to do about someone else taking his peanuts. You can also place out apples that have been cut in half or quarters for the Varied Thrush and the robins. Place the apples on a tray feeder or in amongst the branches of a tree, where the birds can easily perch and reach the apples.

Varied Thrush prefers to use a hopper or fly through feeder instead of a tube style feeder. Better yet is to have that feeder mounted on a post so it is stable. You will notice that a post mounted feeder will become your most active feeder, as all birds will use it. In my yard it is the large fly through feeder on a post that the Varied Thrush use along with a little tray feeder wedged in my apple tree. If you are feeding them on the ground or a stump, make sure it is in an open area so the birds have a chance to see predators coming, such as cats and hawks.

  

During the non-breeding season birds are not usually territorial with a few exceptions and one of those is the Varied Thrush. Although localized, the Varied Thrush will defend a territory around a bird feeder or feeding station defending against other Varied Thrush and some other species. Interestingly enough I have only see one thrush at a time visiting my backyard feeders, although there would be others around but not in my backyard.

Another trick for feeding robins and thrushes is to place a tarp, piece of plywood, or over turn a row boat on your garden or lawn. After a heavy frost or snow fall, flip over your object. This leaves a bare spot for the birds to feed on bugs and larvae, other wise covered by the snow. Even turn your garden once and a while during the winter for the birds to feed on the bugs.

The Varied Thrush is a unique species to have visiting the backyard during the fall and winter. As they just begin to wandering down from the woods their numbers will increase around the backyard feeders, as I usually see my first Varied Thrush visitor in December.

Happy birding!

Additional Tip: Varied Thrush also love to eat suet. You can grate partially frozen peanut suet (or tree icing) on the ground and then sit back and enjoy watching the Varied Thrush gobble it up. They will also eat from our Saturn Suet holders if available in your backyard.

Steller's Jays - By: Colin Bartlett

Will they may not be everyone’s favorite backyard bird but they sure are a colourful bird. It is that time of year that the Steller’s Jays begin their visits to the backyard feeders as they move out of the hills. The first to arrive are usually the young jays and are then followed by the adults. The arrival of the Steller’s Jay also lets us know that fall is near. There have been other reports of jays around Nanaimo as early as the first week of August.

Now the Steller’s Jay is not a Blue Jay, they are two different species. The Blue Jay is lighter in colour than the Steller’s Jay and a little smaller, as well the Blue Jay is seen east of the Rocky Mountains and the Steller’s are seen only on the west side of the Rockies. It is easy to identify a Steller’s Jay, usually it is by the load call of shack-shack-shack but are also good mimics of other birds. Other than identifying the Steller’s Jay by it’s call, you can identify it by beautiful deep blue on the back with a black head, chest and a large crest which can be raised and lowered at will.

The Steller’s Jay is one of those birds that you either love or hate and the main reason some may not like this bird is that they always seem to be the dominant bird at the feeders. According to the pecking order of birds, those who get to eat first, the jay’s rank high because of their size and sassy attitude. The smaller songbirds now have to compete with others to use the feeder or find other food sources. To keep the jays from scaring off the other birds and from hoarding all the food, wrap your bird feeder with a 2x2 stucco mesh or chicken wire. It sometimes takes a little time for the smaller birds to get use to the wire around the feeder but they will be able to get through to the feeder and it will help deter the jays. Once you have done this place another feeder out away from the main feeder for the jays to feed at. Giving the larger birds their own feeding area help to prevent the pecking order problem and allows you to enjoy all the birds that visit your backyard

Jays feed on a wide variety of food from insects to small vertebrates, fir cones and other natural seeds depending on the region. As for the backyard bird feeders the Steller’s Jay prefers peanuts, whether in the shell or shelled, sunflower seeds and suet. They will also take table scraps but this is not recommend as it may create more problems than good for the jays. Jays also like to hoard food hiding it throughout your yard and the neighbors. Like other birds that hoard food this is natural to store this extra food for the winter just in case of rough times, and yes they do know where they have hidden the seeds. It seems as though they forget where the seed is and you find sunflowers and even peanuts sprouting in the garden, but because there is always a steady supply of seed in the bird feeders, they never have to use their hidden caches of food.

Birds are energy efficient, conserving their energy and not using more than needed. This can be observed easily by many bird species, like chickadees, nuthatches and also by watching the Steller’s Jay. Simply place out six to ten peanuts in the shell along a deck railing or on a table. When the jays find the peanuts watch carefully as the jay picks each peanut and checks the weight. They are looking for the heaviest peanuts, which should provide the biggest seeds and most nutrients. Although the jays will take the heaviest peanuts first, in the end they will take all the peanuts and store most of them around the backyard.

Although the Steller’s Jay may not be everyone’s favorite bird, these cheeky birds add some beautiful natural colour to a backyard and provide great entertainment.

Happy birding!!

Doves

Two Mourning Doves were seen on a roof along Meridian Way in Parksville...Neil Robins

CACHING SEEDS Written by Colin Bartlett

Photo: Steller's Jay (R. Hocken)

What a summer we have been enjoying and it looks like it is going for a while. Even though summer looks like it will never end we can see that the seasons will be changing soon. How can we see this, by watching the change in the activity at the backyard bird feeders. With nesting season basically over we have begun to see flocks of chickadees and nuthatches returning to the backyard, and if you watch closely you will notice that these little creatures are hard a work storing seed for the up coming winter. The storing of seed begins around the middle of August and will be part of the bird’s daily routine throughout the winter.

There are a few ways for birds to survive a winter, especially when their food supply has peaked during a different season and then is almost non-existent during the winter. One is to move to where there is a constant supply of food available during that season. This is what we know as migration, the birds heading south to a steady food source. Another is to stay and scrounge for what ever can be found to feed on, avoiding the hazards of the migration but also having to deal with the possible depletion of food. Then there is the storing of food. When the food is at it’s peak the birds will store it until needed at a later date, this is also known as hoarding, and caching.

Not all birds hoard seed. In the backyard the common birds to see doing this are the Steller’s Jay, Chestnut-backed Chickadees and the Red-breasted Nuthatches.

The chickadees and nuthatches are busy right now storing seeds and we have had the pleasure of watching them hide their seeds at the feeders behind the store. They have been storing them in the old stump out back and at home they have been stuffing the seeds in amongst my lumber stack. Also in my backyard I have watched the Red-breasted Nuthatch storing the seeds in the bark of the fir tree. The nuthatch picks a suitable sunflower seed and fly off to the tree then stuffs the seed in the bark of the tree but does not open the shell to eat the seed, instead leaving the seed and returning to the feeder for another. The woodpeckers must have a great time when they are scouring the tree for food and find all these sunflower seeds. Of course, the king of the backyard birds for hoarding seed has to be the Steller’s Jay. The chickadees and nuthatches are continuously hoarding seed one at a time, where the Steller’s Jay moves in and fills it’s grope with plenty of seed. I remember a story of an incident where a Steller’s Jay that had just left a feeder and had an incident with a glass panel on a deck. The jay was o.k. and flew off but not before dropping it’s load of sunflower seed. When they counted the seeds there were 33 black oil sunflower seeds that the jay had dropped and who knows how many the jay still had.

It may seem that the Steller’s Jay scares all the other birds away from the feeder when they arrive but it is just part of the pecking order. The larger the bird the higher in the pecking order they are. Once the larger birds have left you will notice the smaller birds return to the feeders to get their share.

One woodpecker that is not seen around here but is unique in storing seed is the Acorn Woodpecker. These woodpeckers drill out a hole in an old snag and fit an acorn into the hole. The holes are drilled out precisely to fit the nut in tight, so no other animal can steal it. These old snags are littered with holes that are filled with acorns and are known as a granary.

After a winter of birds storing seeds all over the garden it is interesting to see some of these seeds germinating in odd places. It may be sunflowers sprouting all over the garden or on a firewood pile, and peanuts, in shell, that are sprouting. Many seeds are not used after they have been stored. The seeds may have been stolen by another animal or may have gone rotten. It is commonly thought that the birds just don’t know where they stored the seeds. Well, birds do remember where the seeds are stored.  One study that was done at Utah State University, studied the Clark’s Nutcracker in aviaries. They found that the Clark’s Nutcracker used objects or landmarks, such as a rock, to remember where they had seed stored. If the object was moved the Clark’s Nutcracker would go to where the object was moved to, they did not know where the seed was without the object. Also it is natural instinct for these birds to store seed, but the birds really do not need to use their hoards of seed, because the bird feeders are always full for them to feed at. 

A favorite seed for birds to store is good old black oil sunflower seed and skinless peanuts, so make sure you have some available to attract the chickadees, nuthatches and jays, so you can enjoy the marvels of nature and watching them store seed in the oddest places.

Happy birding!!

Parksville/Qualicum Beach Tuesday bird walk, September 19, 2017

The Tuesday bird walk went to the Little Qualicum River Estuary in Qualicum Beach.  The morning was cloudy with calm winds. We saw flocks of Canada Geese, Surf Scoters, White-winged Scoters, Black Scoters, several Common Loons,

Horned Grebes and Red-necked Grebes from the Brant viewing platform. A Parasitic Jaeger was spotted heading up the Strait of Georgia. Four Black Oystercatchers and several Black Turnstones were seen feeding along the shore line. Two Yellow-rumped Warblers, entertained us along the walk to the river. We spotted a Merlin perched in a tall snag near the trail. We saw

twenty Great Blue Herons along the tideline during the morning. A Ring-billed Gull, several Mew Gulls, California Gulls and

Glaucous-winged Gulls were seen along the gravel bars.

Six birders saw and heard the following forty-three species:

Canada Geese

Mallard

Northern Pintail

Northern Shoveler

Green-wing Teal

Surf Scoter

White-winged Scoter

Black Scoter

Common Merganser

Common Loon

Pacific Loon

Horned Grebe

Red-necked Grebe

Double-crested Cormorant

Great Blue Heron

Black Oystercatcher

Black Turnstone

Killdeer

Ring-billed Gull

Mew Gull

California Gull

Glaucous-winged Gull

Parasitic Jaeger

Belted Kingfisher

Bald Eagle

Merlin

Eurasian-collared Dove

Northern Flicker

Pileated Woodpecker

Steller’s Jay

Northwestern Crow

Common Raven

Anna’s Hummingbird

Yellow-rumped Warbler

American Pipit

Chestnut-backed Chickadee

European Starling

Brewer’s Blackbird

Savannah Sparrow

Song Sparrow

Purple Finch

House Finch

American Goldfinch

The Tuesday Bird walk on September 26, 2017, will be going to the Columbia Beach in French Creek. Meet at the Parksville Community Park (at the parking lot in front of the Lions Club Playground) at 9:00 a.m. or at the parking area off Admiral Tryon Bld. (Turn off highway 19a on at Columbia Drive, turn right onto Admiral Tryon Bld. go about 100 yards to the parking area)  meet at about 9:20 a.m.

Good birding

Neil Robins

THE BACKYARD WILDBIRD & NATURE STORE

314 Metral Drive

Nanaimo B.C.
V9T-2L8

Phone: 250-390-3669

Fax: 250-390-1633

Email: thebackyard@shaw.ca

Blog: www.thebirdstore.blogspot.com

Pine Siskins Written by Colin Bartlett

Photo: Pine Siskin (by Yipp)

It has been a year or so since many of us have seen any Pine Siskins visiting the backyard feeders. In the last month we have received reports of these little finches returning to the area. The reports have been from Parksville, Nanoose Bay, Westwood Lake and Lost Lake area in Nanaimo.

One of the reasons as to why we have not seen any Pine Siskins around is that these birds are known as an irruptive species, meaning they move to where the food is. One possible reason as to why irruptions occur is to allow the food supply to replenish in one area while the bird’s feed somewhere else. With the Pine Siskin they move eastward and not south to find other food before returning to the west and their cycle roughly happens ever two to four years.

Siskins do everything in a colony, so an easy way to describe the Pine Siskin is a large flock of birds, any where from 10 to 100, that all arrive at the same time and constantly argue about who is where on the feeder. The Pine Siskins are part of the finch family and are similar in size and shape to the American Goldfinch, at about 5 to 6 inches long. They have a slender bill, different from the House and Purple Finches that have a heavy conical bill. There is little colour to identify them, with only a little yellow on the wings that sometimes looks white. The rest of the body is a gray-brown, streaky body. Other birds that look similar to the Pine Siskin are the female House Finch, which you can check the bill to tell the difference, and the American Goldfinch in its winter plumage which has no streaking on the chest and underside of the bird like the Pine Siskin does.

Attracting Pine Siskins and finches to your backyard can be done with their preferred seeds of, sunflower chip, black oil sunflower and nyjer seed. Although a majority of birds prefer the black oil sunflower seed, you may notice them tossing a lot of the seed away. To be efficient birds weigh each seed and take only the ones that are heavy in weight and will provide the most energy, instead of opening empty seeds and wasting energy. Also Pine Siskins have a fine bill that is not as strong as other finches, so they sort through more seeds to find ones they can open. To help the birds open more seeds and waste less, pre-crack the black oil sunflower seeds before putting it I your feeder. Another option is sunflower chip that has no shell, just seed for the birds to eat. For the Pine Siskins and the American Gold Finch I find that they prefer the fine sunflower chip over the course sunflower chip.

Pine Siskins do everything in a colony from nesting, feeding, traveling and also lots of squabbling. A problem common to birds that move in a colony is disease. As the birds are so close to each other diseases can pass through colony quickly. The best way to help prevent disease around your bird feeders and water supplies is to clean your feeders regularly, at least once a month. A bleach solution of 1 part bleach to 9 parts water is a good all round cleaner for you bird feeders and bird baths. Also clean up any seed that is under the feeders weekly and move the feeder’s location periodically so the disease is not concentrated in one location.

The return of the Pine Siskin will add some winter colour and a lot of activity to the already busy backyard feeders.

Happy birding!!