WINGSCAPES

Feeding the Birds

Talk to any sales clerk at a backyard bird supply store long enough and you're likely to hear the story about the new customer who wanted to start feeding the birds in their backyard; so they bought a feeder and some seed, and went home happy.

However about two weeks later the same customer called back quite upset. Whenever there was a large number of finches and other small birds gathered on the feeder, a hawk would suddenly swoop through, grab one, and fly away.

 
Nine times out of ten, the clerk will then tell you that it took all their will power not to respond "Well, you said you wanted to feed the birds..."

Many thanks to James in Florence, AL who contributed this superb image of a Cooper's Hawk, a well known "feeder swooping" species, to the Wingscapes BirdCam Photo Gallery. Indeed, James notes that whenever this hawk appears, all the other birds leave.

 

The Auspicious Dove

From as far back as human history is recorded, the dove has not only been understood as a sign of love and purity but of good fortune as well. Consider the over two-thousand-year-old verses of the Song of Solomon associating the return of the turtledove as a sign of more pleasant times to come:

For, lo, the winter is past, the rain is over and gone;

the flowers appear on the earth;

the time of the singing of birds is come,

and the voice of the turtle is heard in our land.

 
The familiar Mourning Dove commonly seen across North America has also sometimes been called the Western Turtle Dove. Edgar from Corbin, Kentucky recently uploaded this superbly framed image of one recorded in the midst of a cleansing bath.

Looking upon its beautiful grey feathers and lovely large dark eye ringed in delicate light blue, its not difficult to understand how the ancients thought these birds auspicious for many of life's better experiences.

What Color Goes With Orange?

In order to help protect them from predators, the plumage of many birds closely matches the colors and often even the patterns of their habitats. Plovers are generally a dusty tan color to match the ground on which they nest, female ducks are commonly streaked with brown and black to help them hide in the reed beds of ponds. But then there are the male songbirds…

 
Bold and bright to ensure their visibility to potential mates, the males of many bird species, especially the songbirds, spend part of their year sporting the most vivid of colors that certainly don’t camouflage them in the least.

However this brilliantly orange male Baltimore Oriole, uploaded by Patty from Sheffield Village, OH, seems to have found a solution to being both brightly colored and blending in with his surroundings at the same time.

Audubon's Red-winged Starling

When John James Audubon first sketched the Red-winged Blackbird, he called it not by the name we know it today but by another - the Red-winged Starling. To those accustomed to seeing the male in its jet black plumage adorned with bold red shoulder patches, this association with starlings might seem a little odd.

 
However when this same bird is seen with heavily worn feathers (such as in this image of a male Red-winged Blackbird recently recorded using an Audubon BirdCam and uploaded by Rick of Tamarac, Florida), it is a little more understandable how the ornithologists of Audubon's day might have seen a resemblance between it and the European Starling.

 

Jeff Gordon announced as new President of the ABA

Congratulations to our friend Jeff Gordon on becoming the next President of the American Birding Association. Jeff is a wonderfully nice and down-to-earth guy. The ABA has had a rocky recent history. At times they've been a bit distant and difficult to work with. We are sure that things will change under Jeff's leadership. His appointment will be good for the ABA and good for birding. Congrats Jeff! Wingscapes looks forward to working with you. - Bart