Clever Junco!

Male dark-eyed junco eating sunflower bits on the hopper feeder.

When the weather gets tough, it's fascinating to see how birds will change their behavior to adapt. Conventional wisdom says that juncos are ground-feeding birds that prefer to scratch through whatever is covering the ground for their food. Or they may mount a weed stalk to get at the seed heads near the top. Normally at feeding stations, they are on the ground below the feeders, scratching for mixed seeds such as millet, cracked corn, or sunflower bits.

With our recent snows and ongoing low temperatures, the bird feeders are a blur of activity. When I looked out the other day, I did a double take. There was a junco, perched on a vertical log feeder, pecking at bits of suet dough we had packed into the drilled holes. The suet log, hanging nearly six feet off the ground, is normally visited by woodpeckers, nuthatches, chickadees and titmice, starlings, and Carolina wrens. Seeing the junco using it, despite the lack of strong clinging feet, was a new one.

We'd seen the juncos at the hopper feeders (top image) picking out sunflower bits. And we knew the juncos loved the suet dough we put out on the deck railing, so I guess his should not come as a huge surprise. After all, the birds don't read the books describing their behavior. They're just trying to survive until tomorrow.

The male dark-eyed junco on the suet log.

Snow, Stimulus, and Response

Male dark-eyed junco.

We don't often get lake-effect snow way down in southeastern Ohio, but we surely are getting it now. We've got six inches on the ground here at the farm and another few inches on the way. After being home for the holiday break since the week before Christmas, our kids are looking at a week of snow days. (The hills are echoing with the cheers of children and the groans of parents). It's a light, dry snow—very powdery—so no danger thus far of a power outage.


Fortunately we're well provisioned inside and are keeping the bird feeders well-stocked outside, too. We have about 35 dark-eyed juncos in the yard most days—more when the snow cover is deep.

This chap (photo at top), fluffed up against the 17ºF cold, was staring me down through the kitchen window, trying his best to let me know that the suet dough dish out front needed a refill.

The birds have us really well-trained. Here's what they do:
They flutter down to the feeder.
Look into it, find nothing.
Then glance in the window with a forlorn look on your face at the clueless humans.
Fly off a short distance when the humans come scrambling out the door, hands full of seed, suet, peanuts, filling the air with apologies.

Like Pavlov's dogs, we respond every time to the birds' stimulus.

My First Bird of 2010

My first bird of 2010 was a male eastern bluebird eating suet dough on the deck railing. I managed to avert my eyes long enough to get this individual bluebird as my first bird of the new year. We had grand plans to go birding on New Year's Day, but they got canceled by poor weather and illness. I was suffering under the effects of a chest cold that laid me low from 12/30 through today (1/4/10)! But thanks to good fortune (and my indulgent wife, Julie) the bluebird (of happiness) was my first bird of the new year.

Because we were denied the annual ritual of going birding on 1/1, the members of the Whipple Bird Club connected by telephone to share our new year's sightings. Shila's first bird was a downy woodpecker. Julie's was a Carolina wren (heard) and a Euro starling (visual). Steve's was a dark-eyed junco.

What was YOUR first bird? I hope it was a good one.

Happy New Year to all!