The Blazing Red Cardinal
Regal, Respected and Truly Loved
While the cardinal may best be known for its flash of color in garden and woodland, have you ever found one of its feathers on the ground? Blue jays and robins shed their feathers like so much fall foliage, but cardinals just might be the greatest protectors of their princely robes in the feathered kingdom.
As one of the most recognized songbirds in North America, cardinals also could be known for their virtues; they are monogamous and remain together throughout the year. They aid in pest control, feeding on such insects as potato beetles, cotton boll weevils and the cucumber beetle. And they may be economically valuable because of their weed seed consumption, eating at least one hundred kinds in the wild.
At your feeder cardinals prefer black oil sunflower or safflower seeds. They roll the seed around with their tongue until it is sideways in their strong, cone-shaped bill. Then they crack it open and eject the hull before swallowing. Cardinals approach the feeder with an attitude, as if aware of their royal heritage. They barely suffer the chatter of neighboring sparrows nor the infighting of house finches but prefer to dine with their mate in majestic splendor.
The word "cardinal" originally meant important, and was applied to an official rank in the Catholic church. Cardinal became associated with the bright red robes and the pointed hat of that office. Early American naturalists, seeing the red bird with the pointed crest for the first time, were reminded of the church official and so named the bird the cardinal.
During the winter, the male cardinal tries to dominate at the feeder, but his mate usually ignores him and goes right on eating. In the spring, however, male cardinals have the delightful habit of feeding hulled seeds to the female as part of their courtship. It often occurs at feeders and is endearing to watch. He hops over to her, tilts his head sideways and places the tidbit in her bill.
Cardinals breed from March through August, with up to four broods in a season. While the female begins her next nest, her mate takes on the feeding responsibilities for the last brood.
Their nests are built with a base of twigs and bark strips, rootlets and located in dense thickets several feet off the ground. The female builds her nest unassisted and does all the egg incubation, but her mate sometimes will bring her food as she nests. An average clutch of eggs is three or four. The white, gray or pale green eggs are speckled with brown and gray.
Named the official state bird in seven states, the northern cardinal is a permanent resident throughout the east to the western edge of the Great Plains and deep into Mexico. Populations persist in riparian zones in southern Arizona. It also has been introduced into California, Hawaii and Bermuda.
In John James Audubon's day (1785 to 1851), the cardinal was considered a southern bird, rarely seen as far north as Pennsylvania. Its successful expansion is due perhaps to more people feeding birds in their backyards.
Cardinals are non-migratory and early in life will choose a year 'round territory, often not far from their parents. In summer, they are spread evenly about, each pair in a separate territory. But in winter they are likely to gather into flocks, visiting feeders at one time, especially where the birds are numerous. Winter flocks may contain 50 or more birds.
They live generally in areas where there are both trees and berry-producing shrubs. This includes forest edges, old fields and suburban neighborhoods. Plants in your yard best suited for cardinal food and shelter include blue spruce, dogwood, wild cherry, elderberry and virburnum.
Males are bright red, crested, and have a black throat and face. Females are a duller reddish brown. Adults of both sexes have a bright red bill, but the bills of juveniles are brown.
Cardinals have an impressive repertoire of songs, which consist of a variety of loud whistles. Slurred notes are the common quality. Both sexes sing, but female song is usually quieter and simpler than the male's.
The cardinal is the only wild species to have both professional baseball and football teams named for it.
Consider Safflower, Loved by Cardinals, Not by Squirrels
Like many other of the seeds that some 60 million North Americans put out for backyard songbirds, safflower existed long before this popular pastime came into vogue. One of humanity's oldest crops, safflower seeds were found in the 4,000-year-old tombs of the Egyptian pharaohs. Up until perhaps 10 years ago, safflower primarily was grown for its oil. It was crushed and turned into an edible oil for human consumption. Safflower also is used for dyes, coloring and medicinal purposes around the world. Much is exported to Japan from crush facilities in California. Safflower is a "western" seed, grown in the U.S. primarily in Arizona, California, Montana, western North Dakota and Utah. Crops normally are planted in April or May and harvested in late summer in the West, September in the North. It all depends on the weather. Seeds take from 110 to 140 days to mature, and are harvested using a small combine. Safflower plants grow in rows, from 15 to 30 inches high, depending on growing conditions. Walking among the yellow-orange "safflowers" is not recommended. It's like being in a field of purple-colored thistle; the spines on the plants are tough enough to rip your jeans. It has a taproot that goes some 8 to 10 feet deep, making safflower ideal for growing in areas with little surface moisture. Each branch has one to five heads that contain 15 to 20 seeds each. The multi-sided seed has a hard shell. Bright white safflower seeds are showing up in more and more backyard bird feeders. It also is in feed for members of the parrot family, pigeons and small pets. It is found in mixes as well as a single ingredient in 3-, 5- or 25-pound bags. The domestic market is estimated at more than 55 million pounds a year, triple what it was only five years ago. Its use in food for birds may double again in the next 5 or 10 years. From the point of view of those who feed birds around their homes, safflower has two big pluses. First, it ranks right up with black oil sunflower as a favorite of the Northern cardinal. And second, because of its bitter taste, safflower may be close to the bottom of the preferred food list of the eastern gray squirrel. If you haven't considered the virtues of safflower in your wild bird-feeding program, this could be the time to start.
Can You Crack a Sunflower Seed?
"Play ball!" is the time-honored call of America's favorite sport. It takes skill to make it in the big leagues, hitting, pitching -- snacking, too. There's a technique to tossing a handful of sunflower seeds into your mouth, then extracting the seeds from the hulls using only your teeth and tongue.
Watch your cardinals. in this case the bird, not the baseball team. These birds have a preference for black-oil sunflower seeds, served from a tray or platform-type feeder. They roll the seed around with their tongue until it is sideways in their strong, cone-shaped bill, then crack it open and eject the hull before swallowing.
Although sunflower seeds are the single most popular wild bird food, that's not what they're grown for at all. Bird feed, the by-product of the confection seed and oil seed markets, is in fact the seeds that are too small for human use. But as you no doubt have noticed, the birds don't mind getting "seconds." The seeds are just as good nutritionally, simply smaller and perhaps trickier to open.
Carolina Wren
Where They Live: Carolina wrens make their homes throughout the southeastern and middle Atlantic regions of the United States. In fact, the Carolina wren is the South Carolina state bird. Their normal environs are so comfortable throughout the year that Carolina wrens are non-migratory. The population is healthy enough that it regularly expands northward, but only during years of mild winters. In periods of harsh weather, these northern explorers often will perish. Thickets and heavy undergrowth, particularly around water, is ideal wren territory. They can be found in brushy forests and suburban parks and gardens. Carolina wrens are cavity-nesting birds and will use old woodpecker holes or birdhouses as nest sites. They also have a reputation for being rather creative in finding a cavity: flower baskets, pails and toolboxes all have served as suitable nest sites.
What They Eat: Carolina wrens primarily are insectivores. During winter months they will visit feeders for sunflower kernels, peanuts, tree nuts and suet. A real treat for them is to be offered mealworms. These wrens tend to forage for food on the ground, so platform feeders placed on the lawn are most likely to draw their attention.
Appearance: To identify Carolina wrens, look for those classic wren features: a strongly de-curved bill and a boldly cocked tail. And like other wrens, Carolinas are seldom still. You will have to look quickly to see these active avian dynamos. They are large by wren standards and beautifully marked. Rich brown tones above contrast with warm buff orange below. A white chin and long, white eyebrow make the Carolina wren a handsome bird indeed.
Voice: The Carolina wren is quite a vocal bird. Males and females seem to sing constantly throughout the year. Males may have 20 to 40 different songs in their repertoire. They will sing one phrase pattern for several minutes before switching to another. Neighboring males may imitate each other's songs, and males and females will sometimes sing duets together. These songs are clear, loud, ringing and repeated rapidly. The most common song is rendered as "tea-kettle, tea-kettle, tea-kettle." The alarm call of both males and females is a harsh, scolding "churr-churr."
39-year Chickadee Study Digs Beneath the Feathers
The long-term effects of subtle changes in the environment seldom are noted, even more seldom measured. Which makes the work of Gordon Loery around his old, white clapboard farmhouse in Litchfield, Conn. both unusual and worthy of note. For nearly 40 years, Loery, now in his 70s, has been baiting 8 wire cages with birdseed and suet, catching, banding and releasing black-capped chickadees. Loery's is one of perhaps only a half-dozen truly long-term bird population studies going on in the world. Probably the best-known study is one begun in 1947 in England of birds related to chickadees. A successor researcher is carrying that work forward.
What Loery has found so far -- he wants to get 50 years of data before he's done -- is "a slow, gradual decline in the survival rate of chickadees since the late 1950s of about one percent a year." He has seen ups and downs in chickadee populations over time. "Downs" may have been caused at one point by the arrival in Connecticut of tufted titmice, at another when hawks moved into the area. But through a process of scientific elimination, he and his colleagues, James D. Nichols and James E. Hines, who use highly sophisticated computer models, have narrowed the probable cause of the decline to maturing of the local forest. It is changing slowly from soft species, such as birch, poplar and cherry, to harder woods such as oak, ash and maple. Chickadees prefer the softer woods in which to make nest holes with their bills. The titmouse, however, is willing to use nest cavities left in any tree by other creatures. Loery has encountered chickadees that were at least 12 years old; while many live to be five, the average life span is more like two years. He documented that mortality rates are quite high among first-year birds, not yet skilled in evading predators. He also found, contrary to popular belief, that mortality thereafter is not constant year-to-year but actually increases at about a 31.2% rate annually.
Loery's home base is within the White Memorial Foundation conservation area. He joined the Foundation in the mid-'50s, serving as its director of research and museum director. He continues as a consultant. Influenced by a course he took at Yale University, he was determined to conduct long-term studies when he began his work at the Foundation. His colleagues point to the value of long-term research, saying that the decline of the chickadee in Litchfield, for instance, would not be noticeable from year to year. There still are plenty of chickadees on Foundation property. As one put it, "You can look at an area like that and think you always are seeing the same chickadee population. It takes a real study to find that the chickadee population is declining slowly. Great stuff."
Condensed and excerpted from The Hartford Courant, Connecticut.
Can crows be prevented from feeding in my yard?
Crows not only are scavengers, they're smart and adaptable. That's one reason that even a short-perch feeder is not crow proof. There are feeders designed with a sort of bird cage mesh surrounding them. These permit smaller birds to fly through to reach the seed, but barricade the seed from larger birds. Another style feeder is a counter weighted hopper that allows you to set the bar for the size birds you wish to feed.
Crows Move to Suburbs
Circling and flapping, hundreds of black birds fill the sky and the treetops like an enormous cloud. Every night a dense gathering of crows roosts in cities and suburbs across North America. It is part of a widespread change in crow culture, experts say.
The once-rural birds now flock into urban and suburban areas because development has torn away their traditional woodland and farm habitats. The roosting birds aren't doing anything unusual, just gathering and spending the night together, which is normal crow behavior. Really big roosts can run to tens of thousands of birds.
Crow roosts often occur in well-lit places such as downtown areas or near colleges, hospitals, cemeteries and town centers with tall trees that draw the birds. Possibly the cities' extra heat and light attract them. Unlike more fragile birds, crows have adapted well to urban sprawl.
Not only are the big birds noisy but also can be messy. When they go flapping from the trees, they seem to defecate in unison, splattering the ground, the branches and unfortunate passers-by. Unnerving as this is, health officials say the crows and their droppings aren't dangerous.
Crows usually mate for life, are very smart and are good parents. They form strong family bonds with young crows staying with their parents to help feed and protect siblings. A crow family can have as many as a dozen birds with two parents and youngsters of all ages.
Cuckoo is Not, It Would Seem
The brown-headed cowbird is not alone in depositing its eggs in the nests of other species for them to hatch and feed. Some birds have evolved eggs that mimic the appearance of those of their hosts. Others have developed attention-getting colors and patterns inside their mouths, similar to the host chicks.' One of the most unusual, from Proceedings of the Royal Society, involves the cuckoo. A single, large cuckoo chick can imitate the calls of a whole nest full of hungry chicks so effectively that the host birds will feed it as if it were a family of four. Rather than the usual intermittent series of chirps that a single chick makes, the cuckoo's call is an insistent stream that induces its foster parents to work extra hard to feed it. Young children of many species seem to have an innate understanding of the power of a relentless begging call.