Backyard Birding

On the recommendation of my pal, Braumeister, at the start of last  month I hung the contraption you see below from a branch on a red maple in our yard.  It is a bird feeder that you fill with peanuts.  Peanuts in the shell; raw and unsalted.   

I bought a big bag of nuts at a local bird food joint.  And while they're clearly labeled:  NOT FOR HUMAN CONSUMPTION I suppose if I tried one I don't think it would kill me.  But you never know.  

It took a few days for the local birds to figure-out what it's for and now I'm restocking it almost twice a week.  

In any event the trail camera I installed to monitor who might like peanuts needed to be rearranged.  It needed to have its back to the sun so that subjects were appropriately lit.  It took a couple of tries to get the focal length correct.  Trim some branches and there was the opportunity cost of losing several days of potential photos as a consequence of an improperly-formatted SD card.  Mind you, the camera is old too.  Originally-deployed during COVID in 2020 it is quite frail and could fail catastrophically just about any time.  Nevertheless, being the cheap SOB that I am I intend to squeeze every last gigabyte of digital imagery out of this old Moultrie device as I can.

So, here's an update

Yours-truly wrangling and wrassling the gizmo one of countless times to get it situated 

Blue jay

White-breasted nuthatch

Red-breasted nuthatch

Pileated woodpecker

Downy woodpecker

Black-capped chickadee

And a hairy woodpecker

Altogether a nice collection of some of the year-round bird residents.  The migrators are beginning to arrive so it will be interesting to note if any of them like peanuts.

Stay-tuned....  

 

Update On The Peanut Gizmo

On the recommendation of my pal, Braumeister, at the start of this month I hung the contraption you see below from a branch on a red maple in our yard.  It is a bird feeder that you fill with peanuts.  Peanuts in the shell; raw, unsalted.   

I bought a big bag of nuts at a local bird food joint.  And while they're clearly labeled:  NOT FOR HUMAN CONSUMPTION I suppose if I tried one I don't think it would kill me.  But you never know.  

It took a few days for the local birds to figure-out what it's for and now I'm restocking it almost twice a week.  I figure before too long some other undesirable critter is going to discover it; so it's hung on a branch (likely limber-enough to NOT support a large mammal) from a carabiner using a length of army-surplus metal cable parachute rigging connected to the feeder.  It might just be raccoon-resistant.

These four photographs are a bit of an experiment.  It's an old trail camera on its last legs and the position is all wrong as it's aimed generally into the sun.  I'm thinking I'll have to reposition the cam 180 degrees and relocate the feeder - if the tree and its branches allow.

Photos are from this morning.  Chickadee, white-breasted nuthatch, blue jay and a downy woodpecker.

Stay-tuned....

 

Peaaanuts! Get Your Peanuts!

At the ball park a treasured memory is the guy hiking up and down the steps of the grandstand pitching salted-in-the shell ballpark peanuts.  In my view the perfect game day snack.  Just thirst-provoking enough to justify a frosty beer and easy enough to eat because you can leave the shells on the concrete beneath your seat  for someone else to clean-up.  

In any event, after consulting with my pal and mutual bird aficionado, Braumeister, I invested in this contraption.

It's spring-loaded device for holding unsalted peanuts in the shell for song birds.  Namely blue jays and other peanut-centric birds.  I picked it up at the local bird food supply outlet in Sturgeon Bay, primed it with a generous dose of peanuts and hung it from a maple tree in the yard by means of a raccoon-proof length of army surplus braided metal parachute rigging.  (At least I think it will be raccoon proof.)

Days passed and aside from an occasional curious chickadee nobody was acknowledging the presence of my bird-world ballpark peanuts.  Days turned into a week without a single customer. At that point I reached-out to my buddy to inquire as to what might be the problem.  He cautioned patience.

The next day, sure as shooting, there was a blue jay on the feeder pecking-away at my peanuts to break the shell and extract a nut.  At which point the bird would fly-off, disappear to likely stash the prize in a food cache.  Jays do that.  In reasonably short order the word went forth and every day there have been jays hammering-away at the peanuts.  Once and a while a chickadee or nuthatch might give it a passing sniff - but only jays have been actively feeding.

Braumeister says to be patient as other species will naturally become attracted and join-in the ever-growing bird buffet in our yard.

Peaaanuts!  Get Your Peanuts!

  

Menagerie

From the trail camera trap line is a virtual menagerie of critters.  Including....

A bobcat 

A squirrel and a blue jay gathering acorns

A skinny red fox

A skunk in the daylight

Mama deer and her triplets

Our resident bearded hen (and brood)

And a buckaroo

Adding To Your Stash

Blue Jays are well-known for their food caching behavior, stashing nuts or seeds at hiding spots for later consumption. 

 

They bury food like acorns and peanuts in various locations, often using distinct landmarks as memory cues to relocate their caches. 

 

This behavior allows them to build up a food supply, especially for the winter months when food is scarce.

 

Blue Jay with an acorn….

Critters That Take Flight

Blue Jay

Great Blue Heron

 

Turkeys 

 

Shocking Blue

 Meet Cyanocitta cristata - the Blue Jay.  

Jays are a member of the corvid family which also includes crows, ravens and magpies.

A larger bird with a showy blue and white-appearing plumage with black accents.  I use the term 'appear' as the feathers of this bird do not contain blue pigmentation.  It is the refraction of sunlight that casts the blue hue.

This is a year-round resident and will move only if there is a scarcity of food.  To whit - this bird caches food for future use.  Like other members of the corvid family this is a noisy bird.  They don't sing it likes to 'talk' and is not averse to mimic the call of a hawk to frighten other birds from our backyard feeder.  The name in the first line (above) translates literally to blue chattering bird. 

The blue jay is fun to observe and I have been privileged to observe a flock of them on rare occasion and to be scolded by one while bow hunting.  Even rarer is getting a photo on a trail camera!

True Blue?

Meet Cyanocitta cristata - the Blue Jay.  One of our year-round resident song birds.  And a flashy one at that.

As long as we have a feeder full of seeds and peanuts this bird is a non-migrator around here and sticks with us for the duration of winter.  As a matter of fact this is one of the few birds that saves for a rainy day.  Yup, they will cache food for lean times.  They will also feed on the eggs and young of other birds as well as dead critters they happen-upon. 

This bird has a reputation for being known as the burglar alarm of the woods and will raise a raucous call when an intruder materializes.

Here's a fact that you can use to impress your friends and co-workers.  This bird has not a stitch of blue pigmentation.  The pigment in a blue jay's feathers is melanin - which is brown.  The blue appearance is a consequence of the refraction of sunlight filtering thru the modified cells on the surface of the feather barbs - resulting in a blue light.

Shocking Blue

Meet Cyanocitta cristata - the Blue Jay. 

A larger bird with a showy blue and white-appearing plumage with black accents.  I use the term 'appear' as the feathers of this bird do not contain blue pigmentation.  It is the refraction of sunlight that casts the blue hue.

This is a year-round resident and will move only if there is a scarcity of food.  To whit - this bird caches food for future use and is not averse to mimic the call of a hawk to frighten other birds from my backyard feeder. 

The blue jay is fun to observe and I have been privileged to observe a flock of them on rare occasion and to be scolded by one while bow hunting.  Even rarer is getting a photo on a trail camera!

 

click on the photo for a closer look