AVIARY DRAMA

The birds that flock to the backyard feeders I maintain during the winter months are a surprising bunch. In some instances, they are just as fickle as humans. For example, my aviary visitors refuse to feed at a swanky suet feeder that has a roof covering the suet bricks, but several different species, including two varieties of woodpeckers constantly peck away at two exposed suet bricks hanging on a separate pole. Apparently, the birds in my neighborhood prefer outdoor picnics, even in the rain and snow.

Ever since I replaced the roof-covered suet feeder with a simple Nyjer seed sock – there were two hanging from poles already, the goldfinches that frequent those socks have no problem with the expanded buffet, except for one particular “bully” goldfinch. The goldfinch in question gets aggressive if other finch try to feed on the sock it’s using, and to ward off dinner companions, it flails out its feathers in the same manner peacocks do, to make it appear large and intimidating. The result is this – two Nyjer seed socks are oftentimes host 5 or 6 goldfinches apiece, and the third sock hosts the solitary bully finch.

One morning, I observed a junco (a bird twice the size of a goldfinch) land on the sock where the bully goldfinch was feeding, and sensing the sock’s movement caused by an unwanted guest the bully goldfinch charged around the side of the sock and spread its wings. For a split second, the junco didn’t move, and then the junco spread its wings too, as if to say that two could play that game, and the goldfinch ceded the high ground and flew off. The moral here: it takes a bully to beat a bully.

The Nyjer seed socks in my backyard are heavily used and must be refilled every two of three days. My normal practice is to wait until there are no birds at the feeders before restocking the feeders. Several weeks ago, when it appeared that there were no birds at the feeders, I opened the sliding glass door to my backyard and several finches flew from the ground to the nearby cherry tree. They watched me fill up the socks, and a second after I entered my house the finches returned to the socks and continued feeding. I decided to change my restocking routine to see if it would make any difference, and yesterday, it did. When I walked outside and took down one of the socks, the goldfinches feeding on the other two socks didn’t fly off as I expected. They watched me, but they didn’t fly off. It was somewhat shocking. After I re-hung the first shock and went to get the second sock, the birds on the second sock flew to the first sock, but the birds on the third sock kept on feeding as if I wasn’t there. I was no more than 24 inches from the birds on the 3rd sock, but those birds kept on feeding. When I returned for the 3rd sock, the finches moved over to the 2nd sock instead of flying away. Is it possible they’ve connected me with the food and aren’t worried about me? Who knows?

The goldfinches have another behavior that I find amusing. When they arrive to feed, they do so in a group of between 10 and 16 birds, and the first arrivals land on the upper branches of the cherry tree out back and remain in the highest branches for three or four minutes. It appears as if they’re scanning the terrain for any sign of predators. Then, a couple of the birds start descending to lower branches, hopping from one branch to a lower branch, like droplets of water descending over rocks on a downward sloping stream. Eventually, one brave finch flies to a feeder. Fifteen or twenty seconds later, the rest of the hoard converges on the socks, and of course, you can identify which bird is the bully in the group.