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@wingsabovethebridge
I have quite a few videos of Crow-boy sorting peanuts. Sometimes he moves them around for a good five minutes before deciding which ones he wants to fly off with. Serious corvid business, just ask the bluejays!
I switched the metal tray out for a taller terracotta one because the metal was getting far too hot in the sun. The birds tend to enjoy this one better, especially since it holds water if it rains. It's easy enough to clean.
Bird-camera sense has been activated: they really are not a fan of paparazzi.
'Crow-boy' and his friend have been visiting each day, demolishing the peanut tray. I've seen them both land on it at once with room to spare, so I guess the Nest on top is corvid friendly, but I have to tighten the base of the birdfeeder to reduce the sway. Anyway, the blue jays haven't been thrilled, but the brown thrashers couldn't care less of the fact they have to share.
So this happened. After a year and a half of trying to make things bearable here with one foot out the door no less. The timing of things is uncanny, but I finally got confirmation that 'the Nest' (my thrown together platform feeder) can fit a crow! Or two.
It started when my house camera alerted that something big af passed by the lens. The grain was atrocious as usual with SecCams, but I took a screenshot anyway to figure out what bird it was.
A lot of black vultures cast huge shadows overhead if it's sunny, but this bird already had a shadow under it. So it basically was flying in pretty low. Also, no white patches on the wings. Anyway, I get to the house after an hour's drive, and the only birds I see on the Nest are brown thrashers and cardinals. About five minutes go by, and I see the shadow and then the bird. A crow is a crow- and smaller than the security camera suggested.
We're getting pummeled with snow and I should've filled up the gazebo. I think it'll be fine despite looking like a whole cake holder now. The tufted titmice have been tag teaming and probably have half of the seeds stored away because I literally filled it up last week. I haven't seen a single squirrel attempt 'jailbreaking' the baffle so I know it's not them. They don't even go for peanuts anymore when I have the upper tray out. I'm disappointed these squirrels don't have Olympic goals..I wanted to be entertained.
The cardinals appreciate that I've essentially given them the rights to the birdfeeder with that finial topper. It's cute I admit. Currently, a bunch of white throated sparrows and angry chickadees at the gazebo (and below it).
《○》
I've been quiet lately, but the birds have not been, thankfully. Life choices are being evaluated, and now I'm boring because I don't feel like I'm in an environment where I can branch out, but this blog is still here, and It'll stay present.
"Bring me the gelfling!"
I have not shared my photo of a bloödcheëp (the internet codename for a molting cardinal) I managed to spot! This was a little while ago, and there were a handful of them. This grumps was too busy screeching- yes screeching- at the nearby finches. I'd never heard any cardinal make such a noise before that it felt out of character. TIL cardinals screech like little dinosaurs when they're angry.
Musings;
Between the downpours of rain every day last week and then a toothy squirrel, the little cedar house is out of commission for good. Bah! Just when I wanted to draw little windows on it. Two days ago I decided to replace it with the grey gazebo-, which the birds took right to it. It's actually the newer version of this kind and I haven't had any issues.
As mentioned it's been quite a few days of rain so the upper peanut tray has been down intermittently as well. The jays have been cranky, but they are stopping by consistently when it *is* up.
Time for the 'meh' phone pics! The usual crowd: one 'redboi' adult, several young cardinals and the odd finch. The young cardinals are getting a lot bigger, but they haven't gained their orange beaks yet.
Musings: As suggested, someone told me to swap out a majority of the food with safflower seeds. Partly did that...the lower tray holds a lot of safflower, the upper 'flower' tray still has peanuts, and the house has a mix. The little house feeder I redesigned so that larger birds couldn't tamper with it. Perhaps everything worked too well- the grackles don't even stop by for the peanuts anymore and it's been two weeks. Well, they were entertaining while they lasted.
The Nest has now turned into a cardinal pit-stop: from sun up to sun down it's a cardinal jamboree. They even sit on the tiny ledge of the house-birdfeeder because they are small enough to do that, apparently. The safflower seeds are cardinal crack confirmed, and a new group of safflower addicted birds have taken over when the cardinals allow them to: house finches! I like both of these guys- although I'm keeping an eye on the finches. They aren't always the healthiest birds at a birdfeeder.
The three cardinal fledglings seem to be fine on their own now. They seem to enjoy harassing and dive bombing the towhees on the ground, like typical rowdy teenagers.
Eastern towhee!
A majestic, angry looking tennis ball of a bird with a small mohawk.
"Hey hooman, can we bring some friends over?"
Me:"sure."
The friends:
The Nest sometimes hosts entire grackle galas, but they like to fly off after a good ten minutes. They return maybe two hours later or so. Weirdly enough, they don't eat as much as it seems- the tray remains fairly full. Some of the other birds don't care about the grackles and waltz around with them (cardinals, doves and finches). The bluejays hate these guys! They often compete for the upper peanut tray, and usually, the jays win. The grack-gang seems to be scared of the blue feathered mafia.
It's [almost] free entertainment!
Between them and the grackles- and every other bird that prefers the top tray (looking at you Redboi), it gets emptied almost daily. All that's missing are the crows, and then I'd have to start seriously writing 'whole and chopped peanuts' into the monthly budget!
The grackles are by far the messiest peanut eaters I've ever experienced. Somehow, more peanut pieces go flying out their beaks than what's taken in! They are very entertaining to watch, though. Hanging upside-down on the birdhouse-feeder seems to be a favorite thing to them.
Many of the birds have visited the Nest feeder with their fledglings in tow. The cardinals seemed to have two younger fledgelings hoping around them. I'm surprised at the lack of cowbird fledglings; I would have expected to see at least one given how many adults I've counted in the neighborhood.
The grackles have found the Nest! Thankfully, they've been pretty tame and often sit with the cardinals on the tray.
***
I'm still here and birding with the Nest until the next tyrant with wings wants to move in... but also thinking forward: some day the Nest and I will relocate! But until either of those events happen, I'm getting plenty of new visitors to the bird feeder who did not visit before: eastern towhees, morning doves, cowbirds, finches, grackles along with the usuals. I might have to consider a loss with the crows- my yard isn't very attractive to them. As sad as that is, the blue jays antics are amusing enough!
I'll be testing out a new monocular/scope in a few days, finally. I feel like changing out and trying out scopes, like with cameras, is just a hobby at this point.
I awoke to hawk calls, so I went to go check on the Nest. It wasn't a hawk, just a blue jay reminding me the peanut tray was empty.
Snow birds-
And Edward Scissorbeak the titmouse has been spotted. They seem to eat and drink just fine, so not a crazy jarring example of avian keratin disorder- but definitely noticeable.
Welp, Corvidcam decided to go to sleep and never wake up around 1am this morning. I tried and troubleshot for about an hour but it's gone for good.
Now I have to get a legit birdcamera. Thankfully I know a few physical places I can just go out and get one. The micro SD card I'll just transfer over, but today, let's mourn the loss of Corvidcam. Your blurry lens helped me a lot. RIP.
Okay so the blue jays 100% read last night's post because there were about ten of them camped out waiting for me in the tree. They overwhelmed the bully I was talking about, though, so I guess that's a win.. I'm just going to have to buy a 10lb bag of peanuts now instead of a measly 2lb bag- just like the good ol' days when Hekyll and crew ate me out of house and home with their peanut addiction (we don't dare talk of how much I spent on eggs for the ravens). No complaints though- I fully welcome any corvid to the Nest.
My jays don't seem to bully anyone. They even let the titmice eat from the in-shell peanuts which... I'm not sure how those little birds are lifting and flying off with a treat that's as tall as them (they must have a gym behind the holly trees I don't know about). More power to them!
So psa..The Nest might switch to a whole-shell peanut feeder (at least temporarily) for a while because some-feathered-menace wants to be an asshole (the m.o of this particular bird). So while I sort this out, perhaps I can hope for some peanut addicted corvids.