Baby Birds Lessons

The yard is full of  baby bird song now.  Well, it’s actually not song, but begging calls.   You’ve probably seen the young crows  following right behind a parent, squatting and fluffing like a helpless nestling and making a whiny, kid sound.  That’s the only way I can describe it.  “C’mon Mom, feed me, I’m dying here.”   The patient parent pokes some nutritious bug or seed into the gaping mouth, probably hoping for some quiet.

The flock of twenty or so young red-winged blackbirds are feeling their oats, flying and singing across the yard, pretty heedless of any danger.   Yesterday I heard a loud clunk, the sound I’ve come to know means bird-window collision.  Sure enough, below my big window (which is well-marked for bird safety by the way) lay a stunned young red-wing.   Wings and tail open and flush with the ground, head extended and eyes open.  Didn’t look good.  I gently picked him up and met no resistance.  Really stunned, maybe too hurt to make it. But there was tone in his neck- his head didn’t flop down, and both legs quickly pulled back when I touched his feet.

I put him into a dark, well-ventilated box in a quiet corner of the garage and hoped for the best.  When I checked in a half an hour, he was hopping ready to get out of there and back to his pals.  He flew straight and true for the feeder for a catch-up snack. He was lucky.  Window collisions kill millions of birds a year.   It’s easy to prevent too.   I like to hang a long string of colored glass beads in each window.  It gives birds perspective and they then ‘see’ the glass.   Most of them anyway.  Youngsters are a different deal.  You have to be looking where you’re going for it to work.   Kids.

The osprey parents have a new fledgling, and both parents and youngster cheep noisily as they circle the lake.  Such a fierce, majestic bird, and they cheep like a songbird.   The youngster’s new wings haven’t developed all the muscles he will need for migration and he needs flight time.   But again, like most adolescents, he wants to hang out  -- in the nearest tree, watching the parents work for a living.   He perched happily this morning and one of the adults came flying in from behind and bumped him right off the branch.  Fly, baby. 

Hairy woodpeckers live in our area, but they’re heard much more often than seen.  They have a high, descending kind of laughing call, called a ‘whinny’.  The hairy woodpecker couple have a fledgling too, and one parent brings him to our suet feeder early mornings.  Hairys have a beautiful red cap on their head,  complimenting a black and white body.  The youngster hasn’t feathered in with adult feathers and is sort of a graphite gray.   He had a lesson in getting suet from a feeder.  Parent would reach in and peck off a succulent bit, then turn and face the baby, who clearly thought it was his.  But no, parent ate it, looking pointedly at the baby then the suet.   Baby wasn’t happy.  All this time parent had willingly fed him, what’s the deal?  After many, many tries, the youngster reluctantly went for his own suet.   I can imagine a bubble over the parent’s head saying something like “Finally!”

And of course, all of the ducks have grown into beautiful, fully-feathered adults.  The three light colored ducks are still just that: mallard-ish, but with a pale tan undertone instead of brown.  They’re beautiful and I hope to see them back next year.  They’ll be easy to identify.

So life carries on.  This was a good year for the birds,  with many successful broods.  There are so many more I haven’t mentioned. The golden clouds of goldfinches sailing from holly tree to shore pine, singing, singing.  The new spotted towhee learning to hop and feed.   Life is good.