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Few's Ford and Butner railroad bridge; plus some humor
- To: carolinabirds@duke.edu
- Subject: Few's Ford and Butner railroad bridge; plus some humor
- From: Joshua Stuart Rose <jsr6@duke.edu>
- Date: Sat, 25 Mar 2000 15:59:23 -0500 (EST)
- Sender: carolinabirds-owner@acpub.duke.edu
Hi Carolinabirders,
But first, a moment of silence, in honor of the 100th anniversary of the
death of the last documented wild Passenger Pigeon, shot by a teenaged
boy hunting in Michigan...
Norm Budnitz and I took out-of-towner Tomas Van Nordstrom out for some
fresh air this morning. First stop was the Few's Ford access to Eno River
State Park. While the wildflowers here were dazzling, we saw very little
in the way of birds or bugs, possibly because many of them were still
warming up from last night's chill. The only migrant in evidence was a
vireo, we think Solitary, singing from across the river. However, the
winter birds were also singing, including a Ruby-crowned Kinglet (first
I've seen or heard in weeks!) and a Winter Wren. As we were leaving
around 9 AM, springlike things finally started happening. We spotted a
couple of butterflies, including the first Tiger Swallowtail I've seen
this year, and from the parking area we heard three different
Yellow-throated Warblers singing.
After a nice rousing breakfast at Pan Pan, we visited a spot where Mike
Schultz sent me for the most recent Durham CBC. It's a trail off of route
15 near Butner which leads to an active railroad track that crosses Falls
Lake, west of the I-85 causeway. Birding was slow here as well, with the
highlight a Golden-crowned Kinglet (also the first I've seen or heard in
weeks!). One American Coot was the only bird visible from the railroad
bridge other than Ring-billed Gulls and Double-crested Cormorants. We
entertained ourselves instead with the abundant Cricket and Chorus Frogs,
a skink, 3-4 species of dragonflies (including one lifer, Springtime
Darner!) and one of damselfly, and a number of butterflies including
another Tiger Swallowtail and my first two Gemmed Satyrs.
I'll leave you with two things that should guarantee a few chuckles.
First, read the e-mail pasted below (courtesy of MASSBIRD), and remember
to keep your feeders clean! Next, look at the photo at
http://www.tiac.net/users/mharney/catbird.html and just imagine how few
problems we would have with cats eating birds if all cats were as dumb as
this one...
Good birding! (Herping, odeing, lepping, etc.)
Josh
------------------------------------------------------------
Subject: [MASSBIRD] bird stuck in feeder
"Joey Mason" <kestrel@capecod.net>
Date: Sat, 25 Mar 2000 07:05:38 -0500
Massbirders,
I may not have believed it if I hadn't seen it myself. Tuesday morning a
co-worker's wife, Elizabeth, called to say that a bird was stuck in her
bird feeder and asked what she could do to get it out. She had tried to
take the feeder apart, but the bird and metal circular opening wouldn't
budge. She was wondering if soap would help and I said, "no, I'll be
right over." (Luckily her house was only 5 minutes away.) I wasn't sure
what I could do, but I was willing to try. I didn't even know what kind
of bird it was until I drove in the driveway and saw Elizabeth cradling
the feeder in one arm while supporting a seemingly headless goldfinch in
the palm of the other hand.
The feeder was a Droll Yankee want-at-be. It had three tubes and the
bird was stuck in one of the lowest ports. The food ports were styled
the same way, but were considerably smaller than on a Droll Yankee. At
the bottom of the tube some sunflower seed had molded and caked together
like it usually does in these types of feeders. As I looked down the
tube, the finch was breathing rapidly and obviously unable to move it's
head. The sunflower seed had wedged it in there. I took a stick, stuck
it in the tube and loosened the caked material from around the bird's
head. Elizabeth then tilted the feeder to made this material fall out and
away from the bird. I then took the bird from her and held the metal
opening (which Elizabeth had unfastened prior but had been unable to
remove) and removed both simultaneously from the tube. The bird came out
of the hole and proceeded to bite at my fingers in the typical feisty
finch manner. I looked it over and there were no abrasions, so I opened
my hand and off it flew with a twitter.
Elizabeth was trying to let the birds empty the feeder before she cleaned
it out. My theory is, that the bird was reaching across the caked
material and while pulling it's head back, got material stuck under it's
chin preventing it from retreating back out the hole. Their heads are so
small, the whole episode just seemed so bazaar.
The moral of the story is, clean out your birdfeeders when they get caked
up on the bottom, if not before. Feeders should be cleaned frequently
anyway to avoid disease transmission from bird to bird. I would
seriously rethink buying a feeder with a one inch diameter opening. This
may have been just a fluke accident, but feeder design was definitely a
factor. I'm sorry, I do not know the make of the feeder, since nothing
was written on it to indicate the manufacturer.
Joey
Joanne Mason
Middleborough, MA 02346
kestrel@capecod.net
------------------------------------------------------------
Joshua S. Rose
Duke University
Department of Zoology
jsr6@acpub.duke.edu
http://www.duke.edu/~jsr6/