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Few's Ford and Butner railroad bridge; plus some humor



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

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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/