Such confrontation might have inspired sumo wrestling or rugby. Maybe fighter planes.
Outside the window above my office desk, a tall post with crossbar suspends five bird feeders. While working, I can look out the window and see things that bring a little peace and joy, inspiration and knowledge into my life.
Last week, two species replaced that sense of peace with a blend of amusement and awe.
It was a battle over peanuts.
Not all bird species that utilize bird feeders eat peanuts; some species have specific likes and dislikes. Provide what they want, and they will be there; don’t provide what they want, and they will go elsewhere.
Bird feeding as a backyard hobby or pastime began to grow in popularity once field guides made identifying birds more achievable. As birding — the deliberate search to find and the effort to identify birds — developed as a recreation, the popular fascination for birds accelerated our culture’s involvement in feeding wild birds.
It’s a way to bring birds into our daily lives, a significant shift from birding as an occasional trip afield.
In the early decades of the 1900s, bird feeding developed as an incidental side commerce. By the closing decades it had become a legitimate and substantial aspect of commerce and economics within agriculture and retail business.
Various surveys conducted by both government and nongovernment entities clearly indicate more people feed birds than either hunt or fish.
Research was slow to catch up with the growth in bird feeding, and it still hasn’t addressed a variety of questions. Nevertheless, some research clarifies details, three of which are essential to know and understand.
First, like all creatures, birds suffer various diseases. Conditions at bird feeders can cause certain diseases to spread. Not only can the birds get sick, but so can people. One particular salmonella bacterium presents hazard of spontaneous abortion in pregnant women.
Interviewing several veterinary pathologists, I learned none of them kept bird feeders active while their wives were pregnant.
Second, every species of bird that will use a bird feeder has its preference for food. What one bird likes another bird ignores. So, diversify the food to attract the most birds. Unfortunately, many bird food blends are more attractive to the human buyer than the avian eater.
Third, feeding birds is about what interests us; it is not about the birds needing us. They survived just fine for a really, really long time before bird feeding became a human pastime. So, don’t get emotionally entrapped in feeding the birds as an obligation to them.
These details were completely out of mind as I watched two blue jays challenge a fox squirrel. The squirrel was at the peanut feeder and the jays wanted the peanuts.
One jay would swoop in from above and behind the squirrel; the squirrel would turn and lunge at the jay; the second jay would swoop in and snatch a peanut while the squirrel was defensively distracted.
For a half hour they put on a show something like adding a fighter plane to a rugby match. Had there been more peanuts the quarrel, I’m sure, would have lasted much longer.
"bird" - Google News
January 16, 2020 at 03:31AM
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Wildlife Window: Battle of the jays and squirrels at the bird feeder - Loveland Reporter-Herald
"bird" - Google News
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