Name that bird in Durham

In case you see certainly one of these birds this winter rely your self fortunate: columnist Margaret Carney notes "only a few northern glints" stick round for winter on this a part of the world.

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Keep in mind that sport, 20 questions? I had an amazing chat like that with an Orono reader attempting to establish a woodpecker at her feeder. Not the standard suspects, furry and downy, which are available black and white, with a splash of pink on males’ heads. Not a ladderbacked or Nuttall’s, southern and much western U.S. species that by no means present up in Canada — I assured her of that! A flicker, she questioned? However her daughter, dwelling west of Enniskillen, had the same chook go to her feeder, and only a few northern glints, which primarily feed on ants, hold round Ontario when the bottom freezes. An excessive amount of of a coincidence that each members of the family must be so fortunate!

Carol lastly agreed her customer should have been a red-bellied woodpecker, a beige-breasted, red-naped species ranging ever northward with world warming. One in our neighbourhood comes sporadically to our suet cage, and we now have enjoyable watching its acrobatic bends and headstands because it stabs its beak by means of the bars.

I envy my pal Mike McEvoy, who’s had a tremendous 5 species of woodpecker in his yard in Oshawa this winter, most coming by every day. Bushy, downy and red-bellied are regulars. He had a crow-sized pileated present up in fall now and again, dwelling as he does alongside a densely wooded creek valley. Wouldn’t that be a dramatic sight out your loved ones room window — an enormous black woodpecker with a vibrant pink crest and white-streaked face dominating your feeding station? And not too long ago Mike’s been internet hosting that rarest of overwintering woodpeckers, a flicker.

Once I requested him, he shared with me certainly one of his secrets and techniques: uncooked, shelled peanuts, which he places in a metallic tube feeder he’s had for greater than 20 years. The glint can seize on and attain the holes, however extra typically clings to a slab of wooden hooked up to the pole and leans over. Each chook that involves the feast of sunflower seeds Mike additionally supplies would simply as quickly eat peanuts, apparently. Cardinals, blue jays, chickadees and each nuthatches hone in on the plump, oil-rich floor nuts, virtually combating over them, as mourning doves do when he places them on his platform feeder.

I felt like a cheapskate, asking how he might afford it, and he assured me peanuts for birds are available 50-pound luggage at many shops, at a cut price. And when he informed me he’d simply purchased a heated chook tub, I requested if I might drop over and simply sit in his yard sometime, watching his flocks come and go.

Nature queries: mcarney1490@gmail.com or 905-725-2116.

Metroland columnist Margaret Carney finds a lot to find and marvel at exploring the nice outside.