Columnists

Today we have a guest post from Homemakers talented senior editor and blogger for The Bright Side, Janet Rowe. Janet enjoys a bit of birding, and has shared her beautiful Osprey photos she captured following spring migration.

Hello EcoLogic readers! Thanks to you and to Jess for having me over. Spring is finally here at last, and the birds know it – and I’m so excited that I got to see a nesting osprey the other day.

Actually, I saw a pair. For the second year in a row, they’ve built their enormous nest – that thing must be a good eight feet across – on the Royal Military College grounds in Kingston, Ont. They’re sitting pretty on top of a light standard on the soccer field, right next to a shallow bay opening onto Lake Ontario.

The trusty Hinterland Who’s Who says that Ospreys don’t take turns sitting on the eggs, so the bird I saw out fishing is probably the smaller male.

It soared in circles over the lake, then dropped down and sort of hovered. Whooosh! I jumped as it plunged right into the water with a splash. A few seconds later it flapped off with a fish squirming in its claws. (Not captured on camera, sorry!)

I hope it gave the mom a piece.

Ospreys can live 20 years or more, and Hinterland says this is probably how they managed to survive the DDT spraying in the ’50s and ’60s. DDT decimated many bird-of-prey populations by causing eggs to form with too-thin shells. Although ospreys were badly affected, being long-lived help them hang on and have at least some offspring. Today, ospreys are not considered an at-risk species.

The birds’ eggs hatch in just one month, so there might be baby ospreys on my next visit! But in the meantime, I’m satisfying my birdwatching cravings virtually, with some of the fantastic nesting webcams available online. Here are my five faves:

1. Ospreys. (Of course.) Check out a pair in the UK via live streaming video. They have a great view from their perch.

2. Geese. The Edmonton Journal’s Goosecam is up and running for the fourth year. Watch live as a Canada goose named Patience raises her family.

3. Falcons. The Canadian Peregrine Foundation has several cams showing the little raptors nesting on high rises in downtown Toronto.

4. Owls. A pair of barn owls in Italy guard their three eggs in a specially built box high under a steel roof.  Watch it live.

5. Puffins. Aw! This series of rotating webcam views from the Shetland Islands includes one from a camera installed inside the burrow. Baby puffins are due in June.

Which birds have you spotted this spring?

Female cardinal wants in!

I caught a bad cold at the end of my vacation last week, so today I’m working from home instead of spreading my germs around the office. It turns out I’m not alone here – lots of birds are hanging out in my backyard today, enjoying my bird feeder and bird bath, and a couple even seem to want to get inside the house. I’m worried they’ll get hurt trying.

It’s clearly nesting season – on the weekend male cardinals, that beautiful bright red bird, were thu-thu-thuing, looking for mates. Little house sparrows couldn’t decide between eating and nest building, so they were hanging out on my feeder with dried up plant stems in their beaks. By the end of the weekend, I had two pairs of cardinals making my yard home.

Mr. and Mrs. Cardinal and friends

I noticed last night that one of the pair of cardinals was looking curiously at my sunroom, then both the male and female would swoop at it, and hit the glass with their feet. The male gave up quickly, but the female would try over and over again, or perch on one side and bang the glass with her beak as I rushed out there to shoo her away. The female must think that the storage shed area of my glass sunroom looks like a perfect nesting spot – perhaps my bike handlebars look like good solid nest footings.

I’m not sure if she’s thick or just persistent.

She was stressing me out – I’m really glad to have some native bird species in my city yard, but the last thing I want is to be semi-responsible for a dead cardinal. So I leaned things against the glass to help the little red birds see that there was something solid there.

This morning Lady Cardinal was at it again. I took some paper and tape outside and applied it to the glass. All day I’ve been keeping an eye out for her between working on Homemakers magazine’s upcoming June and Summer issues.
Success for about an hour, then she was at it again.

I put bits of tape on the window to try to show her where the glass was. No joy.

Remembering my grandma’s picture window, I next found about a dozen bits of shiny ribbon, saved from various gifts over the past couple of years. I taped these to the outside of the windows, and they’re out there billowing around. (I’m sure my neighbour is thinking that I’ve put up some pretty tacky decorations.)

Ribbon on the window

Now it seems she can tell that there’s a barrier there, and she isn’t flying around kicking the glass anymore, but she still wants in to that nice protected spot. Fortunately she has stopped for a bite to eat and a splash in the birdbath, but I expect that when I get up and gaze into the backyard tomorrow morning, that female cardinal will be looking back in at me, scoping out a spot for her nest.

Have you had any wildlife taking over your balcony or yard this spring?

A flock of snow geese

White-breasted nuthatch

Today my dad and my aunt and I got up early to do the
Christmas Bird Count. This is an initiative of the Audubon Society that’s coordinated by Bird Studies Canada north of the border.

While it was freezing rain, and thus rather slippery out, we braved the weather in the Frontenac Arch region to track down as many little chirpers as possible. By going out bird watching for several hours, we were adding puzzle pieces to the entire picture of bird health in North America. This is nothing new — the bird count’s being going on since 1900 when people began to notice changes in bird populations. It’s great to be able to help experts see the trends in bird populations across North America.

In spite of the drizzle keeping most birds hidden in the treetops or huddled among the bushes, we saw some of the usual suspects around my parents’ house, such as the common mergansers, chickadees, a white-breasted nuthatch, but there was also a silhouette a shady high-fliers, a bald eagle early in the day and a raven. My dad even spotted a “v” formation of 17 snow geese.

Some people make the bird count a little easier by topping up their bird feeders the day before and doing the first part of the Christmas bird count out the kitchen window, and I don’t blame them, especially on days like today.

Even if you’ve missed the bird count, it’s worth keeping a log of the birds that visit your area from year to year, to get your own idea of the health of local bird populations (not to mention a few priceless photos). You can spot the birds, but you can also listen for them to identify them. Here’s a site of bird calls to help you figure out who’s who.

Have you seen any interesting birds at your feeder this year?