Birds - blue and black-capped

Chickadee-dee-dee Earl Plato
I coined , at least I think I did, the title “Mr. Bluebird Man” years ago in a Review article referring to Rob Eberly of Ridgeway. Rob has built countless bluebird boxes over the years and placed them in various places in the peninsula. I go car birding looking for bluebirds - result? Too often ‘zippo’. Go with Rob on two trips this month and see nine of these beautiful songbirds! Last week, here in October, we saw a pair near North Fenwick building a nest. Twig in beak the male entered the bluebird box. What gives? Winter is coming!
I still miss my farm setting and my feeders. It continually amazed me and it still does that tiny birds such as the black-capped chickadee and even smaller crowned kinglets can survive our winters. Chuck Smith of Cornell Lab in a newsletter reminded me of the chickadees that huddled in the protection of our white pines at the Sherkston farm on a cold southwesterly winter gale.
Smith says take four pennies in your hand and you have the average weight of s Black-capped chickadee. That’s only four grams. Because of its small size the chickadee has a problem that it must confront every minute of every hour of every day of its life. Other small songbirds have the same problem and especially in the winter. Smaller animals lose heat from their bodies at a greater rate than larger animals. Feed the birds! Start planning now for this coming winter. Feed the songbirds. Set out your feeders now if you want to woo the early birds of winter.
You’ll experience some joy. In this day and age why not share with others even if they weigh only about four grams.
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“Could You Help Answer This One?” That was the Subject of one of my E-Mails last week. Over the years of writing a nature column for the Review I had received calls, letters and E-Mails. Some are informative and some are questioning. This one from Dan and Carolyn Cuillerier is both. I love this kind of sharing.
Here’s what Dan E-mailed to me.
“Dear Mr. Plato, My wife and I were on a vacation just south of Timmins spending some wonderful time in the bush together, We noticed something that we had never seen before. There were plenty of Red squirrels around being very busy gathering all that they could to prepare for the cold winter months.
We had noticed that the squirrels were gathering large mushrooms and placing them about six to twelve feet off the ground on branches of the trees close to the trunk as if to dry them for future use. This was definitely a first time sight for me.”
Dan goes on and he ends with, “Have you ever seen this before?”
Dan and Carolyn have corresponded with me before so I quickly E-mailed them and said, “It rings a bell.” It did.
Craig Frank, Ecologist at Fordham University, has done much research with squirrels. He wrote an article recently under “Current Research: Red squirrels usually air dry collected sporocaps (mushrooms) in the branches of trees before storing them.” Dan Cuillerier was right with his educated guess. Dr. Frank is doing research presently on the role of air drying in the preservation of mushrooms during storage by the Red squirrels. Believe it.
Be observant in nature. Thank you Cuilleriers.