busconews.com

by Neil A. Case

The window behind my desk frames a picture of sky and lawn, bird feeders, trees and bushes, a stretch of county road and beyond the road a weedy fence row, a hay field and a woods. There are birds in the picture almost every day from dawn to dusk. Crows and Canada geese, mute swans and occasionally a red-tailed hawk fly across the sky. The crows and sometimes the hawk land in one of the trees at the edge of the woods. Great blue herons fly across that picture, and green herons, turkey vultures and sandhill cranes.

Little birds fly back and forth to the bird feeders and the ground beneath and around the feeders.  Presently there are black-capped chickadees, tufted titmice and white-breasted nuthatches, goldfinches, cardinals and blue jays, downy and red-bellied woodpeckers, house finches and house sparrows. There are tree sparrows and dark-eyed juncos, winter birds, feathered visitors from farther north.

At other times of the year there are grackles and red-winged blackbirds and cowbirds visiting the feeders and the ground below. In spring and summer song sparrows and chipping sparrows take the place of the tree sparrows and juncos.  Mourning doves fly in at any season but they are not everyday visitors. Recently half a dozen came every day for a week but now they haven’t appeared in several days. Perhaps they went farther south when the last snow fell. Perhaps they simply moved to someone else’s feeders or to a sheltered place in a nearby woods.

There are two other species of birds that fly by my feeders occasionally. Sometimes one will land in a tree near the feeders, sometimes one will land on a feeder. There are bird feeder watchers who do not like these birds, who ask me how they can get rid of them. They are Cooper’s and sharp-shinned hawks.  I like them though I’m sorry when they catch a smaller bird at one of my feeders.

All those birds, except the sandhill cranes and the Cooper’s and sharp-shinned hawks, are common birds to us at least part of the year.  I’m pleased to see them. I enjoy watching them. If I didn’t I wouldn’t have the feeders, buy bird seed and keep filling the feeders.

I’m pleased to see the common birds, but I’m always on the lookout and hoping for a bird that’s different. I look at every goldfinch hoping that one will be a pine siskin.  I look at the house finches hoping to find a purple finch. I check the white-breasted nuthatches hoping for a red-breasted.

I’ve seen all of these, pine siskins, purple finches and red-breasted nuthatches, at our feeders other winters but not this winter. I’ve seen evening grosbeaks and redpolls at our feeders but not in years. I haven’t even heard of anyone seeing evening grosbeaks or redpolls at a feeder or anywhere else in the area in years.

I have heard of other recent rare bird sightings at feeders, however. Last year a friend who lives a few miles away had a Harris’s sparrow, a more western species, visiting his feeder for several weeks. Unfortunately, for me, he didn’t tell me about it until the bird had gone.

This winter, incredibly, a calliope hummingbird visited a hummingbird feeder at a home in North Vernon, Indiana. The ruby-throated hummingbirds that usually used the feeder were long gone when this stranger showed up. It was recognized as different and experts were called to see and identify it. It was the first record of a calliope hummingbird, not only at that feeder but in the state of Indiana. My chance of seeing a bird as rare in Indiana as a calliope hummingbird at my feeder is about the same as buying a winning Hoosier Lottery ticket. But there are the common birds, and I might see a pine siskin or a purple finch.