The more I study about the critters in my neighborhood, the more I realize how they are all so interconnected! Each animal has a specific need for food. Some look for food on the ground, others nab food in the air! Some eat insects. Some eat plants. Some eat animals. Some even eat each other! Each and every day their plan is to eat enough food for survival, AND to not get eaten in the process! It's tough out there! It is an amazing, complicated, web of interdependence!
Feathers for Lunch!
Last week I asked if you could guess what kind of bird this is, and what was going to be its next meal. Well, this is a Band-tailed Pigeon. These pigeons have been around for a couple of weeks. In Fall, Winter, and Spring their main food is acorns, which they swallow whole! Right now, they're eating seeds, fruit, and berries. I'm not sure what they were eating up in the locust trees, but they were in the tops of them for days. Perhaps they were eating part of the nectar filled flowers. After all the flowers dropped their petals, it seemed as if the pigeons were just hanging out together, waiting for some food to appear! Some of them decided to eat some bird seed my neighbor had put on the ground. A wily forest critter took advantage of these ground feeding pigeons, and nabbed one of them for lunch! All that was left was this pile of feathers! Fortunately, the next big food source for the pigeons, has ripened-up in the trees.
Cherries!
The wild cherries have ripened and many critters are starting to eat them! Black Bears, Chickarees, and birds (especially pigeons!), all want their fill of cherries! Last year the Black Bears were climbing all the cherry trees and eating the cherries when they were green! This year I haven't even seen one Black Bear yet, but I have seen their scat! The bear scat below is full of cherry pits!
Last year, and the year before, Cedar Waxwings (above right) showed up to eat the cherries too! These beautiful birds are rarely up in our area. They prefer the foothills of the Sierra from Fall through Spring, and then migrate north to Oregon, Washington, and Canada during their Summer breeding period. They are one of the few North American birds that specialize in eating fruit. Brown-headed Cowbird chicks that are laid in Cedar Waxwing nests rarely survive, in part because they can't develop on a high fruit diet! Waxwings sometimes come up to the Ponderosa Pine Belt to eat madrone and mistletoe berries. We were just lucky, that during the past two drought years, they came this far looking for fruit!
Western Tiger Swallowtail - Papilio rutilus rutilus Pale Swallowtail - Papilio eurymedon
Butterflies have shown up in the last week and a half! Coincidentally, lots of baby birds have hatched and their parents are busily nabbing insects, including butterflies, to feed them! I watched a Bullock's Oriole try to get one of these Swallowtail Butterflies, but she missed. A few minutes later a Steller's Jay swooped down and nabbed one!
Butterflies are pretty amazing critters! They taste with their feet, smell with their antennae, and listen with tiny "ears" located on their wings!!!! Their eyes are made up of 6,000 lenses, and they can see ultra violet light! They also magically transform from caterpillars to adult butterflies in 10-15 days! WOW!
Nesting News!
The Steller's Jay nest (above) is empty! I found a part of an eggshell on the ground, so I hope that means the nestlings hatched and fledged already! I does seem way too soon for them have fledged, but maybe they were in the nest a long time before I noticed. I'll have to be more observant next year!
American Robin - Turdus Migratorius Black-headed Grosbeak - Pheucticus melanocephalus
The Robin has been sitting on her nest for 21 days! That's a LOT longer than the average incubation time for Robins, of 12-14 days! Her nest is in the direct path of cool down-canyon breezes. We also had a cold spell during those 21 days. Maybe the cooler temperatures made a difference! The Black-headed Grosbeak has been on her nest for 12 days. The average incubation time for Grosbeaks is 12-14 days! So maybe they will all hatch in the next couple of days!
The European Starlings are still actively flying in and out of their nest site,
feeding their young!
feeding their young!
The other American Robin has left her nest, and I haven't seen any eggshells on the ground. Perhaps her eggs were eaten by a predator. I don't know! The Cliff Swallows, however, are very busy flying in and out feeding their babies!
How long does it take for baby birds to fledge?
What eats baby birds and bird eggs?
Do both parents feed the baby birds?
How cold is the river? How fast is it flowing?
Check back next week for the answers to these questions and more!
Douglas Tree Squirrel or Chickaree
Tamiasciurus douglasii
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