Redpolls Revisited

In yesterday's post I neglected to mention that we were not the only ones in southern Maine to get their first visit from Redpolls this past Sunday [Feb. 20]. Soon after our flock arrived I went online to report the influx on the Maine birds e-mail list. When I logged into my e-mail I was amused to see several other reports from elsewhere in southern Maine: Cape Neddick, Sanford, Freeport, and Scarborough. A few other reports from the area came in after mine. I've seen no hypotheses about why all of a sudden the birds began to show up in more southerly locations than they had earlier in the winter but I suppose it has to do with weather and availability of food.

We still have them around the yard, and they're definitely providing some competition for the Usual Suspects at the feeders. I managed to get some better video footage of them today, though not yet of the flock in anything like its entirety. I used this opportunity to learn a bit more about video editing, and even got a bit silly about it all! Hey, a guy's gotta have fun, eh?

The Redpolls are Coming! The Redpolls are Coming!

Up until yesterday it seemed as though we were the only birders in the state of Maine whose yard had not been visited by large flocks of Redpolls. These members of the finch family are denizens of the far north; their idea of going south for the winter means migrating to Maine and elsewhere in the northern tier of the U.S. I only saw my first Redpolls in February of 2009 when large flocks came to our feeders. This was before we were living here full-time, so we were just lucky that their visit coincided with our own. From the reports of other birders it seems that Redpolls tend to appear in these parts every other year.

There are two species: Common and Hoary, though they are very difficult to tell apart, and some ornithologists regard them as a single species consisting of two subspecies. The two species--if such they are--travel in mixed flocks, and in 2009 there were quite definitely some Hoarys in with the Commons. The ones that have showed up this year seem to be all Commons, but I wouldn't put money on it.

When I first noticed them yesterday there was a large flock of ~50 birds on the northeast side of the yard, where we have several feeders. As soon as I opened an upstairs window to try to shoot some photos or video, they all took off; in spite trying to move carefully, the window made a "pop" when I first opened it and that was enough to spook the little guys. Some eventually came back, but never in the numbers that I had first seen, or at least not at any time when I was poised to shoot! I did manage to capture quite a bit of footage, but it's only so-so, both in terms of interest and technical quality. I've edited together about 40 seconds of it. This was shot with my still camera, and by the time I edited and saved it to Windows Media format, it's ended up fairly grainy. It's best viewed at the small size rather than full-screen:

Edward Howe Forbush writes of Redpolls: 

They come with the snowflakes out of the dun sky of November and leave as spring approaches...The feeding flocks may be startled by any sudden noise or violent movement. Then they rise and wheel in concert, but after going through their usual evolutions they may return to the very place from which they took flight...The food of the Redpolls while with us consists largely of the seeds of birches and alders and those of common grasses and weeds. At feeding stations they eat greedily the seeds of sunflowers, millet and hemp, also hayseed and rolled oats.

They certainly can be piggy little things, and compete quite assertively with the Chickadees, Goldfinches, and Titmice that are the regulars at our feeders. In any case, they are welcome visitors, and the video clip captures a bit of their peripatetic nature and the way in which even a small flock can seem to swarm over a yard.

Harbinger of Spring?

We enjoyed a bit of a thaw here in southern Maine this past week. Temps well into the 50s on Thursday and Friday caused much of the snow and ice to disappear. Up until that time, though, we'd had a lot of very cold weather, and winter was really starting to close in on everyone. My driveway had become a treacherous, icy mess, and trips to retrieve the morning papers and the mail had become adventures in testing my skill at remaining upright.

Therefore, it was a huge--but very welcome!--surprise when I went out to get the papers Wednesday morning [Feb. 16] when it was, at best, 20 degrees, and I was treated to the sounds of several Tufted Titmice singing away, lustily crying "Peter, Peter, Peter" for all they were worth. I had my iPhone with me and, using the Voice Memo feature, recorded the little guys as they engaged in their vocal sparring. The resulting recording was, of course, pretty faint, but by transferring the file to my computer and running it through my audio program several times, I was able to boost the level enough to make it quite clear:

Tufted Titmice 2011-02-16

Two birds in particular were having quite the discussion about which one had the right to be where, but there are at least three individuals audible here.

At the time, Spring and the attendant return of birdsong to our woods seemed like a distant promise. But perhaps the Titmice sensed that we were about to enjoy a bit of a break--albeit a short-lived one--from the deep chill.