The Bird Feeder - part II

Winter continues and so do the Pine Siskin,  wars.
Identifying Pine Siskins by their Latin names will lead to Spinus pinus which is a protonym and/or the presently used Cardeuelis pinus.

It is both, a good challenge and fun, to try to freeze their flight and study the amazing variety of their movements and body language. The above image must be one of my favourite photos, and no, I did not Photoshop the bird in. It was just one of those lucky shots and I almost collapsed laughing when I saw what my camera captured on that beautiful, sunny, mid-winter afternoon.
Their eye-brain-muscle coordination floors me (you are reading a note from someone who just recently managed to fall off a treadmill while doing 5 km/hr). How much more is there to learn and will we EVER come close to knowing the ways of Nature?

Observing the Siskins evokes other thoughts: there is a much too familiar trait to their interactions - it seems to be better to loose a seed than letting the other guy have one, or spend a vast amount of energy in chasing and not being able to feed at all. There is a good study regarding childrens' psychology that describes nearly identical behaviour in human kind.

The others at the feeder value their energy much more than the siskin warriors. They do not squabble, lest fight. They just quickly fly in, preferably while the siskins are busy fighting, kidnap a sunflower seed and scurry away to safety of a nearby bush or tree.

There, choosing a nice little branch, they place the seed against its hard background and give it a thorough whacking until the shell breaks up. That's how it's done in a civilized society!

This is a Black-capped Chickadee, Poecile atricapillus, the one with the familiar chick-a-dee-dee-dee call. According to Richard Cannings and his Birds of Interior BC and the Rockies the number of "dee-dee-dees" increases if there is a predator nearby. I am trying not to quote too much but this is a really neat fact.
We have to try to observe this sometimes.

The other day we noticed that there was another, different, chickadee at the feeder. Same size, same shape and mostly same colours but it had a white streak - like a brow above the eye. It was a Mountain Chickadee, Poecile gambeli. Either we have not noticed it before or it is a new arrival at this place (though their ranges overlap in BC). in any case - the photo-hunt is on to capture an image and add it to this story.
Chickadees seem to come and go, so hopefully it will appear again.

1 day later:

OK, did my homework and assaulted a Mountain Chickadee - note the eyebrows. Both,  Black-capped and Mountain Chickadees were flying and feeding together.

It was sunny in the afternoon and the chickadee decided that it was a good time for some gymnastics in the sunshine.

Actually it was "just" preening - giving its coat a very thorough cleanup. 

Birds spend a very high percentage of their time by taking care of the feathers.

Poecile gambeli - did you know that you can find vernacular names - common names of species -  from different languages on www.commons.wikimedia.org ? 

Perhaps you can add some that are still missing  from your language too. 

Underneath a large cultivated cedar lives a pair of lively, almost neurotic birds. Each time one of them ventures out from the darkness of the underbrush, its dark-brown tail whips the air in rapid movements, propelling the bird in many directions (seemingly) at the same time.

Yes, this is a Song Sparrow, Melospiza melodia (at least I hope that my identification is correct because this one has so many relatives that it gave me a good run before I dared to call it a name).

The Song Sparrows prefer to stay close to their apartment on the ground floor and not to fly too high or too far from it.
Once in a while we throw a handful of seeds into the darkness underneath the tree. It is a selfish action though, for not too long from now the male will pay us back with its clear, enthusiastic, spring song.

 To get a Song Sparrow portrait that was not fuzzy took me a while. I did not want to use a high ISO and the bird did not want to stay still. Finally, after setting up a blind and freezing my better parts in it for a very long time, I managed to catch this sparrow (a-male-or-a-female-?) in a state of  inertia.  When the bird showed up it wasn't sure about the "eye" of my lens staring at it from the darkness of the blind so it froze. 

After two seconds of inertia its tail flipped this way and that and the studio session was over. Thank you very much Song Sparrow.

Some like to fly a lot, some fly less and others not too much. But they all fly to get from place to place..

Then there are those who prefer to walk. Why fly when one could use one's legs to get from here to there? 

Flying is good for emergencies .... doesn't it look rather cool to march?

Horned Lark, Eremophila alpestris, is one of those marathon types. 

A very unusual visitor, the Horned Lark shared the yard with us only for a short time. A week at the most and then it was gone. It tried to establish its residence underneath the same cedar tree as the Song Sparrows did. It came out during the day, walked about trying to find some seeds (no insects on the menu at this time - sorry) it even took to the air couple of times (only to come back walking from behind the bushes). Then it was gone.

Perhaps the song sparrows did not like the lark's presence underneath their tree, perhaps some bird-eating monster shortened its life or perhaps it just decided that it was time to find more of its own kind and simply walked away.  In any case, we thoroughly enjoyed this bird's colours and determined looks. Happy travels buddy, and please, come back one day.

Speaking of monsters...I know that I am going to ruffle many feathers by making the following statement but...

CATS ARE NOT WELCOME!

There. I said it and I meant it and I would repeat it many times .... except ....

Well, it just happened so unexpectedly. 

It was nine A.M. and we'd just finished our morning coffee when I looked outside the window and noticed a cat !

A CAT !!!!! A VERY LARGE CAT !!!! 

I sprung to my feet planning to open the door and scare it away so badly that it would NEVER EVER dare to come back again.
But before I finished my first step something made me to look more carefully. It was not just any cat. It was a wild one. A Bobcat! Lynx rufus.

It walked nonchalantly about as if the entire property belonged to it. Mind you we do not live in the middle of the wilderness!
I ran for a camera, ran back and tried to sneak to the window. Forget it. Nonchalance was gone in a split of a second and so was the cat. All I managed to get was this:

I have never seen a wild cat in nature and must say that I was sorry to see it run away so fast. Why didn't I try to sneak upon it in some more intelligent manner .... why ...why ...
Then a song started to play in my mind:
"And the cat came back ..... and the cat came back." Over and over again. Meow. Hope dies last. Maybe we shall see each other again.
Who knows?