BIRDS ARE HOPPING RIGHT IN MY OWN BACKYARD (11/24/00)

Nothing is more satisfying to birders of any breed than discovering new birds right in their own yard. If you don’t believe me, here’s what Sylvia and Dick Jurkowski, Marstons Mills, have to say. “It pays to keep a close watch on your bird feeders. When you least expect it, a special bird can come around. We were casually watching our suet feeders the afternoon of November 7th when we spotted a 'different' woodpecker.

After careful scrutiny of our various bird books and a call to Elinor Miller, we came to the conclusion it was an immature male yellow-bellied sapsucker. This is a first for us here on Cape Cod. It has returned every day since then, coming to the same suet feeder for brief periods so we are hopeful it is staying in the area. The moral of the story is ... don't take your own bird feeders for granted.” Would you believe that within a week the Jurkowskis were also hosting a red-bellied woodpecker, also a rarity on the Cape?

I can’t quite lay claim to any new birds, but for the first time, we have a flicker apparently intent on spending the winter with us. He/she is roosting at night in a former flicker house from which that occupant was ousted two years ago by a screech owl.

Last week we had a surprise visit from a beautifully plumaged male Baltimore oriole. He sat on a porch railing right by a poke weed plant laden with purple berries. He ate and he ate. I hoped that he would be so full that he would not linger up north here any longer and would get on his way south where he should have been already, but we saw him again a week later in the same place. Another Baltimore oriole was reported on the same day in Sandwich, so maybe there are more around the area than I would have thought.

Crows have been amusing us. A whole family keeps working among the lower limbs of an ornamental tree in order to get at the bayberry shrubs at its base. At times the crows seem to be completely tangled in the shrub and tree, but each manages to work his way out. Those berries have been there for years, yet we never saw any bird feasting on them before.

We seem to have more blue jays than ever before. Are many of you noticing that, too? The pair of hairy woodpeckers continue to enliven our yard. They cannot get enough of that good suet! We dread the return of the swarm of starlings we had last winter, as they monopolized the suet, not only keeping other birds away but also causing our rather expensive supply to disappear rapidly. What will keep our woodpeckers, chickadees and other birds happy for a week is gone in a day when the starlings arrive.

A Cooper’s hawk makes frequent raids on our feeder birds, although I haven’t seen any evidence of his success. Birds that are constantly preyed on get pretty savvy; if they don’t, they end up being a larger bird’s meal. We have other predators, though, that are far more serious. Two or three long-haired cats have appeared in recent months in our yard, and naturally the bird feeder is a big attraction.

We think we have found a way to foil felines. We have put fencing in front of the bushes where the cats have been ambushing the birds and laid blackberry brambles over the ivy that fronts the large Norway spruce under which they also hide. Hope these actions take care of a bad situation.

Now, as we approach the winter bird feeding season, we are on a daily watch for new arrivals from the north. Juncos have already been noted at mainland feeders, and we expect our first white-throated sparrows to show up any day now. We wonder whether they enjoy returning to a familiar place as much as we delight in seeing old friends. White-throats don’t necessarily make a long migration. They quite possibly have spent the breeding season on Mt. Greylock in Western Massachusetts or gone to another New England mountain, for theirs is an altitudinal migration.

Since I have myself migrated to the subject of winter bird feeding, here are a couple of tips from the folks at Bird Watcher’s Digest: Reduce window-kills of birds by placing feeders a safe distance away. If birds regularly strike a particular window, place a screen, crop netting, or a series of branches over or in front of the outside glass panel to break up the reflection. We find a piece of strip of reflective paper hanging in front of our picture window keeps birds from flying into it. Another tip: Though birds may not be entirely dependent on your feeder, it's best not to leave them totally without food if you plan to be away from home in mid-winter. Purchase an oversized feeder with a large seed capacity, or ask a willing neighbor to continue feeding your birds.

My final tip for getting the most enjoyment out of your backyard birds is to catch the wisdom of experts and authors Don and Lillian Stokes on PBS Sundays at 5:30 pm. You can also get information from their website: www.stokesbirdsathome .com.

GRAPHIC: Adult male Yellow-bellied Sapsucker