WOODPECKERS LEAD THE WAY IN WINTER (1/31/03)

Winter is woodpecker season. We spend some of our most enjoyable winter hours watching the woodpeckers that come to our feeders. Regulars are a pair each of downys and hairys, while an occasional visitor is a flicker. Other folks nearby have a red-bellied that visits now and then.

Not only do I watch them out my kitchen window on a large wooden homemade suet feeder, but I follow their movements up and down, in and around the pear tree’s branches. Often they give their sharp cries while they are feeding, meaning what I do not know.

Suet is the key to attracting woodpeckers, although some will eat seeds, often clinging awkwardly to the bottom of the feeder while craning upwards to grab a few morsels. In the winter, we use beef suet we buy from the butcher or a soft mixture of suet and seeds we find at bird specialty shops. For the other birds that also love suet — chickadees, titmice, Carolina wrens, wintering warblers, blue jays and even cardinals —, we use the square cakes of suet embedded with seeds and berries that are prevalent in groceries and specialty shops.

This bit on woodpeckers is really just a lead into my announcing the dates of this year’s annual feeder count, which you can carry out over a period of eight days, February 15-February 22. With luck, there’ll be a little snow to add snap and sparkle to our bird feeders. Tree sparrow numbers seem to be higher this year than in the past, so keep an eye out for a sparrow with a reddish cap, a bill that’s black on top and yellow below and has a “stickpin” spot on its breast. These are arctic tundra birds that sometimes venture to our area.

Did I just hear someone say, “Sparrows! I cannot tell them apart! They are all just little brown jobs.! I hope I didn’t really hear that. Sparrows are just like people — similar but different. If you don’t have a close acquaintanceship with sparrows or own a pair of binoculars, then I’ll agree that all sparrows look rather alike.

Nonetheless, the secret is knowing just what features to look for. Actually, we don’t really have a great variety of sparrows to learn, so let’s get started. White-throateds have such a conspicuous white throat that they are easy to single out. They also have a dark bill and a yellow spot in front of their eye. Some white-throats’ eye stripes are clearly white, while others’ are tan. Not nearly as numerous are their close cousins, the white-crowned sparrows, that are generally grayer than the white-throateds and sport a decidedly pink or possibly yellow bill. Their crowns are strongly striped, black and white in adults and chestnut and gray in first-year birds.

If you watch your yard birds year around, you are, I hope, on close terms with our ubiquitous song sparrows that have a striped face, streaks on their breasts that come together to make a dark central spot.

Juncos, the dark gray birds with the white bellies, are also sparrows, but they are so distinctive that you don’t need a description from me. This winter we have two or three of these birds, but most winters they pass us by.

Those are really all the sparrows you need to know. What you need to beware of, though, is confusing these true sparrows with the non-native English (or house) sparrow, which I have reminded you many times is not really a sparrow at all but a weaver finch. The female has very little that is distinctive about her, although a close look will allow you to see a pale, buffy eyebrow, stripes of buff and black on her back and a plain gray chest. The male, however, is readily recognized with his heavy black bib, which may be rather washed out in winter, white cheeks and chestnut on the back of his head.

By and large sparrows are ground feeders. Many scratch vigorously in dirt, but others walk and hop around, picking up seeds as they come to them. They prefer the security of nearby cover that brush and low-to-the-ground tree limbs like our Norway spruce give them.

If you like killing two, or even three, birds with one stone (pardon the expression!), you can also do triple duty with your counting. First, during the weekend of February 8 and 9, you can warm up for my count that starts the next weekend by counting the birds at your feeder and sending your results to Focus on Feeders, Mass. Audubon Society, 208 S. Great Road, Lincoln, MA 01773. Then, check out Cornell’s The Great Backyard Bird Count at http://www.birdsource.org/gbbc. It runs from February 14 through February 17.

So, with this brief primer in hand and some study of birds in your field guide, you’ll be ready to take on all comers for these February feeder counts. Be sure you lay in a good supply of bird food for this period. By the way, I’ve been called to task for not mentioning that safflower seed is very popular with cardinals, chickadees, blue jays, doves, house finches, wrens, titmice and even bluebirds. Also, squirrels tend to ignore it!

Remember, though, if you think you have 50 song birds daily or 20 chipping sparrows, you should polish your binoculars, review your field guide and take a second look! I look forward to seeing your reports!