LATE SUMMER (8/21/03)

Even though it’s only slightly past mid-August and we know that we have many more weeks of summer ahead of us, most of us find ourselves looking ahead to the changes in our lifestyles that fall will bring. Some start thinking about the opening of the new school year, buying new fall clothes or planning for the closing of summer homes. 

Birds are also noting the progress of the seasons in their own way. While a few parents are still hopping to it to fill open, begging mouths, most are recovering from the stress of the nesting season, molting their worn feathers and growing fresh new ones. Titmice without crests, bedraggled cardinals, puzzling-looking sparrows describe their appearance.

Despite the long and cold spring and the not-so-hot summer, our birds seem to have had a bounteous nesting season. We cannot recall ever having such large families of cardinals, downy and hairy woodpeckers, English sparrows, blue jays, titmice and chickadees. It has been nothing but a flurry of wings at our seed and suet feeders from first to last light. Perhaps it’s our new arrangement of suet cakes placed among a fake tree with a lot of twigs that’s made it such a popular dining spot, attracting our usual yard birds as well as an occasional red-bellied woodpecker and flicker, a female red-winged blackbird, grackles, and last, and very much the least, starlings.

Other birds utilizing our yard’s facilities are several pairs of orioles, both Baltimore and orchard. Their favorite diner is the trumpet vine. We see all the surrounding foliage jumping up and down and eventually view an emerging head or two. Hummingbirds, ignoring our special feeder for them filled with sugar water, also favor the trumpet vines' deep-throated flowers.

This is a very good time on the Cape for hummingbirds. Keep watching the trumpet vines that grow so luxuriously all over the Cape as well as pink-flowering mimosas, another favorite of hummingbirds. Of course, if you don’t have flowers that will attract these birds, choose a hummingbird feeder to dispense a sugar solution similar to flower nectar.

You can make your own feeder from a bottle by turning it upside down and adding a rubber cork and a drinking tube like ones used in hamster cages. When considering a commercial feeder, look for one that has red colors on it and that is easy to fill by having a readily accessible fill hole. Make sure, too, that it is easy to clean by allowing access to all surfaces with a brush. Finally, select a feeder that has firmly attached bee guards, small plastic screens placed over the feeder ports that keep insects away from the sugar solution.

Fill your feeder with a 4 to 1 ratio of water to sugar (one cup of water to 1/4 cup sugar) that you bring to a boil then cool. Use ordinary table sugar, not honey, but do not add red food coloring. Prevent mold from growing in your feeder by cleaning it every three days. Discard the old solution, rinse the feeder well with very hot water and use a bottle brush to scrub hard-to-reach places. 

Hang your feeder in the shade near some perching sites and where it is protected from the wind. If you have a window with the right setting, you can choose a feeder that attaches to it with a suction cup, and you will have some exciting up-close encounters. If you find your feeder is attracting ants, smear Vaseline on the feeder support pole.

Did you know that hummingbirds often search out spider webs and feed on both the spiders and their prey if not too large? Often they look for insects as they nose their way into flower after flower, which, besides nectar, also houses swarms of flies, small beetles, and other hummingbird delicacies. For a long time there was controversy over the true diet of hummingbirds, but when scientists examined their stomachs, they found leaf-bugs, cicadas, wasps, ants, spiders, flies, and — yes, nectar.

Keep the following in mind as summer begins its decline:

What is more gentle than a wind in summer?

What is more soothing than the pretty hummer

That stays one moment in an open flower,

And buzzes cheerily from bower to bower?

--John Keats

Bird activity of another sort is noteworthy right now on the Cape. It’s not the “in-your-face” type of our feeder birds, but the shorebirds that stop on the Cape to feed in preparation for their migrations south, some eventually covering 10,000 miles to reach their winter homes. Chatham’s South Beach has the highest concentration of these birds, including such distinctive species as the 8” ruddy turnstones, heavily patterned with a black bib and orange legs; American oystercatchers, a spectacular species with a long, bright red bill and a black-and-white body pattern; greater (14”) and lesser (10”) yellowlegs, both of which sport bright yellow legs and feed by walking and probing through water rather than on bare sand.

South Beach starts at the base of the Chatham light, but it’s a very long walk to the best area for shorebirds. Water taxis are available to take you right there and back, as are trips led by Mass Audubon and the Cape Cod Museum of Natural History. An easier walk in Chatham is along the beach below Monomoy National Wildlife Refuge headquarters to the south; it brings you to an area where many shorebirds feed, especially at low tide.

Chatham is certainly not the only location where shorebirds congregate. Most anywhere on the long expanse of of the north shore side of the Cape which at low tides exposes sand flats can be productive. For a comprehensive description of other sites, use Birding Cape Cod, which will direct you to all parts of the Cape. You will also be greatly aided in your ability to identify shorebirds if you use a field guide, available at bookstores and shops that specialize in bird supplies.

By far the best way of getting “up close and personal” with shorebirds is to visit the Mass. Audubon Society’s Wellfleet Bay Sanctuary, where personnel can show you various birds, or go with a group and an experienced leader, such as those from the Cape Cod Museum of Natural History (508-896-3867) or Mass. Audubon (508-349-2617). 

Please send your comments and anecdotes about birds to me in care of the Cape Cod Times, 319 Main Street, Hyannis, MA 02601 or, if you use email, to emiller@seepub.com. I regret that because of an overwhelming amount of mail, I cannot respond to each of you personally. However, I have added a Frequently Asked Questions (FAQ) section to the web page with my current and past bird columns, now found at http://home.comcast.net/~elliemiller/index.html. If you can’t find the answer to your question there, try Bird Watcher’s Digest at 1-800-879-2478 or check out their FAQ at www.birdwatchersdigest.com.

GRAPHIC: Oystercatcher, courtesy of Blair Nikula, Chatham