The TJTwitter

[hazelrunpack]

omd, I can't believe he let you touch him! Do you think he got up that far and then realized he was afraid of heights?

And may I add, it's so very nice to see you here tonight! How is it going?

[luckypenny]

Maybe he was trying to get over the ick factor of being touched by a human before he was able to move, lol (in all honesty, I got pretty icked by it at first too ).

I thought of this thread as soon as I saw him and knew I had to share, lol. What are the chances, do you think, that if I feed him well, he won't want to come into the house for the Winter?

[hazelrunpack]

Probably pretty good. We used to get them living under the deck in EC in hard winters, but they were always willing to stay out of the house and under the deck as long as we kept the feeders filled. The dogs might have had something to do about it, even though we had fewer than we do now, rats and dogs don't coexist very well

[luckypenny]

Is that what it is, Hazel?? Is that a rat ? Please tell me it's just a field mouse . I've never seen either here .

The only little creatures our guys will share the yard with are toads .

[hazelrunpack]

Looks kinda big for a deermouse, but I suppose it could be that, too. Hard to tell from the pic. How big was it? That'll determine whether it's a mouse or a rat. And if it's a rat, that'll really get you creeped out, eh? If it's a doormouse, though, there's a better chance it's going to try to move into your house for the winter.

[growler~GateKeeper]

It looks like a little ornament someone put on there

[hazelrunpack]

Like one of those little spring-loaded monkeys that hangs off your number 2 pencil? Remember those?

LP, I have to say your little buddy is mighty cute, whatever he is!

[luckypenny]

Hey, there's a great idea, Growler!! Why always bird ornaments on bird feeders/hooks? Whose to say that isn't a mouse feeder (wonder where I can market that idea to, lol).

Hazel, he looked a little bigger/chubbier/furrier than the mice my brother and I used to sneak into the house (and keep in our desk drawers ) when we were kids. His ears were pretty round and big too. I've seen a full size rat before *shivers* but this guy was a lot smaller.

[hazelrunpack]

The younguns disperse this time of year and are usually a little smaller than adults. Did it have a white belly or a brown belly? Most of the wild rats I've seen around here have brown bellies, whereas the white-footed mice have white bellies. White-footed mice are a little bigger than house mice, too, so if it was just a little bigger and chubbier, it could well be one of those. But then you really have to batten down your hatches cuz they'll wanna come in the warm house for winter.

[luckypenny]

Not great quality but here he is close up. It seems like his back is much darker than his belly. It's hard to tell as it was already dark out.

[hazelrunpack]

Hmmmm...that actually looks more mouselike than ratlike, but the flash makes it hard to tell for sure. Can you go back out and hold up a ruler next to it? Okay, well, maybe not!

It looks more mouse-colored than rat-colored, though. Our rats were always more of a grayish chocolate brown.

Your guy is sure cute! Is it still hanging around out there?

[luckypenny]

"Hanging" around....hehe, it took me a few minutes to get that, lol. I actually went out to see . He's not on any of the feeders but I didn't want to get too close for fear of stepping on him in case he was under them.

Hopefully I'll be back soon with pics of real birds .

[renegaderuby]

can someone tell me what those teeny tiny little birds with REALLY long legs, that stay mostly on the ground are. Brown and black in color, and can RUN like the dickens. We have loads of them at some point in the year (think late winter, but could be wrong on that).

[chico2]

LP.what a cute little mousie
Bet it gave you a jolt touching him though
At least where I am,it's inevitable that you will have different critters by the feeders at night.
There is a tiny mouse(probably more than one)keeping the cats entertained at night,he comes checking for any leftover peanuts on my deck.
Usually I always take leftovers in at nightfall,to discourage mice.

[chico2]

RR,I have no idea,but I am sure someone else can tell you..

[Dee-O-Gee]

Brushing up on your little friend LP woulda creeped me out too although, I love the little rounded ears. Looks too big to be a tit mouse but I'd bet it is more of a mouse than a rat.

RR; could it possibly be a Killdeer? They lay their eggs on gravel/pavement and act like their injured if you venture near their nest.

[hazelrunpack]

RR can you get a pic? Also, how close are you to a body of water and are they coming to feeders, or just hanging out in the yard.

Aren't I nosy?

chico, our white-footed mice are really friendly--they'll try to move in this time of year whether there's food around or not! For a few years, they made a nest of grass under the hood of the LP tank. They were soooooo cute!! And as long as we left the nest undisturbed, they didn't bother to try to move into the house. We even had our LP delivery guy trained to not disturb them when he lifted the hood to fill to the tank.

[hazelrunpack]

Mornin, DOG.

[Dee-O-Gee]

Originally Posted by hazelrunpack

Mornin, DOG.

Mornin' Hazel! Haven't seen any hummers around my area for a couple days now. I think they've moved on.

Have had alot of activity on the seed feeder though. Had a couple cardinals, lots of chickadees and even a blue jay grabbed some grub.

[hazelrunpack]

Dang hummers are still worrying us here! I wish they'd head south, but they're still out there! Not many, thought--most we ever see together is 3.

[hazelrunpack]

We had the banders out again on the 12th. Was hoping for more action, but the feeders were pretty quiet--the mourning doves have our number now and leave the minute they see the first dove bounce off the nets

We did see and band some nuthatches (here's the white-breasted nuthatch being retrieved from the net)


Also some black-capped chickadees:


But mostly what we saw were American goldfinches.


Despite the large number of adolescents I'm seeing in general, of the 20 goldfinches banded, only a handful were young-of-the-year. That tells me they're still following mom and dad around, hoping they'll be fed--when they see mom and/or dad get into trouble in the nets, they have the sense to sit back in the trees and avoid trouble themselves. Smart kids!

[hazelrunpack]

The big story was the warblers, though. We netted 6 individuals of 4 species, which doesn't sound like a lot, but that's 6 more warblers than we usually see.

The ovenbirds were coming to us--we netted two in the yard nets.

Here's a picture of how they determine age in an ovenbird. If I'm remembering correctly (and considering my memory, I could have it backward), if there is a buffy or rusty leading edge on the primary (flight) feathers, then the bird is an adult. If the feather is all one color, then the bird is a hatch year bird.

The first one we caught had uniform color on its wing feathers, so it was hatched this year:


A second bird is shown here before release. If you look closely, you can see that the leading edge of the long feathers on the wing is a different color. That would (if I didn't get it mixed up) make this an adult bird.


With the permission of the property owner, we were able to spread a net across the easement road just to the south of Hazel Run. We placed it along the road for a while but the birds were avoiding it. Finally, we walked back a bit on the road and surprised a small flock of sparrows about where the meadow-in-the-woods begins. This was where we placed it--although you can't see it, the meadow is just to the right off the frame of the image, secondary forest growth off to the left.


It was a Hail Mary attempt, but we decided to move the net to that spot and see if we could get any. Of course, the sparrows moved on.

[hazelrunpack]

I checked that back net 3 or 4 times with no success so we sort of chalked it up to a good effort and the next time back we intended to take it down. As we approached, though, we saw a dark blob in the net.



And as we got closer, there was another lighter blob next to it that thrashed a bit. And up in a shady corner of the net were two more! All warblers!!

This is a first fall chestnut-sided warbler--it's a female which we knew because there was no streak of chestnut along her flank under the wing.




The one below is a first fall male. He looks quite similar to the fem, but you can clearly see the chestnut streak.

[hazelrunpack]

The fourth species we banded was a Magnolia warbler. It's hard to see in these shots, but there was pretty extensive black streaking on the flank and back of this bird, which sets this one off from fems of the same species. A good diagnostic mark for Magnolia warblers is the white tail band between the body and the end of the tail that you can make out in the second of the following two shots:





This turned out to be a hatch year male. If you know what an adult Magnolia warbler looks like you now know why fall warblers are so hard to identify--this little guy doesn't even vaguely resemble what he'll look like come spring when he's in his breeding plumage.

And finally, that black and white warbler in the net in the last post, is called a Black-and-white warbler (imagine that! ). This one turned out to be a hatch year male, and very feisty. If he'd had a stronger bill, he would have damaged a few fingers.

[renegaderuby]

I can try to get a pic , next time they are around. We have a large pond down the road, and two small ponds on our property. They dont come in our yard, but they frequent the pasture in front of us (we are on a 13-15 ace pasture)...there is hay, horse feed for the mini horses...and they seem to pick at the grass. I'll google and see what I get up. They litterally look like little cotton balls on toothpick (little longer than a toothpick naturaly) legs. The babies are even smaller. They just RUN like the dickens when you get anywhere near em. TOO CUTE>

[hazelrunpack]

They do sound very much like killdeer...at least the description of the babies does. Cotton balls on toothpicks is a good visual for them!

[Dee-O-Gee]

How do you keep all these beautiful birds straight Hazel? At first glance, the Magnolia warbler looks similar to an American Gold Finch.

Lovely pictures Hazel.

[hazelrunpack]

The wing pattern and color are different, as is the grayish head. Goldfinches don't have eye-rings, either. From a distance, when all you see is color, it can be very difficult to tell warblers from goldfinches, but close up or with binoculars, you can usually pick up the differences. With fall warblers, especially since the banders don't see many, we always pull out the warbler book and pore over the plates and written description to make sure we've gotten the ID right.

[renegaderuby]

well, the pictures of killdeer I see are a bit off...but it could be the ones we have are just younger than in the pics. I'll be sure to snap a pic , next time we see em. So far we've had at some point in the year...blue jays, robins, cardinals, chickadee's, waxwings?? (think thats what they are called), a stray oreole or two, swallow tails, blue birds, and a few others that I cant think of the name right now.
We dont feed them per say...every now and then I'll get some of those ,millet spray treats and toss em out there. But we have three trees that put out berries (two bradfords, and a flowering pear), so they come and pick at those when they are full of the berries. I would get a bird feeder to feed them...but we have MUNTANT squirrells...and they will tear em down. LOL .
I swear we have squireels on steriods or something. THEY ARE HUGE !!!!!
We have one up at my inlaws I've named godzilla...he is so fat, I dont know how he walks. And its definatly a BOY, and not a preggers female.

[hazelrunpack]

Our squirrels tend to get tubby, too. But we don't mind if they share some of the seed. There's usually enough spilled on the ground to keep them happy and nondestructive.