At 01:02 PM 6/15/2007, Gerald & Laura Tarbell wrote:

>     All I know is the next time I see a female Hooded Warbler feeding one of
>their oversized brats, me and a pellet gun just might ignore their protected
>status as "American Songbirds". We oughta put a bounty on the dumb things.
>Up in Kirtland Country they trap 'em out. What's wrong with doing it in the
>rest of America?


Last week I heard a baby bird begging on my deck and looked out to see a 
baby cowbird begging.  It was being fed millet by its "parent", an 
ovenbird.  Even though I have seen this many times before, and even though 
this raises some interesting questions about how much the host species 
really knows about its adopted offspring, I was overwhelmed by revulsion at 
seeing the poor ovenbird out of safer forest habitat just to feed the big 
monster.  I agree with Jerry, I don't understand why cowbirds are 
protected.  It's a problem we caused - shouldn't we fix it?  Removing 
cowbirds would greatly enhance the songbird production of a lot of habitat, 
perhaps compensating for other sorts of environmental insults.  Jerry is 
right about the Kirtland's warbler.  I was there a couple weeks ago and 
they explain how removing the cowbirds has been a necessary and productive 
feature of the restoration program.  There are lots of other species that 
could use this help, too.

Speaking of feeders, today a great crested flycatcher landed on one of the 
feeder poles on the deck.  It was intently watching a pair of Carolina 
wrens who were scratching around in the mixed bird seed looking for 
something to eat. It landed between them and tried to eat various items, 
including cracked corn, sunflower seeds and millet.  It did eat some of 
them, but most of the things it tried were rejected.  It would flip a seed 
around in its beak, seemingly trying to find the right way to crush it.  It 
did eat some millet and cracked corn.  Very strange.  There is no end to 
the bugs around here right now; why eat corn?


Paul Bystrak
Salisbury, Md
 


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