Pine Siskin

Pine Siskin

Spinus pinus, Carduelis pinus, 

The American Pine Finch, Pine Chirper

This story and photos are from my journal from January 13, 2009. All photos Jay Burney. This group, or "irruption" of Pine Siskins from Winter of 2009, to date, has been the only visitations to Protection Farm during our time here. We look for them daily in the winter months. None came in the winter of 2008, 2010, and as of this date, January 15, 2011, none have been here this winter. 

January 13, 2009

On Christmas Day 2009 a bird new to my time at Protection Farm appeared at the feeders.  It was a Pine Siskin.  It was an unusual looking finch, but an unmistakable bird. Finches share some attributes, notably the beak, which is slimmer than other finches in the sisken, and the notched tail. Males and females of this species are incredibly variable but  the males tend to exhibit more yellow.  At least thats what some ornithologists insist.  For the first ten minutes I looked at its diminutive little  body and didn’t see much yellow.  It had a non streaked breast- that is it in the photo above. The photo reveals more yellow than I initially saw.  Then it turned and gave me a side view of its yellow wing bars and then it opened and stretched its wings revealing brilliant yellow.  Within about an hour another one showed up. This one had a distinctively streaked breast.  I presumed that the first one exhibiting more yellow was the male and the second one, more streaked,less yellow, was the female. But I honestly dont know.  

Natural History Notes

From Wikipedia: True Finches are passerine birds in the family Fringillidae.  Passeriformes include more than half of all bird species. They are sometimes called "perching birds", or "songbirds".   Passerines are one of the most diverse terrestrial verterbrate orders wit over 5,000 identified species.  Passerines are roughly twice as species rich as the largest mammal order, the Rodentia.  Pine Sisken's, like most finches  are predominantly seed eating songbirds. 

Pine Siskins breed in coniferous forests of Canada, Alaska, California, Arizona, New Mexico, Texas, Great Lakes regions, and northern New England.  The species wanders during the winter months with irregular migratory patterns throughout the US. Winter flocks can be quite large.

The nest is built by the female with male help a cup of twigs and grasses from 3-50 feet above the ground far out n a branch of a conifer tree. these birds are social and  tend to build nests next to one another, sometimes only a few feet apart. They typically est on horizontal branches in conifirs.  2-6 eggs, incubated constantly by the female, two weeks to hatch. Parents feed by regurgitation. Fledge in 2 weeks. Two clutches per season.

They forage in trees, shrubs and meadows. Diet includes seeds from pines, sweet gum, maple, eucalyptus, alder, birches and spruce. Thistle and insects suchs as caterpillars, grasshoppers, aphids. They help to keep destructive insects under control.

They are known as an “irruptive” species, which means that their populations, tend to change dramatically as conditions dictate. This includes, sudden upsurges or declines according to ecological checks and balances including food, weather, and habitat availability. Although they are common in some areas, especially the northwest US, they have been measured in decline since 1966. They are vulnerable to chemicals, especially agricultural chemicals, and to parasitism by Brown-headed Cowbirds. Forest fragmentation increases Siskin exposure to Cowbirds.

The name "siskin" comes from the chirping sound the bird makes. A common name is “Pine Chirper.”

Wikipedia: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pine_Siskin

Cornell, All About Birds:   http://www.allaboutbirds.org/guide/pine_siskin/id

sound: http://www.allaboutbirds.org/guide/Pine_Siskin/sounds

McGill Bird Observatory, Migration Research Center-this is a good guide to sexing:

http://www.migrationresearch.org/mbo/id/pisi.html

By Jan 13 2009, there are about 15 of these delightful little birds visiting the feeders continuously. There are some very large and very obviously yellow, and less streaked underneath, which may be males, and others, smaller, hardly any yellow visible, with lots of breast streaking, which may be females.

The yellow is very obvious when they spread their wings, which they often do while perching.  They are also gregarious, very vocal, and playful.  They seem to get along very well with the chickadees, goldfinches, and junco’s.  No one seems to get along with the house sparrows which attempt to dominate the feeders when they come in.

Apparently courtship of this species begins in January and February.  Perhaps this social behaviour is going on here at Protection Farm. Although I have not observed it, mate finding consists of the male taking food in his bill, flying to the female and giving it to her.  There is also a flight display by the male which includes perching close to a female and then flying up high in circles with tail spread and a rapid fluttering flight, singing non stop. He then drops down to perch near the female . He repeats this several times.

female?

I didn't get many photos of the tail so that we can see the fork, this is the best i have.

Refuge for a Cardinal

Today at Protection Farm it is cold and incredibly snowly.  We are back into a cycle of constant precipitation and right now one of the biggest snowstorms of the year, at least in duration, is occurring. We are accumulating snow at a rapid rate, the car is parked down near the street, and it is beginning to remind me of the winter we spent at Hobbit Hollow over 20 years ago when we were snowed in for about 6 weeks and I had to ski about 8 miles round trip to pick up provisions from Hogans in Java for our new family.

Today Jonna and I  are sitting next to our picture window, watching the endless snows, and watching a very active bird feeding station.  Among our visitors are a male and female Cardinal that have been regular residents here, we think, for a number of years.  I am not 100% sure but two winters ago I had an encounter with a cardinal and I like to think that the male cardinal that we have here now is either the same, or related.

I wrote about this in my Protection Farm Journal notebook.  It is dated January 4, 2009.

"we have a family of Cardinals that have been regular visitors to our feeders. There is an adult male and female, and what I think are two juveniles, both born this past summer.  It is hard to tell for sure, as this is just casual observation, but it appears that this is a family that has consistently been here.

Yesterday was very cold. I was sitting under a blanket on the couch next to the big picture window which is our window to the feeding station.

I wasn’t wearing anything except my socks and was comfy under the blanket on the couch. That might seem like TMI, but it is entirely relevant to this story.   I noticed the male juvenile perch on one of the Pin Cherry branches that are just off the porch.  I had my camera and snapped a few shots. Then the Cardinal  came into the feeders. There were about a dozen other birds at the feeders including two Mourning Doves, several Chickadees, a couple of Goldfinches, and  some Junco’s. 

This Cardinal ended up in my living room.

I think it knew it was coming inside, and was trying to get around the Mourning Dove at the bottom right of the photo.

The cardinal was acting nervous and tentative.  It was obvious that all of the birds were a little extra energetic.  It struck me as odd. The Cardinal was on the porch railing when something spooked all of the birds and they flew off.

 It was a serious scare as a couple of Junco’s flew right into the picture window in front of me.  I was sitting down on the couch, slouched down really and didn’t have a great view, but the sudden flight panic got my attention.  The birds that ran into the window were not traveling fast, not at top speed and they bounced off the window relatively gently, and kept flying. That is the norm at these feeders. They are close enough to the window that the birds never pick up enough speed to do any damage when or if they hit the window Usually.

However this time, whatever spooked them created enough of a panic that the Cardinal flew directly at the window and hit it with a hard thud.  I saw it hit out of the corner of my eye and as I looked up, I saw a shadow fly overhead and away. I am guessing it is our constant companion  the Red tail.  I have never seen the big hawk hunt at these feeders but when he is around he always gets everyone’s attention. 

There was a red feather stuck to the window where the cardinal hit.  It was a big hit, but I assumed the Cardinal flew away.  I lifted up off the couch disturbing my cats who were sitting on top of the blanket and I looked over the edge of the window and down in the snow.  I was stunned by what I saw.  Two scraggly cardinal feet sticking straight up out of the snow, and a red tail feather.  It was kind of silly and cartoonish looking. The legs were wriggling a bit, but I got the message that the bird hit hard and had nosedived into about a foot of soft snow.

I knew I had to act quickly. I knew that the shadow that had passed may return to claim a prize. I knew it was bitter outside, and I knew that the cardinal was probably out cold.  This wasn’t my first bird rescue, and I knew I had to act fast. The big problem was that I was, as I mentioned earlier, nekkid except for socks.  I didn’t have on any pants, or shoes.   In defense, this is not my usual attire, but I had earlier emerged from warm shower  and just decided to get under the blanket and watch the storm for a bit. My cats did not mind my unclothed state. Did I mention that it was cold out? Blizzarding?

I put the camera down and rushed around for a few confused seconds looking for pants, or pajamas, but all I could find was my snow boots.  I decided that bird rescue valor called for no modesty and so out I went into the blowing snow. It was about 20 degrees and felt much worse.  It was only a few steps to the bird, and I reached down into the snow bare handed (and bare everything else)  and plucked out the unlucky bird.  At that moment a car drove by on the hardly plowed road which was about a hundred yards from the porch. It was snowing pretty intensly so I don’t think anyone saw me. At least they didn’t blow the horn.

As I lifted the bird out it was obvious that its beak was full of snow. Stuffed really.  It eyes were also covered with packed snow. The first thing I did was notice that it was entirely unconscious and that its mouth was entirely clogged. Must have hit the snow with it open.

I was able to reach in with my fingers and dig the snow out.  I could see down its throat so I knew I had cleared it.  I cupped the bird in my hands and in the house we went.  Did I mention the cold? Shiver me timbers! I was pretty cold.  As I walked in I saw the our cats anxiously perched on the couch where they had been watching me out the window. They were very curious about what I had found. We, the cats and I,  are in the habit of sharing found objects, especially living objects or recently dead objects with each other.  They expected a show and tell.  I closed the door and sat on the couch surrounded by curious cats and cupped and warmed the bird. I put my hands around its body, brushed off all of the snow, covered its eyes and held it close to my chest.  It’s heart was beating. Wow!

I hoped that it would revive from its shock in a few minutes.  Many times when birds have collisions they go into shock.  If they are handled gently they can often be revived.  If they are not given emergency care they can expire. Sometimes they will just freeze to death or perish from some other sort of exposure. Or a predator gets them. 

Gradually this Cardinal came back. By now I had managed to find pajama bottoms and a t-shirt and had managed to put them on. After about five long minutes, one Cardinal eye popped open.   It didn’t appear to focus or exhibit a lot of comprehension, but I took it as a good sign. And then the other opened. After about five more seconds the Cardinal lifted its head and stared directly and hard at me. I tried to imagine what it was thinking.

As it regained its senses, it began to wiggle and I grasped it a little tighter. I have handled a lot of birds, mostly through banding and so I know how to hold a bird. Cardinals can be very aggressive, not as aggressive as chickadees, but they can still give a cuticle a good bite. I have experience with that and I was able to give this bird a comfortable (for both of us), squeeze, one that kept any blood from shedding from either of us. 

As this scene unfolded, the cats were becoming more and more curious, but not at all aggressive, just inquisitive. They kept a respectful distance, but kept their attention on us.

I took a  picture.

I managed to both find some clothing and snap this badly out of focus picture of the Cardinal and I.

He is just starting to realize that he has been rescued, or capture, or is conscious. Probably had no idea what hit him 

Now he is thinking that he wants a piece of me!

 

After another few minutes the Cardinal made a quick move and jumped out of my hand and flew into the Christmas tree. This startled me and panicked the cats who both fled the room. Rosie went up the stairs and Red Cat into the basement. I couldn’t help but to recall Red Cats valiant battles with summer moths and house flies. He usually won by eating the intruders but it was always an exciting spirited spectacle until the final moments.

“Brave hunters “I said out loud. 

The Cardinal perched in the living room Christmas Tree like an ornament and stared at me in still dazed state. I went over to it and easily recaptured it.  I held it close and covered its eyes again, confident that it was well on the way to a full recovery. We sat there in silence for a minute or so. And then it began to screech.

It screeched like a little baby, which is really what I think it was. I am pretty sure that this is a juvenile male, and was still in the company of its parents and sister. It was probably less than 6 months old. It made a racket. The cats couldn’t help but to come running.

Red Cat came close and gently sniffed the birds head.  Then he went away about four feet to our left and sat and watched. Rosy sat about 4 feet away to the right,  staring with incredibly wide eyes. She was very excited but seemed more curious then aggressive.  It was kind of a neat few moments. 

As the bird continued to regain its senses, I walked it around the room and into the kitchen.  It became a little more calm and stopped screeching.  It reminded me of walking an irritated baby human around in my arms and I talked gently to it.  I even nuzzled it a bit with my face.  I am not sure that this had a good effect, but, well, it was instinctual.  At one point  I started showing it the windows and the outdoors. This elicited interest in this bird.  It clearly recognized the difference between being inside and the outside, beyond the window.  

After a few more minutes I took it out on the porch.  It seemed to happily drink in the fresh air and began to make new noises, these decidedly more friendly than the screeching.  Kind of little chortles and a whistle or two.  It definitely calmed down once it was outside. And I noticed a female Cardinal came to the tree line about 30 feet from where we were and she was very focused on the noisy little bird in my hands. I dint know if it was mom Cardinal, or sister, but it was watching us.

After another moment, I placed the recovering Cardinal on the post of the porch railing. It sat there for a few seconds and then flew-directly back into the big picture window where it hit with a thud.  This time though, it was  a glancing, blow and it   turned mid air back toward me. It flew directly at me and then by my face screeching and looking straight at me. Not sure what it was saying, but I had the sense that if birds could use foul language, I was witnessing it. It flew to a perch in the cherry tree just next to the porch and sat there. The female was nearby but flew off.  After a while so did my little rescued Cardinal.”

The newly released Carinal sat on this branch for a while before flying off 

This Cardinial visiting our feeder the next day. the snow crystals around its eye were very interesting.

This Cardinal at our Feeder on Jan 15, 2011

I am pretty sure that this Cardinal and this Cardinal family are still part of the landscape here at Protection Farm. In fact as I look out at the bird feeder today, on January 15, 2011, I am feeling that the Cardinals that I watch every day are very familiar, and that maybe one of them has been inside my house.

Russia Wins the Gold!

Todays post is decidedly un nature oriented.  I love sports. Go figure.

Port Daniel's Yale Sudbury interviews a Mexican-Canadian Wrestler outside the HSBC Arena before the Canada/USA playoff game.

Let us now praise men and boys. And with that, if ye be a true blue buffalo let me now appeal to your non-Canadian tribalism. If you live in Buffalo you know what I mean.  Over the past two weeks, the city of no illusions has been overcome by thousands of red clad maple-leaf draped Canadian hockey fans.  Now, don’t get me wrong, I love the habitant. But we have over 175 years of history of living next to each other. You remember the phrase good fences make good neighbors?  Take that times 175 years and you can begin to understand that even though each of those years have been peaceful along the longest undefended border in the world, we do have our moments.  Hockey sometimes is the catalyst.  It is not just the intense rivalry between the Buffalo Sabres and the Toronto Maple Leafs that inspires adversity, but more than a few teeth have been donated to local pubs on both sides of the border over hockey disputes. Eh?   But we usually try not to let bad feelings get in the way.  As one Canadian scribe recently put it, “You got hurt feelings, tell me where you hurt so I can kick it all better”.

When the world junior hockey tournament came to Buffalo these past weeks, lots of us thought that we were the cat’s schizchizel.  After all, the American team was the defending World Cup champion having beaten Canada in the gold game of the previous tournament. Some of us began to have anxieties in the weeks leading up to the games when it became increasingly obvious that Buffalo wasn’t quite up to hosting this kind of major world class event.  Public spats between public officials and with tournament officials more than casually leaked to the press. It turned relatively ugly when the world’s sports writers began to review our little town and pretty consistently give us really negative judgments. One Swedish reporter called Buffalo “something out of 28 Days Later, minus the zombies.  I think we can blow a hole in his story because trust me friends, we have the zombies.

It got much worse when a major young hockey star citing our (we thought) altruist nightlife, very publically declared Buffalo a “ghost town” and “the worst city ever”. Ouch.  Seems confirmed that downtown is closed after 5pm. Too bad the player is too young to drive or he could have hightailed it out to the suburban malls.

Now the true sad fact is that not many American’s seemed to give two spits about this tournament.  In fact, hardly any Americans, or Buffalonians, bothered to show up.  This left the door open for the hockey fanatics from Canadaland to invade and at ties it began to feel like the War of 1812 all over again.  Not that they burned many buildings and there were only a few drunken brawls or 20, but they came here in vast and lubricated quantities. And they were boisterous, anxious for redemption, er revenge, and confident in their pucking superiority.

Not only on the street corners and hotels and bars, but at every turn and at every game Canada folk outnumbered the American fans by at least 100-1.  The Canadaerites came to party like it was 1980.  You couldn’t move downtown without running into hundreds of boozed up red shirts with a chip on their shoulder and not a good a good word to say about USA. Gradually that focused specifically on Buffalo. “We used to like you, at least until ya burned York” was a frequent assertion, emphasis on the first syllable.

 These marauders spent the better parts of two weeks puking the maple leaf all over our spic and span hooterific Chippewa strip like it was their own fresh pair of undies.  Thankfully they did dropped their robust loonies in our coffers. That is a truly saving grace and we truly appreciate the patronage. That is why we are here, we must keep telling our cash starved selves.

Word is that the tipping was not so good, but still, they dropped dollars. Thanks canuks, we hardly knew ye! Come back and beer up!

The overwhelming red maple crowd was extremely in evidence when both the Canada Team and the USA Team reached the Semi-finals and had to face each other for a chance to play for the gold medal.

The loser would play in the consolation game for the bronze. Did I mention that the USA team was the defending champion and that they soundly defeated Canada in the previous gold medal game in order to be the world champion? In case you forgot that, I will point out that the Canadian affiliated did not forget.  They were here with a certain blood lust.  They had, as always, a very good team.  Pregame predictions gathered on the street in front of the arena by this reporter and our intrepid correspondent Yale Sudbury, himself a lubricated canuk, were almost exclusively Canada-centric. Even the few American ticket holders were predicting a sound Canada thrashing of the USA’ers.  10-0 was repeatedly the gleeful and evil smirk, accompanied by other ungentle gestures toward us. One American, disguised as a Mexican-Canadian wrestler proclaimed apocalyptic visions of American doom and cataclysm at the arena.  Protest was unwelcome and resistance futile.  My own jingoism took a vacation as a surly Canada team stunned the USA into submission by a score of 4-1. It wasn’t really that close. One of the USA icers put it best after the game “They played like men out there tonight, we played like kids.”

 Canada and Russia went to the gold medal game.  USA played for and won the Bronze-3^rd place. Here is where the story gets complicated.

 Gold Medal is Russia v. Canada.   Next day. Come game time, gold medal redemption for the Canadians, the arena is full to the rafters with the surging red shirted crowd.  Ok maybe 20 Russians, a smattering of Americans, and 18,000 Canuks. Scotty Bowman flanked by an idiotically grinning Chris Collins and an unsmiling and nervous Byron Brown dropped the first ceremonial puck to jeers.  Of course when Scotty finally waved the place erupted in cheers. He is true hockey royalty and the Canadians adore him.

Game on. Jamie and Jonna and I were at Sportmen’s Tavern watching on a big screen tv. By the end of the second period Canada was up 3-0. Russia hardly had a presence on the ice. It seemed like the gold medal would be passing through the arches of the Peace Bridge in just 20 more minutes.

At the intermission of the 2nd period Jamie leaned over to me and said, watch, the Russians have come back in every 3rd period in this tournament and I bet they will again.

Less than 2 minutes into the 3rd the Russians scored. Canadian faces got a little sour but the voices were still shrill and they were looking for fights in the crowd. Russia scored again. Canadians began to release the surly bonds of sanity.  Fights developed. Canadian on Canadian. After 10 minutes the Russians tied the game. They were putting on a clinic. The Canadian spirit, the Canadian surge, and the Canadian game, disappeared. In the end the Russians won the gold medal 5-3.  I don’t think that I have ever witnessed a team collapse as dramatic as this one. The Canadian press agreed. In the coming days the commentary would be savage and destructive. The Canadian players seemed to know this and at the end of the game the ones that were not openly weeping were laying around the corners of the ice, sullen, eyes swollen, staring off into some memory myth that no longer existed.

The weeping of the Russians was another matter entirely.

The Russian players, or kids, all about 19 years old were still on the ice and in a state of apparent ecstasy.  I have never seen a team so lit up with joy.  They were jumping and leaping, waving their arms, hugging one another, huge toothless face-splitting grins and congratulations. They would leap against the glass as family members and fans on the other side would weep and laugh.

The Russian players literally tried to jump, each of them individually, into the championship cup. They held it, caressed it, and tried to fit themselves inside it. That was kind of weird, but true. They had to move around or over the mentally disabled Canadian players who were still literally strewn disconsolate all over the ice, and they did. One of the Canada players was helped off the ice. He later returned to get his silver medal with a new cast on his leg helped by two giant weeping Canada kids. It was really something to see. Opened bottles of vodka appeared on the ice. Shots, many were downed. Songs, or a particular song began to be sung. The Russians continued to party and sing.  The TV broadcast ended. Hail Russia!

The next morning at about 8am, I awoke to a breaking news story that the Russian hockey team had been detained at the airport. According to the many news stories they had been removed from a plane for unruly and disrespectful behavior.  They have been (temporarily) refused flight permission because, according to several witnesses, they were completely (and I say this in the best Canadian accent I can muster) drunk.

By noon the news is breaking that they had a rather engaging and extensive celebration time last night at the Adams Mark bar, which now stands accused of breaking liquor served to minors law.  Many witnesses are saying that the young Russian team was quite party-licious well into the night, tossing down vast amounts of vodka, giving away sticks and skates after autographing them, posing for photos, and singing over and over "mother the gold is ours!" In fact many observers have declared that they never slept, just went off to get on the airplane at the appointed time. Seems like they have a holiday to celebrate in Russia. Now delayed. Of course it is illegal to drink, or to serve alcohol in Buffalo to anyone under 21. Oops a daisy!

The Russian hockey team and several witnesses including other passengers on the plane that they were removed from protest the allegations. Most say that the team was calm, a few may have been unconscious, but no one stirred up any, rowdiness.  The airline says that the flight crew deemed the team to be a threat to the security of the flight and they can refuse to let anyone board for these kinds of reasons. The flight crew won this one. Team Russia ejected. Come back tomorrow, or sometime when we can schedule another flight to Mother Russia.

That turned out to be a few more days. So they missed their homeland holiday celebration and instead had to hole up in a seedy airport hotel while they figured out how to get home.  Here the story gets really interesting.

The local TV news teams were on this story. They began carrying reports of the irresponsible original hotel (Adams Mark) serving liquor to minors and the growing alarms about lawlessness and the investigation that was launched by the local district attorney. And they began to cover the team as it waited in the new airport hotel, players and coaches lounging around the pool and in some instances recovering from wicked hangovers.  This went on for about 24 hours. Someone saw this. Someone whose son plays floor hockey that lives near the hotel. Someone who’s floor hockey playing son had a birthday party scheduled that afternoon and it happened to be at a floor hockey facility with the sons floor hockey team. And he went to the hotel and invited the Russian Hockey team to come to his son’s birthday party and play floor hockey, And they did.

And so, in the midst of a sometimes soul trying, raucous, verbose, obnoxious, depleting, hair singeing, and sometimes funny and overwhelmingly fun and joyous international hockeyland experience, this really remarkable thing happened.  A Buffalo kid got to play the Russian Gold Medal winning hockey team at his birthday party. It doesn’t get much better than that. It just doesn’t.

Canada-licious

this team did not play the russian team, but we had a real good time