Liz's Blog

Wow, it's been a couple of weeks since I last posted. Guess I've been busy. Let's see ... I moved the birdfeeder at work to a better location that wasn't so close to the parking lot, a little less disturbance with people walking by. Still feeding the chickadees. Here's a photo:

Needless to say, it's difficult to get a picture holding a camera in one hand while extending the other hand out.

In other news, Lynn and I drove down to Gainesville, Florida for Thanksgiving. A 2400 mile round trip, but it was good to get down there and see family I haven't seen for a while. To pass the time we listened to audio books, including Sean Hannity's "Deliver Us From Evil" and Ann Coulter's "Treason." Both of those are interesting, but a little dry to listen to while driving. The other two books which were really interesting were "Inside the Kingdom" by Carmen Bin Laden and "Green River Running Red." The former is about a woman who married one of the Bin Laden brothers, and the latter is about the Green River killer.

Overall I didn't get a lot of Thanksgiving food to eat, because we left Gainesville on Friday. So I'm looking forward to Christmas and plan to make (and eat) lots of cookies and pumpkin pie!

In other news, I have a concert this Saturday, Kirkwood concert band. Should be fun, I'm enjoying the music we're playing.

Yesterday a chickadee took the plunge and landed in my hand to grab a piece of walnut before flying off! I was so excited I almost cried. This was right as I was leaving for work. So of course this morning I had to come in early and try it again. Had it happen twice so far today. Chickadees all look alike so it's hard to tell if it's the same bird or a different one. I'm thinking the first time this morning was the same bird because it seemed to come right to my hand. The second time took a little longer so I think it was a different one.

It's interesting to see their little thought process at work while they are trying to decide whether to go for it or not. They hop around from branch to branch (I'm standing between two large shrubs) and chirp a lot at me. Next they'll swoop near my hand, going back to the branch after each pass. You can tell at that point they really want the snack. Then, they'll hover an inch or two away a couple of times, before finally landing. After that, no problem.

I also noticed that they know exactly what's going on in terms of where those nuts are. It's funny, when I drop one (or they drop one) on the ground, they'll go right to it. If I put one up on a branch, they know immediately that's what they want. I guess I'm learning a bit about bird behavior!

Hopefully sometime soon I'll have a photo of a chickadee in my hand.

Today I managed to get a couple of decent pictures of the chickadees and nuthatch. Right now I'm using an HP 945 camera (5.3 MP). Someday I'd like to get a digital SLR like the Canon Digital Rebel, but for now I'll make do with the HP.

These pictures are much smaller than the originals, but hopefully they still show enough detail. I'm standing a little over arm's length, and as you can see these birds enjoy the peanut butter suet balls I made for them!

Well, it was a bit disappointing with the birds today, they were all very shy and I didn't see the red breasted nuthatch at all. I'm thinking that it was a bit too warm (got to 65 degrees) for them to be very motivated. Sometime soon I'm sure that will change. They really do like the walnuts.

I was supposed to go to a wine-tasting event tonight, but my cat Salem wasn't feeling well this morning so I had to come back home and check on him. He got his annual shots yesterday, and then this morning he was very lethargic and limping on the leg where the needle was inserted. Wasn't even interested in eating, which is unusual for him. So the vet said if he wasn't doing better after work to bring him in. Fortunately he seems Ok now. Since I had to drive all the way home after work, I didn't feel like making the 30-mile trip back to Iowa City.

Still trying out this blog software ... so I thought I'd post about my ongoing project.

I recently decided I wanted to work on taming chickadees to eat out of my hand. I put up a cheap plastic tube feeder in some bushes right near the entrance to my office at work. This has proven very popular with the local bird population, which includes chickadees as well as nuthatches, woodpeckers, cardinals, sparrows, etc.

During the last week I've taken a number of breaks to go outside and stand near the bird feeder. It's gotten to where I can stand within arm's length of it while the chickadees take turns landing there. The feeder has mostly sunflower seeds with a few nuts in the mixture. I'd read somewhere that chickadees particularly like walnuts, so I got some and have been placing them on the branches in various places in order to tempt the birds to come closer. It's interesting to see how readily they can distinguish between a piece of walnut/peanut and the sunflower seeds. They definitely prefer the nuts! Haven't gotten anyone to land in my hand yet, but they have come within a foot of my face to grab those walnut treats.

I've also made friends with a red breasted nuthatch which seems very tame. Today it came very close a couple of times to landing in my outstretched hand, so I'm anticipating that it won't be long before it or one of the chickadees starts doing that. It may take the weather getting just a bit colder to convince them.

Tomorrow I'm going to take my camera and see if I can get any up-close photos of my new friends.