Maine
Here’s why Maine birds sometimes have puzzling behavior
It’s that point of yr when spring is transferring round, birds are transferring round, and I’m simply sitting round. It’s a time once I ponder imponderable issues.
As an illustration, why am I seeing so many crows feeding alongside the sting of the freeway proper now? I doubt there’s been a grad scholar assigned to check the query, so right here’s my finest guess. That’s the place the meals is.
As I give it some thought, roads are huge, naked areas. If a morsel falls on the pavement, it’s simpler to see. Then, all winter lengthy, wind and snow plows push the whole lot to the sting the place it collects. Lastly, the snow melts and all of the crumbs settle into the slim grassy strip simply off the sting of the tar. For a crow, it’s a banquet desk, safely past the sting of visitors.
Once I stroll out to the chook feeder, the chickadees, nuthatches, titmice and woodpeckers barely present any concern. However the blue jays and mourning doves skedaddle for canopy immediately. Why?
I ponder why jays and doves really feel extra susceptible. The smaller birds are extra maneuverable, in a position to dodge an assault earlier than reaching cowl. Jays and doves are much less agile. They need to pace to cowl as shortly as they will get there.
Moreover, they’re larger, and make a extra engaging meal for raptors. Regardless that jays and doves are simply as aware of my presence because the smaller birds, they’re instinctively jumpier, lest they be eaten.
I believe I see the identical conduct in squirrels. Grey squirrels are fast to run to the closest tree once I enter the yard. Crimson squirrels dawdle till I get shut. Chipmunks barely care.
Foxes are skittish. Just a few years in the past, a vixen had made a den behind my storage, and raised her pups in my entrance yard. Initially, she’d bark an alarm once I walked out the door. Slowly, she acquired so used to me that she’d suckle the pups within the driveway as I watched, lastly sure that I wasn’t the risk she thought I used to be.
Wild turkeys are sport birds, cautious of people. Besides that they’ll stroll proper right into a yard and chow down on the dropped seeds beneath chook feeders. Why are they immediately unafraid? As a result of we inadvertently educated them that manner.
I’ve an anthropocentric streak that leads me to take a look at wildlife as if animals are a part of my world, typically forgetting that I’m a part of theirs. We’re all wandering across the panorama collectively. Generally, we prey on them. Generally they prey on us (ticks). We get used to the annual rhythms, and so do they. Turkeys have had sufficient expertise being hunted that they’ve developed an intuition for figuring out when to get suspicious of individuals.
Crows have at all times roosted communally in winter. A long time in the past, they had been persecuted for harming crops and stayed away from individuals. Now that looking strain has decreased, they’ve gotten used to roosting on the town, the place they deem themselves protected from being shot and are much less susceptible to different threats.
Waterfowl present the same consciousness. I at all times chuckle in autumn when geese and geese collect in municipal ponds in looking season. They’ve discovered they will’t be hunted there. Why are deer really easy to see proper up till opening day of deer season, then vanish after they see extra individuals getting into the woods? They know.
Moose had been simpler to look at earlier than the moose hunt was re-established in 1980. Now they react to people with far more warning.
Canada jays are infamous for soliciting human meals, however solely the jays residing close to campsites do it. Forest-based jays don’t. It’s a realized conduct that comes from watching us.
Watching birds, and watching wildlife, turned much more enjoyable once I lastly grasped they had been additionally watching me. I used to observe their conduct. Now I watch mine, cautious to not ship the incorrect sign. I watch how they react. I speak to them. They might not perceive the phrases, however they might perceive the intent. Or not. So what? We’re within the yard collectively. Why not acknowledge one another?
American robins and track sparrows will quickly be in everybody’s yard. How shut will they allow you to get earlier than flitting off? For those who stare at them, stroll straight towards them, or make any sudden actions, how does the gap change? For those who sit quietly, will they lose curiosity and saunter nearer? My nervous mourning doves do.
This spring, don’t simply watch nature. Be a part of it.