"My heart is like a singing bird." – Christina Rossetti
LAKE COUNTY, Calif. – After the pounding, driving rain subsides, birds of all description emerge from their shelters to feed on fat earthworms and grubs which the rains have washed up.
Robins concertize in the fields, while the toyon and other shrubbery hum with the activity of birds flying to and fro to “make hay while the sun shines.”
Rain returns, whispering like secret lovers, but that doesn't deter birds' activity. They will keep feeding so long as the showers don't pound them back to their dry stumps, or their stalwart vigils where they perch on foliage to save energy until the next reprieve.
Birds are blessed with the ability to shed water via the composition of their flight feathers. They preen while using the oil from a gland under their tail feathers to stay waterproof. Preening keeps feathers “aligned” and in place to allow them to discard rain like a rain gutter.
Birds are adapted to survive also, by the amazing variety of their bills. The bird bill is a multipurpose tool, much like a Swiss Army knife. The bill is used not only to feed and preen, but to aid in nest building, and, in some cases it is used to attack.
Many birds enjoy a menu with variety, while some birds specialize in foods, depending on availability.
Insectivores, those birds with slim bills, like wrens and warblers can garner bugs from bark or brush piles.
Seed and nut eating birds like goldfinches and juncos use their conical beaks to crack open seeds and nuts. Carnivores like hawks and eagles use their specially adapted beaks to tear off meat when they feed.
Steller's jays’ diet is varied since they are omnivores, and their beaks allow them to eat eggs, baby birds, acorns, seeds, fruit, small lizards and insects.
Northern flickers dine on nutritious larvae, ants, fruits and seeds. They jack-hammer the ground like their relative, the woodpecker, to get at the underground insects.
Birds bring into play another remarkable use for their bills – that of ornithophily, or bird pollination of flowering plants.
Hummingbirds are nectarivores who, while in the process of feeding on sugar-rich nectar from flowering plants, can pollinate plants at the same time.
According to National Geographic Magazine, a bird that belonged to the Pumiliornis tessellatus family, which is now extinct and lived over 47 million years ago, has been found to be the earliest bird pollinator. Its fossilized form, just three inches in length, was found with grains of pollen in its stomach.
Birds have small brains, but you most certainly cannot call them bird-brained creatures!
For more avian information see the Cornell Lab of Ornithology Facebook page at https://www.facebook.com/cornellbirds .
The Cornell Lab of Orinthology's Magazine "Living Bird of Winter" can be downloaded, and even has a coloring page: https://www.allaboutbirds.org/living-bird-winter-2017-table-of-contents/#_ga=1.93317150.2082424952.1486407917 .
Another good resources is the local Redbud Audubon Chapter, http://www.redbudaudubon.org/ and https://www.facebook.com/redbudaudubon?fref=ts .
Kathleen Scavone, M.A., is a retired educator, potter, writer and author of “Anderson Marsh State Historic Park: A Walking History, Prehistory, Flora, and Fauna Tour of a California State Park” and “Native Americans of Lake County.” She also writes for NASA and JPL as one of their “Solar System Ambassadors.” She was selected “Lake County Teacher of the Year, 1998-99” by the Lake County Office of Education, and chosen as one of 10 state finalists the same year by the California Department of Education.
The Living Landscape: Bird behavior 101
- Kathleen Scavone
- Posted On