April 11, 1991 - Thoughts on Bird-Feeder EtiquetteApril 11, 1991 • The Suffolk Times C7
Thoughts on Bird - Feeder Etiquette
By Paul Stoutenburah
As the warmer weather starts to move
in I often get calls about whether a bird
feeder should be kept going through the
summer or not. It's my belief that a
feeder should be kept going as long as
you enjoy it, summer or winter. I per-
sonally always seem to find other
things taking my attention as the
weather warms up; by June the feeder
has been put on the back burner to
await refilling in the fall. Even before
then, the world has greened and insects
and seeds have started to become
available naturally.
The suet always seems to remain
through the summer a bit depleted and
delapidated- looking, but nevertheless
used occasionally by the woodpeckers
and chickadees. We just recently ran out
of suet and had to resort to a bag of
soup bones that were buried down in the
bottom of the freezer. You know how
that can be. I placed them in our suet
feeder and the chickadees and woodpeck-
ers are thoroughly enjoying the treasure
of marrow they hold.
We get all of the woodpeckers
starting with the regulars, the downy
and hairy, and lately the red - bellied. I
can remember when I first heard and
later saw this handsome red - topped
woodpecker from the South. It was
about this time of the year and, believe
it or not, over 30 years ago when I
heard its odd but now unmistakable call.
By following the sound I came to a dead
oak about eight inches in diameter.
There, about 18 feet up, was this large
woodpecker, new to me, chipping away
at a cavity it was excavating for its
nest.
The loud call I suppose was a call to
an appropriate mate, which, by the way,
never appeared. At that time there were
few of these southern woodpeckers
around and so even though a beautiful
high -rise apartment was hollowed out of
the tree it got no takers that year.
Today the call would surely be an-
swered because the red - bellied is now
well established in our area.
Not a Regular
Occasionally we also get the large na-
tive woodpecker, the flicker, to our
suet, but for some reason it has never
become a regular visitor. Right now
you can hear and see these big
woodpeckers going through their
mating rituals. This woodpecker spends
much of his time on the ground where
he pokes about looking for insects of
all sorts. His favorite food happens to
Focus on
Mature
be ants and you'll often see him out on
your lawn spending a good bit of time
poking and reaching down into an ant
hill with the uniquely long tongue used
to extract the ants. Each woodpecker has
a specific type of tongue for a specific
type of insect.
One of the big problems of flickers
and other cavity dwellers is the habit of
the common starling robbing their nest-
ing site. These aggressive bullies will
often drive out a flicker that has just
completed a new home.
The rarest visitor in the woodpecker
family is the sapsucker. This medium -
sized woodpecker is seen only in its mi-
gration through our area from its winter
home down south. It looks very much
like a downy or hairy woodpecker
except it has a tint of yellow in its
breast and both the male and female
have the red top- notch. The big
difference is in their food supply. As a
matter of fact, this transient gets most
of its nourishment from the sap it
gleans from a series of holes it drills
through the bark of soft - wooded trees.
Apples, pears, cherries, birch, shad and
other soft - skinned trees are its prime
targets.
Sap Brings Insects
The holes are usually drilled in a
series that looks like a band around the
tree. Once drilled, the sap flows just as
maple syrup flows in the making of
syrup. Once the flow has started the bird
makes regular rounds drinking the rich,
sugar -laden fluid. This sap also attracts
insects, which the sapsucker relishes for
his meat courses.
What makes the sapsucker different
from other woodpeckers is its tongue.
It's split and is used to swab up liquid,
unlike the standard woodpecker's tongue
that has barbs and sticky substances on
it to attach to insects deep inside the
wood or hole. The tongue, by the way,
is very long and in the case of the
common flicker it can extend over two
inches.
Because the sapsucker's diet is mainly
sap from trees it often becomes a bit
tipsy when the sap ferments. A drunken
sapsucker has often been seen flying er-
ratically and even running into branches
and, on occasion, into houses. It's sort
of the same situation that happens to
cows and pigs when they get into an or-
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Photo by Paul Stoutenburgh
BIRD FEEDING — Should one keep feeding birds throughout the year?
A rule of thumb: Feed as long as your interest lasts.
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lar type of bird. It makes us once again
realize that our world is full of activity
and it takes little effort to become in-
volved. It even becomes more enjoyable
when you start to know the names of
the birds and their attributes. A good
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