We’re feeding mealworms to our yard birds this winter. Well, to the chickadees. They find them first and clean the plate. I was curious about this. Why do the chickadees feed on the worms so intently? After much Googling I found a Web site entitled “British Garden Birds.” It offers a table listing energy values for foods you might offer birds. Topping the list is suet at 800 calories per 100 grams. Sunflower hearts are next at 600, then peanuts at 560, sunflower seeds (in the shell, I assume) at 500, Niger thistle seed at 480, with mealworms last at 150 calories per 100 grams. The text on this site said that sunflower seeds are high in oil, mealworms high in protein. Perhaps that explains the preference the chickadees show. The worms, by the way, quickly freeze solid in cold weather, but the birds don’t mind. (In the photo, a White-breasted Nuthatch that managed to get in the meal worm line.)

 Many wild-bird supply stores offer dozens of different kinds and mixes of seed and other types of food for your backyard birds. When you make the purchase are you buying with birds or your own perceptions first in mind? What, exactly, do birds want? There is an ongoing study, in which you can participate, seeking to answer that question. The Wild Bird Research Foundation is collecting information on seed preference from people who feed birds. You can sign up and contribute, or simply take a look at information gathered in 2006 and 2007. The Web address is www.projectwildbird.org. (Photo: An American Goldfinch, molting into breeding plumage, at a feeder filled with black oil sunflower seeds.)

About 40 years ago I watched as a couple of dozen transplanted Wild Turkeys were released in Carver Park. It was hoped a few of them would survive and perhaps even reproduce. Well, any worries those folks had were long ago set aside. We might even have created a new species: Urban Turkeys. In some places, Prospect Park in southeast Minneapolis for example, they’re hardly wild. This pair of birds has settled in along Orlin Avenue SE. They wander through the neighborhood, nibbling at plants, digging in gardens for acorns buried by squirrels. They really like rose hips according to my friend Susan who called me recently as the birds stood on the deck of her house and pulled at her rose bushes. Last year, this pair of birds (or another) nested in an Orlin flowerbed. Incubation began in April. The homeowner took pity in August and removed the obviously infertile eggs so the bird could get on with its life.�

 I’m convinced. Yesterday I wrote about a new variety of safflower seed called golden safflower. It has a thinner shell and is more nutritious. A friend tried it, telling me her birds strongly preferred it to ordinary safflower. I bought some golden safflower late yesterday. We have two small tray feeders attached to a patio door with suction cups. We fill the trays with sunflower chips (no shells). I put meal worms in one of the trays most mornings. The chickadees eat the meal worms first, then feed on sunflower seeds. This has been going on for months. Today I filled one tray with golden safflower. Take your choice: your familiar sunflower seeds on the right, golden safflower seeds you have never before seen (at least not here) on the left. When the chickadees arrived this morning they cleaned up the worms, and then immediately and without hesitation began taking golden safflower seeds, sometimes two at a time. Smart guys. We have one tube feeder filled with safflower hanging in the feeder array in the backyard. We have always used the white safflower. Cardinals eat it, but neither much nor quickly. That feeder now holds golden safflower. Let’s see what happens. The new safflower I bought, by the way, cost no more than the old: $21.99 for 20 pounds. (In the photo: regular safflower front left, golden safflower front right, sunflower chips to the rear.)

 I’ve purchased five pounds of the new golden safflower. We’ll see if suburban birds find it as attractive as city birds do. I also bought five pounds of millet, a bird food I have ignored because of its appeal to sparrows. I don’t want House Sparrows at our feeders on a regular basis, another of my bird prejudices. But, we do get juncoes scrabbling for sunflower crumbs beneath the feeders attached to our patio door glass. Juncoes eat millet. Duh. So, I will see if they find my new scatterings appealing. I’m just sprinkling the millet on the deck boards, very close to the house where snow is less likely to bury it. The millet info came from a DVD produced by the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service as part of its effort to improve birding opportunities on national wildlife refuges. This production goes into detail about bird feeders and bird food, including an endorsement for millet. There’s always something new to learn. That’s a junco in the photo, sitting on the railing of our deck.

There is a new variety of safflower seed on the market. It is slightly golden in color, has a thinner shell, and is more nutritious. A friend in Minneapolis has two feeders offering safflower, one for the old seed, the second for the new. Her bird visitors immediately preferred the new seed once they tried it. She told me the preference ratio is about two to one. I want to know why the birds made such an immediate and well-defined change. What did they know and how did they know it. A staffer at our local bird-supply store suggests the thinner shell, taking less effort (and energy) to open might be the reason. Perhaps.

 Discussing the Great Horned Owl that appeared in our backyard last week I mentioned that we have not seen nor heard a Barred Owl for several months. A Minnetonka birder discussing owls on an email network this weekend said that he is seeing Great Horned Owls in his neighborhood, but has not seen a Barred Owl there for some time, although in the past both species had been seen coincidentally in the area. Great Horned Owls are the most significant avian predator of Barred Owls. When horned owls move into a territory it is possible that the Barred Owls move out or are eaten by their larger cousins. While the two species of owls might look close in size, Great Horned Owls at three pounds weigh twice as much. The photo shows the foot of a Great Horned Owl. The talons have needle points. Note the texture of the inside of the foot. Those stipples have the texture of rubber, improving grip, as if the talons alone were not enough. The photo is of an owl found dead near Grand Marais several winters ago. It had been shot in the back.�

I have written recently about the Rose-breasted Grosbeak that has so far over-wintered in our neighborhood. It is a daily visitor to the seed feeders attached by suction cups to a large glass door in our dining room. On the night of 30 Dec the temp fell to 15 below zero here (western Minneapolis suburb). For the two days before that when the grosbeak came to feed it didn’t look good. We did not think the bird would make it through that frigid night. It was breathing hard and fast, its bill gaping with each breath. We’ve seen it in prolonged shivering. On the 31st we didn’t see it all day long, assumed it was a goner, then discovered it sitting in the feeder after dark. It arrived as we were about to leave the house to attend a New Year’s celebration. We would not have been surprised to find the bird dead when we got home. Nope. There he sat, in the feeder, leaning against the glass, gaping with a steady rhythm. The bird obviously was not going to wherever it has usually roosted for the night. My wife and I discussed what we could or should do. We decided to see what the morning brought. At daylight the grosbeak was exactly where it had been at 1 a.m. Now what? Capturing the bird and taking it to a rehab site was/is a possibility. The bird is very mobile, however, flying well. It allows us to stand almost nosed-to-nose with it as long as glass separates us, but sudden movements by us inside or our appearance on the deck put it to flight. That makes capture difficult. The 0ther problem I have is that the bird is programmed to die. It’s failure to migrate indicates to me a defect that under natural circumstances would have been or should be fatal. Circumstances here are not natural because we feed birds, and this fellow has taken advantage of that. Still, nature has maintained viable populations of Rose-breasted Grosbeaks and all other species by culling from their populations those individuals unfit for survival. If a bird that should migrate to Mexico instead spends the winter in Minnesota, that bird is unfit. It should be allowed to die. If its defect is genetic and could be passed to offspring that only weakens the species. A female that could invest her genes in a healthy and normal male bird wastes those genes if she mates with a defective male. That’s the way the system works. And so, although we already tamper with nature by feeding and putting out water, we’ve decided to do no more. The grosbeak is on its own. What would you do in this situation?

  A Great Horned Owl was in our backyard this morning. It was brought to my attention by a pair of crows. They were harassing the owl, calling loudly, occasionally making short winged forays at the big bird. The owl sat calmly, facing away from me until I took a dozen steps from our back door. It then pivoted its head 180 degrees so I was looking at its back and its face at the same time (see photo). We haven’t seen or heard a Great Horned Owl here for some months, although for our eight years here there has always been at least one of these birds in the neighborhood. We are well into courtship season now (Great Horned Owls nest much earlier than other resident birds), so the owls are likely to be more vocal if not more active.  I’ll have to start paying more attention to night sounds, and hope the crows continue to do location work for me.

Tax time, soon to arrive, is the time to remember Minnesota’s Chickadee Check-off. This is a line on your state tax form that gives you the opportunity to designate a portion of your tax refund for use by the DNR’s non-game wildlife department. Non-game efforts are important to song birds. If you have no refund you can make a contribution by adding that amount to the tax you owe. Tax returns filed for 2007 produced $1.1 million for the department, almost half the department’s annual budget. Average contribution was about $16. Check-off contributions made this coming tax season are likely to be even more important than in the past, given the budget deficit state government faces. This is a very simple way to help keep song birds on our landscape. If someone else prepares your taxes, be sure to tell them you want to use the Chickadee Check-off.