DO WHAT YOU CAN TO PREVENT BIRD INJURIES

by John Karrigan

I have very few local bird sightings (of my own) for February, as usual. But I have some sightings and other information that I hope will prove interesting to you.
Usually I make trips to the park often, even in the worst weather, but this year I did not go at all during the 18-day February cold spell. I suppose it could be advancing age, or it could be that I spent almost all of the month house- and animal-sitting in St. Paul. The St. Paul house has the same backyard birds (Cardinals, Blue Jays, Chickadees, Juncos and English Sparrows) as this neighborhood, and the same mammals (Rabbits and Grey Squirrels)—with one exception: a small herd of White-tailed Deer.

The house has a fairly large and very nice yard that abuts some other large and nice yards in a fully developed area (Highland Park) on a fairly major street (Fairview Avenue). The woman of that house told me deer had been frequenting the yard this winter but I thought she was just another delusional liberal. She just might be a delusional liberal, but there really were deer. I would look every night and did not see any for the first week. Then one night, two large buck with beautiful antlers walked by, about 10 feet from the back of the house. Later that night, at least four doe were in the yard. So I think that counts as a small herd. There were six for sure, and probably eight or 10 as they moved from behind various trees and various neighbors' gardens. Some nights I would not see any; then I would see them several nights in a row. One night four doe stood in the front yard watching cars go by and snack-ing lightly on trees and shrubs. Another night, two lay down in the back yard, one on each side of the artificial moose and black bear that are always there. They would also eat a little bird food and drink out of the heated birdbath. I don't know if anyone finds this interesting, but I certainly enjoyed the viewing experience on very cold February nights in the middle of the metropolitan area.

On the first warm day of the month (Feb. 19), I made my first park walk. The only birds I saw were Crows, but I heard Chickadees, and I saw lots of people and dogs on the 43-degree day. A young man was attempting to play basketball (though there was still snow on the court) and people could actually stop and talk to each other without getting frostbite. One downside was that most areas of the park were bare and there was evidence of too many irresponsible dog walkers. But now that is all covered with snow.

While I did not see much last month, a reader called about seeing three mature Bald Eagles on Lake Hiawatha. One spent about two hours on the ice and took a fish from a small patch of open water. Crows were there to harass the Eagles. Another person reported a flock of Robins at the Roberts Bird Sanctuary on the north side of Lake Harriet. She wondered if they were very early migrants. I think they were part of the group that now stays all year in the Minnesota River Valley Wildlife Refuge area, and occasionally ventures north and south of there, foraging for food.

I have nothing new to report on Flying Squirrels, but sometime when the weather and scheduling are right, I am going to visit the nice family that invited me over to see "their" flying squirrels.

Now for something completely different, but about birds.

One of the papers presented at the Minnesota Ornithologists Union paper session in early December was about reducing bird kills at Minnesota windows, presented by Joanna Eckles of the group, Audubon Minnesota. She later made the same presentation (with minor updates) to a much smaller group at the January Minneapolis Audubon meeting. I was in attendance at both highly interesting, but troubling, presentations. On Valentine's Day, a friend called and told me there was a story about it in the "real newspaper," the Strib.