Hi friends!
I wanted to share some interesting bird behavior the last couple of days.
As I have mentioned in previous posts I have a koi pond up here on a hill
out in Melrose with a bird-friendly waterfall. I have lots of different
species breeding and raising young and the waterfall seems a necessary
supply of water for them. Saturday night the pond pump went out and could
not be repaired and we have a new one coming in tomorrow. I was so
concerned about the birds not having water that we returned to the Koi show
again Sunday hoping one of the vendors might have what we needed. You
should have seen how one gal's eyes rolled ;) when I told her the koi were
fine but I was worried about my birds! Anyway, knowing it was going to be
2-3 days before the flow of water was going to occur again I put a large
plant-pot saucer on each of the 3 waterfall shelves with rocks and water
hoping this would satisfy them in the time being. Well, 98% of them have
been completely preplexed looking all around for the water, not knowing
what in the heck these things are where their water should be. I was going
nuts expecially when red-breasted nuthatch and chestnut-backed chickadee
parents are bringing in fledglings and don't know what to do. Towards the
end of the day yesterday, a female w. tanager figured out how to get a
drink from one of the saucers, a sp. towhee bathed on top of a lilypad and
one of 5 chestnut backed chickadees watched the towhee do this and then
followed suit. Today again the nuthatches, black throated gray warblers,
orange crown warblers, black- headed grosbecks that I happened to see still
could not figure out what to do. At about midday, Harry saw the koi could
use some aeration so hooked up a little spout of water making water
movement sounds and birds were coming in from everywhere thinking their
waterfall was back. Again I had to watch even more perplexed birds! So
today only the w. tananger female got a drink, one chickadee took a bathe
in one of the saucers, and a robin took a drink. Harry's say's tomorrow he
will try to move the little spout of water over to the first ledge of the
waterfall to see if this will accommodate the birds better until the pump
arrives. I'm going to be so glad when things are back to normal! These are
not city birds!
Stacy Burleigh
