In other news, our resident Annas have fledged their 3rd brood since
December(if the short tailed female looking hoards at my feeder are any
indication) and the males are still displaying for the girls. I'm glad to
hear that I'm not the only one missing my Rb's though.
On Sun, Jan 27, 2019 at 10:00 AM Harry Fuller <atowhee@xxxxxxxxx> wrote:
These irregular wintering birds all respond to food supply...here in
McMinnville we daily get RB NUthatches on our suet and sunflower seeds, an
occasional WB Nuthatch will wander by but there are few oaks in our
suburban area...I walk eight blocks to the nearest oak grove and I get
Acorn Woodpeckers and WBNU...
years ago a wise old birder explained that many, non-sedentary wintering
birds base their life on the calculus of calories...what food can I get for
what energy expended...if food supply drops for any reason, the nomads move
on...some years waxwings, other years not so much or none...other typical
winter wanderers: the kinglets, flicker, Varied Thrush, siskin (last year
abundant here, this year zero), redpoll, snipe, crossbills. In the midwest
nuthatches are migratory, here they are more nomadic as any low elevation
area could have reasonable food supply in a given year
For some reason there is less food for the RBNs this year...maybe an
insect die-off, or some quick in the ups and downs of caterpillar or spider
demographics.
Let's hope it is NOT the killer beak disease:
https://phys.org/news/2016-07-newly-virus-prime-often-fatal-beak.html
Maybe many of them just shifted east this year:
https://www.audubon.org/news/red-breasted-nuthatches-are-invading-northeast-fall
On Sun, Jan 27, 2019 at 9:47 AM Daniel Farrar <jdanielfarrar@xxxxxxxxx>
wrote:
I have observed the same lack of nuthatches on the Lane coast. Same with
Red Crossbill and Sisken. All very scarce this winter.
Daniel
On Sun, Jan 27, 2019, 9:34 AM Karen Saxton <kcsaxton@xxxxxxxxx> wrote:
For the nearly 30 years I've lived in this house(outside Coquille, Coos
Cnty) we've had a large population of RB nuthatches coming to our feeder
during the fall winter and spring months. This year I started to hear them
again in June, then again in October. After that they disappeared. I have
not seen or heard one bird, in the woods, at the feeder. Ideas?
--
Harry Fuller
author of: *San Francisco's Natural History: Sand Dunes to Streetcars:*
https://ecowise.wordpress.com/2017/04/20/sfnh/
author of *Great Gray Owls of CA-OR-WA*:
https://ecowise.wordpress.com/2015/05/08/the-great-gray-owl-book/
author of *Freeway Birding*: *freewaybirding.com
<http://freewaybirding.com>*
birding website: http://www.towhee.net
my birding blog: atowhee.wordpress.com
