Thursday, July 12, 2012

A Surprise at the Bird Feeder

The birds that come to my porch feeders are birds that do not mind people. They are the usual suburban camp followers-House Finches, House Sparrows. And the common permanent residents such as Jays and Chickadees and Titmice and Carolina Wrens.

I was surprised then to see a Hairy Woodpecker yesterday, not only eating for 20 minutes at the seed feeder, but drinking syrup from the hummingbird feeders.

(The Ruby-throats ignore my feeders. They like the Wendy's Wish salvia better).

Birds adapt. Consider the gulls seen at any landfill. Consider the eagle at Reelfoot Lake who snatches a duck a hunter has shot down before the duck or the retriever can hit the water-

Birds must have inherited this from their ancient ancestors,who survived planetary calamity and extinction by growing smaller and taking to the air. Who doubts that they were once dinosaurs?

I think velociraptors became hummingbirds ,who lost the blood lust but kept the bad temper!

4 comments:

Sam said...

We have a male hummingbird who camps-out in the flower garden and chases all the other hummingbirds away. I've never seen him actually eat, he's too busy being disagreeable.

betsy said...

And the females are even meaner!

Hollywood forever, Kevin said...

Hey Betsy, Thanks for dropping by and saying hey. It's nice to be back and following all my favorites. How wonderful to have a woodpecker drop by, lucky you. Thanks for the sweet words. Hope all is well. K

Nan said...

When I see the wild turkeys I think immediately of velociraptors, though they are sweeter tempered than those in the Jurassic Park movies. :<) I am exceedingly fond of those turkeys.