Tips for feeding birds in the summer

Summer just seems to be flying. If you can believe it, some birds have finished nesting and are already starting to fatten up in anticipation of the journey south. As we approach August and September you will see an increase in feeder activity.

Make sure to keep your feeders clean. It can be detrimental to the birds if you don’t clean your feeders regularly. In order to keep healthy birds at your feeders, remember the following:

1. Feeders should be cleaned at least once a month. Wild Birds Unlimited - East Lansing and Okemos- will clean your feeder for $5.00. Or you can purchase professional cleaners like Scoot or Poop-Off at Wild Birds Unlimited, or use a mild one part vinegar to nine parts water solution to clean all of your feeders. Disassemble feeders and immerse them completely for three minutes. Scrub with brushes (we have these too), rinse thoroughly, and let air dry.
2. Check your feeders after a rain to make sure the seed is dry. If not, replace it.

3. Use Feeder Fresh to keep your seed dry in humid weather.
4. Store seed in a cool dry location. Wild Birds Unlimited has closed steel containers that work well to protect seed from unwanted seed thieves or bad weather.
5. When choosing a new feeder look for something easy to clean and fill.

Also right now there are still young birds around learning the ropes and unfortunately, many times it's the inexperienced birds that fall victim to window strikes. Birds also strike windows as they quickly try to escape predators, hitting glass in a moment of panic. And during spring and fall migration, window strikes increase as birds unfamiliar with the area pass through your yard. Window strikes are hard to eliminate totally, but there are ways to reduce them and/or reduce their severity:
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1. Locate feeders and birdbaths within 1-2 feet of windows so birds can't gather enough speed to cause significant injury or about 20-30 feet from windows so birds have time to change direction.

2.Window feeders also alert birds to a window.
3. Window screens will reduce injury even if a bird flies into it. Use them where practical.
4. Decals like Window Alert placed on the outside of windows have had the most positive feedback from customers. Each decal contains a component which brilliantly reflects ultraviolet sunlight. This ultraviolet light is invisible to humans, but glows like a stoplight for birds.

Do Cuckoos leave their eggs in other nests?

Both the Black-billed and Yellow-billed Cuckoos nest in Michigan.

According to Birds of Michigan by Ted Black, “shrubby field edges, hedgerows, tangled riparian thickets and abandoned, overgrown fields provide the elusive Black-billed Cuckoo with its preferred nesting haunts. Despite not being particularly rare in Michigan, it remains an enigma to many would-be observers.

Arriving in late May, this cuckoo quietly hops, flits and skulks through low, dense, deciduous vegetation in its ultra-secret search for sustenance. Only when vegetation is in full bloom will males issue their loud, long, irregular calls, advertising to females that it is time to nest. After a brief courtship, newly joined Black-billed Cuckoo pairs construct a makeshift nest, incubate the eggs and raise their young, after which they promptly return to their covert lives.

The Black-billed Cuckoo is one of few birds that thrive on hairy caterpillars, particularly tent caterpillars. There is even evidence to suggest that populations of this bird increase when a caterpillar infestation occurs.

This cuckoo is reluctant to fly more than a short distance during nesting, but it will migrate as far as northwestern South America to avoid the North American winter.”

Similarly, “the Yellow-billed Cuckoo skillfully negotiates its tangled home within impenetrable, deciduous undergrowth in silence, relying on obscurity for survival.

Then, for a short period during nesting, the male cuckoo temps fate by issuing a barrage of loud, rhythmic courtship calls. Some people have suggested that the cuckoo has a propensity for calling on dark, cloudy days in late spring and early summer. It is even called “Rain Crow” in some parts of its North American range.

In addition to consuming large quantities of hairy caterpillars, Yellow-billed Cuckoos feast on wild berries, young frogs and newts, small bird eggs and a variety of insects, including beetles, grasshoppers and cicadas.

Though some Yellow-billed Cuckoos may lay eggs in the unattended nests of neighboring Black-billed Cuckoos, neither of these cuckoos is considered to be a “brood parasite.”

Some Yellow-billed Cuckoos migrate as far south as Argentina for the winter.”

Sources:

1. Birds of Michigan: by Ted Black

2. Photos from Wikipedia: Black-billed Cuckoo and Yellow-billed Cuckoo

Goldfinches: The Last Birds Nesting

While most birds have finished nesting and some are flying south, the goldfinches are just starting to nest.

Goldfinches nest in late summer and early fall. Depending on where you live, they nest at the end of July to September in the fork of a deciduous shrub or tree. They prefer hawthorn, serviceberry or sapling maples. 

Goldfinches delay the start of their nesting behavior until the thistles and other flower come into bloom so they can anticipate an abundant and reliable supply of seeds for their young. The female builds a compact cup nest of fibers, grass and spider silk and lines it with plant down and hair. So keep your WBU finch feeder filled with fresh Nyjer® (thistle) seed to welcome the American Goldfinch to your backyard refuge. 

It's a joy to see a flock of goldfinches raining down to the feeder or dancing in the flowers in search of seeds. And the happiest sound in the late summer is the call of baby goldfinch!

American Goldfinch Carduelis tristisOrder: PASSERIFORMES Family: Finches (Fringillidae)
The male goldfinch is a small, bright yellow finch with a black cap, wings, and tail, and white rump and undertail coverts. Females are duller with olive back and lacks black cap. Winter males will turn olive-brown with yellow shoulder bars, white wing bars, dark bill, and may show black on forehead and yellow on throat and face. Winter females are duller with buff wings and shoulder bars, and lack yellow and black on face and head. Juveniles resemble winter females but have a yellow wash on throat and breast.
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The American Goldfinch is a bird of many aliases: wild canary, yellowbird, lettuce bird, and thistle bird, just to name a few. Ask a gardening enthusiast and you might hear the name “lettuce bird” due to the bird’s practice of nibbling at the tender young leaves of this vegetable. The American goldfinch looks similar to a canary at a pet store and so sometimes is called "wild canary" or "yellowbird".
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Another descriptive name, is “thistle bird.” It has long been known that thistle plants and goldfinch are almost inseparable, and even its genus name, Caruelis, is from the Latin word carduus, meaning “thistle.” Goldfinches rely heavily on thistle plants as a source of food and for nest-building materials. A research study in Michigan observed Goldfinches always liked to nest near an abundant supply of thistle seed. If you want goldfinch to nest in your yard you can offer cotton nesting material too.

Takahe

Up to 1898 four specimens of the Takahe were captured. The discovery of the first specimen, in 1849, at Duck Cove, Resolution Island, is thus described by Dr Gideon Mantell when exhibiting the skin at a meeting of the Zoological Society in London. “this bird was taken by some sealers who were pusuing their avocations in Dusky Bay. Perceiving the trail of a large and unknown bird on the snow with which the ground was covered, they followed the footprints until they obtained sight of the Notornis, which their dogs instantly pursued, and after a long chase caught alive in a gully of a sound behind Resolution Island. It ran with great speed, and upon being captured uttered loud screams, and fought and struggled violently; it was kept alive three or four days on board the schooner and then killed and the body roasted and eaten by the crew, each partaking of dainty which was declared delicious. The beak and legs were a bright red colour. My son secured the skin.” The skin is preserved in the British Museum.
The second specimen of the Takahe was caught, in 1851, by a Maori on Secretary Island, opposite Deas Cove in Thompson Sound. This specimen is now in the Dominion Museum, Wellington. One of these birds is the subject of the coloured lithograph in the first edition of Buller’s Birds of New Zealand.
Nearly thirty years elapsed before the Takahe was seen again. The third example was taken in December, 1879, north of the Mararoa River, three and a half miles east of its tributary the Whitestone, and nine miles south east of the south end of Lake Te Anau. A rabbiter’s dogs ran down a large bird which was caught alive. Taking the bird from the dogs, the rabbiter killed it and hung it up on the ridge pole of the tent. The following day the station manager, Mr J. Connor, visited the camp and was given the bird. Suspecting it was a Notornis, Connor took it to the station where he carefully skinned it, preserving both skin and bones. This specimen was sent to London for sale but found no buyer for two years. It was then purchased by Mr Oscar Loebel for 110 pounds and presented to the Dresden Museum. The specimen disappreared during the second world war.
Again a long period, nearly twenty years elapsed without a Takahe being seen. On the evening of August 7th, 1898, Donald Ross was walking along the shore of the Middle Fiord, Lake Te Anau, when his dog suddenly darted into the bush and shortly after emerged with a bird in its mouth. The bird was not quite dead, but expired a short time after it was brought to the camp. Recognising the bird to be a Notornis, Ross the his brother rowed with it to the south end of the lake, a distance of twenty five miles, and despatched it to Invercargill. The whole specimen - skin, bones and internal organs were preserved and described. The skin, now mounted in the Dunedin Museum, was purchased by the New Zealand Government for 250 pounds.
Fifty years, three and a half months after this fourth bird had been captured the people of New Zealand and indeed the whole world were told that a colony of Takahe had been found in a glacial valley in the eastern end of the Murchison Range 2,200 feet above Lake Te Anau. The news was received as a notable ornithological event. The discovery was not just a lucky accident of a deer stalker but was the result of a planned search for the mysterious bird, entirely due to Dr G. B. Orbell of Invercargill. Orbell first visited the valley in 1948, and found footprints of an unknown bird but from his description they could not definitely be identified. Allowing the winter to pass, Orbell set out again and on November 20th the birds were actually seen and two caught in a net taken up the mountain for the purpose. After being photographed the birds were released. The rest is history.