Bird Feeder as Snow Fell 12/29/12

Snow began to fall about 11:20 on Saturday, December, 29. The temperature hovered ± 3ºF freezing. The snow accumulated at a rate of 1" / 25mm per hour for the first two hours.

Several species of birds visited the feeder. Of course the squirrels had their nosed in there, too.


©Damyon T. Verbo - all rights reserved

Innocent Beauty

The first day of Spring, I found a bird in a large flower pot just outside my sliding glass patio door.  There, on the door at my eye level, were several tiny feathers cemented to the glass.  The innocent little creature must have flown into the door and bounced into the pot. 

 It was dead.

Four weeks later.

The cycle of life goes on.

©Damyon T. Verbo - all rights reserved

Bird Feeder - Bird Types

Starting 15 February 2012 I have been recording time lapse video of my backyard, with my bird feeder being the main attraction.  The bird feeder is filled with sunflower seed chips and one suet block with a woodpecker recipe.

House Finch and Downy Woodpecker
I have seen the following at my feeder since 15 February 2012:

Tufted Titmouse

• Downy Woodpecker
• Chickadees
• Juncos
• House Finch
• White-Breasted Nuthatch
• Tufted Titmouse
• Northern Cardinal
• Squirrels

©Damyon T. Verbo - all rights reserved

Gold Finch Images At Last

Black Thistle Filled Sock

It has been some time since I replaced the thistle sock outside my breakfast room window.  If you have been following my posts for the sock you will know that I emptied one sock, tried to stain it with tea and coffee to bring down the whiteness of it in photographs.  The drawstring on that one broke and I bought a new bag of thistle seeds.  I emptied the sock which had overwintered and was full of stale seed, refilling it with fresh seed.  Since I hung that newly filled sock, I haven't seen any gold finches feeding there.  They either don't know the location of the sock or are shy of its placement near the window.  In any case I did see a gold finch recently and it flew away as soon as I approached the window.  Several weeks have elapsed and within the last few days I have seen two and three gold finches on the sock at one time.  But, they still flew at my approach to the window.  I needed to change something.

My breakfast room window is large.  It is three single windows arranged in a bay.  Each window is 6', 1.8288m tall and together close to that wide.  Each window has wooden blinds of its own.  I lowered all of the blinds to the bottom of the window.  I rotated the left one closed, the middle and right blinds were angled down about 45º from the horizon.  Now I could see the bird bath and the thistle sock and had some cover from their sight.  At least that was what I thought.  The gold finches still flew if I approached the window quickly.

Again I needed to make a change.  This time I had my camera in hand and approached the bay from the left side, behind the completely closed blind.  Before I started towards the window on the right I checked my camera settings.  ISO-400, aperture priority exposure chosen, aperture set at f22, white balance-full sun, zoom lens fully extended and set to manual focus.  I could see the finches through the blinds of the middle window set at 45º.  I waited until the finch was behind the sock and almost out of my view.  I sneaked up to the right window closest to the sock and stood there, unmoving.  The finch looked around the sock and at me and didn't fly.  It went back to feeding.  I raised my camera and pushed the blind slats open enough to allow the barrel of the lens to be free of viewing obstructions.  Again, the finch stopped pulling seeds out of the sock and looked at me. Again it didn't fly.  I checked the camera again.   The lens on manual focus and aperture priority @ f22.  I chose this because I was using the zoom lens at its maximum length which compresses the depth of view and I wanted as much in focus as possible in case of movement of the bird towards or away from the camera.  I chose manual focus because the AF might not choose the spot I will choose manually.  At each touch of the shutter I held my breath to diminish the possibility of camera shake.  I finally captured some decent images of a gold finch feeding on the thistle sock.

If I hadn't been able to capture any images of the gold finches, my next step was to cover the right window with newspapers leaving a hole large enough for the lens only.  My wife would not allow that to stay up for long.

Attracting Gold Finch

I moved the white sock containing black thistle seeds to the post near the breakfast room window, atop which sits the now empty robin nest.  In order to do that I moved the hanging planter of Verbena and Petunias to where the sock hung.  I also had a sock filled with black thistle hung throughout the winter from which the finches will not eat.  I emptied the overwintered sock onto the round patio table in a mound of seed.  I am curious to see if the finches will go through these seeds now that the seeds are easily accessible.  I shook out all of the seeds and turned the sock inside out removing every last seed.  For photographs, the stark white sock is too extreme for the exposures.  I will try to dye the sock brown with tea or coffee then buy some thistle seeds and refill the dyed sock.

I boiled water, placed a tea bag into a stainless steel bowl and submerged the sock.  It doesn't seem to be taking the tea stain.  I also placed about a tablespoon of white vinegar into the bowl as a mordant as done with easter egg dyes.  I will leave the sock submerged overnight.  If the sock has not accepted the stain by then I will add my coffee grounds to the bowl.  If neither of those work, I will spray paint the sock.

I have seen gold finches on the sock but have not had the opportunity to photography any there.  I did capture house finches at the bird bath.  The house finches do not feed from the sock nor do chickadees, nut hatches or titmice.

Male and Female House Finches at bird bath

Close up of Male House Finch at bird bath