THE VIRGINIAN-PILOT
Copyright (c) 1996, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: Wednesday, February 7, 1996 TAG: 9602060126
SECTION: VIRGINIA BEACH BEACON PAGE: 02 EDITION: FINAL
COLUMN: Coastal Journal
SOURCE: Mary Reid Barrow
LENGTH: Medium: 96 lines
A friend told me over the weekend that my bird feeder was like a McDonald's drive-thru on a busy summer Saturday at the Beach.
The birds were out in greater number than I had seen all year. Fickle, feathered friends, the birds usually come when they really need me. Usually they prefer the natural food they find in First Landing/Seashore State Park near my house.
But conditions were right this icy, snowy weekend. In addition to plentiful food, the birds found an extra dividend. A large pine branch had fallen at the foot of the feeder, and the cold little creatures could dart from under the pine boughs to dine on sunflower seeds and then back to shelter again.
Between meals, a cardinal, puffed up big and brilliant against the cold, sat in one of the boughs. Its crimson feathers and the green pine stood out against the snow, a picture-perfect Christmas card.
A flock of slate-colored juncos, often called ``snow birds,'' were living up to their nickname, scratching around under the feeder, dining on dropped seed from the snow-covered ground. Their charcoal-gray backs contrasted with white breasts.
A pair of wrens, regular residents in my yard, were hanging off the suet feeder, feasting on the store-bought peanut, raisin and suet mixture, something they don't do on a regular basis. Trying to hang onto the suet cage while pecking at the contents, they worked their perky tails overtime to maintain balance.
Then, always busy, they'd fly up to the birdseed feeder to eat, then down to the ground to feast, and then they'd dart off into an outside shed whose door had been left ajar. Wrens know how to use manmade structures to their best advantage, and that shed provided good shelter this weekend.
A flock of robins flew through, thirsty from their flight. It appeared they knew I would be out to defrost the icy bird bath with hot water. The robins waited low in the tree branches and as soon as I turned my back, four of them flew in, circled the bird bath and began to drink.
Time and again that day I would defrost the water and each time the robins would arrive right on cue.
Early Sunday morning I spotted a squirrel on a branch near the feeder, huddled against the cold. It too was waiting, facing south to avoid the cold blast of air coming in from the north, its tail spread out over its back, like a windbreak. Unlike the robins, the squirrel was waiting in the cold for the morning meal of peanuts it knew I would bring.
The little birds were in constant motion. Chickadees, house finches, tufted titmice, nuthatches and sparrows flew back and forth, grabbing one sunflower seed at a time while a lone gold finch perched calmly on the thistle feeder, eating one tiny thistle seed after another.
Several doves took another tack. I have a small Plexiglas window feeder filled with safflower seeds. All weekendlong these doves dominated that little feeder, sometimes on top and sometimes inside. Sometimes they were eating and sometimes they were just huddled there out of the cold, taking advantage of a little roof and the slight warmth of the window glass.
On Sunday afternoon when the sun came out, three crows landed under the feeder, their sleek black feathers outlined by the snow and glistening in the sunlight. They came to nab the peanuts that I had put out earlier for the hungry squirrel.
While the crows strutted cockily around the ground, the little birds kept their distance. But as soon as the big bullies were gone, they all fluttered in to get back to business.
I wrote last week about how the birds provide great entertainment for my indoor cat who sits at the window for hours on end watching their every move. This weekend the birds were the house-bound humans' entertainment, too.
P.S. More than one-third of North American families use an average of 60 pounds of birdseed each year, spending $500 million, the Virginia Dare Soil & Water Conservation District newsletter estimates. To join the crowd and receive information on attracting birds to your yard and feeding them, call the district's office at 427-4775.
HUMPBACK WHALE RESEARCH will be discussed from 5 to 7 p.m. Sunday at the Virginia Marine Science Museum. Susan Barco, who has been studying the whales in Virginia, will speak. Admission is $2 for museum members and $4 for non-members. To find out more, call 437-6003.
RIVER OTTERS are the topic for children in kindergarten through third grades from 4:30 to 6 p.m. Feb. 13 at the Virginia Marine Science Museum. Kids will learn about the otters that will be in the museum's new Salt Marsh Pavilion otter aquarium later this winter. The fee is $5 for museum members and $7 for non-members. Call 437-6003 to register. MEMO: What unusual nature have you seen this week? And what do you know about
Tidewater traditions and lore? Call me on INFOLINE, 640-5555. Enter
category 2290. Or, send a computer message to my Internet address:
mbarrow(AT)infi.net.
ILLUSTRATION: Photos by MARY REID BARROW
Above: A feathered friend takes solace from the cold by feeding at a
window bird feeder. Left: A dove seems content to sit atop a feeder,
where food is plentiful.
by CNB