Flipping birds at Market Lake

ROBERTS — Some people flip houses, but Mother Nature is in the process of flipping birds. This week at Market Lake, the summer birds were filling up on bugs and seeds. After this nasty weather is over, they will most likely be gone, and the winter birds will start arriving. While walking and photographing birds in the west windbreak, there were hundreds of birds, but I only saw one mountain chickadee and one Northern flicker — birds that usually winter in that area.

Most of the birds were probably migrants from summering further north and had stopped by to fill their tank for the rest of their migration south. There were several poplar trees that had four or five species of birds filling up on insects captured in the bark. Dark-eyed juncos, yellow-rumped warblers, white-crowned sparrows, ruby-crowned kinglets and even a few American robins were snagging insects in one tree. There were juncos, robins and sparrows on the ground harvesting seeds. The kinglets were in abundance on the tree.

The yellow-rumped warblers mostly were high in the trees, sallying out and picking off flying insects with their bill and then flying back to a perch to eat their victim. Time after time, they did this, and I wondered how many of those tiny bugs they had to eat to fill themselves. I wanted them to move into my backyard during the summer to help me get rid of the mosquitoes that often interrupt my backyard naps.

While sitting next to a large dead tree, watching the activities of the small songbirds, suddenly every one of them went into hiding.

Then I heard the cawing of a murder of crows. Fourteen of them landed in the tops of the trees yelling at the top of their lungs – no wonder they are called a “murder” when they get together. As I stood up, they all left while still singing their murderous hymn. It did not take long for the true songbirds to come out from their hiding places and resume their eating.

I walked a little further down the windbreak before I found another preferred tree that had a lot of birds in it. After I had sat about 10 minutes, a mountain chickadee came by to sing a song and catch a few bugs. It was soon followed by a female Northern flicker that stayed just a few minutes.

I have also had an influx of dark-eyed juncos, yellow-rumped warblers and kinglets in my backyard — eating seeds from weeds that grew around the edge of the garden. Friday morning, it appeared that most of the songbirds had left after the rain/snow dusting that we had during the night. Most are probably gone until next spring when they head back north.

In the next couple of weeks, we will see major differences in the bird species that we view. Friday morning, I once again heard the black-capped chickadees and saw my first downy woodpecker since the springtime. The sandhill cranes will soon be leaving in huge flocks. Snow geese may be seen flying south, and the tundra swans and trumpeter swans will be coming through. Many of the trumpeters will start feeding on the rotten, frozen potatoes and will be gathering at Deer Parks Wildlife Management Area.

It looks like we will be getting a little break in the weather again, so I will wait until after the next major front before I put out my winter feeders. Until it gets bitter cold or a little snow on the ground, winter songbirds can fend for themselves, and a lot of food you offer them will be wasted.

A word about what food to feed during the winter. I like black oil sunflower seeds for my main offering and prefer the shelled pieces, but the whole seeds are good enough. I also like to put out peanut-flavored suet cakes and socks of nyger seeds. The American goldfinch love the nyger seeds, while the flickers and woodpeckers love the suet cakes.

Winter should be just around the corner, so help the birds through the winter while you get the enjoyment of watching them.