Song for Jasmine

This spring, we had the inescapable feeling that we were being watched. Somewhere nearby, we felt, someone was keeping their eye on us.

Sure enough, we were being spied on by this magpie. He’s watching us to see when we put out peanuts on the garden wall. As soon as we do, the moment we turn our backs to walk back indoors, he comes down, takes one, and flies off with it. He has to be quick, because he is not the only one who knows about the peanuts. Someone else knew about them first.

We first put out peanuts for a crow that started visiting us in late winter. He took an interest in our garden when he saw the peanuts we were putting out for the birds. He would perch on the fence, looking in, trying to summon up the courage to come into the small, enclosed space. Sometimes he would come down and take one. Often, he was too wary to actually come down, so missed out on a treat.

We noticed that the crow has a damaged leg. He hobbles on it and is clearly somewhat handicapped, which we think may have made him more shy and cautious than he would otherwise be. So to make things easier for him, we put the peanuts on the corner of the garden wall, a more exposed place where he would feel safer coming to get them. He would fly to the fence, take a look around, then hop down to the wall and take some nuts.

He soon learned that if there weren’t any peanuts there, we could be trained to put some out for him. All he had to do was come to the fence, make sure that we knew he was there, then retreat to safety while we came out into the garden. He would watch us through the window, sometimes calling out to get our attention, and only fly off when he saw us get up. Not stupid, this bird!

For a while, the crow had things to himself. Free peanuts for breakfast, and through the day whenever he wanted them. Ahh, the good life! Eventually, however, the magpies, nesting nearby, spotted what was happening, and came to get in on the act. After that things got really interesting, watching how the birds behaved. The magpies would watch the crow come for his first peanut, and as soon as he left, they would come down and help themselves to as many of the remaining nuts as possible. From there, things just escalated.

The crow would often eat his first peanut there on the wall, with the magpies sitting just a beak-length away. The crow is bigger, so can keep the two magpies at bay. After his first peanut, he would pick up two more in his beak, and fly off to enjoy them at leisure. The magpies then came in for the rest.

Then the magpies chicks fledged, two of them, making four magpies in the family team. The crow had to be quicker coming in, and also tried to be more discrete. Sometimes he could get most of the nuts before the magpies spotted him from the trees, but if he was slow off the mark, the magpies would take the lot very quickly.

Eventually he took to sitting on the roof of the barn at dawn, watching for me to open the doors to the terrace and put out the first peanuts of the day. Then he’d be in like a shot, the moment I turned round to walk away. If the magpies weren’t around, he’d take his first peanut away and hide it in the nearby bushes, then come back for more. If the magpies got there before him, they too would often take some away to hide, and often in the same bushes! There must be quite a stash of them there by now, if they haven’t forgotten about them. Or maybe they’ve all been found by our nightly hedgehog visitors, they doubtless patrol those bushes too.

Since the weather warmed up, over a month ago, our crow has stopped coming. We haven’t seen him around for a while now, he’s probably moved on to the fields for more usual fare. The magpies came for a while longer, especially the youngsters, but now we don’t see any of them very often. It’s been a real treat to see the young magpies growing up, steadily becoming more confident and adept, just like human children.

I expect that, come winter, our magpies and our crow will be back. I hope so, they’ve made life a lot more interesting around here. It’s amazing how smart they are, in the ways that they figure out how to keep ahead of the competition, and in the ways that they manage to train us to do their bidding.

In case anyone is worried that we may be taming these birds, we’re not. They remain as wary as ever of people, and won’t stay anywhere near when we’re outside. Our role is strictly that of peanut-providers, and we know our place!

Not that this crow is the first bird to train us, oh no. Jasmine, our African Grey, had us trained long ago. I remember when she first said “Some apple, Jasmine”. She was just beginning to learn the phrases we used, and to associate them with actions in the real world. I turned around in surprise when she said this, only to see her looking straight at me to see if those words meant what she thought they meant. They did, and she got her apple!

The recent spell of freezing weather is coming to an end, but not before it dropped a foot of snow on our terrace. Birds have a hard time in such cold weather, in fact it amazes me that they manage to survive at all. There’s a very interesting post over at Willow House Chronicles about how birds survive cold temperatures if you’d like to know more about how they manage it.
We’ve been putting out food for the birds again this winter, normally just clearing the snow and placing it on the wall. That seems to suit birds like the robin, above, and our resident sparrows, but it can easily be covered by snow or washed away by rain, so this year we’ve also added some proper bird-feeders.

So many of the feeders in garden centres seem impractical and decorative, but after some shopping around I finally found this very practical feeder shown on the right. It’s not particularly cheap, but it does keep the seed clean and dry against all weathers, which has got to be a good thing. I don’t have anywhere obvious to hang such a feeder, so I took the low-tech solution. I found a suitable branch on our morning walks, tied it to the railings of the fence, and hung the feeder from that.

We also got two suet-feeders, and then spent some time looking for suet in the shops we frequent. Our favourite bio-store, Satoriz, didn’t have any, but they did have peanut butter, so I used that instead. I’m sure I could have found suet if I had looked around enough, but since the peanut butter is organic and any suet I find would not be, I prefer to use the peanut butter. I buy organic food for myself because I don’t want to eat pesticides, and I don’t see why wild birds should do so either.
I mixed some bird seed in with the peanut butter, quite a lot in fact, put it in the suet feeders, and hung them from another stick I’d picked up on our morning walks.

For a bit more variety, I tied some millet to the fence too, and I continue to put food loose on the wall for those that prefer it there. I also have a thistle-seed sack-feeder for finches, but no seed to put in it yet. Soon, I hope!

Now the restaurant is open, all we need are customers. First to find us was our robin, of course. You can see him here checking out the feeder during the day of heaviest snowfall. Like so many birds, he shows a great deal of curiosity at anything that changes in his environment. Having decided that it’s safe, he continues to be our most regular visitor.

A couple of days later and a few more birds had found us. The great-tits seem to like the peanut butter, while blue-tits like the tall feeder. We have even been visited by a magpie, who comes a few times daily, takes 3 or 4 peanuts in one go, and flies off to enjoy them somewhere else. I expect that as time goes by we will get more visitors, and hopefully more species too – I know there are woodpeckers nearby.
The magpie is our largest visitor so far, and unless the chickens down the road escape from their coup we’re not likely to get anything much bigger than them. Some people do get larger birds visiting them, such as our friend Shannon Ryan. Take a look at what she gets visiting her bird feeders. They must take quite a bit of feeding!

Last Friday, May 15th, was ‘Endangered Species Day‘ in America. This event is aimed at encouraging people to learn about endangered species and what they can do to help them. Endangered Species Day is coordinated by StopExtinction.org, and is held on the third Friday of May every year. It was first celebrated in 2006, so this year sees the fourth edition. The event was created by the US Congress, this year a resolution was introduced by Senator Dianne Feinstein encouraging schools to spend time teaching students about endangered species and conservation efforts, among other things. Senator Feinstein has been mentioned on this blog before in the context of another endangered creature, namely, Patricia Rattray.

StopExtinction.org had all sorts of events on their list for this year, educational, inspirational, hands-on, the lot. If you went to any of them I’d love to hear about it. Here’s a quick sampling.

The Wyoming Children’s Museum and Nature Center held presentations on how even one degree of warming can affect wildlife (and what you can do about it). Few climatologists today would say we can avoid one degree of warming, so this is setting the bar low. Even one degree can cause a great deal of harm to ecosystems, and it’s already happening. If you’re in any doubt about that, read these articles about Cedar Canyon Road and Aransas National Wildlife Refuge from The Clade.

For a more leisurely approach, there were events like the birdwalk on the Tijuana river in California, where you could see and learn about the birds that live there. This is actually a weekly event, so if you missed it last weekend you can go another time. Check the Tijuana Estuary Visitor Center calendar for details of all their upcoming events.

Then there’s at least one activity that can only be described as boring. That is to say, it takes place in the town of Boring, Oregon. No, I’m not making this up, the town of Boring really exists. Boring recently began a project to restore some parkland, and if you were there on Friday you could have participated in helping to restore the Boring Trail Station Trailhead Park (a note to the stopextinction siteadmins, you have broken links on that page). You can find out all you want to know about this project at their own webside, BoringStation.com.

The StopExtinction.org website has practical advice on things you can do to protect wildlife near you. They list some very simple things, like driving slower to reduce the chance of impact with animals. You’ll probably save yourself money that way too, I did. Another simple thing you can do is to plant native plant species in your garden. Many insects are poorly adapted to non-native plants, so planting native species can encourage them, and the birds and other animals that feed on them.

Coincidentally, across the Atlantic, ‘Fete de la Nature‘ took place in France at practically the same time. This is an all-weekend event, and again there are a variety of events. It’s a year younger than Endangered Species Day, having started in 2007, but boasts an impressive 300,000 participants in the past. Among the events taking place near me there was a chance to see chamois at the Col de la Faucille.

Of course, by now, those events have been and gone. Not to worry, there’s still plenty of opportunity to learn about the nature near you, endangered or otherwise. Many of the events organised for either Endangered Species Day or Fete de la Nature were organised by clubs or societies, who have an ongoing program of events. If you look them up, you might find something interesting. If they were one-off events, maybe you can contact the organisers anyway, and ask them if they plan to repeat it? If they get a demand, they might just do that.

If that doesn’t lead to something, why not just go out there and take a look for yourself? There’s plenty to see, and if you’re handy with a camera you can always find something worth photographing. Some of the best blogs out there are by nature-lovers, take a look at “Chipper’s Alley” in Oregon, “Everything is Permuted” in England, “2nd star to the right, straight on till morning…” in Malaysia, or “My birdpics” in Sweden for some of my personal favourites. Have fun!