Some birds ruffle her feathers

[Donna]

Message for mourning doves: Move on! Is it really so wrong to focus just on looks?


I don't love all birds.

In fact, I hate some of them.

Especially when they are at my backyard feeders.

Just look at those mourning doves, sitting in — and pooping on — the platform feeder outside my kitchen window. Three or four of them jostling for space in what they apparently think is an outhouse with food, staring at me insolently with their pigeon-like eyes while the lovely cardinals gaze wistfully from distant trees and finally give up.

"Git!" I order the doves, banging on the window to chase them away. But back they come, crowding out other birds as effectively as their urban cousins keep people out of the heated shelters on an "L" platform.

My family is appalled.

"Stop hitting the window!" yelled my daughter when she caught me in the act. "The doves are birds too!"

"You are a bird racist," my husband accused.

Am I a bad bird person?

"How could you not like such a peaceful, beautiful bird?" chided Jeff Reiter, a columnist and blogger about birds and past president of the DuPage Birding Club.

But he was not shocked. "All birders have favorites," he said. "And if you're talking about backyard birders, people do get emotional. Especially about the pests."

And some birds are considered just that. The European starling, for example, is "one of the most widespread bird pests in North America," according to an article by the Cornell Lab of Ornithology.

House sparrows, like the starling a non-native bird and one that descends on feeders en masse, are just about as unpopular. The Cornell article advises knocking their nests down from backyard trees.

Why all the hostility?

With non-native birds, it is because they crowd out the natives.

"The sparrow and starling are much more aggressive than native birds," said Tim Joyce, manager and "birdscaper" at Wild Birds Unlimited in Glenview. "They will take over the nest of a native bird like a woodpecker."

Nest-stealing interrupts the victim's reproductive process. Competition from starlings has devastated populations of woodpeckers and the Eastern bluebird, Joyce said.

It also has annoyed populations of people who put out feeders in hopes of seeing cardinals, only to see starlings chase them off.

And nest thieves don't always stop with property crime. "Sometimes starlings or sparrows will kill the bird they're overtaking," Joyce said. A sparrow that finds a chickadee sitting on eggs inside a nest "will peck the parent to death and build a nest on top of that carcass. It's warfare. It's pretty hard-core."

Murder aside, what about table manners? Some birds are pigs, chowing down feeders full of expensive seed in minutes. TRUE!!   LOL

Finally, there is the question of looks. Not to sound shallow, but I got into bird-watching because I think birds are beautiful. Still, I didn't spend good money attaching feeders to the exterior of my house to get a better look at mousey brown sparrows. Conversely, people who might dislike blue jays for their bullying ways forgive them because they're so darned pretty.

So am I off the hook?

Not necessarily. My personal bane, the mourning dove, is native to North America. And though I think it looks like a pigeon, which is not a compliment, other bird lovers think differently.

"It's got that blue ring all the way around the eye, and … that iridescent quality on the back of the neck," said Reiter. "If the sun hits it just right, it's very pretty."

"There are folks that love everything, that take the attitude of live and let live," said Pat Leonard, staff writer at the Cornell Lab of Ornithology. "It just depends on how much seed you're losing."

In defense of sparrows, a crowd of them at your feeder can attract migrating birds trying to find food in unfamiliar places. And the other day a customer told Joyce he wanted to buy seed specifically for sparrows because he considered them representative of the common man.

"I thought that was kind of cool," Joyce said.

On the other hand, do you want a crowd of common men in your backyard?

Whatever you want, Friday through Monday, consider counting what you see.

The 13th Great Backyard Bird Count, an annual snapshot of North America's birds, is Feb. 12-15. The count enlists ordinary citizens to help scientists track bird populations, spot any declines and answer questions about the effects of weather and climate change. The bird count is run by the Cornell Lab of Ornithology, the National Audubon Society and Bird Studies Canada, and supported by Wild Birds Unlimited.

To participate, pick a spot — it could be in a park or out your window — watch for at least 15 minutes and write down the highest number of each bird species you see together at one time, said Leonard.

You can participate for as long and at as many locations as you want over the four days. For more information and to submit your lists, visit birdcount.org.

Some 60,000 people participated last year, Leonard said, providing crucial data: "The only way to get information on a scale like this is to employ everyday people."

I expect I will be able to report a large number of mourning doves, my window-banging notwithstanding.

[MAK]

I must admit I'm not so fond of the doves or pigeons. I swear they have bottomless pits for stomachs. There little heads just don't stop going up and down! They're like bobble heads gone wild!!!!  And how 'bout the house  sparrows never leaving. I've seen them steal food right out of the cardinals' beaks! I guess they all need to eat but enough is enough!

[Donna]

I must admit I'm not so fond of the doves or pigeons. I swear they have bottomless pits for stomachs. There little heads just don't stop going up and down! They're like bobble heads gone wild!!!!  And how 'bout the house  sparrows never leaving. I've seen them steal food right out of the cardinals' beaks! I guess they all need to eat but enough is enough!

This am just as dawn broke, I looked at my feeders and saw Mr Squirrel was attached to one but on the upside...he was jiggling it around so much, all the birds were underneath on the ground gobbling up the fellen seeds. 

[Donna]

I must admit I'm not so fond of the doves or pigeons. I swear they have bottomless pits for stomachs. There little heads just don't stop going up and down! They're like bobble heads gone wild!!!!  And how 'bout the house  sparrows never leaving. I've seen them steal food right out of the cardinals' beaks! I guess they all need to eat but enough is enough!

This am just as dawn broke, I looked at my feeders and saw Mr Squirrel was attached to one but on the upside...he was jiggling it around so much, all the birds were underneath on the ground gobbling up the fellen seeds. 

Oh and today, whilst babysitting, (I had put feeders up there too), there was Mr Downy Woodpecker pecking away at the suet when suddenly, I saw a shadow in the snow, very close and very big. I ran to the window and looked up. It was a RTH about 20 ft up...eyeing Mr Downy. The Woodpecker suddenly just stood still, frozen in time, not a movement from him until the Hawk left. Soon after Mr Downy came back again and again BUT this time, he looked up and around before he started eating. I found that very smart of him. Sometimes I let the dogs out and I'll stand on the deck while their out. Mr Downy is always up above in the tree yelling at me to go in. I know he's saying that because the second I go in and close the door, he's at the feeder.