Hooray! Spring is here, and with it our bird feeder is once again filled with birds. What kind of birds? Well, um, little brown ones. And yellow ones. Maybe finches? Or sparrows? You know, one of the little varieties.
UPDATE: We have an answer! "That particular mob is a group of Bushtits (Psaltriparus minimus), a kind of long-tailed tit, of which there are eleven species worldwide (the Bushtit is the only one in the New World). They were long thought to be closely related to chickadees and titmice, but have recently been discovered to be only distant cousins."
That particular mob is a group of Bushtits (Psaltriparus minimus), a kind of long-tailed tit, of which there are eleven species worldwide (the Bushtit is the only one in the New World). They were long thought to be closely related to chickadees and titmice, but have recently been discovered to be only distant cousins.
They are gregarious most of the year, and typically forage in large, noisy groups. They build ridiculously large hanging nests.
I'm surprised that the WordPress comment censor software let you get away with those species names.
Special dispensation from the Pope.
Hehe.
And here I wanted to tell Kevin they were all the same kind of bird ^-^
Silly me I thought they were goldfinches. But I yield to the expert opinion hahahaha.
There are no Bushtits in Virginia, so you're excused.
This time.
Bird feeders in my world are a no no.
The squirrels are about to take over and we don’t need to make them any stronger.
We have foxes and coyotes as well as hawks in our neighborhood to keep the squirrels in check. But the feeders were a problem because they attracted rats and deer. UGH.
We took our bird feeders down because ther is an outbreak of Salmonellosis in our area:
https://cdfgnews.wordpress.com/2021/02/08/salmonellosis-outbreak-causing-songbird-deaths/
I was told this should last until April. I did find a couple of dead birds in the feeders and noticed a few with symptoms so it seemed to be the wise thing to do.
My what nice tits you have.