Here is an interesting opinion piece in the NYTimes about honey bees and a strategy to possibly prevent Colony Collapse Disorder.
Link

I get enormous satisfaction watching birds at my feeders. I love the spastic antics of Chickadees and Titmice; full of nervous energy. The deliberate, focused eating of Cardinals and House Finches. And the alarming bomb of the Bluejay, who joins the feast with such an exuberant entrance, it often startles the others momentarily, causing an explosion of fluff and feathers before they all settle down at their respective perches.

I don’t have an elaborate feeding system; just two sunflower seed feeders, a thistle feeder, which remains neglected for some reason and a suet feeder. I also have a heated bird bath that up until recently seemed only attractive to the 6 squirrels that share my yard as their territory. I guess, now that every puddle or water collection is frozen, the birds finally have shown interest in my offering.

On a recent glance, I noticed the feeders were suspiciously empty for several minutes. It was a cold day. If we were experiencing a warm day, I’d understand as many birds take advantage of insect hatches that occur when we have warm spells, but this was a cold day. I suspected my neighbor’s cat who seems to delight in stalking our backyard for easy pickings.

I went outside with the intention of chasing this cat out of my yard, but was surprised and admittedly pleased to find another predator.

Sharp-shinned hawk watching bird feeder

An adult (red eyes and horizontal streaking on his breast), Sharp-shinned Hawk, was sitting on the fence that is shared with my cat neighbor.

Sharp-shinned hawks are bird specialists, often catching feathered friends on the wing and eating them. They frequently hunt backyard bird feeding stations for easy prey, not unlike my neighbor’s cat. This is one predator I don’t mind sharing my yard with. Birds are birds. Well, not really, my hackles still go up when the starlings devour the suet, but that’s a different story.

Jeff Hoagland, Environmental Education Director of the Buttinger Nature Center at the Stony-Brook Millstone Watershed Association, has a great blog where he chronicles his personal experiences sharing nature with children. http://www.packetinsider.com/blog/kids_nature/

Last night, we were grilling (yes even in winter, the grill is our friend) and we heard the distinct territory call of the Great Horned Owl. They have a really deep, resinous “Who, hoot, who, whoooooooo” that can be heard great distances.

I was so excited to hear such a primal nature sound in the middle of the suburbs. These owls mate in January, so this male was out looking for love. I’m going to try to find his roost site this afternoon.

Though owls are nocturnal (come out mainly at night), I find it easiest to spot them in the day time. I look for wash (bird poop) at the base and on the branches of evergreen trees. I also look for their pellets. If I find pellets, the owl is often sitting up in the tree close to the trunk.

Pellets are the undigested remains of the birds meal. A tightly packed ball of fur, bones, feathers and feet. If you pull it apart, you can determine what the owl ate, and therefore know what other animals share your world.

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