Rewards of a bird feeder

For years, Rabbi Charles Sheer has had a bird feeder outside his home and would occasionally mention some bird or other to me. My interest in the natural world meanwhile focused on botany, geology and evolution and while it was impressive to visit the aviary at the Bronx Zoo, I could not work up any further enthusiasm about birds.

That changed suddenly a few months ago, possibly because I started wondering how to deal with squirrels who regularly raid bird feeders and who already have many other resources open to them. I will share my “Squirrel Chronicles” in a future issue. But suddenly I had devised a workable bird feeder and waited to see which birds would arrive. We are all familiar with robins, jays, cardinals, juncos and sparrows and since I never really saw any other varieties, I really didn’t think free seed would bring unfamiliar species. 

I was so wrong! So far, I have seen three different types of woodpeckers, cowbirds, doves, grackles, starlings, mockingbirds and titmice. I would like to devote a full column to each of these in the future, but today I want to discuss bird behavior in a snowstorm.

Jan. 23 was the first snowstorm of the season and Riverdale was hit with a substantial snowfall. I had put out seed the night before and covered it with a plastic bag to protect it from possible accumulation during the night. I also had a block of suet in a protective cage that the birds could peck at (the cage allowed it to be suspended for access and the birds peck easily between the wires to get a morsel) for high-energy food. In the morning I removed the plastic covering from the food dish and thought that there would be little activity at the feeder since, surely, the birds would stay huddled where they go for night protection and wait out the storm. Was I ever mistaken!

Practically every species of bird that I have been seeing made an appearance that day, sometimes just mobbing the feeder. Species that rarely showed interest in the suet block were regularly alighting on the cage and really working at it. And as snow started to accumulate on top of the seed, some of the birds used their wings to flap it out.

The New York Times says that about one fifth of Americans feed birds. Watching birds on a normal day is entrancing enough, but I realized that food is hard to come by under strenuous conditions and I was happy to be there to help out my flock.                     

Sura Jeselsohn lives in Riverdale. Point of view is a column open to all.