Why You Should Love Flickers

I heard one today near Foster; the "wik-wik-wik" is pretty unmistakeable. The flicker is by far my favorite bird. Though wikipedia claims that the flicker likes to nest in forests, they're all over my neighborhood. Fun things I learned today about the flicker:

They mate for life.
They use the acids in the ants they eat to preen.
The males and females share egg-sitting duty.

Their flight pattern is also pretty fascinating. They pump their wings like mad for a moment, then still their wings, careening like a bullet and dropping a few feet before they flap and rise again. There are many on campus. This is the bird that got me into birding when I spied one hammering away at our telephone pole from the bedroom window--I didn't know that woodpeckers dug urban living. Hooray!

A stroll with Don

Don & I ventured out to see the beautiful blue day & check out what was doing on campus. We chatted about the woman who freelanced onto campus the trees that live here and visited a nifty area near the physical plant. We saw black-capped chickadees and juncos going for seeds, and we found a lovely hummingbird by his voice--he was chirping in the top of a naked fruit tree. We examined an old bushtit nest and then walked to the turkish fir, where we hoped to see a sapsucker. A goldfinch lit around a few branches, and we greeted it. Then we saw what looked like hawks wheeling high overhead. They were too far away to catalogue.

American Goldfinches

Were peeping in a tree outside Hanna, eating seeds, socializing, and looking like a slightly larger bushtit with yellowish overtones. Also saw a medium-sized bird I couldn't identify & took a picture that I'll post soon to see if anyone else might know it. Am loving the nascent pink haze of the cherry tree about to bloom at the end of the sidewalk that leads out of Foster.

A Brief Reverie About Penn State Critters

Though I missed the Northwest desperately and at every moment while I was earning my MA at Penn State, I had the stalwart companionship of a form of fauna I've never seen here. I often read late at night on the lovely porch of my State College rental, and many evenings had the pleasure of watching a skunk amble up to the porch, clock me there, and casually turn in another direction. The gait of the skunk cannot adequately be described to those who have not seen it: they sort of roll forward, each limb seemingly independent of the others, and something about their pace suggests that every skunk is humming along to Muzak as he or she strolls toward nowhere in particular. I miss skunks.

Seeking advice on feeders for the daycare

My Ramona spends half a day at the campus daycare. Her teacher is interested in placing a couple of feeders outside the classroom window to attract birds for the toddlers to watch. Any suggestions on the best kinds of feeders for the birds they're likely to get on that end of campus? Thoughts on who might turn up? The teacher thinks she's seen woodpeckers in the courtyard, and there are a bunch of beautiful old firs just behind the compound. I'm planning on doing a classic posterboard display of likely birds to post near the window. I've seen juncos, house finches, and a Northern flicker on the grounds in the past.

Once more that Hawk

Saw the hawk with my own eyes today, perched in what my friend Nick calls, probably erroneously, an "English Birch" (help other posters?) near Foster. What a neato experience. I recognized the brown & white speckled chest & tail shape as he was on a pretty low branch & hung out for minutes. Called the Humanities office to advise the Dean of the hawk's presence, & he (the Dean) came out to confirm that this very hawk, young, probably male, and missing a telling tail feather, was the selfsame hawk that ate the rat. He wheeled over the building & was joined by another hawk who did not land anywhere for me to check him/her out.

The new campus Red-tail

The Red-tailed Hawk that has been in the oak tree by the totem pole the last four days (on and off) is a younger bird--the brown tail that the bird has gives it away. It is not a big hawk, so it may very well be a male, though it is hard to tell without another to compare. The rat population around Hanna Hall is such that it probably will succeed in hunting again--the bird is a bit on the skinny side and the available food that is around Foster/Hanna is attractive (I had a rat the size of the one it took outside my office about an hour before the hawk showed up). Red-tails are not uncommon sights above campus, especially towards Waterworks park, and a pair has been circling over Officer's Row at least twice in the last two weeks.

return of the red tailed hawk

He...or she was back today as I walked from Joan Stout to Foster. I had stopped to watch what I'm convinced were goldfinches and he flew into the fir tree just west? of Scarpelli. I waited to see if I could I.D. him for sure, but the crows went crazy and drove him to the red oak outside Foster and then from that tree too.

I have taught here 25 years and have not seen such a bold hawk. Rat pickings must be better than usual...huh, the mouse problem in Foster is worse than ever. I remember reading an article about hanta virus on the Navaho res. Some epidemiologist was interviewing some old guy who kept trying to tell the doc that the illness was in some way connected to all the mice the old guy had noticed on the res.

Mel, don't hate me that I feel mostly revulsion for varmints. Death is ugly.

Anna's Hummingbird

I forgot to mention: during the viburnum walk Don spotted an Anna's hummingbird in a tree near Bauer and surprised me and Kate my putting his hand to his mouth and producing a squawk calculated to "enrage" the hummingbird. Bird noticed & took flight, probably because Don was bigger.

Rat redux

While most of my campus wildlife sightings are of the avian variety, I had a near spiritual awakening today after telling my English 098 class about the hawk eating the rat yesterday in the Foster oak tree. When one student looked greenish at the image, I said, "I, too am horrified by nature's violence, but it was a rat." My students were filling out their teacher evaluation forms while I sat outside on the concrete steps that lead down to Hanna 101 just after the dialogue. As I sat lost in non-thought, an adolescent rat poked his nose out of the bed of ivy and sniffed the blue day, making full eye contact with me. Startled at a noise, he (or she?) edged back into the ivy, only to resurface a few inches down, still offering a whiskery sniff. I was struck by the perfection of his/her ears and sable fur. RIP rat who became hawk bait. I pour a little of the tea from my omnipresent peanut butter jar into the earth for you.

Day One: Hawks & a Rat

My colleague Don reported, during a walk he, Kate and I took to check out the viburnum, sweetbox, and daphne blooming near Bauer Hall, that what appeared to be a red tailed hawk was spotted munching on what appeared to be a rat in the oak tree outside of Foster Hall. I'm delighted that raptors are living on campus, and assume the RTH brought the rat in from the I-5 corridor.