[birding] Re: Band-tailed Pigeons

[karindonoyan at peak.org]

The first Band-tailed Pigeon arrived at my feeder a couple of days ago and
I am expecting the crowd to follow within days.  I feed 90% black oil
sunflower seeds and have a big open dish ready for them in my yard.  When
they arrive, they fill the whole dish with their bodies, landing on top of
each other and eat and eat, with relatively little quarreling.  That alone
is a spectacle to behold.  Alas, they finish up their share in no time and
start looking for more in the bird feeders which I hang out for the
smaller birds (juncos, song sparrows, chickadees, finches, etc, etc.).
Within a short time the pigeons have learned to:
- hang by one leg on the string that holds the bird feeder and eating
upside down while draped over the feeder;
- several of them to hang onto the feeder's edge, flapping their wings and
turning the feeder rapidly like a carousel;
- hang onto feeders sideways,  like jays;
- to bounce into otherwise inaccessible feeders so the seeds drop to the
ground.
Every new invention of mine, designed to keep some of the food for the
others, is met with new skills on their part to foil my efforts.  They are
amazingly fast learners and unbelievably acrobatic.  The only thing that
works is my casually strolling into the yard every once in a while to make
that huge cloud of birds take off, thus allowing the smaller neighbors to
have their fill.
I buy a lot of seeds during the summer months and I would not have it any
other way. I do not want to miss the band-tailed pigeons for anything.
Karin
Alsea, 25 miles from the coast



> My dad and I used to enjoy picking blackcap raspberries (Rubus
> leucodermis) in the Siskiyou Mtns. when I was growing up in Medford.  The
> arching canes lined the gravel roads, wherever the sun shone through the
> sunny, open pine forests or where the road passed through an old clearcut.
>  I didn't know a lot about birds then, but I was curious whose feathers
> were always stuck in the thorns of the blackcap brambles, and who was
> leaving seedy poo all over the place.  The receptacles of the little
> raspberries looked fresh, like the berries had been picked that morning.
> I guessed the mystery bird might be some kind of grouse.  But the feathers
> were always on top of the brambles, so it didn't make a lot of sense for
> ground-dwelling birds.
>
> I think we usually went picking in the afternoon, but I remember one time
> when my dad managed to get me out of bed early (a truly heroic feat).  The
> morning was cool and the brambles were still shining with dew.  Rounding
> every corner of the steep gravel roads, we startled flock after flock of
> Band-tailed Pigeons who were having their blackcap breakfast.  I hadn't
> realized there were big wild pigeons in the forest, and I was amazed by
> their iridescent napes.  Once I became more familiar with them, I always
> liked watching the pigeons gulping down the abundant crops of madrone
> berries, manzanita berries, and blue elderberries.
>
> Now I don't get to see them up close very often, but I like to watch their
> strong flight, straight and fast over our neighborhood toward the forests
> along the rivers, like travelers on an aerial freeway.  I don't know what
> kinds of wild foods they're finding this time of year, I suppose they
> might eat buds and flowers, but they seem to like ash seeds in the fall.
>
> Lisa
> www.neighborhood-naturalist.com
>
>   ----- Original Message -----
>   From: howard bruner
>   To: birding at midvalleybirding.org
>   Sent: Monday, March 15, 2010 10:42 AM
>   Subject: [birding] Those remarkable forest pigeons
>
>
>   Hi Chris
>
>   I second Joel's comment - please send your band-tailed pigeons to me.  I
> was involved in research on basic ecology of the band-tail in the early
> 90's here in western Oregon and came away with a deep appreciation for a
> remarkable creature.  Let me share a couple findings with you.
>
>   The breeding season is May through Sept. and multiple nesting attempts
> are fairly common.  The nest is a flimsy stack of small twigs that one
> can see daylight through.  The female lays one egg - more uncommonly 2.
> Mortality for eggs, squabs, and fledged young is high with predation
> from the usual closed-canopy suspects - hawks, accipiters, jays, owls,
> ravens, raccons, squirrels, snakes, and felines.
>
>   Mortality of adults results from encounters with all of the above
> (except ravens, jays, and squirrels) as well as human hunters.  A great
> book on the harvest and decimation of the historic flocks is:
>
>   Mathewson, Worth. 2005. Band-Tailed Pigeons: Wilderness Bird at Risk.
>
>   For me that summer in the Coast Range is a glad memory hallmarked with
> golden dawns in dripping fog forests seeking to uncover the secrets of
> an iridescent migrant that seemed more appropiate to the jungled tropics
> than the rain-forested PNW.  We learned that we could set our watches to
> the invariant timing of switch of the sexes for uninterrupted brooding
> of the eggs.  The Male had the day shift and relieved the female at
> 10:00 AM each morning and the female came back at 5:00 PM for the night
> shift.  To watch from 30 meters below as they interacted with (yep you
> guessed it - cooing - among other pigeon murmuring and chuckling) on a
> thin branch in the swaying canopy was to discover a forest treasure
> unknown to most.  The reliance on supplemental minerals from ground and
> water sources in order to fortify the glandular 'milk' fed to squabs
> seemed a jump from Aves to Mammalia.
>
>   When the red elderberry reached a certain density and abundance
> recognized as a critical threshold by discerning pigeon gormands and the
> berries were the color of a fire engine - then we would find the remnant
> gatherings of a wild and social denizen of the greatest coniferous
> forest on this earth - and realize we were privey to a spectacle ancient
> and glorious.
>
>   H
>
>
>
>
> ------------------------------------------------------------------------------
>   The New Busy is not the old busy. Search, chat and e-mail from your
> inbox. Get started.
>
>
> ------------------------------------------------------------------------------
>
>
>   _______________________________________________
>   birding mailing list
>   birding at midvalleybirding.org
>   http://midvalleybirding.org/mailman/listinfo/birding
>   http://oregonbirdwatch.org/pipermail/obol/_______________________________________________
> birding mailing list
> birding at midvalleybirding.org
> http://midvalleybirding.org/mailman/listinfo/birding
> http://oregonbirdwatch.org/pipermail/obol/