Yard fish give way to backyard birds; winter 'birding' from the window
By Bob Hooftallen

The tufted titmouse is a frequent, although wary, visitor at Pennsylvania bird feeders in the winter. They love seeds, particularly black oil sunflower seeds. They almost exclusively are seen in pairs, sometimes in threes. They are one of few bird species that will stay together as family groups for a year or more.

Saturday dawned and delivered torrential downpour, high winds and just down right nasty conditions, even for the most hardcore sportsmen.

It was 6:30 a.m. and after a two-day working binge, essentially without sleep, I was barely alive, let alone awake. I expected the rainout call from my hunting partner any second.

The call came within an hour: "Hey man, the weather is jacked up."

That was Oren's way of saying that the weather was too lousy to hunt birds.

I needed the rest, so it wasn't a huge disappointment to me at the time. But when noon rolled around and the weather was less "jacked up," I started having second thoughts about not arguing with Oren earlier.

It wasn't pretty outside by any means, but it was workable.

The slate-grey sky seemed in motion above the dirty-white clouds racing beneath it. The rain had stopped. The air was still. It would be a perfect time to be kicking around in the thickets with Rikka, Oren's two-year-old German shorthaired pointer. Oren and I each had afternoon obligations, though, so Saturday afield was lost, but the break in the weather afforded me an opportunity to venture into the yard and check on my semidomesticated fish and backyard birds.

The rain has pushed the water in my 800-gallon, selfmade "pond" over its edges. Most of my goldfish are cruising the water's surface along the pond's edge, searching for things to nibble on. My koi lay still in the deep end of the pond- until they see me. They want food, but it's too cold for that.

Neither koi nor goldfish can digest food (particularly food high in protein) when the water temperature is below 50 degrees. Mine make it all winter without food. They live on whatever they can muster in the pond and their summer fat reserves.

Koi and goldfish survive fine in the pond year-around and go in a semi-dormant state when the top layer of water is turned to ice.

I use a small, electric disc heater to keep a hole in the ice open to allow the nitrogen to escape. Without it, the trapped gasses would reach toxic levels and the fish would ultimately die a miserable death.

The pond serves as close-tohome educational habitat for my children. We have 13 goldfish and two koi. In the past five years, we have lost two koi and six goldfish. Not a bad track, considering the back of our property faces an undeveloped, wooded mountainside that is prime real estate for all kinds of predators that most certainly visit in the late hours. Many of them would gladly seize the opportunity to have fish for a midnight snack.

I was most surprised to see a bobcat in our far backyard Thursday evening when I got home from work. From 30 yards, it stared straight into my headlights when I pulled around out back to park. It was the first time I had seen one that close. The old paper mill property about a half mile from my house is full of them and one of the favorite trapping spots for people who know where to find Potter County bobcats.

I doubt very much the bobcat would chave ome much closer than he was. Seeing him answered my family's summer question of "where did all of our rabbits go?" We had two big families of rabbits in our backyard this spring and summer. They were essentially gone by July and never once did we have problems with them in the garden. I blamed it on domestic cats. Now I know otherwise.

But, domestic cats are by far the most threatening predator the fish face. I suppose raccoons and skunks also venture close enough to the pond to be a threat. Several times throughout the summer, the fish will hide for a few days at a time, surfacing quickly to grab food and then diving straight back to the bottom.

That's how they live exclusively in the winter, making them very boring now, but a most refreshing site when they become active in five months.

That void is filled beginning now when we ramp up our bird-feeding activities.

We feed the birds in the summer, but only halfheartedly. They don't need the food through the summer, but we still enjoy seeing them around. We put the feeders at the wood's edge, next to the children's play set for them to enjoy. In the winter, the feeders come down front, right in front of the bay window where we can watch them without freezing.

The activity has been picking up every day, with chickadees, of course, being the most prevalent and dark-eyed junkos taking a close second. Also common at our feeders right now are American gold finches, mourning doves and nut hatches. One of my favorites, the tufted titmouse, shows up in pairs. We have at least three

pairs that are working our feeders. Blue jays, which seem to have been non-existent around here for the past two years, are starting to show up, but nothing like they used to be. A lot of birders have noticed their diminishing numbers, but I haven't heard any reasoning as to why it may be happening.

I have started seeing my favorite of all birds, the cedar waxwing, visiting our feeders, but it's not for the seeds; it's for the berries from our flowering crab apple trees.

Robins looking for energy before they head south have been picking away at the tiny apples, but there are thousands left. One of these days, and I hope I am here to see it, a flock of cedar waxwings will move in and nearly pick all three tree clean in just a few minutes. Last year, I watched about 300 of them work the trees over. It was awesome.

Each week I am going to try to get good photos of a bird species and highlight it in Endeavor News. Keep watching. We'd love to have your photos of your backyard birds. Send them, along with a note about where the photo was taken and we'll publish it.