By Joseph Reznik | Columnist
I’m writing this column on the first full day of fall. Plants and animals, as well as ourselves, are getting ready to enjoy some cooler days and early nights. And October is the time that many of our wintering birds will begin appearing at our bird feeders. Many birds migrate to the arctic regions because of the huge amount of insect resources. Some birds do not have to feed their young in the arctic because there are so many mosquitoes; the young birds can just walk around with their mouths open and feed themselves with all the insects that just fly in. But after the short summer season, conditions are too harsh for most birds to survive in the arctic, so they fly south to their wintering grounds. For some birds in Pennsylvania, the migration season will be the only time we see some species as they fly through. For others, Pennsylvania is their winter resort.
Project Feederwatch is a good community science project to be involved with to document the birds that spend winter in the area feederwatch.org/ (or you can download the app). This program runs from Nov. 1 to April. Not everyone likes to go out in the cold, so these observations can also be done just from the comfort of your house. While it is called ‘feederwatch’, you don’t have to put up a feeder; you can just scatter food on the ground anywhere you can easily see who is visiting. Depending on the types of food you scatter or put in a feeder, you’ll attract different birds. Woodpeckers like suet (seeds and nuts in lard), finches and cardinals like sunflowers, chickadees and titmice like millet. You can have fun and put different seeds at different times and locations and learn what other birds might like. In addition to the birds you’ll attract, you’ll probably also get some wildlife like squirrels, groundhogs, and possums.
The app will ask you about everything you are seeing: birds and mammals, as well as interactions you might see between the birds and animals and the health of the birds. Identifying sick and unhealthy animals can help scientists learn about how diseases spread and affect different populations of birds.
I hope this activity will encourage everyone to spend a little bit of time outdoors and if you want to tell me about your adventures, drop me an email at: [email protected]
