Birds and Bugs
Sep. 12th, 2019 09:02 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
rain_gryphon posting in ![[community profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/community.png){kind=small}
common_nature
A quartet of sparrows at the cake feeder earlier today. The two hens are about to go at it over who perches on top. For whatever reason, it is extremely important to be the bird that perches on the top. When the dirty looks turned into open squabbling, the two cocks fled, leaving the hens to fight it out. During the autumn, winter, and early spring, the hens are the more dominant sex. As soon as the issue was decided, everyone calmed down and got along again. Just then I either moved too fast, or made a noise, and they all fled into the bushes, as sparrows do. All except for the one who'd just won the fight. She sat defiantly in place, eating. Either she didn't want to abandon her prize, or else she was a big enough badass that she just wasn't scared of some human.
*****
Three pretty bronze and green beetles going "Om nom nom...".
no subject
Date: 2019-09-13 10:09 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2019-09-14 05:08 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2019-09-13 02:22 pm (UTC)I have a platform feeder, so there's no real 'top' position for them to squabble over. It's fascinating how birds respond to different equipment.
no subject
Date: 2019-09-14 05:04 am (UTC)She's just a dominant individual, I think, even though she's just a little bit smaller than the others. If you look at her thigh in the second picture, when her leg is extended, you can see she's got a healed scar, and some feathers are missing. Sparrow fights are usually stylized affairs, with threat displays followed by bumping into one another like tiny sumo wrestlers, so I doubt that another sparrow did that to her. Still, she's survived a serious battle with someone, which points toward an aggressive bird.
Now look at the other bird. The base of her beak is bright yellow, which marks her as a young adult. She's maybe two months old or so, old enough that in most respects she's an adult, but still very much learning about the world and her place in it. She's unlikely to dominate any of the older hens at her age, plus that bright yellow beak flange deters aggression from the other sparrows.
no subject
Date: 2019-09-17 05:00 pm (UTC)Tiny sumo wrestlers!
I noticed the missing feathers, but not the scar. She's a little scrapper.
*squints* Hm, I think Lower Bird's tail is a bit shorter, too. This is especially visible in the second picture when she has it raised up.
...I used to work at a place that had a friendly sparrow population. One of them was nicknamed Shortstop. She'd fledged early and with an almost total lack of tail, and she would hop up to each person on a bench individually, retreating to a grassy area to eat anything she was given. Beg from this one, beg from that one... She was a charming little bird, and the next year, she taught her own batch of baby sparrows to come ask for crumbs.
no subject
Date: 2019-09-17 09:55 pm (UTC)Lower Bird is probably one of this summer's babies from my colony boxes, perhaps one of the birds I looked in on while they were still little pink blind things. Now it's that time of the year when there's food everywhere, and no nestlings to tend, so the feeders don't see that much use - a suet cake that would last one day in early spring lasts a week or longer now. That day it was raining, though, and I think the guys using the feeder were probably all birds who live in and around the yard.
no subject
Date: 2019-09-18 03:01 pm (UTC)Colony boxes! Oh, cool. *looks up*
no subject
Date: 2019-09-14 09:40 pm (UTC)Are those Japanese scarab beetles?
no subject
Date: 2019-09-15 12:04 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2019-09-15 03:04 am (UTC)