Feed the birds…tuppence a bag
Aug. 29th, 2010 06:33 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
bobcatmoranI made a day trip yesterday to the Elizabeth A. Morton Wildlife Refuge, out by Sag Harbor. It came recommended as a great birdwatching place to me by a wildlife-loving lady whose house we surveyed. She also mentioned that if you brought some birdseed, you could get the birds to eat out of your hands. I sort of rolled my eyes at that, and went sans birdseed, but with my binoculars and a bird book.
Unfortunately, by the time I got there, thanks to traffic, it was well past prime birdwatching time. However, as it turned out, I hardly needed the binoculars, at least for certain species. Just as the lady had said, many of the birds were so conditioned to associate humans with food that in several places, if I stood still and quiet, I would shortly find myself in the midst of a flock of chickadees. Curious as to how far the conditioning had gone, I imitated the position of a mother-daughter pair I'd seen earlier, a hand outstretched and cupped, only mine was without birdseed. Within seconds, a chickadee swooped down towards my hand, only to pull away at the last second upon realizing that I wasn't about to feed it.
I'm not a fan of feeding wildlife. Three summers working for the National Park Service has taught me well about how that can mess up animal's natural behavior and, in some cases, lead them to become malnourished on a diet that's the animal equivalent of McDonald's. And I feel a bit sorry for the families I did see trying to feed the birds, most who were probably being too noisy and/or walking along at far too fast a pace to ever succeed. They were missing out on quite a bit. I saw wild turkeys, deer, wrens, titmice, nuthatches, downy woodpeckers, and a bazillion chipmunks (no doubt growing fat on dropped birdseed). None of those were about to swoop down and eat birdseed from my hand, but they were there all the same. And the families walking along with outstretched hands, shaking their birdseed hopefully, probably didn't see any of it.
I'd like to come back sometime later in the fall, when the migratory birds are coming through, and earlier in the morning or later in the evening, when I have a better chance of seeing birds. And, of course, I'll be going sans birdseed.
As a side note, I spent years thinking the second half of the subject line was "talkin' today," as five-year-old me had no clue what a tuppence was. I also heard the line, "All around the cathedral, the saints and apostles" as "All around you will see them, the states and the castles." Actually, the entire song was basically one big mondegreen to me.
Unfortunately, by the time I got there, thanks to traffic, it was well past prime birdwatching time. However, as it turned out, I hardly needed the binoculars, at least for certain species. Just as the lady had said, many of the birds were so conditioned to associate humans with food that in several places, if I stood still and quiet, I would shortly find myself in the midst of a flock of chickadees. Curious as to how far the conditioning had gone, I imitated the position of a mother-daughter pair I'd seen earlier, a hand outstretched and cupped, only mine was without birdseed. Within seconds, a chickadee swooped down towards my hand, only to pull away at the last second upon realizing that I wasn't about to feed it.
I'm not a fan of feeding wildlife. Three summers working for the National Park Service has taught me well about how that can mess up animal's natural behavior and, in some cases, lead them to become malnourished on a diet that's the animal equivalent of McDonald's. And I feel a bit sorry for the families I did see trying to feed the birds, most who were probably being too noisy and/or walking along at far too fast a pace to ever succeed. They were missing out on quite a bit. I saw wild turkeys, deer, wrens, titmice, nuthatches, downy woodpeckers, and a bazillion chipmunks (no doubt growing fat on dropped birdseed). None of those were about to swoop down and eat birdseed from my hand, but they were there all the same. And the families walking along with outstretched hands, shaking their birdseed hopefully, probably didn't see any of it.
I'd like to come back sometime later in the fall, when the migratory birds are coming through, and earlier in the morning or later in the evening, when I have a better chance of seeing birds. And, of course, I'll be going sans birdseed.
As a side note, I spent years thinking the second half of the subject line was "talkin' today," as five-year-old me had no clue what a tuppence was. I also heard the line, "All around the cathedral, the saints and apostles" as "All around you will see them, the states and the castles." Actually, the entire song was basically one big mondegreen to me.
