Birds
The LongPlus Bird Feeder was 50% off during a recent Prime sale, so I decided to give it a try with low expectations. Turns out having a camera feeder is actually a lot of fun, and I’m kind of surprised it isn’t more popular. There’s a Pokemon-like collectibles element to it, plus many clips feel like they could work as a meme template.
[me whenever someone says Daniel Jones is a franchise QB]
[live look at the academic job market]
So far I’ve captured 13 different bird species, at least from what I can tell. I’ve tried to determine things about their nature solely from what goes on in my backyard. Here are my “field notes”.
Tufted Titmouse
A Tufted Titmouse glancing around
These things seem cute at first, but they are kind of obnoxious, and appear all over the place - the bird analog for why it is hard to curate an interesting news feed. The app’s ability to detect specific birds is really bad, so either I skip many videos or spend much longer manually filtering through them than I would like. Tufted titmice also frequently pop in to scare away (or attempt to scare away) more interesting birds, and the calls they make near the feeder are grating.
Example titmouse call
They still produce some fun videos though, and sometimes other birds are the ones knocking them off the feeder, so they’re not all bad. They also tend to just grab something and go, like the kids that go back to the same house multiple times on Halloween. For some reason it doesn’t seem quite as obnoxious as the kid that grabs 3 full size candy bars in one go? Of course differing bird feeding behavior probably relates directly to biological properties like beak shape/size, but I’m still going to judge their etiquette.
A titmouse using its claws to eat
I also have to give the tufted titmouse credit for having minimal fear of humans
I went to adjust the feeder and within 15 seconds of me leaving there was already a titmouse again. By contrast, some other birds (e.g. mourning dove) will fly away if I just make eye contact through the window!
I still do have an open question: when the titmouse looks on video like it is screaming (e.g. the first gif on this page), often no detectable sound actually comes out, why is that? I thought maybe it was outside human hearing range, but Google suggests that this would be impossible for a titmouse.
Downy Woodpecker
Downy Woodpecker (right) chilling with Mourning Dove
This is a female woodpecker, because it doesn’t have any red stripe on the back of its head
The downy woodpecker is on the bigger side for birds coming to this feeder so far, which means it largely can feed when it wants to without much contest from other birds. But it doesn’t seem actively aggressive to me at all. It also gets very close to the camera on a regular basis for some reason.
A downy woodpecker making an entrance
A downy woodpecker calmly looking at a goldfinch
They pop into the feeder from all different angles, sometimes looking very cool and other times seeming clumsy.
The woodpecker flying in with style
Climbing up from below (they also sometimes drop directly down before flying away!)
Here the woodpecker looks more like a klutz
Naturally, woodpeckers are more able to break open seeds with their beaks than something like a titmouse, though the downy woodpecker often eats only briefly at the feeder before grabbing something and flying away. However it does sometimes drill at stuff on camera, and I’ve heard it attempting to peck our faux-wood deck as well. So I’m not sure I consider this the sharpest bird, but it is loveable.
Sounds of the downy woodpecker pecking at the feeder
Hairy Woodpecker
The hairy woodpecker looks extremely similar to the downy woodpecker, except it is bigger and has a notably longer beak. The beak part is the easiest thing to spot on camera, though it still took me awhile to realize these clips were of a different bird than the downy. They come by the feeder less often, so I don’t have too many observations, but they are cool when they get up close to the camera.
The hairy woodpecker vocalizing
A female hairy woodpecker — again many similarities to the downy
White-breasted Nuthatch
These birds are relatively common, but haven’t appeared excessively for me. They don’t have as many striking movements or notable interactions with other birds, but the way they eat is pretty cool. They will just sit at the feeder and swallow seeds whole, which I assume is where the name came from!
A female white-breasted nuthatch
All the videos are of males, which have darker heads, so here is a lazy screenshot from the app of a female
Popping a nut down the hatch
Nuthatch vocalizing as it keeps a titmouse away
Carolina Wren
One of my favorite things about watching the feeder has been how different the various birds are. The carolina wren has a unique beak shape, and it uses it to crack open food - but in a way that seems meaningfully different from how the woodpeckers peck.
It also sometimes swallows seeds whole like the nuthatch, or takes whole seeds away with it, so while the wren is moderately common many of its videos have shown new interesting behaviors.
It can be a little obnoxious at times picking through food, throwing shit to the ground that it decided it didn’t want, but I haven’t seen it be unnecessarily aggressive towards other birds, and it gave me a great bird song video, which feels like a fair trade for the seed provided.
The wren defending itself against an annoying titmouse
Picky eater
Carolina wren performs a song!
Bonus spectrogram
American Goldfinch
The state bird of NJ! In 4th grade we were on the lookout for these guys. Their coat color is subdued in the fall, but a cute bird regardless. A bit of a messy eater, but that’s part of the charm. Besides, they have pretty small beaks, so I don’t think they can physically help it.
From what I can tell of the videos, goldfinches have a good personality too. They stick around the feeder while eating and will stand their ground, but they don’t go out of their way to get rid of other birds - mostly just minding their own business! They sing a cute little song when flying away sometimes, as an added bonus.
Goldfinches calmly deal with a titmouse
A goldfinch (right) and a house finch (to be discussed next) eating together
House Finch
House finches have an obvious sexual dimorphism, with the males having a reddish hue (duller in the fall) and the females a more boring palette, so I include some clips of both.
These guys are pretty similar to goldfinches with their eating habits and sing song calls, but they are significantly more common for me thus far, and seem a bit more aggressive. Particularly towards other bird species, because I do often see house finches stay at the feeder in pairs, unlike the titmice that will attack each other just as much as any bird.
A whole party of female house finches
A chorus of finch chirps
Bonus spectrogram
I think they are ultimately most concerned with their own feeding, which makes sense.
House finches disregard titmouse
Finch dodges titmouse?
Though perhaps the female house finches are a bit more aggressive than the males.
The woman holding down the fort while the man eats
She is a messy eater though
A big thing that makes the house finch videos more watchable even with the influx of finches is that some of them appear to be molting right now, particularly apparent with a few of the males. The patterns that the feathers molt in (silver areas) look quite distinct between different birds.
At first I thought the dude had some battle scars
This makes it possible to spot specific birds reappearing at the feeder over the course of the week, and since house finches are supposed to be monogamous, potentially identify bird couples.
This male is recognizable across a number of videos, and I think often appears with this same female, who has some sort of molting going on as well probably
Seems to be the same two birds together a few hours later, and they fly away together too!
I saved this four days prior because of the great entrance, but I think this is them also?
Chipping Sparrow
This has been a rare sight at the feeder to date! So I don’t have much to say about the chipping sparrow yet.
A chipping sparrow feeding
House Sparrow
Not sure why sparrows have been so uncommon at the feeder (maybe something to do with seed choice?), but I’ve also only captured one clip of the house sparrow to date, and it was much briefer than for the chipping sparrow.
A male house sparrow pops in and then immediately leaves
Black-capped Chickadee
Unfortunately, the chickadee seems to be at the bottom of the bird hierarchy, because it almost always runs away when confronted by other birds. And titmice are often confronting. So the chickadee does very quick grab and go when it comes to the feeder, which makes for less interesting videos. I hope that they can become less nervous to come to the feeder eventually, and that this will make them stay for longer periods, because I’d like to get some cute chickadee singing videos. They are very cute when you get a chance to look at them for a few seconds!
For now I resort to dumb gif-making effects to add some variety to the clips of chickadees being scared
To be fair to the chickadee, they aren’t always complete wimps. Occasionally they will avoid eye contact and bide their time until the other bird leaves. They also have made some chirps at the feeder, even if I haven’t gotten a full on song. Plus they can look cool when they’re flying in.
Successful chickadee coping strategy
Flying in footage
Some chickadee chirping - presumably they got their name from the noises they make
Dark-eyed Junco
Another species I’ve only found once so far, and a brief clip at that. In this case I don’t even have footage of it flying in, only flying out, so it is unclear how much was missed by the auto-recording camera (though it has for the most part been reliable with triggering upon bird movement).
Seen flying away here is the slate-colored subspecies of the dark-eyed junco, with bonus mourning dove fly-by afterwards
Mourning Dove
The mourning dove is quite adorable, and has only made an appearance at the feeder a handful of times. However it stays there for really extended stretches relative to the other birds - one stayed for over 15 consecutive minutes! It will graze on food for awhile but it will also just sit around and chill. Other birds mostly stay away from it, I assume due to its size, so it is slightly rude that it spends time sunbathing on the feeding perch when birds are waiting for a table.
When the mourning dove flies in it looks very harmless, but other birds are clearly staying away
A dove enjoying a meal
When the dove flies away you can see how shaky my feeder installation work is
Still, it’s always a welcome sight to see one of these in the bird feed. I looked up their song out of curiosity and it is quite unique, and again presumably where the name comes from, so fingers crossed one will sing while it’s idling by my feeder. There are at least 2 hanging around the yard, though I’m not sure how the feeder would handle more than 1 of these at once.
As a bonus, they are extra cute when the close their eyes as they eat; though I’m not sure why they do this sometimes and not others.
I think it might be missing the seed?
Blue Jay
My first blue jay sighting was one scaring away a mourning dove:
Sound up
The spectrogram from the blue jay screech
It even kinda looks like nails on a chalkboard
My second favorite Beanie Baby growing up was the blue jay (Rocket), so I have a real soft spot for blue jays despite their reputation as assholes and the annoyingness of the Toronto baseball team. I was worried the feeder was too small to get any blue jays directly landing on it, but I added some whole peanuts to the top of the tray in hopes of attracting some other birds, which seems to have worked.
The blue jay is still a relatively rare sighting, and it never stays very long, but it does now come to the feeder sometimes even without the peanuts, and I’ve seen it eating seed on the spot.
A blue jay eating at the feeder
It’s also sometimes seen flying around in the background of videos, like in one of the mourning dove gifs above. The hardware is supposed to capture 30 fps, so I bet there are cool flying visuals that could be found in videos I already have by going frame by frame.
Overall, the biggest downside of the feeder currently is just the sheer volume of birds coming through, which makes it more time consuming to find the novel clips. But that’s a better problem to have than no birds! Fortunately squirrels have stayed away thus far too.
It’s been a fun time and I’m definitely looking forward to checking in again when the seasons change and different birds are active. I might try out some new feeds soon as well, to get other species to come to the feeder. I often see Cardinals in trees around the backyard, but haven’t had any at the feeder yet.
A cardinal at the bird bath in the background?
