FAMILY SLOW BIRDING - SESSION 4
Bird Behavior
Video 4
In this session, I do all kinds of weird charades to get you to think about how to read body language to understand what's happening around you. When we do this with birds, we're watching their behavior! We can look at how they perch, how they fly, how they take care of themselves, and how they act around other birds.
Downloads for this session
Bird of the Day - Eastern phoebe
A familiar bird of neighborhoods and backyards, this bird is a member of the flycatcher family. Guess what they like to eat? And now guess how they hunt what they eat! You guessed it! In flight, they grab insects right out of the air. Flycatchers are fast, agile flyers who provide us with acrobatic foraging displays to capture our undivided attention. You can watch them at forest edges in rural and suburban places, flashing out from a perch to snag an unsuspecting insect, and then zipping back to a perch to gobble it down. Foraging habits sometimes help us identify the birds we’re looking at, so it’s a good bet that if you see a bird catching flies mid-air…it’s a flycatcher. Do you have Eastern Phoebe’s near you? Listen for them saying their name in a burry voice, “Fee-bee? Fee-bee.”
Let’s Play - Bird Behavior Scavenger Hunt
One of the best things about spring is the frenzy of bird behavior that’s happening around us all the time. One of the bummer things, is that most people miss seeing it because they don’t know what to look for. Let’s change that today!
Ducks are plentiful this time of year on any open body of water and they are tons of fun to watch. A favorite of mine is the Common Goldeneye. This duck is a bit smaller than a mallard and the males are black and white with an iridescent blue-black head and a small white dot near the base of the beak. What’s super cool about this duck, is they have a crazy courtship display where the male throws his head back touching his back, and then flings in forward again super fast!
So today, I want you to be on the lookout for courtship and other behaviors in your neighborhood. Your big question should be, “what’s that bird doing?” Take a look at the two downloads above to learn more about bird behavior and get your scavenger hunt checklist for birds!
Brain food - Resources for you!
Not that we need to spend more time online, but Brad Balliet the bassoonist and composer on Twitter has an exquisite feed all about bird behavior. He takes short video snippets of birds in his backyard in upstate New York. I’m hooked because he captures the coolest behaviors. Give it a look…this is the good side of Twitter, LOL. @BalliettBrad
How about a family bird movie? This one is rated TV-PG runs 51 minutes and is available on Netflix, DANCING WITH THE BIRDS. Mind-blowing footage of the courtship dances of multiple species in the birds of paradise family. Colorful, funny, and educational.