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About The nugget. (Sisters, Or.) 1994-current | View Entire Issue (Nov. 18, 2020)
Wednesday, November 18, 2020 The Nugget Newspaper, Sisters, Oregon Tales from a Sisters Naturalist by Jim Anderson A bevy of bushtits Note: This story is dedi- cated to Alex Trebek, the long- time host of Jeopardy! who has gone out among the stars. Another plus has popped up for Sue and me on leav- ing Sisters and coming over here to The Swamp to live near our son Caleb and his family in Eugene: a bevy of bushtits, and other wildlife coming to our feeders and water feature. They9re com- ing nearly daily in a mob to our suet feeder. Mobbing everything is what bushtits do, and they do it with 100 percent coop- eration and gusto, even when nesting. I9ve only seen one bush- tit nest, and that was when I was working for OMSI back in the 1960s, living on my little <U-Pick= farm out- side of Beaverton. At first, I thought a silly wind had flipped an old sock into the lower branches of a fir tree in my backyard. But as I stood there looking at it, suddenly a tiny bird went zipping past my head and dove directly into the top of the sock. <What the&?= I thought, and moved a little closer. As I stood there, still as a cat watching a mouse, another tiny bird came out of the shrubs like a grey blur and also popped into the top of the sock. That was when it hit me: It wasn9t a <sock= at all, but a bird nest. Then I went a little closer and could see it was made of plant material, not sewn together tightly, but just small chunks of what looked like some kind of leafy mesh, sort of hooked together. At about that moment three tiny birds came zipping out and what I noticed (I was standing that close) was their tiny beaks and the color of their eyes: two had yellow and one had black eyes. It wasn9t until I got to breaking open the books on birds that I discovered who they were and what the heck was going on in that sock- like nest. I learned that the females were the yellow- eyed ones. Thank goodness the book didn9t say they9d peck my eyes out if I got too close to their nest. The 20 or so individu- als pigging out on my suet feeder just outside my pic- ture window here in Eugene confirmed they enjoy being together in just about every- thing they do. Oh, and this being our election year, I have to tell you the proper name for these tiny birds in the U.S. is <American Bushtit,= scien- tific name, Psaltriparus min- imus. I9m not a Latin scholar, so I have no idea what the genus name means, but the species name means <small.= One of the bird books described them as, <drab birds with light ticking and lisping call notes.= I don9t consider them drab, not for a minute. When they hit my suet feeder there9s noth- ing drab about their looks, sounds or behavior. They9re supposed to be <common in woods and mountains of the west,= but you gotta be on the ball, looking and listening to find The Law Offi ce of JOHN H. MYERS, LLC them <common,= because they are so tiny. But, the real good news is they are not endangered. A flock feeding in a tree may go almost unnoticed until they fly out, or you suddenly hear them. Then there9s usually twenty or thirty of them flitting by to the next tree. Thinking over where you find them, it9s not so strange that they do everything in a group. They are very socia- ble while finding, and feed- ing on, insects and spiders. And those groups will stay warm and cuddly roosting close together in a tight mass on cold nights. Hang a suet feeder up that the downy and hairy wood- peckers 4 along with that beautiful Sisters icon the white-headed woodpeckers PHOTO BY KENDRA ANDERSON A bevy of bushtits; just half of the 20 that were there just before my daughter-in-law got up to the window to shoot their picture. 4 will come to, and bushtits will think they9ve died and gone to heaven 4 which is Oregon GIFT BASKET EMPORIUM Gift baskets are a great way to surprise friends and family locally and afar! 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