birdsoup

A Barred Owl was seen in the pine grove in Croton Point Park. So I organized a small group to see if we could find it. We didn’t. In fact we learned it hasn’t been seen for a few days.

Disappointing? Yes. But we enjoyed the morning and the birds we did find. I added two species that I had not seen before this year – Brown Creeper and Red-breasted Nuthatch – not rare or unusually birds, but nice.

As I was driving home from Croton, I was struck by the fact that these two species are very similar in one way but also exactly different. Both birds are often seen on tree trunks where they use their pointed bills to probe out insects that are hiding under the bark of the trunk. Both birds have a similar diet sharing a taste for insects. Both frequent the same restaurant (tree trunks) but their approach to locating their food is exactly opposite.

The nuthatch is nicknamed “the upside bird” because it is the only bird that can walk head-first down a tree trunk. And it finds food that way, walking down a tree trunk from high to low looking for insects hidden in the cracks and crevices of the bark.

The Brown Creeper feeds in exactly the opposite direction. It usually flies to the very bottom of a tree, where the trunk meets the ground. Then it climbs up the tree from bottom to top spiraling around the trunk as it climbs. When it reaches its top height it flies to the bottom of the next tree and begins its spiral climb again.
One feeds top to bottom, the other bottom to top. It this way the two birds can feed in the same area without competing . On its trip down the trunk the nuthatch finds insects on the top edge of the bark while the ascending creeper finds the food on the lower edge of the bark.

So no owl today. But an interesting study on bird feeding habits