BS: A bird question?

Subject: BS: A bird question?
From: Deckman
Date: 17 Aug 07 - 10:17 AM

I have a bird question that has been puzzeling us this summer. Last Spring, two chickaddees, obviously married, moved into a bird house we'd put up. Soon they hatched three babies and everyone flew happily away. Then probably a month later, two new chickaddees moved in a repeated the whole scene, made babies and then they all flew away. We think the second round of parents were the babies from the first batch.

Was/is that possible ..... for one month old babies to become parents that quick? Just wondering. BVob(deckman)Nelson

Subject: RE: BS: A bird question?
From: Becca72
Date: 17 Aug 07 - 10:21 AM

I don't know much about birds, but it seems unlikely to me that it would be the offspring of the original birds. Digging back into my memory banks I would think the offspring would have to be close to a year old before they're ready to reproduce...but I could be wrong.

Subject: RE: BS: A bird question?
From: Becca72
Date: 17 Aug 07 - 10:31 AM

Upon further research:

Black Capped Chickadee:

Family:                   Paridae.

Status:                     No special status.

Size:                        Length 4 to 6 in (10 to 12.2 cm), wingspan 5 to 7 in (12.7 to 17.7 cm)., weight 1/3 to 1/2 oz (8.5 to 14.2 grams).

Diet:                        Omnivore.

Characteristics:       Social, active by day, inquisitive.

Area:                      North America.

Offspring:                5 to 8 brown speckled white eggs.



Trivia:

·    The chickadee is the state bird of Maine and Massachusetts.

·    It gets its name from its cheerful "chick-a-dee-dee-dee" call.

·    Chickadees were once called titmice.

·    The species name is Latin, meaning; (ater)=black, (capillus)=hair of the head.

·    The male has a song that sounds like "fee-bee."



Lifestyle
Chickadees are active, social little birds that often can often be seen in groups, especially during winter. They're extremely friendly and will mix with many other bird species in large flocks. Chickadees eat plants, berries and seeds. They also eat insect species that can be harmful to trees and agriculture. Chickadees sometimes eat while hanging upside down from a branch using specialized leg muscles. They're also able to hop up and down the trunks of trees. The chickadee is a small bird with a black cap on its head, a black bib, white cheek and grey back. The underbelly is a light beige. Black-capped chickadees don't migrate south; instead, they store food in various sites for the winter and are capable of lowering their body temperatures in severe cold, and enter a state of torpor to save energy.



Territory
The Black-capped chickadee can be found through most of Canada as well as the upper two-thirds of the United States. They can usually be found in wooded areas or in open areas bordered by forest. Forest clearing has destroyed some of their natural habitat, but thanks to feeders and nest boxes put up by bird lovers, the chickadee population of North America is well established. The territory of a chickadee couple ranges from 1.5 to 5.3 ha.



Reproduction
Chickadees are monogamous and pair up for life. Pairing of young chickadees takes place in the fall. Both birds build a nest of dried grass, moss and small twigs, either in an abandoned woodpecker hole or a birdhouse. They occasionally will hollow out a cavity in an old, decaying tree. The eggs are laid in the spring, between April and late June, and the female and male take turns incubating the eggs. The eggs hatch in twelve to fourteen days. Both parents care for the young, bringing food to them and teaching them to fly. The chicks are capable of flying two to three weeks after hatching, and one of the parents accompanies them on their first flight. The youngsters do not return to the nest, but will remain nearby for three to four weeks and will continue to be fed for the next week or so. By that time, they will look very much like their parents. Eventually, they leave the area to join winter flocks of mostly unrelated chickadees. They do not reproduce until they're one year of age. Chickadees can live up to 12 years in the wild.

Subject: RE: BS: A bird question?
From: pdq
Date: 17 Aug 07 - 10:33 AM

It's very unlikely that the two new birds were related to the first pair.

In the animal kingdon, under normal circumstances, siblings are not sexually attracted to each other, either.

'Course, there is San Francisco...

Subject: RE: BS: A bird question?
From: MMario
Date: 17 Aug 07 - 10:34 AM

Most likely it was the original pair that came back for a second brood.

Subject: RE: BS: A bird question?
From: Deckman
Date: 17 Aug 07 - 11:06 AM

I had the same problem with my sister! Bob

Subject: RE: BS: A bird question?
From: GUEST,leeneia
Date: 17 Aug 07 - 11:50 AM

I have read of cardinals that they will raise a second brood if the food supply is plentiful. I suspect it was true of your chickadees as well.

Subject: RE: BS: A bird question?
From: wysiwyg
Date: 17 Aug 07 - 11:53 AM

I have heard that barn swallows will return, if they can, to the nest from which they hatched in order to lay their own eggs. Obviously if all generations of these hatchlings arrived on the same day there'd be a problem. That's why I think we have a line of nests under the same overhang.

So-- chicakdee cousins?

~S~

Subject: RE: BS: A bird question?
From: gnu
Date: 17 Aug 07 - 02:12 PM

One of my fav birds. Always seem cheerful and curious.

As for a second brood, the robins and others had three clutches here this year. Can't ever recall seeing that.

Plus, this past week, I saw a flock of starlings and a flock of blackbirds.... not a family or several families, flocks. The temps here in the first three weeks of july were the coolest I have ever seen. We had only three weeks of 30+ temps. The next several days are low 20's and, single digit temps at night... 6 on Monday morn!!!

Sooooo... early and long, cold winter with lots of snow OR lots of freeze-thaw?

Subject: RE: BS: A bird question?
From: Stilly River Sage
Date: 17 Aug 07 - 02:36 PM

This was something that came up in bird biology class I took years ago. If they can, many species of birds will have a second brood. Some can manage a third (starlings) if the climate is mild enough.

We had a woodpecker rescue here last month. A big wind storm broke a mulberry branch right at the woodpecker nest in my neighbor's yard, dropping the three on the ground. Two survivied overnight, and we fed them meal worms while we checked around on our options. Finally the best bet was to build a bluebird style nest and put the babies in it. One of them died, so the neighbor took it down again and emptied the smelly contents, and we replaced it again. All the while Mom and Dad birds were around to feed whoever was there to be fed. For a while the chick hung out in a shoe box nailed in place while the nest was being cleaned and aired. But they did successfully launch this solitary little guy a few days later.

SRS

Subject: RE: BS: A bird question?
From: GUEST,Jim Dixon
Date: 17 Aug 07 - 02:37 PM

I find it amazing that birds that are hatched in the spring are big enough and strong enough to migrate south by the fall. Canada geese, for example, must have a prodigious growth rate to accomplish this.

Able to migrate doesn't mean able to breed, however. And if they did breed, how would the second generation be able to migrate? And they would need to follow their grandparents, not just their parents, to find the place they needed to migrate to. It seems unlikely.

However, I don't know if this applies to smaller birds. Do chickadees migrate?

Subject: RE: BS: A bird question?
From: Rapparee
Date: 17 Aug 07 - 02:39 PM

I think you're running some sort of sleazy motel for chickadees.

Subject: RE: BS: A bird question?
From: gnu
Date: 17 Aug 07 - 02:46 PM

Ours do not migrate.

Subject: RE: BS: A bird question?
From: open mike
Date: 17 Aug 07 - 03:07 PM

what makes you think the "second" pair were DIFFERENT birds?
don't they all look the same? like fjord horses....
how do you tell them apart?

Subject: RE: BS: A bird question?
From: Deckman
Date: 17 Aug 07 - 03:24 PM

It's EASY to tell them apart ... they answer to different names! Bob

Subject: RE: BS: A bird question?
From: jeffp
Date: 17 Aug 07 - 03:33 PM

Jim, around here (Maryland), the spring Canada Goose hatchlings are pretty much indistinguishable from their parents by mid-August, if not before. They do grow very quickly.

Subject: RE: BS: A bird question?
From: bubblyrat
Date: 18 Aug 07 - 11:42 AM

Where do Chickadees go when they need the toilet ?? They fly over the WC Fields !!

Subject: RE: BS: A bird question?
From: Gurney
Date: 18 Aug 07 - 05:28 PM

Thread creep.
A European Blackbird hen has just built it's nest in my carport (it is very early spring here) and we think it is the same one as the previous two years. She seems to be a solo mum, never seen the male sitting or feeding, but there are lots about, because our cats don't bother them.

Generally speaking, Blackbirds don't use the same nest twice, but will build a new one next to it if there is room. I've found as many as ten in a roofspace. A significant fire hazard.
They will raise two broods if the spring is early coming, but not usually in the same place.
She sits six feet from my tablesaw and watches me work, and flys over my head when she's feeding chicks.

Most bird parents stay with the chicks until they are fully independent, then drive them out to look for their own territory. What do Chickadees do?

Subject: RE: BS: A bird question?
From: Joybell
Date: 18 Aug 07 - 06:41 PM

Our Shearwaters (Mutton Birds) nest in burrows by the sea. The parents leave the chicks well before they are able to fly let alone feed themselves. The parents fly off to sea and don't come back until next year. The chicks are helpless fat, fluffy, big babies at this stage and have never been outside their sand-burrows. When they get hungry enough they waddle out of the burrows and sit forlorly on low bushes, staring out to sea. It's some time before their flight feathers grow enough for them to take off, completly alone. They feed on fish which they have to dive after. They don't come back to the land until next season either.
Must be the most neglected children in the bird world.
Cheers, Joy

Subject: RE: BS: A bird question?
From: Rowan
Date: 18 Aug 07 - 10:07 PM

And while Joybell's shearwaters start of in coastal Oz, they migrate to the Bering Sea before coming back. At some 13,000km this is one of the longest bird migrations and, as Joybell says, they get no "personal" guidance from their parents.

Cheers, Rowan

Subject: RE: BS: A bird question?
From: gnu
Date: 18 Aug 07 - 10:20 PM

bubblyrat.... sit for any length of time near a Chickadee's nest and you will know exactly where.

Subject: RE: BS: A bird question?
From: Micca
Date: 19 Aug 07 - 05:32 AM

Re Chickadees, are, of course, The North American version of Liz's Tits!!! See here

Subject: RE: BS: A bird question?
From: gnu
Date: 19 Aug 07 - 08:29 AM

Liz'z tits appear to be more colourful.

Subject: RE: BS: A bird question?
From: bubblyrat
Date: 19 Aug 07 - 09:45 AM

Interesting reading !! I gather they suffer from paranoia, become melancholy,and get paralytic ( Well, that"s what it LOOKS like in the text ) -----And, aren"t Penduline Tits what elderly, bra-burning feminists get ?? And I must decline your offer, "Gnu" , but thanks !!

Subject: RE: BS: A bird question?
From: Liz the Squeak
Date: 20 Aug 07 - 03:01 AM

Paranoid and melancholy I have been, but paralytic - not for at least 12 years mate!

LTS

Subject: RE: BS: A bird question?
From: ard mhacha
Date: 20 Aug 07 - 04:52 PM

In answer to Jim Dixon`s query on birds breeding late and migrating after 4 weeks.
I seen a brood of young Swallows being fed by their parents as they rested on the roof of our house, these young Swallows will have to build up their young bodies for a 5,000 mile flight to Africa, this was probably the second brood.

Subject: RE: BS: A bird question?
From: EBarnacle
Date: 20 Aug 07 - 05:12 PM

We had exactly the same thing with a pair of Red eyed vireos this year. This is they first year that they have raised two sets of chicks here. It may be an indication of more food being available. PS, they flew the coop last week.

Subject: RE: BS: A bird question?
From: Beer
Date: 21 Aug 07 - 02:46 PM

About a month ago I went down to the river to watch my son and friend fish. They were sitting on a log under overhanging trees. I squatted about 10 feet from them. I heard a chickdee above me and watched as he/she went into it's nest (hole in a branch) took a small speck of shaving and promply dropped it over my head. This continued until I moved away. Then it started to do the same thing over my son and his friends head.
Beer (adrien)

Subject: RE: BS: A bird question?
From: gnu
Date: 21 Aug 07 - 06:39 PM

Hahahaha..... now I remember. Thanks Beer. Next time, 10PM tops, eh?

Subject: RE: BS: A bird question?
From: Beer
Date: 21 Aug 07 - 09:10 PM

Good for you Gnu. I wondered if you had remembered the story.

Subject: RE: BS: A bird question?
From: Deckman
Date: 21 Aug 07 - 09:44 PM

He probably just thought that your son was a "Little shaver!" Bob

Subject: RE: BS: A bird question?
From: Stilly River Sage
Date: 21 Aug 07 - 11:09 PM

Perfect thread for this story that turned up in the news today:

Bird Grilled, but Lives to Tell Tale
August 21, 2007 (AP)

BENTON TOWNSHIP, Mich. - A wild bird is little worse for wear after being hit by a car while crossing a road, then spending two days trapped behind the car's grille. Connie Ankli said she unknowingly drove around with the bird, believed to be a quail, inside her vehicle's front end. "Oh, I love grilled poultry. But I usually buy it at the store," she said.

The bird was recovering from its experience at the home of Frank Filmore, a technician at Kepner's Precision Auto Krafters in Berrien County's Benton Township, about 175 miles west of Detroit.

Ankli said she was taking her daughter to her piano lesson Aug. 13 when she saw an animal on a road in Royalton Township. "I didn't want to hit it, so I straddled it," she told The Herald-Palladium of St. Joseph. "When I was just about on top of it, it moved. I heard a thump, saw feathers out the back window, but no bird."

Two nights later, she said she noticed movement in the front of the vehicle. "I bent down and looked," she said, and saw a bird "peering out from behind the grille."

Auto shop manager Tim Markham said the bird had broken through the honeycomb-style, plastic grille, which then bent back and trapped the bird. Markham said the bird would be released or turned over to a nature center.

Subject: RE: BS: A bird question?
From: ard mhacha
Date: 22 Aug 07 - 04:19 AM

Swallows in northern Europe will often have a second brood, this could be natures way of compensating for the many birds that do not survive the long journey to Africa.

Subject: RE: BS: A bird question?
From: GUEST, Sminky
Date: 22 Aug 07 - 05:50 AM

A lot of the blackbirds around here (UK) are on their third brood.

Tip: if you want a blackbird friend for life - give him/her some grapes to eat. They love 'em!

Subject: RE: BS: A bird question?
From: kendall
Date: 22 Aug 07 - 06:59 AM

Years ago when I was a hunter, I was sitting on a fallen log holding a rifle that was big enough to drop any animal in Maine. Suddenly, a Chicadee landed on the barrel and started looking me over and chattering at me. That put me in my place.
I wonder how he knew I wouldn't harm him? All the deer knew I would harm them.

Subject: RE: BS: A bird question?
From: Becca72
Date: 22 Aug 07 - 10:04 AM

That news story reminds me of the killer Volvo my father used to own...we nailed a golden pheasant this one time...except that bird definitely did NOT live to tell the tale. I'll never forget it even though I was only about 2 years old.

Subject: RE: BS: A bird question?
From: gnu
Date: 22 Aug 07 - 01:59 PM

A Volvo for a pheasant? Tsk, tsk... Fabio goes after geese with his face.

Subject: RE: BS: A bird question?
From: Becca72
Date: 22 Aug 07 - 02:40 PM

That was only one of many creatures the killer Volvo sent to the great beyond, gnu.

Subject: RE: BS: A bird question?
From: gnu
Date: 22 Aug 07 - 02:49 PM

So, you ate well as a child?

Subject: RE: BS: A bird question?
From: Becca72
Date: 22 Aug 07 - 02:50 PM

Funny, that...most of what my mother cooked certainly looked like roadkill.

Subject: RE: BS: A bird question?
From: Joybell
Date: 22 Aug 07 - 06:42 PM

And I thought the bird-in-the-grill story was just ours. Last year my friend Marie, who is a wildlife carer, was given a Magpie with a similar history. The young Magpie spent a few hours behind a car grill - rather than days though. When her broken leg was healed I cared for her for a while until I released her with the orphaned Magpie already in my care. She now has no sign of a limp.
Cheers, Joy

Subject: RE: BS: A bird question?
From: Dave the Gnome
Date: 23 Aug 07 - 05:48 PM

What is the velocity of a swallow carrying a coconut?

Is that European or an African swallow?


Errrrr...   Arrrrrrgggghhhhh

(MP and the Holy Grail)

I made friends with a baby blackbird in our back yard last year. It decided I was it's 'Mum'. Fed it for a while and then it disappeared. Found it drowned in a flooded plantpot. Stupid little bugger...

:D

Subject: RE: BS: A bird question?
From: Gurney
Date: 24 Aug 07 - 07:30 AM

Dave, European Swallows ARE African Swallows. They go there for the winter.
When I worked in a garage there was a pair of Blackbirds who nested inside there, and they lost their brood two years running. They drowned in the tyre test tank, which was the only source of water in there. We made a cover, but every time some-one forgot to put it on, another dead youngster.

Subject: RE: BS: A bird question?
From: GUEST, Sminky
Date: 24 Aug 07 - 07:41 AM

I love blackbirds to bits, but they do seem to die easier than most birds.

Two (brood 3) robin chicks have adopted me as their dad; their red feathers are starting to come through now, bless 'em!

Subject: RE: BS: A bird question?
From: EBarnacle
Date: 24 Aug 07 - 01:32 PM

Dave, considering the posts above, shouldn't that be MP and the Holy Grille?

Subject: RE: BS: A bird question?
From: Mickey191
Date: 24 Aug 07 - 03:44 PM

WEIRD QUESTION: Do birds eat hard boiled eggs?

PLease don't ask why I don't just put one or two out & watch if they are consumed.

Subject: RE: BS: A bird question?
From: gnu
Date: 24 Aug 07 - 03:48 PM

Okay... I got a question. At my camp, I have watched perrigrine falcons hunt from the railing on the upstairs deck. I have watched hawks hunt along the edges of the woods. I have watched bald eagles hunt along the river. I have watched owls hunt from the large pines during day and at night.

Why do owls wings make NO noise?