BirdNote Daily

Bwaa-haa-haa! Happy Halloween!Download Vampire Ground-Finches menace their victims in broad daylight, stabbing holes in their flesh, then devouring the blood. During the dry season, when their usual diet of seeds can be scarce, they turn to large seabirds, like boobies. Fluttering onto a booby’s back, the finch jabs its sharp beak in among the feathers until blood flows, making a meal of it. Why boobies tolerate this remains a mystery. Transcript:  BirdNote® Out For Blood: Vampire Finches of the Galapagos Written by Bob Sundstrom [Thunderclap] This is BirdNote. [Featured audio: creepy music - http://www.dailymotion.com/video/xjzctj ] In the far-off Galápagos Islands, blood is dripping. There are vampires at work. But they don't wait for cover of darkness to take wing. [Sharp-beaked Ground Finch song, https://macaulaylibrary.org/audio/86756, 1.02-1.05] They menace their victims in broad daylight, stabbing holes in their flesh, then devouring the blood. [Sharp-beaked Ground Finch song, https://macaulaylibrary.org/audio/86756, 1.02-1.05] These vampires aren't bats. Or castaway Transylvanian aristocrats. They’re Vampire Ground-Finches. And they look innocent enough.   Vampire Ground-Finches sometimes eat seeds, but during the dry season, seeds can be scarce. And their survival options are few: fly to another island, starve, or ... see what else nature offers. On offer are large seabirds, like boobies. [Blue-footed Booby call, https://macaulaylibrary.org/audio/28658, 0.16-.17] Fluttering onto a booby’s back, the finch jabs its sharp beak in among the feathers until blood flows. Again and again the finch dips its beak in the blood, making a meal of it. Why boobies tolerate the blood-letting isn’t known. They may be too preoccupied with nesting. [Blue-footed Booby call, https://macaulaylibrary.org/audio/28658, 0.16-.17] Or it may be there are so many finches that boobies have no alternative but to adapt to a part-time role as blood donors. Happy Halloween … from BirdNote. I’m Michael Stein (maniacal laugh).                                                                                ### Bird sounds provided by The Macaulay Library of Natural Sounds at the Cornell Lab of Ornithology, Ithaca, New York. 86756 recorded by Robert I. Bowman and 28658 recorded by Arnoud B van den Berg. BirdNote’s theme music was composed and played by Nancy Rumbel and John Kessler. Producer: John Kessler Managing Producer: Jason Saul Associate Producer: Ellen Blackstone © 2017 Tune In to Nature.org  October 2017   Narrator: Michael Stein ID#              GEOSEP-01-2017-10-31   GEOSEP-01 Air date: Tuesday, October 31, 2017 © Charles Davies CC Location: Galapagos

Hang the fat and watch the fun!Download Chickadees and titmice, nuthatches and jays, and woodpeckers, like the Pileated pictured here, all love suet. As do birds whose beaks can’t open seeds, like tiny kinglets, and almost any wintering warbler. The Brown Creeper, usually creeping up tree trunks, is a cool bird to discover at your suet feeder. And in the West, look for mobs of tiny Bushtits, taking a break from their normal diet of insects and spiders. Transcript:  BirdNote® Who Likes Suet? Written by Bob Sundstrom This is BirdNote. [Tufted Titmouse song, https://macaulaylibrary.org/audio/192213, 0,16-.19] Fall is a great time to put out a suet feeder. Suet cakes are mostly fat, giving birds a high energy boost to help them survive the cold weather. Who likes suet? It’s a long and varied list. [White-breasted Nuthatch call, https://macaulaylibrary.org/audio/176168, 0.04-.07] Typical visitors include chickadees and titmice, nuthatches, jays, and woodpeckers.  And keep an eye out for other birds at your suet feeder, especially those whose beaks can’t open seeds. Tiny kinglets, among the smallest of all songbirds, sometimes hover at the feeder. Wrens love a bite of suet, too, as well as almost any kind of sparrow or wintering warbler. [Bewick’s Wren song, https://macaulaylibrary.org/audio/187044, 0.07-.10] Alas, non-native European Starlings also find suet hard to resist. But there are suet feeders designed to exclude starlings while letting the regular native birds get to the good stuff. One of those native birds is the Brown Creeper. It’s an especially cool bird to discover at your feeder, because it’s most often glimpsed disappearing briskly up the trunk of a tree. In the West, mobs of tiny Bushtits sometimes blanket a chunk of suet, taking a break from their normal diet of insects and spiders. It’s high time to hang up the suet feeder. For BirdNote, I’m Mary McCann.  Support for BirdNote comes from Bloomsbury, a publisher of natural history books and birding guides. Critical Critters by Ralph Steadman and Ceri Levy is available now.                                                                                ### Bird sounds provided by The Macaulay Library of Natural Sounds at the Cornell Lab of Ornithology, Ithaca, New York. Recorded by Jay W McGowan, Geoffrey A Keller and Bob McGuire. BirdNote’s theme music was composed and played by Nancy Rumbel and John Kessler. Producer: John Kessler Managing Producer: Jason Saul Associate Producer: Ellen Blackstone © 2017 Tune In to Nature.org   October 2017   Narrator: Mary McCann ID#       feeder-05-2017-10-24          feeder-05     Air date: Wednesday, October 25, 2017 Related bird:  Pileated Woodpecker (Dryocopus pileatus) Bird type: woodpecker Topics & Themes:  backyard sanctuary, birdfeeding

BirdNote: Daily two-minute stories about birds, the environment, and more.

BirdNote: Daily two-minute stories about birds, the environment, and more.

BirdNote: Daily two-minute stories about birds, the environment, and more.

BirdNote: Daily two-minute stories about birds, the environment, and more.

BirdNote: Daily two-minute stories about birds, the environment, and more.

BirdNote: Daily two-minute stories about birds, the environment, and more.

BirdNote: Daily two-minute stories about birds, the environment, and more.

BirdNote: Daily two-minute stories about birds, the environment, and more.