the project feederwatch -...

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The Project FeederWatchTop 20 feeder birds in the Southwest

Based on the reports of citizen scientists from

across the region.

White-breasted Nuthatch by Steve Delloff

Do you like to watch the birds that visit your backyard bird feeder? Perhaps you even keep a list of these birds. Although keeping track of the birds at your feeders may seem like nothing more than a relaxing hobby, you are actually collecting important information. By sending your counts of feeder birds to the Cornell Lab of Ornithology’s Project FeederWatch, you can help scientists learn more about the distribution and abundance of birds.

Project FeederWatch is an annual survey of North American bird populations that visit backyard bird feeders in winter. Since 1987, thousands of bird watchers across the United States and Canada have participated in Project FeederWatch.

The following show is a countdown of the 20 species that were the most frequent visitors to the backyards of Project FeederWatch participants in the Southwest region.

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PROJECT FEEDERWATCH REGIONS

Project FeederWatch counts are divided into regions. What is a FeederWatch region?

If you travel across the continent from west to east, you will encounter different types of birds at different locations along your way. For example, you might see Western Scrub-Jays in California, Gray Jays in the Canadian Rockies, and Blue Jays in Virginia. Therefore, to interpret FeederWatch data in a meaningful way, the continent is divided into 15 FeederWatch Regions. Each region includes a group of states and provinces that share similar bird communities.

FeederWatch groups the states of Nevada, Arizona, Utah, New Mexico, and Colorado into the Southwest region.

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Regional Rank #20• Seen at 34% of feeders• Average flock size = 3.5

Continental Rank #72

Cassin’s Finch

Food Preferences• Black-oil Sunflower

B. S

mal

l

Male (above), female (left)

In the countdown that follows, all species will be featured in a slide similar to this one.

The slides provide a map, based on FeederWatch reports, of where the species can be seen in the winter.

The slides also highlight a few key statistics telling us how common the birds are in the region. For instance…

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This species was the 20th most commonly reported bird in your region

This same species was the 13th most commonly reported bird in North America



The Regional Rank refers to how common the species is at feeders in your region.

The Continental Rank refers to how common this species is at feeders when considering all of the United States and Canada.

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This species was seen at 47% of the FeederWatch count sites

When present at a site, an average of 2.6 birds were reported



Also included on each bird slide is information on the percentage of feeders visited and average group size. The percentage of feeders visited tells what percentage of FeederWatchers in the region reported this species at least once during the winter, thus describing how widely a species is distributed.

The average group size indicates the average number of individuals of a species seen at one time in a feeder area. This tells us how abundant a bird is when that species is present at a count site.

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Cassin’s Finch

Food Preferences• Black-oil Sunflower

B. S

mal

l

Male (above), female (left)

Preferred feeder:• Platform• Hopper• Tube

Winter behavior:• Family groups join into small foraging groups in late summer, and later move to lower elevations. Winter flocks may include upwards of 5,000 individuals, however these flocks typically number fewer than 30 birds.

Cool facts:• Cassin's Finches often visit mineral deposits on the ground to acquire salt.• Cassin's Finches are accomplished mimics, often adding the songs and calls of other species into their own songs.

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Spotted Towhee

Food Preferences• Mixed seed• Millet

M. W

oodr

uff

Preferred feeder:• Ground• Platform

Winter behavior:• A familiar bird of scrubby habitats, the Spotted Towhee was formerly considered the same species as the Eastern Towhee. The two formshybridize on the Great Plains.• Towhees from northern parts of the breeding range migrate to areas where there are year-round residents, either mixing with local towhees or joining separate winter flocks. Towhees that do not migrate also wander in winter and flock with other towhees, instead of maintaining winter territories.

Cool fact:• Watch a Spotted Towhee feeding on the ground; you'll probably observe its two-footed, backwards-scratching hop. This "double-scratching" is used by a number of towhee and sparrow species to unearth the seeds and small invertebrates they feed on. One Spotted Towhee with an unusable, injured foot was observed hopping and scratching with one foot.

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Lesser Goldfinch

Food Preferences• Nyjer seed

Miln

e

Preferred feeder:• Tube

Winter behavior:• Lesser Goldfinches from the eastern portion of their range are partially migratory, with some remaining resident and others withdrawing southward for the winter. • These finches are highly gregarious, with as many as 400 flocking together in winter, although flocks more commonly consist of 20 to 30.

Cool fact:• The Lesser Goldfinch lives in semiarid regions where brush and scattered trees dot an open landscape. However, Lesser Goldfinches are seldom found more than half a mile from water, and distribution of water sources may determine that of the birds. Indeed, providing water is among the best ways to attract Lesser Goldfinches to your feeders.

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Continental Rank #3

Downy Woodpecker

Food Preferences• Suet

A. T

oppi

ng

Preferred feeder:•Suet

Winter Behavior:•Male and female Downy Woodpeckers may stay in the same areas in winter, but they divide up where they look for food. The male feeds more on small branches and weed stems, and the female feeds more on large branches and the trunks of trees. Males appear to keep the females from foraging in the more productive spots. When the male is removed from a woodlot, the female shifts her foraging efforts to the smaller branches.

Cool Fact:•Downy Woodpeckers defend territories against neighboring pairs, but they are very tolerant of other species. These woodpeckers learn and respond to the alarm calls of other birds.

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Black-billed Magpie

Food Preferences• Peanuts in shell• Suet

D. C

lear

y

Preferred feeder:• Ground• Suet

Winter behavior:• Once Black-billed Magpies establish territories, these areas are defended year-round. Nonetheless, adult magpies in winter may leave during the day to join flocks of up to 30 other magpies.• In particularly cold weather the birds of a foraging flock will spend the night together as well as the day, with up to several hundred gathering at a roost site. The magpies perch in dense conifers to reduce their exposure to wind and cold night air—and to protect themselves from the Great Horned Owls.

Cool fact:• Black-billed Magpies frequently land on large mammals, such as deer and moose, to remove ticks from them. Magpies may eat the ticks, or may cache them for later consumption.

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White-breasted Nuthatch

Food Preferences• Suet• Sunflower seed• Peanuts

H. K

ey

Preferred feeder:•Suet•Hopper

Winter Behavior:•Nuthatch pairs defend quite large territories year-round. Territory size can be 25 to 30 acres in woodland and up to twice that in more fragmented habitat. As a result, each feeder site is normally visited by only one or two individuals, although a feeder near a territorial border may sometimes attract three or four.

Cool Fact:•White-breasted Nuthatches spend quite a bit of their time caching food, carrying seeds a short distance and carefully concealing them in crevices in bark. The male nuthatch, being dominant, may often displace his mate at food sources or steal food she has just cached. As a result, the female is likely to go on caching trips in the opposite direction from the male and hide her food farther away from the food source than he does.

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Mountain Chickadee

Food Preferences• Black-oil sunflower• Peanut butter mixes

M. W

oodr

uff

Preferred feeder:• Platform• Hopper

Winter behavior:• The winter social system of Mountain Chickadees appears similar to that of their closest relatives, Black-capped Chickadees. Youngsters disperse in the autumn, then join winter flocks made up of an adult pair and perhaps a few additional juveniles. These winter flocks are often smaller than in other chickadee species, consisting of only two to six individuals.

Cool fact:• Like many other chickadee species, Mountain Chickadees store food for later use. Seeds and insects are cached under bark, in pine needle clusters, and in the ground.

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Continental Rank #2(Combined with Carolina Chickadee)

Black-capped Chickadee

Food Preferences• Sunflower seed• Safflower Seed• Suet• Peanuts

M. W

oodr

uff

Preferred feeder:•Platform•Hopper

Winter Behavior:•Chickadees spend the winter in flocks that average six to ten individuals. Each flock is composed of a resident pair and a number of unrelated juveniles.

Cool Facts:•Much of the food gathered by chickadees is stored for later use. Laboratory studies have shown that 24 hours after caching food, chickadees not only remember where they hid items but also which sites hold the highest quality foods. These high quality items are recovered first. •Most stored food items are recovered within a day or two, but food may be stored for as long as 28 days.

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Regional Rank #12• Seen at 45% of feeders • Average flock size = 4.8


White-crowned Sparrow

Miln

e

Adult (above)

First winter (right)

Food Preferences• Mixed seed


Winter behavior:• Four of the five subspecies of White-crowned Sparrows are migratory. The sedentary race lives in a very narrow band along the California coast. • Most White-crowned Sparrows visit feeders early or late in the day.• A migrating sparrow that has discovered a feeder will often pause in its journey for several days to fatten up before moving on. There is a good chance that the same individual will repeat the stopover in subsequent years.

Cool facts:• A young male White-crowned Sparrow learns its song during the first two or three months of its life.• Because male White-crowned Sparrows learn the songs they grew up with and do not travel far from where they were raised, numerous song dialects exist. Males nesting in an area between two dialects may be bilingual and able to sing both songs.

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Steller’s Jay

Food Preferences• Striped sunflower• Peanuts

M. W

oodr

uff

Preferred feeder: • Platform• Hopper

Winter Behavior:• Large flocks of Steller’s Jays are likely to consist of dispersing juveniles, because paired birds prefer to remain year-round in their breeding territories. In severe weather though, Steller’s Jays will move to lower elevations. They also undertake periodic irruptions—wandering movements that are apparently caused by a failure in the local food supply.

Cool Facts:• The Steller's Jay shows a great deal of variation in appearance throughout its range, with some populations featuring black crests and backs, and others blue. • Steller's Jays and Blue Jays are the only North American jays with crests. The range of the Blue Jay is expanding westward. Where they meet, the two species occasionally interbreed and produce hybrids.

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Continental Rank #9

European Starling


J. S

mith

/ C

LO

Preferred feeder:•Suet

Winter Behavior:•Young starlings often migrate several hundred miles, as do a proportion of the adults, especially those adults breeding farther north.•In the winter, starlings can gather into roosts of several thousand birds. Dominant males occupy the center of roosting flocks, where they are most protected from the weather and predators.

Cool Fact:•European Starlings were introduced into North America in 1890 and are now among our most abundant birds from coast to coast. Like the House Sparrow, starlings compete with our native cavity-nesting species for nesting sites.

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Continental Rank #5

American Goldfinch

Food Preferences• Nyjer seed• Black-oil sunflower seed

Winter plumage Summer male

L. W

orth

ingt

on

C. R

ay

Preferred feeders:•Tube•Hopper•Platform

Winter Behavior:•Goldfinches rely on storing food in their crops each evening to provide energy during the night.•Goldfinches will hang upside down to eat, but experiments with specially designed feeders have shown that they prefer to dine upright if possible.

Cool Fact:•The bright yellow plumage of summertime is replaced by a dull-green winter plumage—often confusing new bird watchers. This winter coat features a dense layer of soft feathers to provide extra insulation against cold temperatures.

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Continental Rank #4

Food Preferences• Mixed seed• Cracked corn

C. J

ohns

on

Mourning Dove

Preferred feeder:•Ground•Platform

Winter Behavior:•Mourning Doves form winter flocks in November and December. The flocks average about 50 birds but range from a few birds to several hundred.•Winter flocks spend their days in fields eating grain or small seeds. One patient scientist counted 17,200 grass seeds in a single Mourning Dove’s stomach.

Cool Facts:•A Mourning Dove pair rarely leaves its eggs unattended. The male usually incubates from mid-morning until late afternoon, and the female sits the rest of the day and night. A dove may have up to five or six clutches in a single year. •A majority of the Mourning Doves spending the winter in Ontario, Canada, were found to have lost one or more toes to frostbite.

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Pine Siskin

Food Preferences• Hulled sunflower seed• Nyjer seed

R. B

elhu

meu

r

Preferred feeder:• Tube

Winter behavior:• Every few years there is a large irruption of Pine Siskins beyond their normal winter range. These movements are caused by fluctuations in the abundance of tree seeds that are the main food source (especially pine and alder seeds).

Cool Fact:• Siskins rarely return to the same winter destinations twice, and they are also nomadic within a winter. The birds visiting your feeder today may not be the ones you saw a few days or weeks before. Examples come from a bird bander in North Dakota, whose marked birds were resighted later the same winter as far away as 450 miles. Another was recaptured three years later in Connecticut—2,000 miles to the east.

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Western Scrub-Jay

D. M

cMor

die

Food Preferences• Peanuts• Sunflower seed


Winter behavior:•Young Western Scrub-Jays disperse in fall and join winter flocks. The noisy winter flocks of 5 to 15 juveniles may wander out of their normal breeding areas into oak-grassland habitats.

Cool fact:•Western Scrub-Jays feed on parasites located on the bodies of mule deer. The deer often help the jays by standing still and holding their ears up.

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American Robin

Food Preferences• Fresh and dried fruit

Miln

e

Preferred feeders:•Ground•Platform

Winter Behavior:•Although the appearance of a robin is considered a harbinger of spring, the American Robin actually spends the winter in much of its breeding range. However, because they spend less time in yards and congregate in large flocks during winter, you're much less likely to see them.

Cool Fact:•Earthworms are the food of choice for robins on suburban lawns. Experiments have shown that robins rely on vision to find their prey. The bird’s familiar head-cocking allows it to see straight ahead even though its eyes are on either side of its head.

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Northern Flicker


C. J

ohns

on

Preferred feeders:•Suet•Ground

Winter Behavior:•Most people with feeders will see flickers at some point during the winter, but this species is rarely a consistent visitor to a feeding station.•Although it can climb up the trunks of trees and hammer on wood like other woodpeckers, the Northern Flicker prefers to find food on the ground.

Cool Fact:•Ants are the Northern Flicker's favorite food, and the flicker digs in the dirt to find them. It uses its long barbed tongue to lap up the ants.

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House Sparrow


L. E

lliott

Preferred feeder:•Platform

Winter Behavior:•House Sparrows are year-round residents, and their distribution is closely associated with human habitation. They are found in agricultural, suburban, and urban areas, although they tend to avoid woodlands, forests,grasslands, and deserts.•In winter, the size of foraging flocks of House Sparrows is correlated with both the amount of food available and time of day (with feeding activity increasing in the late afternoon). Foraging in flocks is highly beneficial due to the protection against predation that is afforded by larger, more vigilant, flocks. Each bird within the flock can spend less time looking up for danger and therefore forages more efficiently.

Cool Fact:•The House Sparrow was introduced into Brooklyn, New York, in 1851, partly as a means to control insect pests. By 1900 it had spread to the Rocky Mountains. Its spread throughout the West was aided by additional introductions in San Francisco, California, and Salt Lake City, Utah.

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Continental Rank #1

H. K

ey

Dark-eyed Junco


L. W

orth

ingt

on

Dark-eyed race (above) Oregon race (right)

Preferred feeder:•Ground•Platform

Winter Behavior:•“Snowbirds,” as juncos are also known, have earned their informal name on two counts. Not only are they more likely to visit feeders during snowy periods, but their return from far-northern breeding areas is a signal that colder weather is close behind. In fact, juncos are sighted at more feeders across North America than any other species, visiting over 80% of FeederWatch sites.

Cool Fact:•The sociable junco spends its winter in a flock of up to 30 birds who remain together throughout the season. Each flock is organized following a dominance hierarchy–dominant birds get to feed in the center of a food patch and spend less time looking around for predators. At the top of the dominance hierarchy are adult males, followed by young males, adult females, and young females.

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Continental Rank #7

House Finch

Food Preferences• Black-oil sunflower seed• Hulled sunflower seed

T. F

auce

glia

L. E

lliot

Male (above)Female (right)

Preferred feeder:•Platform•Hopper•Tube

Winter Behavior:•Eastern House Finches have become partially migratory (some individuals migrate and others do not), whereas the ancestral stock, which is from Western North America, is resident.

Cool Facts:•House Finches were introduced to eastern North America in the 1940s by pet dealers. Threatened with prosecution for illegally selling House Finches, the merchants freed their captive finches on Long Island. From this founding population, House Finches rapidly spread throughout the East.•Coloration in male House Finches can range from yellow to bright crimson. The color comes from carotenoid pigments found in some natural foods. A bird’s color can change if different pigments are consumed prior to the growth of new feathers.

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A joint research and education project of the Cornell Lab of Ornithology, Bird Studies Canada, Audubon, and Nature Canada.

Signing up for Project FeederWatch is easy…

• Online at: www.birds.cornell.edu/pfw

• By phone: 1-800-843-BIRD

• By mail: Send a check for $15 for Project FeederWatch to: PFWCornell Lab of Ornithology PO Box 11Ithaca, NY 14850

Are the Top 20 species at your feeders similar to those reported by FeederWatchers from across the Southwest region? You can contribute to future Top 20 lists and help scientists learn more about the distribution and abundance of feeder birds by participating in Project FeederWatch.

You don’t need to be an expert birder to participate. When you sign up you will receive an identification poster of common feeder birds, a calendar, an instruction booklet, and the FeederWatcher’s Handbook with tips on bird feeding.

Find more information online at www.birds.cornell.edu/pfw

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