Pond Boss Forums INTRO Questions & Observations New Visitors - Band Tailed Pigeons

Brettski should appreciate this one.

An interesting development around my place the last few weeks has been the presence of a flock (maybe 50 birds) of band tailed pigeons. perhaps a common bird for some of you, but i've never seen them here. although my pond has been decimated by evaporation (down about 6 feet currently) it still holds a pretty good volume (about 9 feet in deep end but reduced from ~1 acre to about 0.6 acres) and still attracts a great diversity of wildlife.

the pigeons are roosting in our woods, moving around a lot, but overall hanging near our pond. yesterday i witnessed several attacks on the flock by both red-tail and red-shouldered hawks. i am hoping to get a falcon in here, but havent seen one. many years ago, in new mexico, i watched a gyrfalcon (very rare for NM) take a band tailed pigeon in flight. i am resisting breaking out the 410 since its their first visit here, i'd like them to become regulars.

During the period in which we had a bird feeder in our back yard, our favorite moments were watching a Cooper's Hawk (who hung around the house a lot then for some reason) pick off unsuspecting Mourning Doves.

we have coopers hawks as well, cool bird, very fast, almost like a falcon.

was watching the flock today, they seem a lot more nervous since the attacks yesterday and i wonder how long they'll stay around. they dont sit in a roost longer than about 5 minutes before woooshing around to another.

domestic pigeons are one thing, but these band tails are fun to watch, and am very pleased my little puddle attracted them. i looked them up in bird book, and noted a write up about the passenger pigeon.......they described flocks in the 1800's estimated at over 1 billion birds that took several days to pass overhead....last one died in 1914.

Dave - you would probably have fun watching rollers or tumblers (domestic pigeons) out at your pond. Your post reminds me of the time I got my Dad some rollers that were some extras I had for training my bird dogs. I got them from a guy who regularly shows pigeons. When my dad let them loose more than half of them landed in the water at the pond, he said it was funny watching them use their wings to paddle back to shore. Within 4 weeks the hawks had caught every single one of them much to my dad's dismay, he is a big bird watcher. There was a hawk that would sit on a tree limb just outside the coup my dad built and the hawk would just wait for them to leave.

I enjoy some minor bird watching at my residence (which is not at my pond). I keep some bird feeders for woodpeckers and hummingbirds.

My favorite bird to watch is the Pileated (sp?) Woodpecker.

I've only ever seen three of them, but man, what a wild bird to see.

my dad is (was) a big bird watcher..at 86 he's losing the vision needed for birding....never the less, i'm glad he dragged me around on his bird watching trips even though most were just wet and cold adventures for a young kid. i look back now and realize how much i learned from it all...good story shorty.

sunil, pileateds are awewome. we had a sewit (sp?...blocks of fat) feeder hung on eave of house back east (MD) and the pileateds would come feed right in front of windows....amazing to watch out in woods too...they throw the biggest chunks of wood you ever saw.

some of our pondmeisters in the deep south should keep a look out for ivory-billed woodpeckers (even bigger than pileateds) thought to go extinct several decades ago, but recently thought to have been found again somewhere in Arkansas.

im enjoying watching our regular critters adjust to the new water source here, and to seeing what newcomers are attracted as this is the first summer in over 8 years it held water all year long.

Dave - my dad has seen an ivory-billed woodpecker here in NE, ,UNL's Morrill Hall has 3 stuffed ivory-billed woodpeckers tucked away that are not on public display, my dad got to see them a few years ago.

i'll bet he was jazzed about that. i've seen "things" in both institutions and private collections that were collected many, many, many years ago.....thats a double edged sword right there cause if nobody ever collected, lots of folks wouldnt get to see and learn about such things, but the collecting itself probably contributed to the rarity and eventual demise.

Although one could look at critters like the ivory billed woodpecker, condor, and whooping crane, or what have you, as "the last survivors of the Pleistocene, an age long past"....of which some these highly specialized critters were indeed decimated by the destruction of habitat by humans, in a sense they were simply not designed to keep living with even the slightest disruption to their habitat....destined to eventually die out as much as we try to hold on to them. its interesting to see how related species like the pileated woodpecker, turkey vulture, sand hill crane fluorish and all adapt just fine to changing habitat. you could go down the mammal list the same way...sabertooth versus cougar, giant beavers versus modern beavers, dire wolf/coyotes....i have no clue what i'm talking about... time for my second beer.

Welcome to my world...

Yep D.I.E.D., I sure do appreciate your post. It is the bitter-sweet way of the land. We are in awe of the hawks, yet regret when they tear up another bird. (Donna-ski is a bit more sensitive about this food-chain). A large hawk (cannot recall the type) once swooped into one of our feeders and grabbed one of the dozens of Goldfinches we support. It landed in a tree 50 ft away with the finch clutched in the talons of one foot, still alive. Donna-ski jumped up, ran out of the house, and started screaming and waving her arms. The hawk took flight and bolted, but not before releasing the goldfinch who took flight like a cruise missile.
When we had the place on the Tippecanoe River, we had a pair of Pileated Woodpeckers nesting in the big ol' dead Maple tree that rose out in front of our deck. They returned and nested 2 years in a row. The home and decks were on a 20' tall bluff, so they looked into the tree branches where they nested, about 50 feet away nearly horizontal. We got to watch the entire process, right thru fledging. They are like little wood-chippers when they dig out the huge hole into the core of the tree-trunk. The ground around the tree looks like they celebrated New Year's eve early with wood confetti. It surrounds the tree for 20 or 30 feet in all directions as they toss out the confetti hunks, one at a time.

We too always have an interesting rotation of birds at the pond. We have a pair of red shouldered hawks that raise their babies just behind the pond. The big yellow babies learn to catch frogs at our pond edge.

For the past couple of weeks we've had a family of 8 turkeys regularly visiting late in the afternoon.

Over the past week our ducks have been fascinated by a heron that visits just before dusk. They follow him as he goes around the pond edge.

For about the past week, the most interesting group has been the tremendous numbers of bats that start showing up around dusk. There are dozens of them gliding just above the water surface by the time it is dark. They seem to really enjoy seeing just how close they can get to the bill of my cap.

I use the suet feed blocks from time to time also. I've never had one of the Pileated WPs come to any of my feeders; I've just seen them in the some of the trees around my house, which is in a neighborhood and not heavily wooded.

I was at the Pittsburgh Zoo earlier this year, and they had a video playing showing the PWP. A zoo lady was tending the video table and I mentioned to her that I had seen a few of them over the past year. She insisted that they did not exist in western PA (where I reside). I didn't want to argue with her.

hi BC.

your quite the gentleman Sunil. thanks on sp (suet). it worked good in the woods of MD, hang one off your eaves near a bedroom window and see what happens.

pileateds are suppose to be in the sierras although never seen one yet. thats a great story Brettski and great pics.

related to Catmandoo's story, we also have bats, bats, and more bats, many living in our eaves behind the facia boards.....between the gams and the bats I never worry about mosquiotos.

another little side note is we had a nesting flock of CA quail also this year...it was great to see them around pond......

Brettski, i am looking forward to hearing your upcoming sitings in the next episode of "AS THE POND FILLS"

All this woodpecker talk reminded me of the mentally challenged Redheaded WPs in our neighborhood when we lived in town. It was very common to hear the distinctive sound of them pecking away on steel TV antenna masts. I didn't quite believe it until I actually saw one trying to get bugs out of a 1" pipe next door.

My wife and I like to watch the Kingfishers swoop over the water, we also have a Green Heron paying us a vist. Very cool to watch all the visitors to the pond over the years.

theo, our mentally challenged peckers (is it o.k. to say that on PB?) are of the acorn variety....acorn woodpeckers....they're about as dumb as the deadwood they feed on. they'll sit on the road until you nearly crush em with the truck tire....in fact they comprise a lot of the roadkill in our area. recently they have taken to the side of our house. i dont shoot any birds around our place except starlings, but these peckers are pissin me off. at first i was just tapping them with one or two pumps from the pellet gun, but they'd come right back and start in again punching holes on our trim board......so now they get a fatal 6 or 7 pumps if a yell and a bang on the house doesnt make em move. the only bugs i know about up there (in eaves) are spiders and seasonal ants...what gives? i know a lady lives close by that had her entire cedar lap gable end above garage riddled with 100's of acorn woodpecker holes, with no evidence of any termites or any other kind of food....they just like to bang their brains out on wood i guess.

mr. willy, we also have kingfishers, they are fun to watch. we also have (a hard to see) black crowned night heron who works mostly at night.

We had a Northern Flicker all Summer. He drummed on our aluminum roof vents, announcing his presence, establishing his territory, and waking us up every morning around daybreak. Our master is on the second floor, right below his favorite. Then, after the young'uns were ready for the WP drum and bugle corp, they practiced on our roof, too. The adult would peck at one end of the house while junior sync'd at the other end. It was like a percussion audition for CDB.

D.I.E.D.,

We are in some prime country (Big Thicket) for possible ivory-billed wp sighting. What a sight it would be to see one of those. That would probably be akin to breaking the world record for LMB, in terms of people such a sighting would attract.

We see lots of pileated wp. One of the interesting things to me about them is they always come by the house in pairs....graze awhile and move on, always as a pair. The greatest bird moments, however, at our place have been the presence of a pair of bald eagles who visited one year during Tilapia die-off. Unfortunately, they departed after the dead Tilapia were cleaned up, but they left behind an indelible memory for us.

we've had only one golden eagle siting in 10 years ML, thats cool you had bald eagles. well all i can say is review your IBW distinguishing features and keep an eye-out......ifn you get one, your place will never be the same.

The hummingbird article in the new PB (yeah i finally got it) reminded me of my wife and I observing the mating ritual of the anna's humminbird we have here....every (early) spring the males fly straight up in the air about 30 to 40 feet, hover, then dive bomb like falcons making a whirring sound, and they loop back up to do it again while the females are on a nearby branch probably ignoring them. we've watched them do this over the pond and in the front yard. we also have black-chinned hummers (is it ok to use that word on PB?) but they are rare.

You're really pushing the envelope and making things happen out there today, D.I.E.D.

Dave, the red-headed nut heads peck holes to store their acorns in. 'Ya have to fill in their holes, else all the others see the holes and think, "this is place to store acorns!" Hope your band-tails stick around a while. I'd see 'em in the Sierras while fly fishing/squirrel hunting but they are justifiably nervous and don't stick around but a week or two. Wonder what their migratory pattern is? They make the 4 ta 5000' elevation bout 1st week October.

good question sosauty, sounds like you get around....from AL to CA

this is the first in over 10 yrs i've seen BT pigeons here (elevation ~1600-2000 ft), they've been here just about 10 days. my wife and i just came in from the yard where we sat and watched the flock for about 10 minutes working on some coffee berry bushes (genus Rhamnus) which are loaded with berries right now. they are so fat they were bending over the branches and falling off, and the spring loaded branches were wizzing back up and knocking others off.....when i stood up to get camera, the whole flock left so i couldnt get a pic.

in a post above i mentioned the lady whose siding was ruined.......your info about acorn storage kicked my memory.......the rest of the story......she had 2 foot high piles of acorns in her attic...i guess she didnt go up in her attic much...this was discovered by the contractor hired to replace the siding.

edited post....just a quick mention that this thread has been a lot of fun, wasnt expecting so many bird stories to follow my initial post....perhaps a main thread devoted to Bird Life Around the Pond should be developed.....keep the stories comin!

This is a fun topic for me. This year we had a pair of Coopers hawks nest in the woods behind our house in Sioux Falls. This is very rare for Eastern South Dakota.

In the September 9th issue of NewScientist (www.newscientist.com) on page 21 there is a very interesting article. Stephen Meyer from MIT has written a book called "The End of the Wild". He says that "Weeds shall inherit the Earth". Weeds are generalist that thrive where hunans live. Examples would be house sparrows, Canada geese, raccoons, any plant listed as a noxious weed in our area, rats and any of the other plants and animals commonly found in our cities and farmed areas. The loosers are those species that need some type of specialized habitat to live. It's very interesting reading.

I appreciate that perspective Norm, but alternatively you could imagine that at some point what are now "weeds" will have to adapt and specialize as well, as climate and crustal plate locations (plate tectonics) change on earth. perhaps we (all life) are all derived from "weeds" and we are just in our little window observing our short time frame.......oh oh, i think i better stop and get another evening cocktail

speaking of nesting raptors and other birds of prey, my wife and i enjoyed watching a pair of great horned owls raise their brood in a large cavity of an old digger pine near the pond a couple years ago. the baby great horned owls are huge white/gray noisy fluff balls the size of a basketball. it was really fun to watch em through binoculars. we generally have western screech owls, great horned, barn, and a special rare one called a pygmy owl which we only saw once, but can hear them on summer evenings.

our property is riddled with a rodent called a vole. their population density is cyclical, and this is a big vole year. they are hugely destructive to anything you plant, anywhere you till a little soil and add water, the voles go crazy....there are thousands of em, they've even destroyed some of my cactus, most of the time i feel like bill murray out there on the caddyshack golf course, i cant get rid of em.....the controls besides me and my poison include all manner of predatory birds in addition to rattlers, fox and coyote. this year in particular our pond, the neighboring ranch pond, and nearby pasteur areas have been quite the oasis.

D.I.E.D, yes, in the long-term, the generalist species will diversity and become specialists. In the short-term, we are loosing specialists species at an unbelievable rate.

A large number of species, especially rodents, are cyclical in their population. Without a doubt, your population will crash after they eat themselves out of house and home. It is almost impossible to blunt their "crash" population.

Our Coopers hawks raised two babies and they were so much fun to watch. The babies would sit on the railing on our deck. Turkeys and deer will also come onto our deck but these Coopers hawks were so much more fun to watch.