What do bushtits eat when it's 3 degrees? (Larimer)

[DAVID A LEATHERMAN]

Today on the bike trail around Sheldon Lake in Fort Collins City Park I did a lap to see how the bird word was coping with the cold.  The usual white-cheeked geese and mallards were sitting on the ice or in open water made by bubblers.  They were joined by a young male common goldeneye hunting crayfish, a male northern shoveler and three common mergansers. 

 

Most interesting was a flock of at least 20 bushtits busily feeding in both large willows and Scots pines.  I was able to figure out what they were eating in the pines: Cinara aphid adult cadavers and eggs, plus pine needle scales.  I suspect giant willow aphid (Tuberolachnus salignus) eggs and adult cadavers were the targets in willow. Bushtits are the ultimate “free pest control”.  During the ten minutes I watched, the number of individual aphids they prevented from sucking pine and willow sap had to be in the several hundreds. Who says you can’t be an insectivore in CO in the winter. Then, on some mysterious signal like they always do, it was off to another tree, then another, then another.  They are quite the clean-up crew.

 

          

From left to right: adult aphid cadaver (Cinara sp.), aphid eggs (Cinara sp.) and pine needle scales (Chionaspis pinifoliae)

 

Dave Leatherman

Fort Collins

[Ted Floyd]

Thanks, Dave, for raising the question. I pondered that very matter yesterday, Sat., Jan. 13, when the temperature at Greenlee Wildlife Preserve, Boulder Co., was minus-4 Fahrenheit (minus-20 Celsius). Dunno whether you'll be able to glean, haha, anything from this video, Dave, but see what you can do:

https://macaulaylibrary.org/asset/613483712

Here's a close-up, fwiw:

https://macaulaylibrary.org/asset/613483718

Of course, most of the time, these days, they feed on THIS:

https://macaulaylibrary.org/asset/613439173 (Fri., Jan. 12, temp right around 32 degrees Fahrenheit, or 0 degrees Celsius.)

O tempora! O mores!

(We had eel tempura for dinner. O tempura! O morays!)

Say, while we're on the subject of birds finding food in cold weather, here's one finding the good stuff in ample plenitude earlier this relatively balmy (temp all the way up to 4 degrees Fahrenheit, woohoo!, or minus-16 Celsius) Sun. afternoon, Jan. 14:

https://macaulaylibrary.org/asset/613529221

Also in the immediate vicinity: a northern shrike and a swamp sparrow.

Ted Floyd

Lafayette, Boulder Co.

[Deborah Carstensen]

I have been getting a flock of bushtits, 12 of them, that are staying in my little garden most of the time. They occasionally go to the bushes and look for things, but I think they’ve cleaned those out and now go to the seed cake, seed column feeder and suet. 

       In the past, they’ve come to my feeders, stay five minutes and then disappear for hours but now the longest they’re away is about five minutes. They share the feeder, etc.,with downey woodpeckers, black capped chickadees, house finches, and flickers. 

Deb Carstensen, Arapahoe county 

Sent from my iPhone

On Jan 14, 2024, at 7:24 PM, Ted Floyd <tedfl...@gmail.com> wrote:



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