Jonah Feeds a Chickadee

22 December 2019

     On a fine winter's day we met up with Kayla and Jonah to do a little birding along the Mill Race Trail in St. Jacobs.

     Kayla is originally from the Toronto area and Jonah from Ottawa, and neither one had ever seen the assembly of Mennonite horses and buggies at a church, so we took them first to the meeting house on Three Bridges Road in order that they might witness this remarkable sight.

     The horses waited patiently at the hitching rails while the service continued inside. And we waited too until a few of the conveyances left so that Kayla and Jonah could take in the whole scene, following which we returned to the start of the Mill Race Trail to begin our walk.

     I have to tell you that Jonah is a beer chemist, a fellow engaged in fermenting, brewing, fusing molecules, alchemy almost, a sophisticated creator of the unique tastes associated with micro breweries - but he has never fed a Black-capped Chickadee (Poecile atricapillus) from the hand. Ergo, his education was clearly incomplete.  Furthermore, when Kayla raised the possibility he scoffed at the very idea. Scoffed, mind you, dismissed the notion as a foolish flight of fancy. Obviously this grave misapprehension had to be rectified and we had brought bird seed along with exactly that aim in mind.

     Chickadees on the Mill Race Trail have been habituated to friendly humans for years and recognize every two-legged creature as a potential source of food.

     It did not take long for Jonah to experience the unique joy of contact with a wild creature. The sheer elation on his face speaks volumes as he follows a bird that had just left his hand with a seed in its bill.

          Once is never enough, of course.

     Kayla was in on the secret all along and knew with certainty what Jonah's reaction would be.

     Some days happiness is a little bird on your hand.

     It was unlikely that this American Crow (Corvus brachyrynchos) would be following the lead of the chickadee!

     The Mill Race looked quite splendid clad in its winter coat.

     At one point a train went over the old trestle bridge, slowly, and almost elegantly it seemed.

     Kayla and Jonah were happy to watch it go by.

     I am sure that this female Downy Woodpecker (Dryobates pubescens) had other activities to occupy her daylight hours, not the least of which was securing food.

          It was very seldom that several chickadees did not travel with us on the trail, joined by others along the way. Each one represented sheer delight for us.

     The sun was shining, the temperature was mild, there was snow on the ground, the green of conifers all around - it was good to be out and about.

     No stroll along the Mill Race Trail would be complete without a visit to the Eco Café at the St. Jacobs end of the walk. I think that for Jonah it was almost in the nature of a victory celebration. He even got a cookie with his coffee!

     Every year a few Belted Kingfishers (Megacerlye alcyon) tough out the winter and remain on territory rather than migrate. It has always been my theory that males remain behind, accepting the trade-off of cold weather versus migration in order to have a territory established for when the females return in the spring. The birds I have seen in the winter have always been males. Today there were two Belted Kingfishers on the Conestogo River and as the picture below clearly shows one is a female.

     I am inclined to believe that this has something to do with climate change. The temperature was around 4.5° C, whereas the expected value for this period in December is minus 4.1° C. It now appears that mated pairs will, at least sometimes, remain to face the winter together.
     There were expanses of open water on the river, and Kayla had mentioned that she had only ever seen kingfishers in flight and had never seen them perched. Our obliging female dived into the river, caught a fish, went to a perch and swallowed it. The whole performance was staged for Kayla, I have no doubt.
     Chickadees were our companions on the return journey as they had been on the outward leg, and Kayla and I could not resist feeding them again.

     We saw numerous species, but Black-capped Chickadee was the unchallenged star of the day.

     I suspect that Jonah learned a brand new formula today, and it looks like this.....

SJ + BCCH = HAPP²

     ..... where SC = Scoffer Jonah, BCCH = Black-capped Chickadee, resulting in Happiness squared.

     You many not be able to brew beer with it but it is guaranteed to bring a smile to your face on a snowy winter's day.