Blog

Ice storm bird inventory report from the Deep Woods Bird Porch. You’ll notice I did not say bird ‘yard’. Our porch, covered in feeders of one kind and another, is our ‘bird yard’. That’s because we don’t have a yard. We live in the woods, where little light penetrates, and thus does not attract the diversity of songbirds that properties with light and therefore grass and forest edges do. Or that was the case for most of the years we have lived here, just a stone’s throw from Lake Jocassee. Things have changed a good bit, thanks to Helene and now Fern. We now have light! No grass, nor do we want any, but light like never before, and with that a much grander diversity of birds than we have had in the past. Here’s a list of birds on our bird porch during the ice storm. It should go without saying that we have been immensely popular.

Cardinals-lots of them. House finches-hordes of them. Titmouses, mourning doves, goldfinches, red-bellied woodpeckers (and nothing else when they appear), chickadees, Carolina wrens, chipping sparrows, white-breasted nuthatches (who argue continuously–I consider them the cranky crows of the tiny bird kingdom), brown-headed nuthatches, snowbirds (Juncos), hermit thrushes, and one lonely, lovely rufous-sided towhee (with apologies to purists, I prefer this older name). Do you know why our common doves are called mourning doves? I don’t think it is just their sound. They live up to 10 years, monogamously if their partner is not killed. Knowing that, I assume they mourn at the loss of their life partner. Wouldn’t you? ~B