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Posted by Angel & Mariel on 17:39:59 12/14/10
In Reply to: Snow Bunting posted by Nancy Freedman/John Boyd
The bird was missing its tail feathers on Sunday when we saw it. There has been some talk on the birdbrain listserv about possible predators in the area and even capture of the bird which we think is wrong all together. The bird is generating lots of non-birder attention which is good for the bird as these are the people that are around the bird every day. The more people know of its presence the better the chances are that no one invades the roped off area that has been set up.
The bird did appear to be very comfortable with people but other birds were another story all together while we studied the Snow Buntings behavior. We were lucky enough to watch the bird for about an hour with no interruptions and observed the bunting at highest alert while a mixed flock of passerines worked the trees on either side of the sidewalk. Some of the birds would fly over the bunting and into the small trees next to where the bunting has been foraging. This is when the bird was at highest alert. During the 15 minutes or so that the foraging flock was near the bunting it would look around very cautiously and would not feed as much. Maybe it was the extra attention that the birds were creating that made the bunting feel as it should be more aware of its surroundings. In contrast while humans were around, the bird would forage comfortably and would keep its head down in effort to keep it camouflaged from above.
After observing the bird during several different conditions including deteriorating weather conditions, human interaction and other birds and predators in the area we felt that the bunting was most comfortable when people were around. We serve as a sort of predator screen. When we first arrived, there were several other birders present as well as some park goers that were intrigued by the crowd the Snow Bunting had generated. During this time the bunting did not move much at all maybe covering a patch no larger than 2ft X 2ft. It fed consistently and would only stop shortly to look up and move very short distances, this behavior continued for about an hour.
At this time the winds had picked up exponentially and rain on the leading edge of the front was making its presence known. Everyone cleared out the park but we stayed behind to wait out the rain. After the rain had stopped we walked back out to find the bunting very close to where we had last seen it feeding before the rain. We watched the bird preen for a short while from a distance as not to disturb its behavior. After it was finished preening the bunting continued feeding in the same small patch it had been covering earlier. We stayed far back and watched it feed. The bunting would stop feeding every 30-45 seconds or so and would look around. This continued for about 35 minutes, we then approached the roped off area and watched the bird from this closer vantage point. During this time the bird fed more comfortably with it only stopping to look up every two minutes or so in contrast to our observations from afar. This puzzled us a bit but as we thought before we may have been acting as a sort of predator screen for the bunting. The bunting continued to forage in the small patch and moved no more than two body lengths while it foraged during the next 20 minutes. We got our last looks of the bird and decided to let it be and headed out in search of something warm to eat which came in the form of an awesome NY style pizza in Cocoa Beach.
We would be interested in hearing others experience with the bird and any other observations you may have made.
Nature is Awesome
Angel & Mariel
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