BIRD FEEDING
Bird feeding may be done year round in Castle Pines Village. A wide variety of feeders are available including suet feeders, which are simple wire or mesh baskets used to hold prepared suet cakes. Castle Pines Village is home to squirrels and larger more aggressive birds, so finding a feeder such as one with multiple small perches or one that can be covered with a large plastic dome, will help keep undesired visitors away. Remember, birds enjoy the cover of a nearby bush or tree.
Black Oil Sunflower seed is the overall favorite of birds. Wild bird centers offer the shelled seed variety, which creates less mess on the ground below and therefore fewer unwanted guests in your garden. Wild bird centers also offer quality feeders, birdbaths, bird books and lots of helpful advice.
Our birds require water year round. A wide variety of birdbaths, including heated ones for the winter months, are available at many wild bird and garden centers. Keep your feeders and water dishes full especially during storms and in dry times. If you do not have a heater for your birdbath, you will need to remove ice and snow that has accumulated before refilling. Bird baths require cleaning with 1 part bleach to 10 parts water solution, a stiff brush, and a thorough rinsing, for best results. If you see sick birds, then it is important to remove your feeders, empty your birdbaths and call the wildlife hotline (303) 952-0932, for further information.
With a consistent source of food and water, expect to be surprised at the variety of birds seen in your yard throughout the year, including sparrows, chickadees, nuthatches, finches, woodpeckers, goldfinches, pine siskins, juncos, flickers, crows, jays, hawks, kestrels, owls and magpies. Why not make an effort to record each new variety of bird that visits your garden? Purchase a good guide to western birds and a pair of binoculars for identifying new arrivals. The excitement level rises when you identify some unusual migrating birds.
HUNTERS IN THE SKY
Day and night, they patrol our skies. They soar, swoop, dive and dart to keep our rodent population in check. Raptors, or “Birds of Prey,” such as the Red-tailed Hawk and the Great-Horned Owl, are some of The Village’s most valuable wildlife resources.
Raptors have evolved to become amazingly efficient predators: beaks are almost always large and powerful; feet are strong and heavily taloned; eye-sight, both focus and depth of vision, is superior; hearing is sharp and flight skills are superb.
The Red-tailed Hawk is the most commonly seen raptor, has a wingspan of up to 5 feet and can be identified by the broad band of dark feathers across its white belly, as well as the red feathers on the top side of its tail. On a hot summer day, high in the sky, watch a Red-tail riding heat thermals, or warm columns of air, and catching up-drafts off the rock ridges. As it soars, it may be engaged in a mock combat courtship ritual with its mate, or it just may be hoping to spot dinner with its amazing eyesight. Listen for the Red-tail’s hoarse, rasping scream.
Listen, too, especially at dawn and dusk, for the deep, bold hoots of the Great-Horned Owl. A Great-Horned Owl chick leaves the nest in mid-to-late May. You may hear its blood-curdling scream, called a “hunger cry,” as it follows its parents in flight. It is hard to miss the five-foot wingspan of the adult owl as it swoops off a Village rooftop at twilight to begin its nightly hunt. Sometimes you will see the Great-Horned Owl roosting during the day near the trunk at the top of an evergreen or cottonwood tree.
BIRD MIGRATION
Many of our summer birds in Castle Pines Village actually spend much of the year in places as far away as South America. In late summer, they gear up to make long journeys back to winter homes. This change of seasonal habitat, called migration, has evolved over thousands of years to enable birds to increase their chances of survival by taking advantage of favorable summer climates and abundant food and daylight.
In August, migrating birds bulk up for the long flight ahead. They may fly nonstop for days at a time and lose up to half their body weight in the process. Most small birds fly alone, in the dark of night, peeping to each other as they are spread loosely across the sky. Migrating altitudes vary from 2,000 to 20,000 feet and the birds orient themselves by using a combination of information they derive from the sun, wind, land formations and the earth’s gravity.
Some of the more common summer migrants in Castle Pines Village are the Broad-Tailed Hummingbird (part-time resident of northern Mexico south to Guatemala), the Mountain Bluebird (wintering south to central Mexico), the Violet-Green Swallow (returning to areas as far south as Honduras), and the House Wren (south throughout Mexico). The Swainson’s Hawk gathers in groups on the eastern plains before it migrates to the pampas (prairie habitat) of Argentina.
Look and listen for the signs of impending migration. You’ll hear fewer bird sounds as young birds have matured and males are less vocal in defending territories. All birds, especially migrants, are busily feeding and you’ll see more aggressive behavior at the hummingbird feeder, especially when the Rufus (orange) hummingbird returns south from their mountain nesting sites. By late August and early September, you may see mixed groups of songbirds gathering in the trees. Before you know it, you’ll wake one morning to find that some of your familiar neighbors have suddenly vanished, hopefully to return in the spring.
WOODPECKERS
Woodpeckers will excavate nest holes in homes with natural wood siding (often at the site of a knothole) or with Dry-vit (stucco-like) systems. They will peck holes in wooden house parts while looking for insects, roost overnight under protected eaves soiling the house, and will awaken you before dawn during spring and summer, “drumming” on resonant gutters and downspouts. Prevent or eliminate woodpecker damage by hanging a woodpecker house on your property.