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Weather forecast: drizzling feathers!



Hi Carolinabirders,

Interesting occurrence this morning. I'm brushing my teeth by the kitchen 
window, when I see what looks like a leaf falling. This struck me as odd, 
as any leaves remaining in the trees should have come down in the rain 
and snow recently. When the "leaf" hit the ground, it turned out to be a 
Northern (Yellow-shafted) Flicker feather. Not so noteworthy, except that 
a few moments later, another one fluttered down! This made me suspicious, 
so I went out back and looked up. Unfortunately, all I saw was branches 
and pine needles. I did find a puff of down sitting on the ice over the 
bird bath, however. And when I picked up the feathers, they turned out to 
be linked pairs, as far as I could tell each one was a primary and a 
covert together. Seems like somebody up there was having a flicker for 
lunch!

In other news, I added a big, berry-laden bough from a Yaupon Holly to my 
yard. So far, it is only providing shelter for the sparrows, but I'm 
hoping that the fruit will eventually bring in some interesting visitors, 
at least some Cedar Waxwings. I scavenged the bough from the front of the 
Bio Sci building, where the snow snapped several large branches and small 
trunks; I'm hoping to save at least some of the fruits before Duke 
maintenance people take the remains off to a dump somewhere. 
Unfortunately, most of them are too big to fit in the back of my 
Explorer, I may have to just pick off the berries...

On Fri, 4 Feb 2000, Allison Wells wrote:
> 
> As for Carolina results from last year, <snip> South Carolina had 593, with
> highest-reporting cities being <snip> HILTON HEAD ISLAND 86

Oh, good! I wonder if their backyard reports are as reliable and well- 
documented as their CBC reports?

Good birding,

Josh



Joshua S. Rose
Duke University
Department of Zoology

jsr6@acpub.duke.edu
http://www.duke.edu/~jsr6/