Sample Answers to Specific Questions: Birds at a FeederThe Riverwood Conservancy hosts and maintains a Birdcam which is a live feed. The videos of birds feeding at a feeder were taken using this feeder location. 
 

• Which birds come to the feeder? See below for a list.
• Which birds are the most frequent visitors to the feeder? This will depend on your students observations but in general smaller birds (i.e. chickadees) are more frequent visitors than larger birds (i.e. blue jays)
• Which birds are the least frequent visitors to the feeders? See above.
• Make a list of the birds that come to the feeder and classify them as follows: See below for a list that will give you common names and sizes. To measure the length of time I suggest you set some simple guidelines for your class to follow. For example: timing starts when a bird lands on a feeder and ends when it flies off.  Frequency of Visit can be calculated by individual bird if students can learn to recognize it or by species.

Species                        Size        Length of Time at the Feeder     Frequency of Visit

• What conclusions can you draw from this chart? Observations should support comments made above. Chickadees should be the most frequent visitors to the feeders. Why? It is a matter of size. Being smaller they lose heat more rapidly than larger birds. Therefore they need to feed more frequently in order to maintain their metabolism. Larger birds have the luxury of feeding less and are therefore not as compelled to come to the feeder as frequently.
• What sort of feeder do the birds go to? Sunflower seeds? Suet? Both? See below.
• What do birds do once they leave the feeder? Some birds such as the nuthatch fly off to eat. Chickadees will often just take the seed to the dead tree by the feeders and eat it there.
• Which birds are more tolerant of people? Chickadees are by far the most tolerant.
• What do the birds when danger is spotted? (You will need to watch the live feed to see this happen as it is fairly rare.) If the attacker is seen in advance they will freeze in place. If it is a human approaching or an attack by a hawk is more imminent they panic and fly off.

 

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