Hi Birders,
To the discussion of what yellow-rumped warblers are eating now, I would
like to add that I have been seeing them regularly in recent weeks licking
sugar maple sap off tree trunks that are black with sap flows thanks to
sapsucker holes.
Other birds frequenting the sap flows include downie and red-bellied
woodpeckers, white breasted nuthatches, and carolina chickadees.
I wonder if any of you have any further knowledge of the role of sugar
maple sap in late winter bird diets.
Comments please.
Tom

At 02:37 PM 2/16/2004, Mike Busam wrote:
>Greetings... My dad and Charlie Saunders and I also birded along the Great
>Miami River in Hamilton Saturday morning. We had five yellow-rumped warblers
>along the river; all of them were in clumps of willows along the river
>banks. It was rather warm Saturday, compared to other days. We were
>wondering if there was a particular group of insects that might hatch out
>during warm days in late winter? I've heard people talk about stone fly
>hatches in January and February. Could it be along those lines? All the
>yellow-rumpeds were working the willows pretty hard for something or other.
>We assumed it was bugs the birds were after. These trees were all submerged
>for a few weeks when the Great Miami river flooded earlier this winter, and
>they're pretty much stripped bare of everything except snags of driftwood
>and garbage. If only there were an entomologist on this list to answer our
>question ;-)
>
>I find that chasing good birds helps me find good garbage, and my trips
>along the Great Miami in Hamilton are almost always fruitfull. While walking
>the riverbanks Saturday in search of pipits and snipe, both of which I
>missed, I nearly completed the major North American sports trash sweep. I
>found a basketball, a soccer ball, and a baseball. A football should be
>possible, too, yet I've never found one, so that's about all I missed. A
>hockey puck would be great, of course, but the Great Miami doesn't give
>those up as easily as it does more boyant sports gear. Besides being a good
>spot for wintering pipits, snipe, and killdeer, the area below the low dam
>in Hamilton is also a good spot to find wayward wiffleballs, which are in
>demand in my neighborhood. I'm the only dedicated wiffleball pitcher around
>days during the summer, so I need to have a good stock of items to pitch to
>the kids. I *always* stop by the Great Miami River for all my sporting and
>birding needs!
>
>Take care,
>---Mike Busam
>West Chester, OH