Author: Hilary Shughart

The seasonal changes in backyard birds is as exciting as the rare bird sightings because it is these changes and outliers which keep us alert, in tune, and connected to the world around us.
I often take breaks from supplemental feeding for by backyard birds over the summer, especially whenever there’s visitors with avian pox, but when the snowbirds return, it’s time to
fill the feeders with Black Oil Sunflower seeds, and this seasonal task is a way to stay grounded in a busy and sometimes unsettling world.

Though I live at the edge of town in the Wildland Urban Interface, I mostly enjoy the typical backyard songbirds such as the House Finch, American Goldfinch, Lesser Goldfinch, and Pine Siskins. Black-capped Chickadees come and go, as do Mountain Chickadees, and as others have been observing, there appear to be more higher elevation species coming to town for food – people are reporting Clark’s Nutcracker as a first in 17 years, as well as Steller’s Jays, and Woodhouse’s Scrub Jays.

My most unusual sightings in the past few years have included a Red-headed Woodpecker, which I really doubted, knowing we are well out of their range, but when I found that there had been a number of sightings in Logan Canyon over the years, I stopped doubting myself, especially since there is no other bird which even remotely resembles that bright red head, white belly and black back. Another rare bird sighting was the White-headed Woodpecker, but, again, there’s just no other species with that solid white head, red nape patch, and black wings with white wing bar. For my backyard feeders, though, the Northern Flicker is the only woodpecker which returns and hangs around, sometimes for hours working on the suet, black oil sunflower seeds, and even the white millet.

For those new to bird watching, I highly recommend checking whether there’s a local Audubon chapter or other bird watching group with an annual wild bird seed sale fundraiser, and if nothing else, to consider providing water year round, and especially through the winter.

Don’t forget to keep an eye out for the birds which may visit your garden if not your feeders – during migration there may even be the distinctive rattle of an overhead herd of Sandhill Cranes, or the honks from a flock of Canada Geese. This was the first time in 15 years I had a Canada Goose in my backyard, and I was recently visited by a Sage Thrasher, which are ground foraging insectivores, and when the light catches them just right as evening approaches, I can see small groups of Tree Swallows, busy aerial insectivores, catching their dinner on the wing.

I’m Hilary Shughart with the Bridgerland Audubon Society, and I am Wild About Feeding Utah’s Backyard Birds!

Credits:

Images: Courtesy & Copyright Hilary Shughart, Photographer
Featured Audio: Courtesy & Copyright © Kevin Colver, https://wildstore.wildsanctuary.com/collections/special-collections/kevin-colver
Voice & Text: Hilary Shughart, President, https://bridgerlandaudubon.org/
Additional Reading: Lyle Bingham, https://bridgerlandaudubon.org/

Additional Reading:

WildAboutUtah pieces by Hilary Shughart, https://wildaboututah.org/author/hilary-shughart/

Procure Bird Seed from local Audubon Chapters:
Great Salt Lake Audubon
Bridgerland Audubon
Other Statewide Birding Groups

Shughart, Hilary, To Grow Your Own Bird Food, Native Plants Are Key!, Wild About Utah, April 12, 2021, https://wildaboututah.org/native-plants-are-key/

Kervin, Linda, Bird Feeding, Wild About Utah, November 25, 2008, https://wildaboututah.org/bird-feeding/

Kervin, Linda, Cane, Jim, Feed the Birds, Wild About Utah, December 1, 2011, https://wildaboututah.org/feed-the-birds/

Liberatore, Andrea, Dark-eyed Juncos, Wild About Utah, January 12, 2012, https://wildaboututah.org/dark-eyed-juncos/

Participatory Science used to be called Citizen Science, and then Community Science, but the emphasis on participation highlights that we are contributing to something large and impactful for which we don’t ask what science can do for us, but what we can do for science. There is a vast universe of participatory science programs which can be found at the SCISTARTER.ORG clearinghouse, including ZOONIVERSE.ORG, for which participants can help online by examining photos. Some of the most popular Apps include iNaturalist, which allows anyone anywhere to document plants and animals, and to get assistance with identification. The Cornell Lab of Ornithology’s eBird App is the world’s largest, free, online, and mobile-based participatory science project for recording and mapping bird sightings.

Recently I shared a story about noticing a Downy Woodpecker consistently taking black oil sunflower seeds from the hanging tube feeder and inserting them in a deck railing knothole for ease of opening. I learned that this is not considered to be tool-use, but it’s certainly clever problem solving by the wildlife right outside my window. Then, during the Christmas Bird Count I observed the second Rocky Mountain Junco to be included in our report, the first being in 2023, when National Audubon confirmed the subspecies identification from my photo. Bird watchers out in the field are less likely to have the right lighting or enough time to distinguish the Dark-eyed Junco subspecies, so it’s pretty exciting to realize that the Home Sector has one more to look for in addition to the Oregon, Slate, Pink-sided, and Gray-headed varieties.

The most interesting thing I noticed this year was that the Northern Flicker clearly has an understanding of gravity and a sense of object permanence: time and time again I noticed that they cling to the bottom of the hanging suet cage while pecking at the food, then they check their upturned belly for crumbs before flying down onto the deck to pick up the escaped crumbs! We already knew that corvids like crows are very clever tool making problem solvers, and we know that Chickadees have tremendous memories for the thousands of seeds stashed here and there (that’s 1,000 seeds in one day, and up to 80,000 seeds in a fall season!), and there’s a study in which Hornbills were taught to follow where a treat was hidden, thus revealing they have object permanence – they know the treat did not vanish just because it was hidden, but there’s just nothing like noticing something new right outside your window, and wondering if it’s been documented by scientists yet.

I hope you’ll consider participating in the Great Backyard Bird Count! The resources posted with this podcast include a free self-paced eBird class from the Cornell Lab.

I’m Hilary Shughart with the Bridgerland Audubon Society, and I am Wild About Slow Birding in Utah!

Credits:
Images: Courtesy & Copyright Hilary Shughart, Photographer
Featured Audio: Courtesy & Copyright © Kevin Colver, https://wildstore.wildsanctuary.com/collections/special-collections/kevin-colver & Friend Weller, https://www.upr.org/people/friend-weller
Text: Hilary Shughart, President, https://bridgerlandaudubon.org/
Additional Reading: Hilary Shughart and Lyle Bingham, https://bridgerlandaudubon.org/

Additional ReadingSupplemental food and water are important ways we can reduce stress for backyard birds
WildAboutUtah pieces by Hilary Shughart, https://wildaboututah.org/author/hilary-shughart/

Global Bird Count in February/Great Backyard Bird Count, https://www.birdcount.org/

Dark-eyed (Cassiar) Junco J. h. cismontanus, https://birds.outdoornebraska.gov/dark-eyed-junco/

Free eBird Essentials, Bird Academy, The Cornell Lab of Ornithology, https://academy.allaboutbirds.org/product/ebird-essentials/

iNaturalist.org

Clearinghouse for Participatory Science, https://scistarter.org/

Online participation by examining photos, https://www.zooniverse.org/

EFTA WMBD 2026: Every Bird Counts – Your Observations Matter!, https://environmentamericas.org/theme-announcement-2026-wmbd/

Slow Gardening, https://felderrushing.blog/slow-gardening/

“Slow gardening was started by American horticulturist and garden author Felder Rushing, who was inspired by the Slow Food organization. Slow gardening is a philosophical approach to gardening which encourages participants to savor everything they do, using all the senses, through all seasons, regardless of garden type of style. It is intended to promote self-awareness, personal responsibility, and environmental stewardship.” (Wikipedia)
Slow Gardening, Wikipedia, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Slow_gardening

Gravity Gives These Birds the Drop on Tough-to-Crack Foods, by Priyanka Runwal, Audubon, February 12, 2020, https://www.audubon.org/news/gravity-gives-these-birds-drop-tough-crack-foods

“Yet, aside from notoriously clever corvids and cheekily smart parrots, no other birds were previously known to have object permanence to the same extent as primates. While other bird species have been tested, they only made it to stage four of the six developmental stages seen in human children.

To see how advanced hornbills’ object permanence skills are, Yao and Garcia-Pelegrin put six of the large-beaked birds to the test.

They taught the hornbills to indicate where a visible treat is with a peck. Then, the birds were moved onto a series of challenges, which tested for increasingly difficult levels of object permanence. (ScienceAlert)”
These Birds Score as High as Primates in a Puzzling Cognitive Test : ScienceAlert, https://www.sciencealert.com/these-birds-score-as-high-as-primates-in-a-puzzling-cognitive-test