Welcome to the Aviary

This blog is mostly about baking (and food in general), but we can't ignore the other part - the birds. I'm lucky to work at an aviary this summer, overseeing a breeding program for Dark-eyed Juncos. The junco is a handsome sparrow-like passerine (that means a perching bird, as opposed to something like an owl, hawk, or buzzard), but we usually don't see them here in the midwest except in the winter.

Every winter, juncos migrate southward from their usual homes in Virginia, the Dakotas, Northern California, and other higher latitudes. I see them in my snowy garden pecking at the seed we scatter for our bird friends. But at the aviary, we can observe them all year long. My breeding juncos live in a 2x4 and chicken wire house with a concrete floor so mice, who like to eat bird eggs, can't get in.

A very hungry baby junco

This year, we've had several babies hatch, and some of them have survived to fledge - that auspicious occasion when a young bird takes his first hop out of the cozy nest. Juncos, unlike many birds who nest high in trees, instead nest close to the ground, That means their young don't need to be able to fly right away. Their wings develop at a slow and steady pace, while their legs muscle up quickly, so they can be able to run and dart among the ground cover.

A recently fledged baby. The brown stripes on his back mark him as a juvenile.

When you first see a very young baby bird - not a fledge, who are fluffy and adorable, but a featherless, scrawny, bug-eyed nestling - your first reaction is probably "gross!" They are a little strange, but having watched many of them grow, to me they are nothing but beautiful.

A six-day old nestling. Their eyes open around five days.

A three-day-old little fluffy.

What beautiful and strange creatures birds are! We think, because they're feathery-soft and agile and intelligent that they are just like us mammals, but they're not. They're more closely related to lizards and snakes and dinosaurs than they are to us. Take advantage of the visibility and activity of these unique animals that you can observe in your own backyard!