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Welcome to BirdTracks® Online!
An email newsletter from
Wild Birds Unlimited for July 2004.

In This Issue:
 - Give Your Birds a Drink!
 - Wiggle Mosquitoes Away with the Water Wiggler.
 - Focus on Birds: Orioles and Goldfinches.

Give Your Birds a Drink!
How do birds actually drink? By dipping their bills in water, tipping back their heads and letting the water run down their throats. Birds may also access water directly from a dripper (see photo).

Oriole Facts

• Orioles are insect and fruit eaters. They usually stay hidden in the trees eating and singing out their beautiful whistling notes. They can be drawn down from their perches with foods like orange slices, grape jelly, mealworms and occasionally nectar feeders.
• The Oriole nest is an engineering masterpiece. They weave a hanging-basket nest with plant fibers, grasses, vine and tree bark and sometimes string or yarn placed out on the small twigs of a branch 6-45 feet in the air.
• They will lay 4-5 eggs anywhere from April to June. The young will fledge as late as 30 days from egg laying.
• Orioles are found across North America in the summer. Some species winter in the tropics and others in Mexico.
• The oldest banded Baltimore Oriole recaptured in the wild had lived 11 years and 7 months.
• The Oriole is the state bird of Maryland.

Goldfinch Facts

• Goldfinches are found across North America. They include the American and Lesser Goldfinches.
• Goldfinches are sometimes referred to as wild canaries. They are actually in the finch family as their name suggests.
• They have an interesting flight call with four syllables that can be likened to "potato-chip."
• They are common feeder visitors that prefer thistle (nyger) and sunflowers. They are rather acrobatic often dipping upside down feeding on weed seeds like coneflowers and sunflowers.
• Goldfinches usually lay 5 pale-blue or greenish-blue eggs that will hatch in about 12 days. Babies will fledge about 12 days after that.
• Goldfinches prefer to nest in habitats with trees and shrubs usually placing the nest 4-10 feet high, often near a water source. They will sometimes nest in a loose colony.
• The oldest banded American Goldfinch recaptured in the wild had lived 11 years and 7 months.
• The oldest banded Lesser Goldfinch recaptured in the wild had lived 5 years and 8 months.
• The genus name, Caruelis, is from the Latin word carduus, which means "thistle." Goldfinches are very dependent on thistles for food and even use thistledown to line their nests.
  The Goldfinch is one of the latest breeding songbirds, waiting until mid-to-late summer when thistle seeds and down are readily available.
• The Goldfinch is the state bird of New Jersey, Iowa and Washington.
• They weave their nest so tightly that it will hold water.