Apr 15 2005
The Littlest Birds Will Eat Peanuts From Your Hand
Here’s a short video of me and my niece feeding some birds in the woods a few days ago. We went there to feed squirrels, but these small birds kept swooping down around our heads until I realized they wanted the peanuts we were feeding the squirrels.
As I was crunching up some peanuts in my hand, two birds hopped off a tree branch and perched on the end of my fingers. We didn’t get that particular moment of tape, but we got enough afterwards to give a sense of what it was like. Brave little birds.
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Tags: birds, kids, woods
The end titles (which I just noticed are too fuzzy to read at this low resolution) say the video is copyright by me and the music is by Martin Tielli of the Rheostatics.
That was too cool!
That was really cool. What a thrill your niece must’ve felt. She must have enjoyed that tremendously. I certainly did.
Is that common for the birds in your yard? Or was this the first time you tried that?
This is the first time I had birds eat of out my hands like this, the first time I tried it. I don’t know how common it is to have birds do this — I’ve never seen it before — but I suspect it’s not that uncommon. Certain species of small birds are known to be curious. Hummingbirds, for instance, if you’re standing still enough, will fly right up to your face, look you in the eye (I’m not kidding), hover there for a few seconds, then turn and fly away. I had this happen once while I was sticking my head out a window above a flower bed where a hummingbird was feeding. One of the birds in the video was a black-capped cickadee, I believe, which are naturally friendly. The other bird, I think, was some kind of finch. There’s nothing better than feeling close to nature. I enjoyed it. It was peaceful. It felt good.
I’m just watching this for the first time now. That was awesome. Wonderful.
For my next video, I’ll be shaving my head. Or at least that’s the tenative plan. My hair is getting so long now, I’m having to wear a baseball cap half the time to keep it out of my face. I can’t stand wearing a hat.
do all birds eat peanuts
NIIIICCCEEEE