Growers Are Beaming Over the Success of Lasers to Stave Off Birds
I have a nice and bright green laser (10 mW) and I get plenty of birds (I put out grain, seeds, and peanuts on my deck railing to attract birds and squirrels), so some experimentation is called for.<p>There is a Dark-Eyed Junco [1] on the railing of my deck eating right now. I put a green jiggling spot right on the railing in front of him on and near the seeds he was taking...no reaction. I send the beam through the air in front of him...no reaction. I was not able to find anything that got a reaction from him. I didn&#x27;t try putting the spot on him, such as on his foot, because I didn&#x27;t want to get close enough to risk an eye shot.<p>Unfortunately, it is close enough to sunset and it is cloudy today further darkening things, so it looks like I&#x27;m not going to get anything other than that Junco. Everything else seems to have decided it is time to bed down. Too bad...on a sunny day I&#x27;d have some Steller&#x27;s Jays [2] around at this time, and I&#x27;m really curious to see what they think about the laser.<p>I&#x27;m particularly interested in comparing the Steller&#x27;s Jays, and also the crows that often come by, to small birds like the Junco, and also the Chickadees and assorted types of Sparrows, because I&#x27;ve already observed interesting behavior differences between the bigger birds in general and the small birds.<p>The Jays and the crows are corvids. They are among the smartest birds. I had expected when I started putting out food for these, especially the crows (which are known to be able to easily learn to recognize individual humans and learn which humans are threats and which are not) to quickly learn that I&#x27;m not a threat. In fact, I was worried that they might end up learning to beg for food.<p>I had expected the little birds, on the other hand, to always see me as a threat.<p>In fact, it seems to be the opposite. After about 10 months of feeding, the crows still will not come anywhere near if I&#x27;m outside on the deck. If they are there eating and I start to come out they immediately fly away. They have seen me come out and put out food. They have never seen me aggressive to any bird (or other animal). Heck, they have seen me let squirrels come and take peanuts from my hand, and seen my hold out a hand of seeds for small birds to land on eat from.<p>The Steller&#x27;s Jays are only slightly more accepting than the crows. They immediately leave if I start to come outside, but if I stay outside, but a couple meters away from where the in-shell peanuts are on the rail, they will fly in, quickly grab one peanut, and fly away. (If I&#x27;m inside, they pick up and put down several peanuts, apparently judging by weight which are the most worthwhile, and then take the best--or take two if there is also a smaller one that they can stuff in first leaving room to also carry one).<p>The little birds, though, after only a few weeks or so of my regularly putting out food, would come and start eating while I was still putting out food. They had no problem landing and eating newly placed food less than a meter from where I was currently placing food.<p>These little guys, the Chestnut-backed Chickadees [3], went even farther. Their favorite of what I put out seems to be out-of-shell peanuts (these birds are too small to deal with in-shell peanuts). If I had put put seeds and grain already, but not yet peanuts, I found I could hold out a palm full of out-of-shell peanuts and the Chestnut-backed Chickadees would actually fly over, land on my fingers, pick out a peanut, and leave [4]. They also would sometimes fly over to me when I came out the door, and hover near my hands--I&#x27;m guessing looking to see if I&#x27;ve got food for them.<p>(It&#x27;s only the Chestnut-backed Chickadees that do this. I also get Black-capped Chickadees, a couple different kinds of Nuthaches, and some other birds of about that same size, and none of them got past the &quot;will eat a meter away&quot; stage).<p>[1] <a href="https:&#x2F;&#x2F;www.allaboutbirds.org&#x2F;guide&#x2F;Dark-eyed_Junco&#x2F;id" rel="nofollow">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;www.allaboutbirds.org&#x2F;guide&#x2F;Dark-eyed_Junco&#x2F;id</a><p>[2] <a href="https:&#x2F;&#x2F;www.allaboutbirds.org&#x2F;guide&#x2F;Stellers_Jay&#x2F;id" rel="nofollow">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;www.allaboutbirds.org&#x2F;guide&#x2F;Stellers_Jay&#x2F;id</a><p>[3] <a href="https:&#x2F;&#x2F;www.allaboutbirds.org&#x2F;guide&#x2F;Chestnut-backed_Chickadee&#x2F;overview" rel="nofollow">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;www.allaboutbirds.org&#x2F;guide&#x2F;Chestnut-backed_Chickade...</a><p>[4] <a href="https:&#x2F;&#x2F;www.youtube.com&#x2F;watch?v=ShPgZhSbxU0" rel="nofollow">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;www.youtube.com&#x2F;watch?v=ShPgZhSbxU0</a>