Posted on 01/29/2018 5:57:18 AM PST by Kaslin
The perky little Chickadee with a black cap and deformed beak that I’d been trying to keep alive died a few days ago, the same day the 7.9 magnitude earthquake jolted me and fellow Alaskans out of bed.
I knew it was only a matter of time.
It mattered not that I’d been doing everything possible to accommodate the cute little guy’s needs by pulverizing nuts and seeds to make it easier for him to swoop up and swallow food with his crossed-sickle beak.
Even without deformities, it’s tough for these birds, indigenous to Alaska, to survive the long and cold winters with daylight in short supply and 18-hour nights. They must eat constantly during daylight hours to regain the 10 percent body weight they burn each night staying warm.
The poor little guy died as a result of chain migration when a couple of opportunistic migratory birds called Redpolls visited our feeders and came back with their extended family. Hundreds of them.
Unlike Chickadees, Redpolls refuse to assimilate. Rather than sharing feeders by politely grabbing seeds and eating them elsewhere, Redpolls swarm, attack and overtake feeders, gorging themselves until the food is gone. And the next day the cycle repeats itself.
It is impossible for them to coexist. The more feeding stations I set up, the more they gorge, taking from the birds that belong here and draining my birdseed budget.
These incorrigible birds have no interest in assimilating and contribute nothing to the rest. I have absolutely no control, though, because they have wings, and the skies they navigate, no borders.
This reminds me of the current debate happening over immigration. House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif) said in a statement she released January 26 that President Trump’s immigration reform framework is “cruel” and part of an “unmistakable campaign to make America white again.”
Besides being toxic and divisive, Pelosi’s statement is downright ignorant. While I personally disagree with Trump’s proposition to offer a pathway to citizenship for those here illegally, his proposal has nothing to do with skin color.
Discontinuing the ridiculous Visa Lottery Program, which invites people from countries all over the world, including those with known terrorist problems, is a no-brainer. Likewise, building a border wall and ending the preposterous chain migration program is necessary for our country’s survival.
According to Conservative Review’s Daniel Horowitz, “Overall, 97 percent of the four million individuals on the visa waiting list are chain migrants whose sole claim to an immigrant visa is family ties.” He reports in December 2017 alone, a beneficiary of chain migration targeted Harrisburg, Pennsylvania police in a series of shootings. On the same day as that terrorist attack, another chain migration recipient was sentenced in a Harrisburg federal court for material support to ISIS while a female Pakistani here on an F43 visa was charged with laundering Bitcoin to raise money for ISIS.
Unless Immigration is fixed it will only get worse. Case in point: Europe’s migration crisis, an ill-advised goodwill gesture that invited a sudden eruption of non-assimilating refugees that essentially upended the lives of citizens, drained resources and generally wreaked havoc on the local population.
Americans are generous, but like me, they have their limits. If Redpolls had the desire to get along with all the other birds, there’s little I would not sacrifice to accommodate them. Lord knows I’ve tried. Similarly, our country has always welcomed legal immigrants to share in our national wealth and opportunity. But, it requires a willingness on everyone’s part to live up to our nation’s motto, “E Pluribus Unum,” out of many, one.
“Unlike Chickadees, Redpolls refuse to assimilate. Rather than sharing feeders by politely grabbing seeds and eating them elsewhere, Redpolls swarm, attack and overtake feeders, gorging themselves until the food is gone.”
I’ve got the same problem with Gold Finches.
I’ve got the same problem with SPARROWS.
We lost beautiful blue birds in VA every year to those stupid sparrows. They would overtake the nest boxes and destroy the eggs.
I don't know how they learn this stuff, but they need to change.
Black-capped chickadees are socially monogamous, and males contribute greatly to reproduction. During the laying and incubation periods, males feed their partners extensively. When the nestlings hatch, males are the primary providers. However, as the nestlings grow, females become the main caretakers. Females prefer dominant males, and greater reproductive success is closely related to the higher ranking of the male.
"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Black-capped_chickadee#Breeding
Cute article. The rub is that welfare is welfare and free food, bird seed that is, begets dependency. It also inevitably sets off a contest for the free food as more and more people, err birds, flock to the feeder. Eventually it evens keeps the birdmen from trying to feed themselves.
Bottom line. You should not hand out free stuff even to the natives. The migrant birds will move on if you put the feeder away. The natives will also survive.
Think COWBIRDS; Folks.
Suet. Lots of fat. Duh.
My Mom kept a .22 rifle on the kitchen table to shoot cowbirds, and she was in her mid 80’s.
When she moved to FLA she missed not being able to shoot varmints out the back door.
Death to the chickadee patriarchy!
Equal rights for chickadettes NOW!
But the Redpoll just wants a better life and came here because his third cousin told him how good life is here. So he brought his family and then later sent for his parents, his wife’s parents and various brothers, sisters and cousins from both sides. Now have raised a brood of hatch-lings here in the land of plenty it would be cruel and deviating to the entire family to make them go back to their old nesting grounds!!!
LOL thanks! By all means let’s have sane immigration. But immigrants on welfare is better argument for NO Welfare! The American Story is immigrants coming here and working and finding success even if it takes 2 generations of a meager existence. We deny that to them by turning them into wards of the Democrat run welfare plantation.
Also if the choice is work or starve assimilation becomes a life or death necessity.
We have a lot of unassimilated natives.
I would not go too hard on the little passerines.
Thier customs have worked out well for them.
Also, recall when China had a Sparrow(IIRC) extermination program. Did not work out like they hoped.
They eat many bugs along with the seeds.
I have a sparrow trap that I put out in the Spring and Autumn.
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