drunken birds

[ButterflyLinda]

Oh, yes...I grow pokeberry for the birds! And they love the chile pequin peppers also.

[havalotta]

Originally Posted by biigblueyes

I make wine, and once you bottle the stuff, you have the half fermented fruit left. I usually throw it on the compost, but occasionally some of the critters find it before it loses its punch.

I tossed dads leftovers from the brewing bin onto a rotted stump in the woods thinking the bears would have a field day with it.....
They never touched it!

[turttle]

I guess bears are smarter than birds!

What are chile pequin peppers?

[biigblueyes]

Teensy tiny peppers that will blow the top of your head off. They're hot.

[turttle]

And the birds will eat them? I guess they'll eat bird seed with pepper in it to keep the squirrels away, so it makes sense, but you'd think they'd get heartburn or something.

I just got a viburnum nudum, or possumhaw in NC vernacular, to plant in my yard. It has beautiful fall color, as well as berries. I was looking at a wax myrtle and trying to decide if I have room for one. They need sun and I don't really have the right place for one, but the birds like those, too.

[ButterflyLinda]

Those peppers grow all over some of the wild places and people grow them also in their yards.
Pequin pepper - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

[turttle]

Thanks for the link, ButterflyLinda! These guys are 7-8x as hot as jalapenos! I'm impressed that birds can eat them. The plants are pretty with the little red peppers. I suspect they are deer and squirrel resistant.

I think I will do a little more investigating and see if they'll grow in NC. It sounds like they are native to the SW and Mexico, so it may be too humid and/or cold here.

[Runmede]

My son sprinkled the suet with hot pepper (cayenne) to keep the squirrels off. It works. I also sprinkle some into the bird seed.

[havalotta]

Cedar waxwings eat in voracious quantities -- gorging in gluttonous revelry. On occasion, they will eat fruit that is overripe and eat in such quantities that they will become intoxicated. Between their intricate rituals of social feeding and sharing and their tendency to "drink" to intoxicating excess, one could truly call these the "party animals" of the bird world.

The famous artist and naturalist, John James Audubon, would sometimes catch specimens of waxwings for his art by finding them so drunk that they became unable to fly, and just walking out and picking them up.

[An alternative theory of waxwing "drunkenness" is that they as they store berries in the crop, the load may press against the carotid arteries, resulting in impairment or loss of consciousness; however, studies reported by Mark Witmer for Birds of North America evaluated metabolic alcohol processing in waxwings and determined their vulnerability to alcohol intoxication. There is no information as to whether or not they experience hangovers.]

Waxwings are Wild -- special attributes of bohemian waxwing and cedar waxwing, (Bohemian Waxwing and Cedar Waxwing) incl observations of waxwings in San Diego County, California