[cobirds] The Hungry Gymnast

I had to share this image of a bushtit foraging on honeysuckle aphids yesterday in the alley east of Grandview Cemetery in Fort Collins.  It reminded me of something only a skilled gymnast or yoga practitioner could pull off.  It hurt my shoulder girdles just to watch.  No fewer than 6 species of aphids are reported from Colorado honeysuckles and I don't know which species this is.  I include a couple pics of wingless and winged forms of the aphid, which to this individual bird, were apparently worth the contortions.

I suspect most of the reports of warblers and vireos that will hopefully populate alerts over the next month or so (we have had as many as 10 species of warbler on an single alert in CO as late as early December in recent years) will feature very late migrant insectivores trying to sustain themselves largely on living aphids (overwintering eggs and other stages), aphid honeydew-feeding insects, aphid-predacious insects and aphid cadavers (killed by low temperatures).

Good plants to check are pines, Russian-olive, willows/poplars (see White-eyed Vireo photos from Bonfils-Stanton Park in Lakewood) and oak.  And honeysuckle.

Dave Leatherman

Fort Collins