This week in birds - #26

News from the world of birds and the environment this week:

(Picture courtesy of ABC.)

The American Bird Conservancy's Bird of the Week is the Chestnut Antipitta, a South American species that lives on the eastern slopes of the Andes in north and central Peru. It is a small, plump, and rather inconspicuous bird of montane forests and secondary woodlands and is usually found on or near the ground. Its status is not well-documented but it is thought to be declining in numbers.

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Who has better warblers - Europe or the Americas? Maybe it depends on what you want in a warbler. American warblers are clearly the more colorful, but some maintain that European warblers, while often drab as sparrows, have better songs. It's a question that has no "correct" answer really.

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A three-judge panel of the U..S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia this week upheld the Environmental Protection Agency's findings that heat-trapping gases from industry and vehicles do endanger public health and that the Clean Air Act requires the federal government to impose limits on the emission of the gases since it has been established that they are doing harm.

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The Pinta Island tortoise called Lonesome George was the last of his kind on Earth. "Was" being the operative word because this week George, estimated to be at least 100 years old, died. One more species gone forever.

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Blue Tits, European relatives of our Tufted Titmouse and Carolina Chickadee, show a positive response to birds with more intense ultraviolet coloring on the crown. Researchers have found that such better looking birds - from a tit's perspective - get more help from their partners with raising chicks. Life is not fair for plainer individuals, even in the world of birds!

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A father-daughter team in New Jersey is trying to save the world - or at least the wood turtles in it. The reptile is threatened in the state and the duo is working to identify nest sites and protect the turtle's habitats so that it can be saved.

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Bolivia has set aside a 44-acre reserve for the protection of the rare Tucuman Parrot.

(Tucuman Parrot photo by Luis Rivera.)

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Sea levels along the Atlantic Coast of the United States are rising much faster than in other parts of the world. It is estimated that they are rising up to three or four times as fast as the average.  Scientists believe that faster rise is related to melting ice in Greenland which is slowing the Gulf Stream current. 

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In other ocean-related news, the seas are being acidified by the same gases that are polluting our atmosphere and contributing to global warming. This is a serious problem for the planet and for humanity and yet MediaMatters has determined that the news media give 40 times more news coverage to the Kardashians than to ocean acidification. Why am I not surprised?  

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Around the backyard:

In mid-afternoon on Thursday, I witnessed a Mississippi Kite circling over the yard. Suddenly, it was attacked by an Eastern Kingbird. The smaller kingbird harassed it relentlessly until it flew out of my sight.

That same afternoon, I had a female Orchard Oriole visiting in the yard. Beautiful bird! 

(This is actually not the one I saw this week but one I photographed earlier this year. But this week's bird looked just like this!)

The Red-bellied Woodpeckers have been escorting two very noisy fledglings around the yard this week. Whiny little birds! They never shut up! I'm sure their parents will be glad when they graduate to taking care of themselves.

I've continued to monitor the bluebird nest. There are now four beautiful blue eggs in it, but I don't think Mama Bluebird has started brooding yet.

Wordless Wednesday: Glossy Ibis

Three beauties

Lady Blue has been busy! I checked the bluebird box this morning and the Eastern Bluebird nest contained these three beauties. A typical bluebird clutch contains four eggs and that's how many her previous clutch had so I suspect she may lay at least one more egg before she starts brooding.

I am a bit concerned because of the temperature. It was over 100 degrees yesterday, will be again today and is predicted to be again tomorrow. After that the heat is expected to abate just a little but it will still be in the high 90s. Is it possible the heat could damage the eggs, perhaps causing them to start developing before Mama is ready to brood? Could it perhaps even "cook" them? It is a concern, but, frankly, I don't know what I could do to alleviate the situation at this point. I'll just have to trust to Mama Bluebird and Mother Nature to know best how to take care of this new generation.

The bluebirds are nesting again

Before we went on vacation a couple of weeks ago, I noticed that the Eastern Bluebirds were showing interest in one of the bluebird boxes once again. I thought they were probably getting reading to build a second nest and raise another family. After we returned last week, I got sick with an upper respiratory infection and didn't get outside much during the week. Finally, over the weekend, I was able to make my rounds of the yard and check the nesting boxes and I found that, sure enough, the bluebirds had constructed one of their neat little nests made of pine straw in the old box where they have raised families in previous years. There were no eggs in the nest yet.

As I walked into the den this morning, I glanced out the window and saw the female bluebird exiting the box. I imagine she is ready to lay her eggs now and get on with the process of brooding a second clutch. I worry a bit about the birds because temperatures are supposed to be over 100 degrees for the first three days this week and there is little relief in sight. Being inside a wooden box in that sun, even with its ventilation holes, can't be very pleasant.

This pair of birds were very successful with their first brood of chicks, successfully fledging all four, so they are well experienced in raising a family. I hope their second venture is just as successful.

    The female bluebird visits the box where she has built her second nest.

Silent Sunday: The watcher

This week in birds - #25

News from the world of birds and the environment this week:

(Photo courtesy of ABC.)

The Bermuda Petrel, commonly called Cahow after the sound that it makes, is the American Bird Conservancy's Bird of the Week. The bird is Bermuda's only endemic breeding species but was long thought to be extinct. In recent years, small populations of the bird have been found and conservationists are trying to protect it and encourage a comeback. It is still seriously endangered.

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We know that the White-winged Dove is on the move, expanding its range right across the country. It was only a few years ago that the first of these doves appeared in my yard. Now they are the dominant doves here, having displaced the previous immigrants, the Eurasian Collared-dove. Now comes word that the White-winged has made it all the way to New Jersey!  

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Here's an oddment from the science news of the week: Nine turtle pairs died while copulating and their fossilized remains have now been discovered in Germany. It's the first known case of mating pairs dying in the act, being fossilized and then recovered. Scientists speculate that these turtles were going about their business in safe waters but while they were joined together they drifted into a toxic area of the lake and were killed.

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Chinstrap Penguins are losing population in a warming world. The penguins depend on krill as their main source of nourishment and the krill are dying in warming waters. Less krill means fewer penguins.

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In related penguin news, the four-foot-tall Emperor Penguin depends on the ice shelf around the continent of Antarctica as its habitat. As the planet warms and the ice melts, scientists are predicting a drastic decline in the population of these big penguins.

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A species which had been thought for 133 years to be extinct has been rediscovered. The Kandyan dwarf toad has been found to be alive and well and living in Sri Lanka.

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It's news when Kiwis fly and this week some of these normally flightless birds took to the air - with an assist from a military helicopter - as they were moved to a new habitat on the coast of New Zealand.

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Carbon that is currently trapped in the Arctic tundra could be released, scientists say, by the growth of new trees in the warming area. This is of concern because it could further exacerbate global warming.

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A study of Swamp Sparrows shows that baby sparrows prefer the songs which they can hear the clearest and adopt those into their own personal playlist. Thus, outside noises from human activities can obscure some sounds and thus affect the songs that the birds learn.

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Coyotes have recolonized the Northeast displacing the red fox in many areas. The red fox is a voracious predator of the white-footed mouse which is a carrier of the ticks which produce Lyme disease. Coyotes prey on the mice, too, but not to the extent of the foxes. When the foxes disappear from an area, the mouse population expands and the cases of Lyme disease increase. These are the findings of a new study about the increasing number of Lyme disease cases in the Northeast, and thus does a change in the habitat of an area produce sometimes unexpected results.

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Did you ever wonder how Brown-headed Cowbird chicks learn to be cowbirds? After all, they are raised by foster parents, so why don't they imitate the sparrows or warblers who have nourished them?  Blogger Kate St. John has an observation about that and about the male cowbirds calling their now fully-fledged chicks to follow them.

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Around the backyard:

Well, it's been a bit of a lost week for me. I've been laid low by a respiratory infection and unable to get out and about very much at all. I did finally get outside today to fill my bird feeders which had been empty for many days. Poor birds! Fortunately, there's no shortage of wild food for them.

Hardly had I gotten the seeds and suet and pressed seedcakes into their appropriate feeders before the dominant Northern Mockingbird was on top of the feeder pole proclaiming that this is his territory!  Some of the other birds may have other ideas though.

While I was out filling the feeders, I was delighted to hear the song of the little Brown-headed Nuthatch in my neighbor's pine trees. It's not a song that I hear in my yard every day anymore and it always makes me happy when I do.

Phriday Photo: Young Scissor-tailed Flycatcher

("This week in birds" will appear tomorrow.) 

Mockingbirds everywhere!

We're back from our brief vacation, a road trip that took us through parts of Texas, Arkansas, Louisiana, and Mississippi on our annual visit to family and friends. Sadly, I cannot tell you that I saw any new birds anywhere along the way, just lots of the old friends that visit my backyard or the ponds, streams, and beaches that I sometimes visit at home.

I was surprised by the number of Yellow-crowned Night Herons I saw along the way. There seemed to be at least one present at every puddle and there were lots of puddles because rain had been plentiful in the areas where we traveled.

In addition to adults like the one in the first picture, there were plenty of juveniles like this one, still dressed in the speckled feathers of the fledgling.

I was not at all surprised though to find Northern Mockingbirds everywhere we went, often busy feeding fledglings. I don't think we made a single stop along the way where there wasn't at least one mockingbird to greet us. This adaptable bird is doing just fine, thank you, all across its range.

A Northern Mockingbird keeps a wary eye on things.

The most amazing avian sight that I saw on our trip was a big flock of Purple Martins circling just at dusk over our motel in Corinth, Mississippi.  There were too many for me to accurately count, but there were well over a hundred, certainly the largest flock of these birds that I have seen this year. But in most of the places that we stopped in Mississippi there were big numbers of martins. Putting up gourds for martin housing is very popular there and the birds are happy to avail themselves of their traditional housing. I was very glad to see this favorite summer bird of mine, which no longer nests in my yard, doing so well in these areas.

Wordless Wednesday: All-American Robin hunts earthworms

Vacation time!

I will be on the road for the next week and blogging will be sparse. But keep watching this spot! I'll be back.

This week in birds - #24

The top of a fence post seems a good spot for this Mourning Dove to rest. 

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A birder in Alaska witnessed and photographed a group of Sandhill Cranes chasing a red fox that had caught a small shorebird in the refuge where the cranes were resting and feeding. The cranes evidently objected to one of their feathered brethren being turned into dinner for the fox.

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A Spanish study of butterfly species indicates that those which emerge from pupation late in the year and those which reside at higher altitudes may have a more difficult time adjusting to a warmer climate, probably because they have evolved to deal with a more narrow window of opportunity for feeding.

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There's good news this week concerning the Red Knots which stop to feed at Delaware Bay on their long migration. A count of the birds indicates that the population has doubled over last year's numbers. This is evidence of improving health for the bay and for the horseshoe crab on whose eggs the knots feed.

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The Dominican Republican is setting aside a Nature reserve that will serve the twin purpose of protecting part of the country's trees from deforestation and will help to protect the elusive Bicknell's Thrush, a North American migrant that winters in the area. In addition to the thrush, it is hoped that the protected land will assist several other threatened bird species in their struggle to survive.

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A new paper published in Nature by 22 scientists warns that unsustainable human pressures on the planet's environment may be quickly reaching the point of no return, the point where it will be impossible to reverse the damage done.

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BirdLife International has updated its red list of threatened species. They have added more than a hundred bird species in the Amazon to the endangered list.

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Want to get rid of some of those pesky weeds in your yard? How about eating them?

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City Hall in Philadelphia has been a favored nesting spot for Peregrine Falcons. The pair that nested there this year successfully raised four chicks which have now safely fledged, much to the dismay of local pigeons!

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Trail cameras that were set up in a palm oil plantation in Colombia have photographed jaguars and other felines. Palm oil plantations are in many ways very destructive to the environment, but at least this indicates that some of the predators at the top of the food chain have been able to adapt and survive.

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There seem to be no end to the threats to survival of native birds on the Hawaiian Islands. Recently, a mongoose, a deadly avian predator, was captured on the island of Kaua'i which had previously been thought to be free of this introduced species. One more thing for the conservationists trying to save the birds to worry about.

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Around the backyard: 

Babies, babies everywhere! The fledglings are the big news in the yard again this week. I've seen baby Northern Mockingbirds, American Robins, Northern Cardinals, and today I saw a baby Red-bellied Woodpecker at the feeders in the backyard.

Meanwhile, the Eastern Bluebirds that successfully fledged their four babies a couple of weeks ago seem to be interested in raising another family. I caught the male checking out a couple of the boxes in the backyard this week. Good thing I thoroughly cleaned them out after their use by the bluebirds and by a family of Carolina Chickadees earlier in the year.

I also noticed that a pair of Carolina Wrens appears to be building a nest in the third (currently) unoccupied bluebird box. I tell you there's never a dull moment around here!

Of Rain Crows and Indian Hens - redux

(First posted May 1, 2006.)

I had an e-mail from a childhood friend and she was talking about some of the common names that were used for certain birds where we grew up. One was “Rain Crow.”

I think I probably spent half my childhood believing that a Rain Crow was a crow that predicted the weather. It was a crow that gave a particular kind of sound when it was going to rain. The rest of the time it just went “caw, caw” like other crows. Then one day I finally got a good look at the bird that was making that sound and realized that it wasn’t a crow at all. Sometime after that I learned that its true name was “Yellow-billed cuckoo.” How it ever came to be called a rain crow or storm crow, another one of its names, I have no idea.

It may have been wishful thinking that got it that name. After all, in farming communities in the south in summer you spend most of July and August searching the sky for clouds and wishing for more rain. That might explain the rain crow, but how do you account for the “Indian Hen?”

My friend says she remembers her father referring to a bird they used to hear in summer as an “Indian Hen” and that she still hears it now sometimes in summer. She thought it might be some kind of woodpecker. I racked my brain but I could not remember ever having heard a bird referred to as an Indian Hen, so I did what I always do when I’m stumped: I asked Google. In the blink of an eye, there was my answer on the screen.

It seems the Indian hen is an old-time name for the American Bittern. Armed with this information from Google, I went to my reference books and in The Audubon Society Encyclopedia of North American Birds, I learned that this strange little heron has a whole paragraph of common names. Among the more colorful ones are: barrel-maker, bog-trotter, meadow hen, shitepoke (that one I had heard), stake-driver, thunder-pumper, sky-gazer, and water-belcher! As well as Indian hen.

The names like stake-driver and thunder-pumper were given to it in imitation of its call which sounds a bit like someone driving a stake. Sky-gazer could refer to its habit of freezing and pointing its bill straight up at the sky in order to try to blend in with the reeds and grasses of its habitat when it is disturbed. But meadow hen or Indian hen? I can only guess that perhaps Native Americans made use of it like a hen. Perhaps they used its eggs or used the birds themselves for food.

The bittern is a very secretive bird that is cryptically colored and is probably more often heard than seen. I cannot say for sure that I have ever actually seen one. I do remember once disturbing a pair of crow-sized birds from their roost late in the afternoon and my parents telling me they were “shitepokes” – so maybe those were bitterns. But, confusingly, some other small herons are sometimes called “shitepokes,” as well.

I once almost saw one – I think – at Galveston in one of the marshes but then it shifted its position and simply disappeared into the reeds and I could never find it again with my binoculars. So maybe it was a bittern or maybe not. It remains a name without a checkmark next to it on my life list. I think you have to be a little lucky or else very good in order to see a bittern in the wild, and I can’t really lay claim to being either.

It’s interesting, though, how birds get these colorful common names. When people don’t know the proper name of a thing, they will seize on one of its characteristics to describe it and identify it in conversation. If that name becomes accepted by enough people, it becomes a common name. Thus, the rain crow and Indian hen are born.

Indian hens or American Bitterns are not really backyard birds unless you live near a marsh or have a pond of sufficient size and habitat to attract one. But if you have trees in your yard, you might very well see a rain crow or Yellow-billed cuckoo this summer. I haven’t heard one calling yet but it is about time that they arrive in our area and I would expect to hear one any day.

And what about you? Do you know of other colorful common names that are given to our birds? I would be very interested to hear them.

(Update: I did later "get" the American Bittern and was able to check his name on my life list and, just recently, on our trip to Anahuac, I added the Least Bittern.  Now both Indian Hens and Rain Crows are accounted for on my life list!) 

Wordless Wednesday: Green Heron

A blast from the past: Doves in the pine tree

I started the Backyard Birder blog on April 3, 2006. At that time, I was writing it for the Houston Chronicle online and I continued with that until last year when a redesign of the Chronicle's website made the blog almost impossible to find. Only then did I leave that site and start publishing on Blogspot. I lost a lot of readers in the process and gained some new ones, but it has been a slow, hard slog to get back to the number of readers that the blog had in the past.

One thing I have learned in the six plus years of writing this blog is that I do not have the first clue about what people want to read! Often I will write something that I think my readers might be interested in, maybe taking extra time to research or to craft it and I'll put it out there...and nobody reads it. When that happens, I often think back to the first really successful post that I did for the blog. It was April 26, 2006 and it took me maybe 10 - 15 minutes to write. When I posted it, it was an instant hit. 

It was a piece about watching a pair of Mourning Doves build their nest. I never figured out why it resonated with my readers. If I had, I would write something similar every day! But here it is, a blast from the past, "Doves in the pine tree." 

I watched a pair of mourning doves building their nest this afternoon. The male picked up straw and sticks from the ground and took them to his mate who worked on weaving and shaping the nest. Their nest is between 30 and 40 feet up in a huge pine tree that stands just across the backyard fence in my neighbor’s yard. The doves construct their nest on a horizontal limb, about two-thirds of the way out from the trunk. It is a flimsy looking affair. One would think that the first strong breeze would blow it right to the ground, but it stands up to the rigors of nesting. The doves raise several families there all through the summer.

There has been a dove nest on that limb every year for at least three years and I assume it is the same pair, year in and year out. I couldn’t find anything in the literature available to me to indicate whether the birds mate for life, but if not, it would be a remarkable coincidence that different birds should build a nest in virtually the same spot every year.

Members of the pigeon and dove family have many interesting behaviors that distinguish them from other birds. For instance, they are among the few birds that can drink by simply sticking their bills in the water and sucking it up, unlike other birds that take the water into their beak and then tip the head back to swallow it. They are also unique in that they produce a substance called “pigeon milk” to feed their young. This is a milky secretion that is produced in the crops of both male and female birds. 

It is rich in fat and protein and for the first few days of their lives, it is all the nestlings are fed. After that, the parents gradually begin to feed a mixture of the “milk” and regurgitated seeds. 

The birds are vegetarians and readily utilize bird feeders. They are one of the most numerous birds at my feeders. They favor the feeders that I fill with a mixture of seeds, rather than the ones that have only black oil sunflower seeds. They prefer to feed on the ground and are usually seen walking around and picking up seeds that have been knocked out by overly vigorous feeders like grackles or woodpeckers. I also sprinkle cracked corn on the ground under the feeders for them. 

The mourning dove is one of those birds that says “home” to me. I’ve been listening to its soulful song all my life, and so I tend to think of it as a bird of the south, but actually it ranges all the way from Canada into northern Mexico. It is one of the most numerous birds in all parts of its range. For a bird that appears rather fragile, shy, and retiring, it is one tough cookie. It has learned to adapt to the human-altered landscape and, like many of our successful backyard birds, it thrives in close contact with humans. 

By the end of the afternoon, my birds appeared to have finished their nest. Now they can settle down to laying the two eggs that comprise their clutch and incubating their first family of the year. According to the guide books, they may raise as many as six clutches before the end of summer. Maybe that explains why they are one of the most plentiful birds in all parts of their range.

This week in birds - #23

A Snowy Egret in breeding finery cools its feet and waits patiently for a likely snack to reveal itself. 

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Wildlife rehabbers are among the most selfless, dedicated, and, at this time of year, sleepless individuals around. They often do their work in a room of their own house or apartment, but, in New York City, there is now a new facility dedicated for the work of  rehabilitating injured or orphaned wildlife.  

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The National Geographic website has posted some wonderful pictures of songbirds. Give yourself a treat and fly by for a look.

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In my book, photographing wildlife of any kind is never easy and dragonflies are definitely in that category, but here are some suggestions that are supposed to make photographing dragonflies easier. 

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Fifty years ago this year the publication of Silent Spring by Rachel Carson gave an impetus to a fledgling environmental movement in this country. Reading it sent chills down the spine of many that summer. It depicted a world of horror; not an imaginary one but one that was happening right before our eyes. If you've never read the book, this summer might be a good time to do it. It is still relevant and, unfortunately, some of the horror is still happening.  

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Six thousand acres of primary rainforest in Guatemala have been set aside to be protected for the preservation of endangered reptiles, but the conservation area will benefit all wild species in the area including many birds.

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B95, a legendary 19-year-old Red Knot, has been sighted on a beach in New Jersey. 

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Many endemic Hawaiian birds are facing extinction because of habitat loss and the introduction onto the islands of invasive species that prey on the birds or compete with them for breeding territories. The "Scientist at Work" blog in the New York Times recounts efforts to save the birds. 

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A public outcry in the U.K. has caused the government to abandon plans to trap Buzzards and destroy their nests. These birds are a protected species, so why was the government going to kill them? To protect pheasants and preserve them for humans to hunt and kill! The Buzzards kill pheasants to live. The humans kill pheasants for sport. I think the Buzzards control the moral high ground here.

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Look! Up in the sky! It's not a bird! It's not a plane! It's Venus and it is transversing the sun next Tuesday just at sunset. If you are in a position to watch the setting sun, you may see the black dot that is Venus crossing its face. If you miss it next week, you'll have to hang around until 2117 to witness the transit of Venus on its next trip across the face of the sun.

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Conservationists are asking the U.S. Forest Service to stop logging in a post-fire area near Lake Tahoe in order to save chicks of the endangered Black-backed Woodpecker that are in nests there.

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Large moths, known as sphinx moths or hawk moths and sometimes mistaken for hummingbirds, are able to discern from the humidity emanating from a flower whether or not it is worth their time to visit. Clever moths!

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Around the backyard: Things have been quiet around my yard this week. The heat is getting to the birds, even as it gets to the birder. Except for the morning chorus and the late afternoon chorus, during much of the day, birdsong is mostly absent. The birds are continuing to hit the feeders pretty hard.

In emptying the feeders, the birds often get a helping paw from one of these characters, one of many local fox squirrels.

Regardless of the heat, Daddy Cardinal continues leading his newly-fledged brood around the yard, introducing them to all the best places to find food - another reason why the feeders are often empty these days!