"Wheeep! I'm back!"

A loud "Wheeep!" greeted me as I stepped out onto my back porch Sunday morning. It made me smile for I instantly recognized the call of an old friend from my childhood, the Great Crested Flycatcher. He had returned from his winter down south.

(Image courtesy of Cornell Lab of Ornithology.)

The Great Crested Flycatcher is another of those birds, like the Yellow-breasted Chat, that is often easier to hear than to see, but, indeed, there is no problem with hearing him. He has a distinctive and ringing call, unlike any other bird that I've heard, including any of the other flycatchers. If you do get lucky enough to see one, you will see a medium sized bird,  similar in size to a Western Kingbird and slightly bigger than an Eastern Kingbird. The Great Crested is one of the more colorful flycatchers of the eastern part of the continent, with a gray head, olive back, rufous wings and tail and bright yellow belly.  It is a hole-nester, normally nesting in a hole in a tree but it will sometimes use human-made nest boxes or other structures. I once found a nest in an old mailbox.

An interesting thing about this bird's nests is that they often will use a shedded snakeskin in the construction of the nest. Why? Is is a way of scaring off predators? Or maybe the bird just likes the look of snakeskin. Only the Great Crested Flycatcher knows for sure.

This flycatcher does nest in our area and some years I have them in my neighborhood throughout the summer as they raise their 4-6 young. I've never had one nest in my yard, to my knowledge. Maybe this will be the year!

This week in birds - #18

(Photo of Prothonotary Warbler by Greg Lavaty courtesy of ABC.)

The American Bird Conservancy's Bird of the Week is the beautiful Prothonotary Warbler, to my mind perhaps the prettiest of all the warblers. The Prothonotary is a hole-nester of southeastern swamps, often nesting in a rotting tree standing over water. They will sometimes use birdhouses that are placed close to water. Population numbers of this lovely bird have declined due to the clearing of southern swamp forests, but it is still fairly common in appropriate habitats. 

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A couple of researchers at the Baylor College of Medicine have identified cells in a pigeon's brain that record detailed information on the earth's magnetic field, a kind of biological compass. This built-in GPS helps the birds to navigate and find their way home. It has long been speculated that birds navigate using the earth's magnetic fields, but this study, described by one scientist as "a stunning piece of work" pinpoints the areas that make it possible.

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On April 10th, 61 percent of the lower 48 states were listed by the U.S. Drought Monitor to be in abnormally dry or drought conditions. Moreover, states west of the Rocky Mountains are poised for a dry, hot summer, because those areas received less than 70 percent of the average snowfall according to USDA National Water & Climate Center, meaning less water in available in streams, lakes and watersheds.

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Every year nearly 7 million birds die as they migrate from North America to Central and South America and back again, according to a new study. They are killed by the 84,000 communication towers that dot North America and can rise nearly 2,000 feet into the air.

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Researchers have found that birds with feathers in the red, orange and chestnut palette are more likely to suffer from eye damage due to cataracts. The question is why this should be. 

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New research indicates that the water cycle of evaporation and condensation has sped up over the last fifty years and threatens to continue to accelerate if the heating up of the planet is not slowed or reversed. Climate scientists worry that this will cause more extreme weather, including severe droughts and floods.  

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Male Bowerbirds of Australia build elaborate structures to attract mates. They use plants, including fruits and flowers in their decorations and thus sometimes wind up planting seeds and becoming accidental gardeners. 

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Scientists have found that day length affects genes differentially in some bird species. The lengthening days in spring trigger the urge to mate in the birds. 

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Colombia has doubled the size of a preserve set aside for the protection of the critically endangered Fuertes's Parrot. 

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Mexico has become the second country in the world, after the UK, to pass a comprehensive climate change bill for the purpose of controlling emissions which contribute to the warming of the planet. 

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Around the backyard: It has been a very exciting week in the backyard. My yard has been Warbler Central all week as various warblers pass through on their way north. In addition to the Yellow-breasted Chat that I reported on earlier in the week, I have seen a beautiful Blue-winged Warbler, a Common Yellowthroat, and what may have been a Swainson's Warbler. And who knows how many I've missed.

Baby birds have been fledging all week, as well. The Northern Cardinals that grew up in a nest behind my garden shed are out and about in the yard now.

Here's one of the young ones perched on a crape myrtle limb. Although the fledglings may be almost as large as their parents, you can identify them as babies because of their dark beaks. As they grow to adulthood, their beaks will turn red like their parents'.

Elsewhere, the female Eastern Bluebird is brooding four pretty blue eggs in her nest in my vegetable garden.

Whenever I'm working among the veggies, she pokes her head out of the box periodically to check on my location. She doesn't trust me one whit. If only she knew, she has nothing to fear from me.

The chattiest of birds

All day yesterday I kept hearing a bizarre series of bird sounds, hoots, whistles and clucks, coming from the shrubs and tangle of vines around the yard. These unmistakable "songs" announced the arrival of that quirkiest of warblers, the Yellow-breasted Chat, who also just happens to be another of my favorite spring visitors.

The chat is well-named because he always seems to be chatting as he skulks among the hedgerow looking for tasty insects or berries. It's good that he is so chatty because otherwise we might never know he was here. This bird is much more often heard than seen. He is very secretive and seldom wanders into the open. There have been springs where I have never seen the bird at all, even though I knew from the sounds coming from the shrubbery that they were around. But yesterday I got lucky.

I was sitting in my backyard late in the day after having been around the yard taking a few pictures of some of the spring flowers. My camera was on the table beside me. I was watching the pair of Eastern Bluebirds that are now nesting in one of my boxes. I had checked the box earlier and there were four beautiful blue eggs in the nest. As I watched the birds and speculated on whether they were already brooding or were going to lay more eggs, a movement at the left periphery of my vision caught my attention. I turned to look at a bird which I immediately recognized was not one of my permanent resident birds but whose actual identity I wasn't sure of at first.

I watched as the mystery bird walked up and down the top of the vegetable garden fence near the asparagus bed and suddenly it hit me. It was the Yellow-breasted Chat! I immediately grabbed my camera and tried to get a recognizable picture, but I wasn't very successful.

The bird resolutely kept his back turned to me. He was apparently attracted by something among the asparagus.

Come on, turn around at least just a little bit!

Well, he did turn around just a little bit, at least enough so that I could see that bright yellow breast which helped to give him his name, but then he dived into the asparagus and was lost from the view of me and my camera.

It was just a brief and blurry look at this very interesting bird that loves its privacy. I may not get another one, but even this view was more than I usually get.

Wordless Wednesday: Carolina Wren

Happy Earth Day!

Another Earth Day has rolled around and we all need to get outside and enjoy Earth and all her gifts, especially the birds.

In my yard today, the Blue Grosbeaks have arrived and so has a female Ruby-throated Hummingbird, the first of the year.

Is this the same little female that has nested in my yard these last few years? No way to know really, but I'm happy to see her anyway.

The male RTHs are still passing through as well and now that a female is here, there are constant noisy chases around the yard.

A male takes a sip from a bright canna bloom, a favorite of the hummers.

In honor of this Earth Day, the National Audubon Society has published its ten ways that you can make a difference to migrating birds. By following Audubon's suggestions, we can all be better friends to the birds and we all need to do that because the birds need all the help they can get.

HAPPY EARTH DAY AND REMEMBER TO GIVE THE BIRDS SOME LOVE!

This week in birds - #17

The sentinel of the backyard - the raucous Blue Jay - is always on the alert for passing hawks or cats and is the first to cry an alarm.

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Remember the young Whooping Cranes, raised in Wisconsin last year, who were being led to wintering grounds in Florida by an ultralight last fall when their journey was interrupted in Alabama due to a dispute about flight permits? Ultimately, the ten cranes were trucked to a wildlife preserve in Alabama to spend the winter. There was concern that their migratory instinct and sense of direction might have been inhibited by that trip by truck. Apparently, there was no reason to worry. Mother Nature is one smart lady and when she told the birds to get up and go, they got up and went and in the right direction, too. Indeed, one of the birds, a female, had broken away from the group and had made her own way to Florida. Now, she has also made her way back to Wisconsin! The remaining nine birds are following the route on which they were led south and are now crossing Illinois, heading back north.  

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Today is the second anniversary of the Deepwater Horizon explosion in the Gulf that resulted in the biggest oil spill in the nation's history. The good news is that the ecological recovery has been much faster than was feared. The bad news is that many species, including common seafood such as shrimp, have been found to be suffering gross abnormalities as a result of exposure to the oil and to the chemicals that were used to disperse it.

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The oldest known breeding Osprey has returned to a Perthshire preserve in Scotland where she has nested for at least 22 years. She has laid a egg in her nest there.

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U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service officials estimate that at least 10,000 birds have already died this year at the Lower Klamath National Wildlife Refuge in California and Oregon, known as "the Everglades of the West," because of a reduced flow of water there. They fear that the final total may be close to 20,000 birds if water is not released to the area.

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Did you know that arsenic is an ingredient in some chicken feed? Well, neither did I, but apparently it is. Now Maryland has become a trailblazer by passing a law banning arsenic as an ingredient.

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There is new evidence that ravens, some of the smartest birds around, are able to memorize relationship bonds and affiliations and that they can differentiate individuals based on past interactions. In other words, if you irritate a raven, he's most likely going to remember it and you, so watch out the next time you meet him!

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Mute Swans are big birds that are highly aggressive, especially during the breeding season. They are known to attack humans. Even so, this story is incredible. In Illinois, a swan knocked a man out of his kayak and then kept him from swimming to shore, causing him to drown. The death was investigated by the police and apparently the facts were confirmed.

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Where have all these frogs been hiding? A total of 36 previously unknown species of frogs have been discovered in a Madagascar forest.

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And in Saskatchewan, a previously unknown species of prehistoric bird was discovered by scientists. It was a big toothy creature that looked a lot like a loon and it splashed around in waters in the area while Tyrannosaurus Rex lumbered around on land.

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(Male Short-tailed Albatross and chick picture by USFWS.)

A bird once thought to be extinct and now known to exist in a small area of Japan may be colonizing the Hawaiian Islands. At least ten Short-tailed Albatrosses have shown up at various sites in the islands.

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Around the backyard: The voices of baby birds are being heard in every corner of the yard. The chickadees have hatched, as I showed you on Wednesday. So have the Northern Cardinals. I'm unable to look inside their nest but I hear several strong voices coming from the tangle of vines and shrubbery behind my garden shed. Elsewhere, I see the Northern Mockingbirds carrying insects, although I haven't quite discerned where their nest is located.

The Eastern Bluebirds have finally settled on a nesting box and the female is busily preparing a nest to meet her exacting specifications. 

There is new life and soon-to-be new life everywhere. What an exciting time to be a backyard birder!

Wordless Wednesday: Baby Carolina Chickadees