Homeboy

My winter visitors may be beginning to abandon my yard (American Goldfinches, Red-breasted Nuthatches), but even when they are all gone, there will be plenty of birds left and plenty of activity to watch.

Right now, for example, the Eastern Bluebirds are nesting - earlier than I ever remember them nesting before.  I checked their nestbox earlier this week and there were five perfect and beautiful blue eggs in it. I'm not sure if the female has started incubating yet, but I think it likely, so in just a few days there will be two very busy parent birds coming and going from the box.

At one of the other bluebird boxes, the Carolina Chickadees are beginning to build their nest. No, they won't be leaving town. Neither will the Northern Cardinals, Mourning Doves ( I saw a pair courting in my yard just this week.), Red-bellied Woodpeckers, Northern Mockingbirds and so many other of our common birds whose presence we tend to take for granted.

Among these is another favorite of mine, the Tufted Titmouse. I took this series of photos of one among the grape vines earlier this week.

Wonderful little bird! How could I ever be bored with them to watch? 

The Unfeathered Bird by Katrina van Grouw: A review

(Cross-posted from The Nature of Things.)  

Heft this book, open it at random, and your first reaction might be, "Ah, a coffee-table book." And it could well be, but this is much more than just a coffee-table book, even as birds are much more than just their feathers.

The birds in Katrina van Grouw's astonishing book have been defeathered, often skinned and disassembled right down to their musculature or their skeletons, but they are always fully recognizable as birds. 

Their unfeathered selves are real specimens that are posed in the act of flying, walking, or standing, even as they would have in life. Ms. van Grouw has rendered them in monochromatic drawings that are remarkably detailed and absolutely mesmerizing. 

The author hastens to assure us that "no birds were harmed" in the production of the book. She has taken specimens that were already dead and prepared them for her drawings.

If that were all there was to this book, it could pass as a beautiful art book, but it is really much more than that. The text is informative and is written with great good humor. It tells us much about the lives of these birds and how they go about making their livings. It is almost as riveting as the drawings, and it is the perfect accompaniment to them.

Now, I am an avid birder, so perhaps it is not surprising that I should find a book about how their bodies are put together and how they work to be a fascinating bit of work. But I really don't think that you need be even very interested in birds to be able to enjoy this book. If you simply possess a modicum of curiosity about the natural world; if you are charmed by art that depicts animals, especially birds; if you enjoy erudite and witty writing, then I think you are the perfect audience for the book. 

Katrina van Grouw is a gifted writer and artist who obviously knows her birds. As a former curator of the ornithological collection at London's Natural History Museum, she also knows her bird art. She says that the creation of The Unfeathered Bird has been her lifetime's ambition. It was a worthy ambition and she has fulfilled it beautifully.

(A free copy of this book was provided to me by the publisher for the purposes of this review. The opinions expressed here are entirely my own.)

Wordless Wednesday: Cooper's Hawk

Goldfinches gone!

Something seemed different about the yard yesterday. And it wasn't just the awful wind that was blowing everything around. There were plenty of birds out braving the wind. There were even a few butterflies, including this very early Black Swallowtail that I had first seen a couple of days ago.

But amid all the familiar activity, something seemed to be missing. At first I couldn't put my finger on it. I scanned the bird feeders with my binoculars. They were covered in finches as usual. Lots and lots of Pine Siskins and...wait a minute! There were no goldfinches!

I scanned the feeders and the ground again and looked at the tree limbs where, for the last three months, American Goldfinches have waited their turn at the feeders. Nothing.

I listened for the familiar sound of their chattering or their flight song as they moved from place to place. Again, nothing.

I had noticed over the weekend that their numbers seemed down a bit, but could they all have absconded over night? All day long I looked for them and again today I've kept my eyes and ears open, but they are just not there. The goldfinches have gone. There may still be a few stray individuals around but the great mass of the flock has moved on.

This is very early for the goldfinches to have left. Normally, they stay in my yard until late March or even April. Last year, for example, I saw the last one in the yard on March 27. But it is well documented that global warming is changing the habits of many animals. Apparently, goldfinches and perhaps Black Swallowtail butterflies may be among them.

Goodbye, golden one, and safe journey. Your thistle feeders will be waiting for you again next December.

This week in birds - #58

A roundup of the week's news of birds and the environment:

Blue-winged Teal pair.

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Scientific American has a blog post about four presumably extinct species which people still hold out hopes of finding alive. One of them is the Ivory-billed Woodpecker. 

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A new study shows that free-ranging domestic dogs have a significant negative impact on wildlife, birds included. In addition to killing or maiming the wild animals, the dogs also are carriers of diseases that can devastate wildlife populations.

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The American Bird Conservancy has petitioned the Department of the Interior to review a rule that would weaken protection for eagles under the Bald and Golden Eagles Protection Act. The rule would allow more eagles to be killed by wind farms without legal implications to the private industries involved.

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What was called a "super-mega-pod" of Common Dolphins was spotted off the coast of California. The pod contained as many as 100,000 individuals. The term "super-mega" does seem appropriate.

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The well-named Sociable Weaver birds of the Kalahari Desert in Africa build and maintain their nests communally. Hundreds of the birds weave their nests together and the massive nests look like stacks of hay piled on top of telephone poles. (There are pictures at the linked article.)

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Scientists have found that differences in pitch of the songs of male Purple-crowned Fairy Wrens, an Australian species, correlate to differences in size of the birds. The lower the pitch, the larger the bird.

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The Nature Conservancy is promoting bird-friendly farms in California's Central Valley as a win-win proposition for both farmers and birds. The farms are very productive but still provide suitable habitat for migrating birds, especially waterfowl.

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The continued drastic reduction in Arctic sea ice is guaranteed to have a significant negative impact on the world's weather and climate.

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About ten years ago, more than 50,000 Red-breasted Geese, an endangered species, disappeared during migration from their wintering grounds around the Black Sea in Bulgaria, Romania, and Ukraine. Where did they go? What happened to them? Scientists are still trying to figure that out.

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The production of corn and soy for biofuel is destroying native grasslands in the Midwest at the fastest rate since the 1930s. Loss of habitat for prairie birds, many of which are already in serious decline, as well as other native animals, is of serious concern to conservationists.

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The source of the pollution that caused many seabirds to be washed up on the coast of southwestern England may never be known, authorities say. The birds were coated in a sticky substance. Some of them were able to be rescued and rehabilitated, but many died.

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If the scheduled sequester of government funds takes place on March 1, it will have a devastating effect on the national park system. Hours of operation will be cut, visitor centers closed, seasonal employees will not be hired, regular maintenance may be impaired. Since the parks are the most popular spots for family vacations during the summer, this has the potential for impacting families right across the country, making for some very unhappy non-campers.

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Around the backyard:

The heavy pressure on the feeding stations continues. I refilled all the feeders today. But it seemed to me in watching the birds today that perhaps the numbers of the finches, the American Goldfinches and Pine Siskins, were down a bit. Perhaps our early spring weather has encouraged the birds to start moving north again.

I haven't spent much time observing the birds in my yard since the Great Backyard Bird Count last weekend, but I also haven't seen any Red-breasted Nuthatches around for a few days. Have they moved on or have I simply missed them?  

I got a big surprise when I arrived home from a shopping trip today. I stepped out of my car in the driveway and heard a wicker-wicker-wicker call from one of the live oaks in the front yard. A Northern Flicker! It's been quite a while since I've seen one of them in my yard.

Usually by this time in the season, I'm seeing pairs of Red-winged Blackbirds and small flocks of Brown-headed Cowbirds at my feeders, but so far there have been none this year. I don't miss the cowbirds. I do miss the Red-wings. Perhaps they will turn up later.

Wordless Wednesday: Snack time!

Wrapping up the Great Backyard Bird Count

Overall, it was a successful weekend of counting birds in my yard. I ended the four-day weekend with a total species count of 37. That was good enough for third place in Montgomery County (at least as I write this) and 56th in the state.

Here is my final list of the species that I saw in my yard or flying over it during the weekend, with the highest number of the birds seen at any one time:

 1. Black-bellied Whistling Duck - 8
 2. Snowy Egret - 1
 3. Black Vulture - 2
 4. Turkey Vulture - 5
 5. Red-tailed Hawk - 1
 6. Cooper's Hawk - 1
 7. Eurasian Collared-dove - 1
 8. White-winged Dove - 12
 9. Mourning Dove - 1
10. Rufous Hummingbird - 2
11. Red-bellied Woodpecker - 1
12. Downy Woodpecker - 2
13. Eastern Phoebe - 1
14. Blue Jay - 2
15. American Crow - 4
16. Carolina Chickadee - 4
17. Tufted Titmouse - 2
18. Brown-headed Nuthatch - 1
19. Red-breasted Nuthatch - 1
20. Carolina Wren - 4
21. Ruby-crowned Kinglet - 1
22. Eastern Bluebird - 2
23. American Robin - 5
24. Northern Mockingbird - 1
25. Cedar Waxwing - 24
26. Orange-crowned Warbler - 1
27. Common Yellowthroat - 1
28. Pine Warbler - 3
29. Yellow-rumped Warbler - 5
30. Chipping Sparrow - 2
31. White-throated Sparrow - 1
32. Northern Cardinal - 8 
33. Common Grackle - 100
34. House Finch - 1
35. Pine Siskin - 50
36. American Goldfinch - 33
37. House Sparrow - 5  

As always, there were - frustratingly - several birds that I know were around but that just didn't show up for my count. Birds like the Inca Dove, Red-shouldered Hawk, Yellow-bellied Sapsucker, Pileated Woodpecker, and Brown Creeper. Oh, well, maybe next year...

I was also somewhat surprised to see that the 28 species that I recorded during our family picnic to celebrate my daughter's birthday at Brazos Bend State Park on Saturday were good enough to make me seventh on the Fort Bend County list - again, that is as I write this. More and lengthier reports may come in later.

It was a good weekend - most of it spent outside with the birds. What could be better?