Monthly Archives: May 2010

Birthday birds

Posted on May 12, 2010 | 5 Comments

We had a pretty good day of banding today. There weren’t large numbers of birds caught and banded, but we still had a good tally, and what we lacked in abundance was made up for in prizeworthiness of the birds banded. It was like they’d heard it was my birthday today (you’d be surprised at how in-tune birds seem to be with what’s going on – this is the reason that they immediately fly off their perch the moment you lift your camera, even if they’ve been sitting there for several minutes, and also why when you try to point out a bird that’s been singing its heart out to a companion it immediately shuts up. They like a good joke as much as the next bird, it seems.) and wanted to do something nice for me. Either that, or this is to make up for, in advance, all their perversity during the upcoming year. Or an apology for all their perversity last year. Either way, I was happy to take what they offered.

Bird number one was a gorgeous male Northern Parula. These guys are among the most gaudily decorated of all the warblers (I still think they’re beautiful for all their eclectic choice of wardrobe), and they’re also among the smallest. You don’t really realize just how small a parula is till you’re holding it in your hand. This is true for all birds, probably. Although parulas aren’t uncommon on migration, per se, they’re not exactly common, either. They’re pretty much restricted as breeders here in Ontario to the Canadian Shield and the Bruce Peninsula, so this one was just stopping in for a brief visit before moving on. They build great little nests, tucked into pockets of dangling Usnea tree lichen. The nests are really hard to find, though, as evidenced by the fact that only eight had been documented in the province up to 2008.

Following him up was an equally stunning adult male Cape May Warbler. These guys are even less common than the parulas, and while I might see half a dozen or more parulas over the course of a normal migration season, I’ll be lucky to see even a couple of Cape Mays, and especially lucky to see such a brightly-coloured male. Like the parulas, these guys are primarily restricted to the Canadian Shield, although there is a small population in what I believe is the Larose Forest east of Ottawa (which I wrote about here). They nest in tall coniferous trees, up near the tops and close to the trunks, making their nests also hard to find. Fewer than 10 nests have been found in Ontario for this species, as well. This guy will also be carrying on, though he might not be going quite as far.

But the best bird of the day was this one: a female Bobolink. I knew immediately what the bird was when we came to it in the net, although it was a good test of ID skills for some of the other volunteers. I was excited because this was a species I’ve never seen up close before, they’ve always been up at the top of a tree or over a field, singing their beautifully metallic tinkly song. They’re also not a species I see commonly, as they typically don’t spend much time in habitats other than the meadows or agricultural fields they prefer for breeding. They also don’t get caught at migration monitoring stations too often. Like many grassland species, Bobolinks are in decline due to loss of habitat and early mowing of hayfields that destroys nests before they can fledge. Another factor for this species may be persecution on its wintering grounds in Argentina where it assembles into massive flocks and forages on cultivated grains and rices. With so much stacked against her, I wish this girl the best of luck.

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Posted in birds

Tagged Bobolink, Cape May Warbler, Northern Parula

Spurge

Posted on May 9, 2010 | 3 Comments

When I first arrived at Innis Point at the start of the banding season, one of the first wildflowers I noticed were these brightly-coloured yellow ones. They reminded me an awful lot of the spurge that I had growing in my garden, even if the shape wasn’t quite right. They were growing in pockets here and there of one or two or four individuals. On one lovely warm sunny afternoon I saw quite a few with native ladybugs on them. I was quite taken with them, because they were somewhat unusual and showy.

In looking them up once I was home, it turns out I wasn’t far off in thinking they seemed like my garden spurge. They’re Leafy Spurge, Euphorbia esula, so are from the same genus. These ones happen to be an introduced species, however, first found in Ontario in 1889. Over the last century they’ve spread very well. Their seed capsules explode the same way we might think of those of touch-me-nots doing, flinging seeds up to 5 meters/yards away. Seeds growing near water also float and can be distributed that way. Broken roots can develop into new plants. They’re very prolific. As most well-established introduced species that populate our roadsides and disturbed areas seem to be.

I didn’t try picking any, and it seems that it was just as well: the sap can apparently cause chemical burns to sensitive skin, and even cause blindness if you get it in your eyes. Leaves bundled up with hay that start to decay, or decayed leaves eaten by animals among their natural forage in the field, can be poisonous. Ironically, the genus name Euphorbia is taken from the name Euphorbus, physician to King Juba II of Numidia some two thousand years ago. He apparently used a plant of this genus as an herbal remedy, once to cure the king’s stomachache.

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Posted in flora, flowers

Tagged Leafy Spurge

Quilled

Posted on May 7, 2010 | 12 Comments

As a bander I often get to see many weird things in the birds we catch that might otherwise go undetected just by glancing at a bird in a tree. Today we caught this Downy Woodpecker who had, at some point, had a rather unfortunate run-in with a porcupine. This is something I’d never seen before: a wild bird that had been jabbed by a porcupine quill. Even stranger was that the bird in question clearly was not a species to have any interest in the porcupine as dinner. My hypothesis is that the porcupine, during the course of its foraging for leaf buds, got a little too close to the Downy’s nest cavity, and the Downy, raging with hormones as he is at this time of year, would have perceived the porcupine as a threat and tried driving it away.

The bird, fortunately, seemed in good spirits and health, aside from this quill that was sticking out from its upper breast. One of the volunteers in today happened to have worked at a wildlife clinic and so had much experience with pulling quills. I held the woodpecker and she carefully and cleanly removed the quill with a quick and decisive tug using a pair of tweezers. I’m sure the Downy was grateful to have the thing gone, even if he was too pissed with us handling him to be able to express it to us…

Interestingly, this wasn’t the first misfortune to befall this bold little guy in the 11 months or so since he hatched from his egg. At some point in that period he’d also managed to break off a portion of his bill. Goodness only knows how. It was still regrowing, but given his good health it didn’t seem to have adversely affected him too much.

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Posted in birds

Tagged Downy Woodpecker, porcupine quill

Butterbutts

Posted on May 6, 2010 | 2 Comments

On an average day at Innis Point or most other bird observatories, there is at least one other skilled person present in addition to the main bander (that’s me). Today, though, through fluke of scheduling, no second person was available, and so it was just myself and my two enthusiastic but novice interns. Now, I’m pretty sure that the birds have someone appointed to check the online volunteer schedules and report back to the flock, because almost invariably these days tend to be busier than usual. Today was no exception. Although it doesn’t sound like that many birds, we captured and banded about 45 over the course of the morning, and because it was necessary as the only person capable of independently removing the birds from the nets that I do the full round, as well as band all the birds once we got back with them, we were a little run off our feet today. I had an hour and half nap this afternoon, I was so tired, and I’m still off to bed early (of course, when you’re getting up at 3:20am, bedtime is always early).

The most abundant bird in the count area today, by far, were Yellow-rumped Warblers. Our subspecies is the Myrtle Warbler; in western North America the Audubon’s warbler looks very similar but for a yellow throat. At the end of the day I estimated there had been well over 100 Myrtles in the area, of which we banded about 30 of them. The males, especially, are very bright and attractive birds.

I stalked one for a while yesterday with my camera (we had an extra hand, so we had a bit of spare time for watching birds between rounding to check the nets). The birds are very busy all morning foraging amongst the young leaves. They’re looking for bugs, whatever they can find. Among the more abundant six-legged critters about at the moment are tiny midges. I just happened to fortuitously snap a photo as this Myrtle snapped up a midge off the underside of a leaf.

Yellow-rumps breed throughout Ontario, but they are most numerous on the Canadian Shield. This is largely due to their preference for White Pine and coniferous forest patches for nesting – both of which are less common in the more developed or agricultural portions of southwestern Ontario. We had them nesting in the pines at our Rock Ridge MAPS station last summer, but they weren’t present in other parts of the site. They’re one of the first warblers to return in spring because they don’t go very far south to winter; many will stay in the US, some as far north as southern Ohio.

The feature for which they get their name is the little patch of yellow on their rump. Interestingly, they’re not the only species of warbler with a yellow rump: Magnolia Warbler also has a boldly defined yellow patch, and Cape May has a less sharply-defined patch as well. Still, the feature is best known on the Yellow-rumped Warbler, and among birding circles, the birds are often affectionately called “butterbutts”.

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Posted in birds

Tagged Myrtle Warbler, Yellow-rumped Warbler

Grosbeaks and apple blossoms

Posted on May 4, 2010 | 5 Comments

This afternoon, a little while after I’d got home, I went back out to my car to retrieve my camera, which hadn’t made it in on the first trip. As I returned to the car I noticed that the apple trees were starting to bloom. Somehow I’d missed noticing that they were even coming in to bud – I haven’t been spending too much time wandering about at home, since I spend six hours every day wandering around outside as part of the banding job. So I moseyed over to check them out, and that’s when I saw this guy, tucked into the foliage. I scrambled to pull out my camera from its shoulderbag, and switch out the lenses to the telephoto.

There were actually two of them, Rose-breasted Grosbeaks. And they were either very distracted, or not too concerned about my presence. They went on with their business as I snapped away. This pair (both males) are the first ones I’ve seen this year. They’re not an uncommon species, but they’re so flashy that it’s always a delight to see them.

They appeared to be foraging on the not-quite-opened flower buds on the apple and cherry trees. I’m not sure whether they were after the flower itself, or perhaps the nectar reward that would be at the base of the bud. They would drop all the petals as they “chewed”. I stayed and watched them for about 15 minutes, and during that whole time they remained in these fruit trees.

We haven’t kept our feeders stocked this spring, but Rose-breasted Grosbeaks will come to feed on sunflower seed. I always enjoy seeing their bright colours adorning the feeder. Those big mandibles are designed for cracking large seeds and hard-shelled food items. As a bird bander I can provide a first-hand testimonial that there’s a lot of power in that beak! They’ve got dexterous necks, however, and it’s really hard to keep your hands out of beak-range while you’re handling them.

They’re returning about when I would expect them to. The northern part of their winter range is in Mexico, and some will spend the non-breeding season as far south as Ecuador. The ones that are returning now are most likely the Mexico birds. Generally speaking, birds that winter farther north will return sooner to their Canadian breeding ranges. Species that spend the winter in the north to mid-US will be back by late March, those in southern US probably by mid-April.

They were still there when I finally turned to go inside. They’ll be resident here; if not these individuals, then some others, settling down to nest in our woods and woodland patches. Even though they’re not all that uncommon, the novelty never seems to wear off in seeing them.