birds – Page 5 – Seabrooke Leckie

A woody problem

The last couple of weeks, we’ve had a woodpecker drilling into the side of our house. The sound of pecking on the exterior walls isn’t particularly unusual for us; in fact, it’s nearly constant as nuthatches will fly up to the rough logs and crack open their sunflower seeds there. Also, a few birds, probably woodpeckers, have discovered that the white material used to chink the logs has a texture not entirely dissimilar to punky wood, and every now and then one of them will try excavating a bit to see if there’s anything inside the “rotten” area. After a while, the regular pecking gets tuned out, part of the background noise of the house.

So it took me a while to clue in that this pecking was different. This despite the fact that it was noticeably louder than the delicate tapping of the nuthatches or the slightly more forceful but still muted sound of the woodpeckers on the chinking. By the time I got around to actually going out and investigating, the bird had excavated quite a sizable hole in the side of the house.

It was a Hairy Woodpecker, though I’m not sure whether male or female. It got so it could recognize the sound of me coming down the stairs, and it would stop hammering, and wait a moment. Sometimes I went into the kitchen to put on the kettle, or around to the living room to stoke the fire, and all was good. But once I’d discovered what it was doing, the majority of the time I’d go to the front door and peek my head out. It was sufficient to flush the bird from the house, and I hoped enough times of this and he’d get the idea.

I hadn’t counted on how stubborn he was. After seven or eight trips down to the front door to flush him away, I finally got a piece of plywood from the basement and propped it in front of the excavation. Ha! Problem solved! I thought.

Fifteen minutes later, the loud tapping resumes. But in a new spot this time, just to the side of the plywood.

Figuring the cause was lost, I decided to make the most of it and try for a photo of the bird at work. I put my camera on a tripod, set it to trigger by remote, and placed it on the porch pointing to the big hole in the wall. I could use my remote control to trigger the camera and take a photo without having to step outside. Brilliant!

Except the bird turned out to be camera-shy. He didn’t come back again. I left the camera out there for a few hours before finally giving up and bringing it in out of the cold.

The next day, the bird was back at it. His hammering woke me up, and I jumped out of bed, hurrying downstairs to put the camera out, hoping for another chance. And once again, the camera sat outside for a few hours, and the Hairy never returned. After four such attempts, I admitted the bird was smarter than I was, and I photoshopped in a Hairy Woodpecker from another photo I had.

I figured for the woodpecker to be so persistent about it, there had to be something good going on there, and sure enough, when I peered closer I could see the distinctive honeycombing of a carpenter ant colony. This is not very good news, but perhaps an inevitability in a home built of logs a short distance from a forest.

In the “wild”, carpenter ants target fallen logs and dead trees, or living trees with heartrot (the inner core is dead, while the outer, younger layers still live). Just like every organism, they have their niche, and play their role in the food chain, helping in the decomposition process of dead trees. And they’re one of the primary food items of Pileated Woodpeckers (boring beetle larvae are usually shallow, while carpenter ants tend to occur deeper inside; the Pileated needs its massive bill and long, strong neck to be able to excavate large enough holes to reach the ants, while the smaller woodpeckers usually eat grubs closer to the surface of the snags).

I suppose I should be grateful it’s not a Pileated making holes in our house.

For all that I appreciate the role carpenter ants play in the ecosystem, I don’t think I’m ready to consign our house back to nature just yet. It was nice of the Hairy, giving us a heads-up… Now to figure out what to do about the ants.

Nest searching

My very first job abroad – the sort that requires you live somewhere other than your own home – was working as a nest-searcher in the Sierra Nevada mountains of the Lake Tahoe Basin in California/Nevada. Aside from a little bit of homesickness, it was an amazing summer. I drove down from Ontario at the end of April, taking the opportunity to do a bit of birding along the way as it was my first cross-country trip on my own. When I got there many of our study sites still had up to a foot of snow in the valleys and north slopes. Even in July, when we went out in the mornings I’d wear my winter jacket, toque and mittens, shedding layers as the sun came up till by the time we went home in early afternoon I’d stripped down to a tank top. I spent three months getting up an hour or more before dawn and trekking about the mountain slopes, hunting for birds’ nests while my partner (we went out in twos) spot-mapped the birds at the site. At the end of the season I led the team in number of nests found, a fact I’m still a little bit proud of, though its useful application is rather limited.

I still do a bit of nest searching in the summer, but nest searching requires time and patience. The most effective technique I found for locating nests is simply sitting in one place for a while and watching the birds come and go. When you notice one carrying nesting material or food, you can (stealthily) follow where it goes. Likewise, you might notice a bird repeatedly leaving a particular shrub or tree branch, which you can then go search. It’s also usually best if you don’t have a wolf-shaped animal cavorting about the area where you plan to sit and watch. So my opportunities for nest-searching are usually limited to my time between net-checks during our MAPS visits.

Nest searching is immensely easier in the winter, at least for those elevated from the ground. For one, you can bring your wolf-shaped animal with you, and no one’s going to care.

For two, after the leaves come down the bulky shapes of nests tucked into the twiggy vegetation are easy to spot, once you’ve got the search image in your mind. Even easier if they’re topped by a contrasting white hat of snow.

In our second field, halfway back on the property, there are several large patches of steeplebush and Rubus brambles (the short, thick stuff in the foreground of the first photo). The Field Sparrows like to nest in these, and I noticed the snow-capped construction of one pair while I was out snowshoeing the other day. Despite the leaves being down, if you’re not actively looking for them, it can be easy to overlook small nests, and I hadn’t paid any attention to the steeplebush patches. Curious, I wondered how many I could find.

The answer was four. It’s interesting that while each nest is very similar to the others, they’re all a little different, too. There’s always the possibility that one might have belonged to another species, but there are few other species that use that habitat, and which would also be likely to place their nest in the steeplebush. So I think these are all Field Sparrows.

Identifying birds’ nests can be a challenge. You think it ought to be easy, because it’s true that different species have different building tendencies for shapes and content, but there’s often a lot of overlap between species of the same taxon, and within a species different individuals may build differently according to what materials they have on hand and where they decided to place the nest. The nests of some birds, like robins (which always line their cups with mud), are easy. Baltimore Oriole nests (which are pendulous pouches of grass suspended from the ends of branches) are easy. Sparrows are tricky, as are warblers.

Most sparrows build cup nests, either on the ground or slightly elevated (none of these were above mid-thigh). They typically have exteriors of coarse grasses (or reeds, where the species lives in wetter areas), with interiors lined with fine grasses, rootlets or animal hair. Chipping Sparrows, for instance, almost invariably line with coarse hair, in my experience. Field Sparrows usually use fine grasses. So sometimes knocking off the snow cap and taking a peek inside can help to clear up an ID.

By the time you reach mid-winter, identification hasn’t been helped by the weathering process. Nests often look like they’ve gone through the washing machine one too many times. Many are misshapen; in others the materials have started to fall apart, or have become stuck together with repeated soaking. American Goldfinches, Yellow Warblers and Willow Flycatchers, which use plant down in the construction of their nests, tend to suffer this latter problem. This nest might have been a poorly-built Field Sparrow nest. Or it might have belonged to something else entirely.

This one had a flattened top, when I knocked away the snow. It puzzled me. Was it simply a nest where the cup part had been compressed under the snow? Perhaps it was a nest that had been started, but never finished? Another possibility that struck me was that it might belong to a species that builds covered nests. If this were in a wetland, I might suspect it to be just such a thing – Common Yellowthroats, for instance, build covered nests elevated in the cattails. But this was in a meadow, in a steeplebush. Besides, when I gently worked it free from the bush it was sitting in, I could see no discernible entrance. Odd that it would appear flattened when the others were all still intact, though.

This last one was slightly away from the others, further up the field, and placed in a hawthorn instead of a steeplebush. It would serve as good protection, I’d think! The construction was similar, though, and I’m pretty sure it’s another Field Sparrow. They’re not too particular about their substrate: hawthorn, spruce, pine, juniper, elm, apple and white cedar are listed as the most common substrate species in the book Breeding Birds of Ontario: Nidiology and Distribution by Peck and James.

If you can find yourself a copy of that book, incidentally, you should snatch it up. It’s out of print, but copies still float around. It’s essentially a summary of the data from the Ontario Nest Records Scheme from the 1960s through 1980s. It’s published in two volumes, Vol 1: Nonpasserines, and Vol 2: Passerines. The intro to #2 states that the book covers 144 species, using data from 67,091 nest records from around the province. They also incorporate external data into their species summaries, which are thorough, and usually list all variations and peculiarities reported. They mention everything from habitat, microhabitat, substrate preference, location within substrate, height, nest measurements, structure composition, egg dates and clutch sizes, to cowbird parasitism rates… and more. Almost 25 years have passed since its publication, but its still entirely applicable. An amazing resource.

It’s funny to think that those nests were there all summer, and all summer I simply walked by them, never knowing. I think this year I’ll need to try checking out the brush patches to see if I can locate any while they’re still active.

New Year’s introspection

I planned to take a leisurely hike this afternoon, perhaps over to the 100-acre woods, but was thwarted by the weather, which was gray and drizzly all day. I did still go out, but it was just a quick stroll to the back of the property and back. My tolerance for being wet runs about even with that of a cat, and it’s only either great discipline or guilt that drives me outside in the rain. It’s too bad about the rain, which meant not only did I leave my camera in the house but also there wasn’t much to photograph, because the mild temperature this afternoon probably would have encouraged some interesting insects or other observations. Oh well. In lieu of that, I’m revisiting the lists I made last year.

I was quite ambitious in my New Year’s undertaking last year, writing an epic ten top-10 lists on 2009 observations and 2010 goals. It took me two days to complete, and quite a lot of brainpower, a surprising amount for what really didn’t require very much research. I’m afraid I’m not going to go to that depth this year.

I led with a list of my first 10 species of birds observed last year, on January 1. I made the same list again this year. Both years the majority of my observations have been made at our feeders, so it’s not much of a surprise that the lists look very similar…

2009:
1. Black-capped Chickadee
2. Downy Woodpecker
3. White-breasted Nuthatch
4. Northern Cardinal
5. Dark-eyed Junco
6. Hairy Woodpecker
7. American Goldfinch
8. Blue Jay
9. American Tree Sparrow
10. European Starling

2010:
1. Black-capped Chickadee (surprise!)
2. Red-breasted Nuthatch
3. Blue Jay
4. American Tree Sparrow
5. White-breasted Nuthatch
6. Downy Woodpecker
7. Dark-eyed Junco
8. American Goldfinch
9. Hairy Woodpecker
10. Common Raven

Last year I saw a cardinal and a starling in my first ten; this year I’ve thus far seen neither, but I have, instead, seen Red-breasted Nuthatch and raven (not the dog, though her too). These lists have little meaning beyond simple curiosity, a fun game to play on New Year’s Day, and this will likely be the extent of my listing for the year (any attempts I make to keep a list usually fall quickly by the wayside). But that’s okay.

Of my targets that I laid out for 2010, I met surprisingly few of them. I only made it to two of my ten target destinations; I saw just three of ten target bird species, two non-bird targets, and one moth target; and I met only two of the goals I set for myself for the year. So really, there isn’t much need to do up new lists – I could just repeat last year’s!

Of course, my biggest achievement last year was the submission of the manuscript for the field guide to moths. We’re still working on it, and will be involved with it for a while yet, but the largest body of effort is completed. I’m looking forward to watching it come together. I also have a few other projects on the go that I hope will come to fruition, with a bit of luck and/or perseverance. It should be a fun year!

I hope 2011 looks equally promising for all of you!

Darling starlings

We had a trio of unexpected visitors to the feeders yesterday: European Starlings. We haven’t had very many starlings here in the year and a half since we moved in. For the most part, starlings aren’t really rural birds, except when they’re associated with farms, usually livestock. I’m not sure what it is that they need, exactly, since there are not only ample nest sites but also an abundance of insects around our house, but it’s seemed to me that starlings need something produced by the large-scale disturbance of cities or farms. It’s rare to encounter them elsewhere.

Even where they breed in rural settings, they don’t always spend the winter. The starling population through much of Canada is migratory, with only those associated with cities or the most southern regions sticking it out year-round. On the hobby farm where I grew up there were three pairs of starlings that nested every year in the eaves of the house and garage. Every autumn they’d leave, but every March, like clockwork, they’d return and take up residence in the same cavities. There were a few months in between where we wouldn’t see them at all.

Despite the fact that I did actually live in town for several years during and immediately after university, I don’t think I ever paid close attention to the urban starlings in winter; and in the rural settings I’ve lived, they just haven’t been around to observe. I find it somewhat surprising that we had these three turn up here during a period when I think of the birds as having flown south, or at least into town. On the other hand, we did have one starling visit us last January, very briefly. So I guess they’re around. There are farms a half a kilometer away; perhaps they’re arriving from there.

In any case. Back to the point. I’d never spent much time observing starlings closely, except during the breeding season. While watching these three birds, I noticed that two of them had dark beaks, and one of them had a yellow beak. The yellow, I knew, made it an adult; the blueish tinge to the base made it a male. Logically, I then supposed, the dark bills on the other two made them first-winter birds. Starlings can breed fairly late, so I wondered if maybe they were autumn chicks. I had a blog post half written up in my head on the differences of bill colour in starlings by the time I’d finished snapping photos.

Of course, I rarely post anything without double-checking my facts, first, and I turned to Peter Pyle’s Identification Guide to North American Birds, which banders all over North America refer to when trying to age or sex an individual. I looked up European Starling to see what he had to say about bill colour. Strangely, there was no mention of bill colour beyond the difference of blue/pink at the base in males/females respectively. He does say that first-winter birds will show some yellow on the tongue through late fall, but that wasn’t terribly helpful to me here. Baffled, I turned to the internet. And discovered…

Starlings’ bills turn dark during the non-breeding season.

Who knew? All my urban days had been before I really got serious into birding, and I’d never had much opportunity to study the birds during the winter in my rural living, so I’d somehow managed to miss picking up this interesting bit of information. So those three birds… the bill colour tells me nothing except that the one bird’s taking his time changing his bill colour over. Looking at the photos more closely now, I can see that the tip of it is already darkened.

The yellow-billed bird had to have been a breeder this summer, as young birds wouldn’t have the yellow. But for the other two, the age is more uncertain. That said, Pyle does offer this somewhat helpful bit of distinction: for first-winter birds, the central tail feather (the one that sits on top when the bird has its tail folded) has “indistinct black subterminal edging and buff terminal edging” whereas in adult birds, the central feather has “distinctly defined black subterminal edging and cinnamon terminal edging”.

The upper tail is the yellow-billed bird – we know he’s an adult. You can see the well-defined black subterminal band. The lower tail is one of the two of unknown age. No obvious band, at least that I can tell from the photo. The other looks similar, in another photo. So maybe they are young birds, after all. The only way I’d feel comfortable saying for certain, though, is if I had them in the hand and was able to look at them closely.

I do, however, know that starlings only moult once, in the fall, and that their sleek summer breeding plumage is actually exactly the same set of feathers they’re wearing right now, but with all the pale tips worn off over the course of the winter. Snow Buntings do this, too. I’ve always found this moult strategy fascinating, the ability to produce two plumages without having to grow a second set of feathers. Seems like a pretty intelligent evolutionary approach.

The starlings stuck around only briefly. I saw them once more a bit later in the morning, and then they disappeared to parts unknown.

Feeder dynamics

Our cardinal from last winter has returned to us, after having spent the summer holding a territory in the neighbour’s backyard just down the road a short distance. When he arrived a month ago he was alone, but a week or two later a female showed up, and has periodically joined him at the feeders. I presume she’s his mate from the summer; cardinals remain paired up even through the winter months. I was glad to see he’d found one; being the only cardinal for, seemingly, kilometers, I was worried that no girl would find him.

I find it interesting to watch the pecking order among the various species that come to visit our feeders in the winter. Sometimes there are some surprising bullies, and sometimes only some individuals of a species are pushy. Cardinals go both ways, it seems. This afternoon I noticed the male foraging on the snow under the feeder. He would, for the most part, ignore all the little birds who hopped around him – the chickadees, tree sparrows and juncos. But as soon as one of the Blue Jays landed nearby…

He’d push his head down…

Puff up his feathers, spread his tail and wings…

And chase it off. Blue Jays are a shade larger than cardinals, but cardinals have the more powerful beak. Does the jay know that, do you think? Because jays themselves are usually pretty bossy. Interestingly, the Birds of North America species account notes antagonistic interactions at feeders with House, Field, Harris’ and White-throated Sparrows, but doesn’t mention other species.

In parts of the country where cardinals are abundant (which isn’t here), they may group together in flocks of a few individuals up to several dozen, and while individual distance is maintained within the flock, they do move together (described as a “tank-tread like” movement as birds at the back of the flock leapfrog to the front). The BNA account also states that these flocks can sometimes be associated with other species, including juncos, White-throated Sparrows, titmice, tree sparrows, goldfinches and towhees. Perhaps that’s why it differentiated between the chickadees and tree sparrows, and the Blue Jays?

And, not related to anything, I love that you can see the red reflected on the snow under his tail in the middle photo.