Black Swamp Bird Observatory shared this interesting photo on their Facebook page.
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A Couple of Cute Nuthatches
Posted in Birds
Tagged bird banding, Black Swamp Bird Observatory, White-breasted Nuthatch
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Naturally Curious — Book Review
Naturally Curious
This is not a book you can’t put down — I take a break for a few months and then start again, like I’m doing now. I kind of savor the content — not wanting to get too far ahead but rather following the months as they occur.
Let me give you example of the type of information I just find fascinating, this from a writeup on yellow-bellied sapsuckers:
“By far the most frequent visitor to sapsucker wells, other than sapsuckers, is the ruby-throated hummingbird. Like the sapsucker, it is in search of sap as well as insects that are attracted to the sap, and has been seen following sapsuckers as they visit their wells. Tree sap is similar to flower nectar in the amount of sugar and nutrients it contains. When hummingbirds first return to New England in early May, flowers are few and far between, so tree sap, available to hummingbirds thanks to yellow-bellied sapsuckers, is a lifesaving substitute. It seems more than coincidental that the spring arrival of the ruby-throated hummingbird and the height of yellow-bellied sapsucker drilling occur at the same time.”
This is one of those “read a little, absorb, read some more” type of book. While it’s focused on New England, it has a lot of information that is applicable in other sections of the U.S. It’s one of those books I go back to, time and time again once I finished it. I highly recommend it as a book to have on your bookshelves. It’s a great holiday gift for an budding naturalists in your life.
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Buffleheads Coming & Going
We are going through a patch of crappy weather with spitting rain and temperatures in the high 30’s or low 40’s. It’s good wood fire weather and not much fun fiddling with tripods, scopes, and cameras. But, hey, it’s Vermont in November so suck it up and get out there.
Yesterday I took a look at some local bodies of water for new arrivals but only ran into Black Scoters and these nine Bufflehead way out on Wrightsville Reservoir.
The nice thing about Bufflehead, aside from their “spiffiness,” is that they tend to cruise along and not dive and disappear like Hooded Mergansers.
I went back early this morning to Wrightsville and found only a solo male floating away on the deserted reservoir. Was he new? Did his buddies leave without him? We’ll never know but I suspect he’ll be on his way on the north winds we are getting today. He’s come a long way from his breeding grounds and still has a way to go before winter. Neat little birds — great to have them around for a while.
Thursday Digiscoping
I went out with my larger camera and in spite of temperatures in the low 40’s and cloud cover, found some active birds to practice on. I had forgotten my remote control so I shot in bursts to try to cut down on camera shake. I fiddled with ISO settings, ending up with 2000 to get any decent shutter speed. Here are a few birds I found:
A Ringed-necked Duck on Berlin Pond. Vortex Razor HD, 20-60 eyepiece at 20x, Canon EOS 60D, 50 mm lens, & Vortex DCA adapter.
I found a great spot for sparrows at Wrightsville Dam and in spite of the dog’s help, running to and fro, I grabbed a few images. Sparrows have left our property and I was surprised to see so many species frolicking and singing away. They won’t be around much longer.
We have recently started to see American Tree Sparrows migrate here and should have them around all winter.
This is the first Fox Sparrow I’ve seen this year. They are likely on their way through to a little warmer climes.
Posted in Digiscoping, Photography, Vermont Birding
Tagged American Tree Sparrow, digiscoping, Fox Sparrow, Ring-necked Duck
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Hoodies Are Here
A visit this morning to nearby Berlin Pond revealed a few Hooded Mergansers, one of my favorite birds, and a raft of Black Scoters out in the middle of the pond. Hoodies are fun the watch — the males look so dressed up and important, especially with their crest up. The females often look like they’ve had a bad hair day with the rusty crest fluffed up. I’m still figuring out which camera to use digiscoping but here’s some shots I took of them:
Hooded Mergansers on Berlin Pond – 10-31-12 Vortex Razor HD, 20-60 eyepiece at 20x, Canon SD4000, Vortex DCA & PS100 adapters.
Male Hoodies with their crest up look pretty spiffy.
A poor digiscoped shot through the trees of a raft of Black Scoters. I originally called these American Coots but the yellow beaks made me change my call.
I’m going to experiment again with my Canon 60D for digiscoping and see if that results in sharper images. We’ll see if that helps with clarity — although I think that it just takes more practice and better camera settings to match conditions. Nice challenge for this Fall.
Posted in Digiscoping, Photography, Vermont Birding
Tagged Berlin Pond, digiscoping, Hooded Mergansers
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A Couple of Storm Birds
In spite of forecast for high winds and some rain, we escaped Hurricane Sandy with just a little wind and showers. And so while we we likely didn’t get any rare birds blown in, we also are much more fortunate than our southern neighbors in New York, New Jersey, and the mid-Atlantic region. The scenes of destruction put things in perspective.
Yesterday in the late morning, I drove down to a doctor’s appointment. I had put the scope and binos in the truck, just in case. As I drove by the Wrightsville Reservoir, just down the road from my house, I saw a couple of specs of white on the water as I raced by. I turned around, drove down to the boat launch, and set up my scope. A Bufflehead and a grebe were across the water, just resting in place. I digiscoped a couple of shots and jumped in the truck to get to the doc in time. Here’s what I saw:
After the appointment, I stopped on my way back. The grebe had moved away from the Bufflehead and was even further off. As I was driving off, two birder friends, both more skilled than I, drove up and we spent some time scoping the bird. It was diving frequently and the light was bad but we settled on a Horned Grebe. One reason is that the Red-necked is quite a lot larger.
The Bufflehead and the Horned Grebe are nearly the same size so having them side-by-side was a big help.
This is my first Vermont Horned Grebe and thus, first in Washington County. I’m hoping that we might get a few more strays today.
Images by Dick Mansfield
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Posted in Digiscoping, Vermont Birding
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Northern Shrike — The Butcher Bird
One of the winter birds that I have yet to see and add to my life list is the Northern Shrike. We’ve been away much of the last three winters but there’s also been a fairly reliable visitor, which we call the “Appleby’s Shrike,” hanging out in the trees near the popular Berlin, VT restaurant. Most of my birding friends have seen it but for me, it’s just one of those, “Oh, you should have been here an hour ago” birds. Close encounters during the winter months I’ve been around.
I’ve seen many Loggerhead Shrikes in my Southwest journeys — this winter, one of my goals is to see my first Northern Shrike here in Vermont. I mentioned that in a Winter Birding – Bring It On post last month.
The shrike hunts by perching atop a tall shrub or tree at the edge of a field where it surveys the surrounding area for songbirds, insects, and small mammals.
The Northern Shrike is a songbird that is slightly smaller then a robin. They breed up up in the Arctic Circle of Alaska and Canada. During the winter you may find them around your feeder if you live in the northern half of the United States. Unlike the other birds they are not there for the nyjer thistle, cracked corn or other type of seed.
A predatory songbird, the Northern shrike sits on an exposed perch and watches for insects, small birds and mammals, or reptiles. They do not have the powerful talons that raptors use to catch their prey — they grab their prey with their feet, and kill by biting through its victim’s neck. They will impale prey, sometimes while still alive, on the barbs of a fence or large thorns. They often kill more prey then they can eat, which is how they received the scientific name Lanius excubitor, roughly translated this means butcher watchman. This species is known to pierce its prey onto thorns, sticks, fences and other pointed objects where it will either immediately eat its catch, or leave it impaled to be eaten at a later time.
The main field marks which help to easily identify the Northern Shrike are its stout bill which curves at the tip, and its distinctive black mask which goes from the base of the bill through the eye and to the side of its large head. Generally speaking, its upper portions are gray and the underneath are an off-white/soft gray with a faint barring on its chest. Its wings are black with white patches. The Northern Shrike is a medium sized song bird, yet when it flies by, at first glance one generally thinks it may be a out-of-season Northern Mockingbird because of the similar coloring; however, once you see the curved bill and black mask you know that you have seen a rare visitor from the north. I’m already looking every time I go past the turn for Applely’s.
Note: Vermonter Tom Slayton wrote a wonderful article on Northern Shrikes last year.
Image by cheepshot
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Posted in Vermont Birding, Winter Birds
Tagged Northern Shrike, Tom Slayton, Vermont Birding, Winter Birds
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Smart Birds Stash Stores, Thwart Thieves
We know that squirrels make the most of fall’s plenty by hoarding nuts for the winter, but the fact that birds also store, or cache, food goes largely unappreciated. Through clever observation and experiments, biologists have found that food caching (from the French cacher, “to hide”) has developed to a high art in some birds.
Take the chickadee, for instance. Chickadees put tens of thousands of food items a year into short-term storage. They usually retrieve and eat the food in the space of several days. Each food item is cached in a different place to make it difficult for thieves to steal all the food at once. When hiding a new item, they remember their previous storage sites and avoid placing caches too close together.
The Black-Capped Chickadee hides seeds and other food items to eat later. Each item is placed in a different spot and the chickadee can remember thousands of hiding places.
Chickadees remember each hiding place for around a month, even though they may be scattered widely across a bird’s territory. Research shows they use visual cues to navigate back to each of their cache sites by a combination of larger landscape features, particularly verticals, and use of the sun as compass. Smaller local details are not as critical, probably because these often change in a forest. When retrieving food, they remember which sites have been emptied, either by them or by robbers, to avoid fruitless searching.
How does a tiny bird have such brain power?
Chickadees begin to store food at the onset of fall, when seeds become abundant. At the same time, the region of the brain that handles spatial memory (part of the hippocampus) starts to grow in size by producing new brain cells to handle the huge amount of cache data. It continues to grow as more food is cached. Come spring, reliance on food stores drops, caching dwindles, and the brain area shrinks. Brain cells use a lot of energy, so to conserve resources the extra cells last only as long as they are needed. Brain growth is tied to food availability, since captive chickadees that receive plentiful food year-round do not undergo seasonal brain changes…
(Read whole article by Li Shen, an adjunct professor at the Dartmouth Medical School and the chair of the Thetford, Vermont, Conservation Commission)
Image by qmnonic
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Posted in Bird Behavior, bird feeding, Birds
Tagged Bird behavior, bird feeding, Black-capped Chickadee
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Airstream Repair Photos
As I posted a couple of weeks ago, I dropped off the Airstream at Colin Hyde’s repair facility in Plattsburgh, NY. The other day, I got a bunch of photos showing the progress on the replacement of the panels. They have to remove both the inside and outside panels to be able to rivet so that the rivet heads are proper. Looks like good progress.
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| The top panel is gone and the lower one is being removed. |
Posted in Colin Hyde, repairs
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Project Feeder Watch Starts Soon
The 26th season of Project FeederWatch begins November 10, and participants are needed more than ever. By watching your feeders from November through April and submitting what you see, you’re making it possible for scientists to keep track of changing bird populations across the continent. New or returning participants can sign up anytime.
After unusual winter weather in some parts of the country last season, many participants found themselves asking, “Where are the birds?”—but the story might be different this year.
The AccuWeather long-range forecasting service is predicting some big storms in the Northeast this winter, so FeederWatchers in that region may see more birds at their feeders than they did last winter. Forecasts also call for another year of below-normal snowfall for the Midwest, above-normal snowfall and below-normal temperatures for the central and southern Rockies, and a wet winter with above-normal precipitation for the Gulf Coast and Southeast.
“We’ll have to see if those predictions pan out and how they might affect feeder-bird numbers,” says David Bonter, project leader for FeederWatch. “The one number we definitely want to see increase is the number of people taking part in FeederWatch. It’s easy to do, and the information is incredibly valuable in helping us better understand what’s going on in the environment and in the lives of the birds we enjoy so much.”
Other things to look forward to as the season approaches:
- A new photo gallery featuring some of the many photos FeederWatchers sent in during the 2011-12 season.
- This year’s Winter Finch Forecast shows it could be a great winter for birds at feeders—so don’t miss it! Red-breasted Nuthatches, Red Crossbills, Evening Grosbeaks, and other birds are likely to be on the move after a relatively poor summer for cone crops. Read the full forecast for more details.
- Winter Bird Highlights is the annual summary of the previous season’s results. The 2012 issue is being mailed to Canadian FeederWatch participants in their kits and will be mailed to U.S. participants with the fall issue of Living Bird News (late October). You can also get a PDF version online and read it immediately.
To learn more about joining Project FeederWatch and to sign up, visit www.feederwatch.org or call the Cornell Lab toll-free at (866) 989-2473. In return for the $15 fee ($12 for Cornell Lab members), participants receive the FeederWatcher Handbook and Instructions with tips on how to successfully attract birds to your feeders, an identification poster of the most common feeder birds, and a calendar. Participants also receive Winter Bird Highlights, an annual summary of FeederWatch findings, as well as the Cornell Lab’s quarterly newsletter, Living Bird News.
(Project FeederWatch is a joint research and education project of the Cornell Lab of Ornithology and Bird Studies Canada.
Image: Dick Mansfield
Posted in Backyard birds, bird feeding
Tagged Backyard birds, bird feeding, Project Feeder Watch
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