Friday bird blog

OK. I know I said I wasn’t going to post anything else here.
I subscribe to a list-serv for a bird enthusiasts’ group, and it’s fun for me to receive emails about various sightings in places I know of but can't see as much as I might like.

The other day someone sighted a snowy owl at a most auspicious place – where the St. Joseph River pours into Lake Michigan. It was there that I saw six American Avocets one autumn while accompanying Arthur on a walkabout. He couldn’t stand to be on the same beach with a creature more unusual than he, so he was rude to them, and they flew. Avocets generally don’t generally come this far east, so it was a big deal for me, never having seen even one before, but I had to keep my enthusiasm in check. A pouting Corgi is a sorry sight.

The snowy owl has only one known breeding spot in the United States, that being Barrow, Alaska. They stay above the tree line unless their main menu choice, the lowly lemming, is in short supply. Lemmings reproduce early and often, but they are subject to boom and bust cycles like the oil well drillers who populate their breeding ground. Here and there on the Great Plains and Canada one can find a solitary snowy owl in winter. There have been notable incursions into the lower 48, but they still are a rare sight for most of us.

If, for example, someone like Arthur were to happen upon snowy owl young, the adults would show his Corgi highness what rude is all about. The female, who is the larger of the sexes, weighs about five pounds and her wingspan is about six feet. Those talons are plenty sharp, and she is fearless, searching the wolf-dominated tundra for provisions, never straying far from the ground.  Spooking an Avocet is one thing.  An encounter with a Snowy Owl Mama is quite another.

The blue skies photo here is from an Audubon chapter in the northeastern lower peninsula of Michigan, not far from Alpena. They’re also near the world’s only nesting territory for the Kirtland’s warbler, formerly known as the Jack Pine warbler.
http://kirtlandswarbleraudubon.org/

Friday Bird Blog

Being a 365 days per year walker of shores yields much bounty, most all of it pacifying and inspiring. Today, however, I have sad news to tell. Traveling along the expansive beach at Grand Mere State Park, I found two dead great blue herons, an adult and a juvenile. They had been shot.

The Great Blue is a magnificent bird, a friendly giant of the Great Lakes waterways, graceful and remarkable for its blue legs. The other giant is the Sand Hill Crane, which flies with its neck extended, where the Great Blue holds his close to its body in flight. That's the way I was taught to tell them apart at a distance.

Grand Mere is a wonderful 1200 acre reserve with giant dunes and woods and a passage to the shoreline which one can travel for several miles. The Cook nuclear plant is the southern-most limit. Unfortunately, hunting begins in late September, and as far as I can tell, hunters can shoot in any part of the park. You'd have to be pretty drunk or blind to mistake a heron for a duck, and killing a juvenile may be against the law. I do know that there is no open season on herons, and I'm pretty sure that shooting something along the Lake Michigan shoreline is verboten.

Some stupid kid or crazed testosterone poisoned jerk killed these birds. One day earlier this fall, I was entering the wooded part of one of the trails, and ahead of me was a fat, lumbering hunter with a shot gun slung over his shoulder, looking like Elmer Fudd, except he was wearing a neon orange stocking cap. I retreated and called the local police not realizing that it was A-OK for him to shoot at will. There were and are no signs advising mere walkers and bird watchers to wear red or orange clothing. It's nuts. but the Michigan DNR is very pre-occupied with revenue, and hunters' license fees must add up.

There are spent orange shotgun shells littering the woods, and no park rangers are present a lot of the time.  Park management is haphazard.  Michigan used to be a most intelligent state regarding its landscape and resources.  If hunting and park uses were combined, there would have been signs advising the public of the facts and probably segregated sections set off  for each.  It's jarring to observe what has happened to Michigan which once understood the importance of keeping up appearances.  More than once I've encountered people from out of state who are spending money in hotels and restaurants and gas stations in the area and have chosen the spot because of the proximity to the lake and ample public access.  If Michigan wants tourist dollars, a few simple improvements to the lakefront parks would reinforce the state's commitment to making outsiders feel welcome.

Friday bird blog

Meet Mrs. Mallard Duck, mistress of the North Lake, an adorable pond, where she apparently lives by herself, except for frogs, herons and other passers-by. She greets everyone with uninterrupted quacking, paddling all through the reeds and lily pads, commenting on affairs of the day and night with an occasional dip to grab a snack.

Here she waddled out of the pond to get a closer look at me. It would have been bad manners to come to me straight away, so she groomed herself for about 10 minutes, ignoring me and my camera. She must have many callers, because she didn’t hesitate one bit before emerging from the water. Her regulars most surely bring her gifts and goodies. I had only friendly chit chat to offer.

As a rule the female mallards I have observed are hard working and harried, managing multiple ducklings in their care while the males are off in a group smoking cigars and quaffing cognac. Per haps the guardian of North Lake sent her mate packing. The kids were nowhere in sight. All grown up.

Friday bird blog

Western woodpeckers color plate from A Field Guide to Western Birds by Roger Tory Peterson

Bird sightings reported to hotlines, cooperative extensions and nature centers tend to be exotics. The friendly birds who habituate my feeders might resent this just a tad, because they are faithful and reliable, just so long as the feeders aren’t overlooked too often. A lapse or two in dispensing our special house blend is forgiven pretty quickly. Cats minding the store are another matter altogether. Even friends have limits.

This week – maybe I should start these columns, “It’s been a slow week in …”. All the men are definitely not good-looking, however. Nix that idea. But this week, the snowy owls still are around the southern lower peninsula, Ross’ geese appear here and there on Lake Michigan, there’s a varied thrush in a very improbable spot in Muskegon County, and this week’s feature bird is the Black-backed woodpecker, a/k/a the artic three-toed woodpecker, here from the northwestern US or Canada.

I’m assuming it’s a male present in Dickinson County, which is in the UP, site of Iron Mountain and many mining towns of the late 19th Century. The black-backed woodpecker – I guess that’s his official name now – is a resident of evergreens in the high mountains of Canada and west in the US to Montana and Wyoming. Iron Mountain is a piddly hill compared to the Sierras, but when one is w-a-y off base, so to speak, one must compensate like mad.
Black-backed woodpecker, male
Dickinson County, Michigan was a minor “fever” spot in the late 1870s when iron ore was discovered. One of the town patricians of Niles, Michigan, where my father grew up, was Henry Austin Chapin, a dry goods store proprietor until his 40 acres in Dickinson County yielded a lot of lucrative mineral deposits. (“Then one day he was shootin’ at some food, And up through the ground came a bubblin’ crude.”)

The family had built a mansion which was near where my father’s family resided, though not nearly so splendidly. In 1933, the depth of the Great Depression, the Chapin family sold the house to the city of Niles for $300. at auction. Today it houses City Hall.

Friday Bird Blog

©National Geographic Society
female long-tailed duck with 7 eggs
photographed on St. Mary Islands, Quebec

Despite snow and ice, there is abundant sun here. Earlier this week, Monday and Tuesday, I believe it was, the sun was brilliant all day long. After days of gloom and fog, it feels like life is returning. Today we’ll have fairyland for a while – the trees and bushes look like they’re sugar-coated – but after a few hours of sunshine, it’ll be gone. Time for spring!

Dawn now features noisy chattering from the feathered crowd. On Sunday and Monday it was in the mid-60’s, and the robin was in full voice, notifying us of the coming rain. Rain it did.

The Michigan statewide bird report dutifully recorded each Thursday night, this week features 3900+ long-tailed ducks, formerly called oldsquaw, along Lake Michigan in Allegan County, site of many a bird walk in my days of youth. The duck’s official name was changed to conform to British nomenclature. As well, the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service in Alaska petitioned the American Ornithologist’s Union to change the name, potentially offensive, because the bird’s declining numbers in Alaska would require cooperation from Native Americans to sustain the population.

The sand hill cranes ought to be making an appearance soon. They were like old friends on the little lake where we lived when I was very young. My mother taught me how to identify cranes and herons in flight when I was maybe three years old. I was a font of wisdom, knew the black-billed cuckoo from the yellow-billed, the cedar waxwing from the Bohemian. When you grow up with this stuff it doesn’t seem difficult at all, and, of course, a child’s impressions are so strong and clear, not muddled and over-wrought.

We have a serious robin invasion, lots of squabbles over territory. Time to put out pieces of string and hair, although robins will use just about anything to construct a domicile. Maybe I should have a contest for the most original nest.

Friday bird blog

White winged crossbill
Illustration by Louis Agassiz Fuertes

Despite endless turmoil and uncertainty in the homosapien world, the birds appear unaffected. Two days ago I spied my first robin hopping about, plotting a settlement for the coming three-nester. This morning Mr. Mourning Dove was pursuing Mrs. (or Miss – can never be quite sure) Dove, puffing himself up and trying to jump her, to put an accurate spin on the scene. Crude, but nature never appropriated Victorian sensibilities.

The juncos are faithful, as are the downy woodpeckers, an occasional red-headed woodpecker, the titmice, which I love – cousin to the chickadee - how could they not be adorable – red-breasted and white-breasted nuthatches, the cardinal and blue jays, and ever-watchful crows, awaiting leftover popcorn. I made my own birdseed mix this winter, because I had lots of stale peanuts I’d bought in bulk on sale really cheap last year to make something or other and never got around to it. The can is empty, though. ‘Must restock.

It’s cold now here in Michigan. We have had little snow, though, in two months, and the tulips and narcissus are peeking through the ground. I went out the other day and cut through the landscape cloth I put down last fall, because I forgot to move a patch of daffodils. The ultimate effect will be more natural, which is what I always strive for, anyway.

The Michigan statewide bird report for yesterday mentions lots of owls again, a Bullock’s Oriole in Livingston County, which is in the southeastern quadrant of the lower peninsula, and a white-winged crossbill in Kent County, which is where Grand Rapids is located, home of Gerald Ford and where closed on Sunday has been a tradition ever since I can remember. Get the picture?

The Bullock ’s oriole is a western species and in any event is a summer bird in these parts, rarity though he may be at all times. What in the world is he doing at a feeder in Michigan in early March? Crazy weather patterns would be my guess.

The crossbill dips down from his winter range when food is scarce or the supply is running out or in extremely cold winters, which this has not been. According to the report he is chowing on the seeds in a mixed spruce and pine stand. Usually they travel in flocks, so next week we may hear of more.

Apologetic make-up bird blog

Illustrations, Louis Aggasiz Fuertes

Mrs. Snowy Owl is diurnal which means she hunts during the daylight hours. She doesn’t say much from her winter perch which will be found close to the ground where the mice are. The snowy owl saves its talk for its breeding grounds in the Artic tundra. Every year a few dip down into the Great Lakes and Cape Cod.

They have the longest wing span of any North American owl and tip the scales at 3.5 pounds on average. Mouse must be fattening, because Charles the cat’s vet observed that he hadn’t missed many meals, and he has an outside gig featuring frequent mouse dinners.

The Michigan statewide bird report for the last three weeks has chronicled snowy owls all over the state. I haven’t heard of the Willet again, but there’s a varied thrush (the robin’s family) in Manistee County, which is in the northern half of the lower peninsula, and male and female Harlequin ducks near me, so I’d better get over there to see if I can’t spot them.

Friday Bird Blog: Who-o Am I ?

Illustration by
Louis Agassiz Fuertes
My sister lives on a former prairie, farm and woods, all three sacrificed to development. Her site, though, overlooks a preserve where, so they tell her, no building will ever occur. The landscapers even do controlled burns and scatter seeds of native prairie plants each year to help nature along if the burns don’t sufficiently resuscitate the flora and fauna. She has the best view of any, and that’s as it should be, considering her love of the wild things that are looking to reestablish a home base.

On Christmas night, after our fête, she heard her owl, so she and her daughter Amanda and I went out to stand still and listen. Sure enough. Hoo-hoo-hoo. Hoo hoo.

“Not the Screech Owl,” said we. He is named for his call, a sound almost like a glass harmonica, or an eerie whistle. Our visitor’s voice was resonant and deep.

I didn’t have time to look up her owl-in-residence until just now. What we heard was the Great Horned Owl, a male announcing his GPS locus. According to the bird books, he isn’t friendly, but, hell, how would you act if crazy, destructive humans kept you on the run? He is among the most adaptable of the owls, however. His diet is small animals, unlike the Screech Owl, who prefers mice.

My sister’s cat, Charles, prefers mice, too. I was concerned that he might run into more competition that he’d bargained for, if the owl was looking for mice. As it turns out, the owl might be looking for Chuck. The picture here shows a deceased skunk in its talons. Charles has encountered skunks, as well, in his travels, and FYI, giving a cat a tomato juice bath (the home remedy for skunked puddy cat) is both dangerous and a waste of time and tomato juice. Just ask Chuck.

This link has a succinct description and audio links with its call. Woo hoo!

Friday Bird Blog: A Wandering Willet

Illustration by Louis Agassiz Fuertes
l. Western Willet, r. Eastern Willet

A Willet is lodging at the Whiting Power plant discharge canal in Monroe County, Michigan. It has been sighted there since November 25th and was counted in the official Christmas bird count recorded on December 17th by the local enumerators. As I think I mentioned before, a census of the bird population takes place every year at this time. The period this season during which bird watchers, generally organized by an Audubon chapter, will identify and take note of all birds who happen to present themselves within a specified area is December 14th to January 5th, 2006.

The Willet, either a Western or Eastern subspecies, is not supposed to be in Erie, Michigan in December. Normally, the ones I’ve seen along the Lake Michigan shoreline are packing their bags for the trip south already in late July. They are Specialty birds in these parts, as their breeding and winter ranges – eastern or western – are along both ocean coasts. Here is a summer distribution map provided by the us gov:

The map doesn’t distinguish between Catoptrophorus semipalmatus semipalmatus (the Eastern Willet) and Catoptrophorus semipalnatus inornatus (his Western cousin). In the late 19th Century Willet eggs were a prized delicacy and the birds were a sporting target, so the dangerous homo sapiens put a serious dent in the population. The subspecies are nearly impossible to tell apart unless they happen to be together at a family reunion or something. A single bird among other species would be very tough to identify.

The Monroe County specimen found a pleasant and welcoming niche at the Whiting power plant. Whiting is a coal fired facility, not a nuclear one, and it has won good citizen awards for environmental stewardship from the state of Michigan and nature and environmental groups. Where native human populations manage to stay put for a few generations it seems to me that they – or many of them – take note of their surroundings and resent it if the landscape and its inhabitants start to disappear. (This rule would not apply to real estate developers and their backers.)

The employees at the Whiting facility, a Consumer’s Energy (formerly Consumer’s Power) plant, maintain a wildflower meadow, and a local Lotus club tends a pond where a native species was found to thrive. They alone can harvest the seed and propagate it.

Through the years I noted that many birds find their way to the Whiting plant, and birders know to go there, of course. Whiting has been around since the early ‘50s, so it, too, is part of the local scene. Its web site lists how much tax it pays to the local authorities and how the employees, as well, support local commerce. All true. Too bad we can’t get a clue about energy use.

(By the way, I just learned that Consumer’s is putting its Palisades nuclear plant, located on Lake Michigan’s eastern shore, up for sale. There are 5 or 6 nuclear plants on the southern tip of Lake Michigan.)

NOTE: Blogger is a pain in the backside today. I'll try to upload other images later. GRRRR!

Friday Bird Blog

Western Hummingbirds
A plate from A Field Guide to Western Birds.
Illustrations by
Roger Tory Peterson

On Thursdays when I remember to do it I call the Michigan Statewide Bird Report hotline to see what unusual sightings people have called in during the past week. Yesterday’s report had the following:

In Livingston County, an immature Rufous Hummingbird has been hanging out at a home birdfeeder in the town of Brighton. At least he still was there on November 16. Birders are welcome to park sensibly and go around to the back yard where the feeder is. (Does this sound like A Prairie Home Companion?)

The Rufous Hummingbird is a native of the western United States, but there are occasional, but still rare, sightings in the Midwest. As a rule of thumb all hummingbird feeders should be taken down in late August or early September in places where the winter means business. Several years ago in Wisconsin, a Rufous Hummingbird was taken captive by the Milwaukee Mitchell Park Conservatory (a wonderful place), because he/she was still lapping up the sugar water in November.
Roufus Hummingbirds
Illustration by Louis Agassiz Fuertes




Next, in Wayne County Cave Swallows were seen at the Lake Erie State Game Area Pointe Mouillee and they crossed over into Monroe County, too. Apparently the Monroe County trolls are hibernating already, as there is no report of fines for trespassing. Michigan is broke, so don’t think for a minute that I’m kidding. Michigan and Ohio went to war over the Toledo line, which was part of Monroe, in the 1830s. Ohio got Toledo. Michigan got the Upper Peninsula, pasties, bears and copper. Monroe is still pissed off. But they should be glad to have some big-hearted Texas swallows visiting. This might be an effect of the hurricanes.

There was a Ross’ Goose in Muskegon County from November 8-13.

And in Allegan County at the Todd Farm, an immature Golden Eagle was present on November 12. The Todd Farm in days gone by was a major oasis, a pit stop for migrating Canada Geese. But they don’t migrate any more, I guess. Every year we’d make the trek to Fennville, Michigan to gaze at probably 100,000 geese, stop at the cider mill, buy apples for the Thanksgiving apple pies – which my father baked – he was an excellent cook – and probably we’d have taken sandwiches along and a Thermos of coffee.

Finally a Great Gray Owl was present at the Tahquamenon Falls State Park in Newberry in the UP. The Tahquamenon Falls are spectacular by the way. I’ve not been there in the gloom of November, but I like rugged weather. Just not in May.

Immature Golden Eagle.

Friday Bird Blog

Whistling Swan
Cygnus columbianus

Illustration by Louis Agassiz Fuertes

From November 15, 1959

"DECATUR - Decatur residents living on the Lake of the Woods were delighted Sunday by the frolicking of five wild whistling swans. [The use of the word 'wild' would have made my mother wild, as whistling swans are ever "wild", never domestic. But at least the local paper had reported the sighting.]

Mrs. Darl Sink, who first spotted the swans said this is the third year she has known them to pause here on their migratory flight south. [Their winter headquarters is along both coasts as far south as Florida and southern California, but more generally around Chesapeake Bay and Currituck Sound (NC).]

She said they spent all day Sunday gamboling about and feeding in the lagoon at the east end of the lake.

Mrs. Sink identified them as whistling swans after consulting the Audubon bird book."

Sighting the whiltling swan in the interior would have been somewhat unusual, although the Great Lakes can throw even experienced birds off, I suppose.

Midweek makeup bird blog

Slate colored junco
illustration by Allan Brooks (no relation to Bobo)

Good thing this isn't a retail store. Thank you for your patience. Shall we print up a button or bumper sticker "I'd rather be blogging"? Cap'n Midnight over on Watertiger's blog a while back gave me permission to print his, "You can never be too rich or morally thin" after a David Brooks column on - what was it? - oh, some disdainful firecracker (a dud) about "liberals". Bobo had described an argument as "morally thin". David Brooks would love to be a liberal because it is so much more fun. It must be difficult to perform those reasoning contortions he does twice a week. Already I'm off topic in my own blog.

OK. Here goes. Makeup birdblogging. The juncos are back in numbers. Two nights ago the late evening sky was slate colored like the bird. Clouds were steely, and the air felt frosty. We haven't had a hard freeze yet, and that's a good thing, Martha, because I still have tomatoes and eggplants on the vine.

This morning I was coaxing Arthur the Welsh Corgi (who is working on setting up his own blog, if I may presume to blog whore for him) to go outside, and there was a commotion in the back yard. Down swooped a hawk, two white stripes on the tail. He was hoping to have junco for breakfast. The blue jays went nuts, and all the breakfast-sized birds flew into the denser trees and evergreen bushes.

Last night Jelly Bean (JB), a cat who agrees to eat and sleep here and let me pay his medical bills, brought me a mouse. Dead, of course. It was sitting on the back door mat. I thanked him with true sincerity, because it is a great compliment to receive such a prize. Mr. Hawk would be very interested in the local rodents, too.

Arthur decided to take a walk this morning, because it is garbage day, not unlike pay day for humans. He didn't have his collar on, so I had to follow along. I'm a bit surprised the police didn't show up to arrest an unleashed dog walking around the block. The neighbors are old and very particular. One cannot, for example, park one's car in a driveway overnight. It must be kept in a garage. The craziest neighbor saw us out walking and stood in the street and stared, glowering. There is no regulation against walking (yet). I walk to get places. They walk only to keep their ageing hearts pumping.

We noted many, many chickadees and heard robins peep-peep-peeping. That's what they do when they're bob-bob-bobin' along. They are starting to flock. Last week I heard one singing like spring. It was a beautiful day, and he had a right to be in a good mood.

Belated bird blog

Along southwest Lake Michigan today, the weather is perfect. The breeze is a tad cool, but it is a great day to be outside. Making my way back from the store this morning on foot, as I passed by a lovely ravine the people who own the property had the sense to preserve as is – except for a bridge across the stream that runs through it – about 2 dozen golden crowned kinglets flitted out of the tree tops to the roadside, just to be friendly, I imagine. The Catholic Church is down the road from the ravine, so while I stood there beaming friendly vibes back at the breakfast tableau, which included many native inhabitants, six or seven cars/mini vans rushed past me, but the kinglets didn’t seem to notice. The insects must have been too yummy to resist.

There probably were ruby crowned kinglets among the golden crowns, but I didn’t see them up close. Kinglets are pretty tiny, smaller than warblers, but possessed of the same habits, like refusing to sit still for more than 5 seconds. I wished them well and a safe journey. Not golden crowned kinglets travel to the southern most winter range which is the Gulf of Mexico. The ruby crowned kinglet has a slightly different, though overlapping range, but generally winter in the southern United States.


My very good friends the tufted titmice were on hand, and I urged them to stop by my feeders any time. They are such clowns, friendly like their cousin the chickadee, and they all appreciate thoughtful humans. Mr. red headed woodpecker made a conspicuous appearance, and I invited him over, as well.

Friday bird blog

In the Roger Tory Peterson Field Guide to the Birds, there is a whole section devoted to confusing fall warblers. Autumn entreats the traveling bird population to get packing, and one of the major routes south is the Mississippi flyway which takes in Chicago and the other side of Lake Michigan where I've done most of my bird observations.

Warbler watching is considered advanced birding because a.) they won't sit still; b.) the majority are the same color as the foliage both spring and fall; c.) most prefer tree tops. The best days to watch are after a change in the weather. Today would be such a day. It's gloomy, low light, much cooler.



For the heck of it I scanned a Magnolia warbler (male - they're always the flashy ones) in its spring coloration and took a photograph from a lovely photo site of an autumn traveler in a Massachusetts woods. Warblers in their migration garb look like they all shop in the same store - drab, faded stripes, regulation olive/khaki/yellow. They look a little tired, but after a summer of frantic nest construction and child rearing, the gray seems appropriate.



Many lose their lives flying into buildings. This time of year I always see at least a few thrushes, kinglets or warblers on the sidewalk around the Sears Tower or Hancock Building. One fall I took a ruby crowned kinglet up to the Lincoln Park Zoo in a cab. I'd found him by the Opera House where he was trying to figure out where the hell he took a wrong turn.

The Magnolia Warbler heads to Central America for the winter, having nested in the great white north. He's a little easier to spot on his return appearance in the spring, because the black and white stripes contrast with the green gone mad of the woods they prefer.

Friday bird blog

British Goose:
Goose stepping is for geese

Chumley was an employee of the Crystal Palace zoo in London in the 1960s. The caption says, "Chumley goose at London's Crystal Palace zoo soaks its feet in pan of water after a long day of "goose stepping."
Chumley's main mode of transportation, namely flying, most assuredly had been modified. No self-respecting goose would ground himself voluntarily, so zoo officials undoubtedly clipped his wings. Chumley's recompense - fleeting fame and a foot bath.

Friday bird blog

Short-billed marsh wren

Illustration by Allan Brooks

from The Chicago Daily Tribune
August 11, 1954

Wren Nests on Bus
A London wren nested beneath the running board of a bus that made daily trips to Swanley, Kent. In South Africa a mountain chat constructed its home and raised a family beneath a railroad coach that racketed back and forth daily on a 62 mile run.

Man also provides birds with nesting materials. A pigeon in New York City fashioned an ultramodern nest entirely of paper clips. Two crows in India had the same idea, but used spectacle frames stolen from an occulist. Bald eagles especially like curios and have embellished their nests with electric light bulbs, bottles, shoes, corn cobs and tattered magazines.

Friday bird blog

An article from the Chicago Daily Tribune
August 11, 1954
~continued from last week~

Offer New Adventures
Gulls have learned to break open clams by dropping them on the boardwalks of seaside resorts and other man-made structures. This year, a family in Island Park, N.Y., was annoyed during daylight hours by a constant bombardment of clams on the flat white roof of their home. Finally, the family had a seascape painted on the roof in the hope of deceiving the birds.

Cities provide birds with new adventures in housing. When the American west was settled, house finches moved from canyons and deserts to towns. [NOTE: House finches were exotics like parrots or parakeets, which escaped into the environment. Today, all house finches are descended from those few birds.] Finches and sparrows feel so at ease in metropolitan habitats that they sometimes build their nests in traffic signals. Starlings, unfortunately, find no home more appealing than the protected ledges and ornamented cornices of public buildings.

By and large, birds find people tolerant of their eccentric nesting. When a sparrow built a home in the boom of a mobile crane in Trenton, Ont., the operator taped the nest securely and went right on with his job of moving heavy equipment.

to be continued …

Note: The House Sparrow isn’t a member of the sparrow family at all, but is a finch, the Weaver Finch to be precise. It, too, was an import, like purple loosestrife or the zebra mussel. Check out the beak. (We could get into a discussion of evolution here, but I’ll save that for another day when my energy cells are fully recharged.) Sparrows’ beaks are much smaller. On top of its omnipresence, the House Sparrow makes a very neat, secure, cozy nest, so its offspring have a good start in life.

Are not five sparrows

bought for two farthings?

And yet not one of them

is forgotten of God.

William Tyndale translation

of Luke 12:6

The Common Loon: one family's encounter

Illustration by

Louis Agassiz Fuertes

Order Gaviiformes

Gavia immer immer

Common Loon

(From comments: I love this story. - Cosmic Rays)

By "HP"

I recently had one of the finest moments of my life, and it involved a loon.

I took the family to a friend's cabin "up north" in Wisconsin. They have a place just off an inland lake, near Eagle River. It was dusk of our last day up there, and I had promised the boys, 7 and 5, a canoe ride. We hurried through dinner and made our way to the canoe. I put them both on the forward thwart, each with his own paddle for his side, and I sat in back.

We headed out along the western shoreline of the lake, which made a half-circle, past the youth camp and their moored sailboats, past many cabins and trees and boats and beaches. As we reached a point directly opposite my friend's place, I decided to make a beeline across the lake because by this time it was getting very late. The water was dead calm and we could hear nothing but a few fish jumping, and the distant call of a loon.

As I turned the boat south and pointed it toward the camp, I noticed the nearly-full moon rising in the southwest, reflecting off the mirror of water and framing my view of the boys in the bow of the canoe. We were all stunned by the stillness of the perfect moment, and fell completely silent.

Just then, I caught sight of a loon flying into view just forward and west of the bow. It flew from right to left above the boys and below the moon. We could hear the stirring of the air around its wings as it passed. I paused to enjoy the moment, but also to record it in my mind forever.

I was strangely aware that, no matter what the future held for me as a man or a father or a husband, I would likely never enjoy a finer moment on this earth. We reluctantly paddled through the dusk across the lake, beached the canoe, and enjoyed the rest of the evening, flush with the satisfaction of the things we had seen and the accomplishment of our great adventure to the other side of the lake. We all slept really well that night.

American bittern

American Bittern
John James Audubon

It's a rare thing to see an American bittern except in paintings. Like many marsh inhabitants, it hides in the reeds, and its coloration blends perfectly with the landscape. Only the most intrepid, patient, careful birder ever gets a glimpse.



The nest photograph is from a book entitled appropriately enough, Birds' Nests by Richard Headstrom, published in 1949 by Ives Washburn, Inc. The photographer was taken by Hal H. Harrison. The text accompanying the photograph reads: "The American Bittern inhabits almost impenitrable swampy places where it builds a practically flat platform of dead flags."

Further description from the book: III. Marshes A. Open Nest 5. In dense cattail marshes; partially concealed by new flags growing among tall dead flags of previous season's growth. A practically flat platform of dead flags, a foot or more in diameter, raised above water or mud only a few inches. Occasionally flags are arched over nest. Nests also found in meadows over almost dry ground. Gulf of Mexico north through eastern and central United States.



When I was about nine years old we heard an American bittern in one of my mother's favorite bird haunts, which at the time was facing development - that is, death - at the hands of a cement company. They wanted to mine the nearby dunes for sand, and it would have destroyed the surrounding area as well. Once you've heard the American bittern, you won't soon forget it. Its nickname is "thunder pumper", so called for a speech that sounds like an old fashioned well pump - priming the pump, as the saying goes.

It seems that many of the places we used to go "birding" had well pumps, the state nature stations and preserves particularly. When we heard the bittern, the sound of the pump was recognizable straight away. That was the only time in my life I ever heard it, until this summer. Walking along a populated stretch of road at twilight my ears picked up the unmistakable sound. The residents in the locale have maintained the environment as much as possible, so the bittern, formerly reclusive, apparently has moved a little closer to town. I almost went back with a note for the homo sapiens to listen at dusk for one of the coolest sounds ever heard.

Friday Bird Blog

Illustration by Louis Agassiz Fuertes of Ithaca, New York, the most important ornothological artist next to John James Audubon.

Found between the pages of one of my mother's bird books, as we call her collection:

Flickers Use TV Antenna to Tap Reveille

Chicago Tribune Press Service
August 11, 1954

"Many birds have come to regard cities as wonderful clusters of caves, cliffs and convenient aids to living.

The flicker is one. This woodpecker with the built in pneumatic drill has discovered the television antenna. As an instrument for the flicker's early morning concerts, the metal antenna can hardly be surpassed by the most resounding tree.

New Habits Spread

As the birds of a species tend to pick up habits from each other, more and more TV owners probably will awaken in spring to the staccato of a flicker's ardent rapping.

Another avian fad was started by Britain's tiny titmice. IN 1921 a titmouse was seen uncapping and drinking from a milk bottle on a doorstep near Southampton. Since then the practice has spread thruout [Tribune style book word]the British Isles and into The Netherlands, Denmark and Sweden, according to the National Geography Society.

....to be continued ....