Mockingbird Mafia

I've had a mockingbird start showing up at my feeders this winter. At first I thought it was really cool. They are not frequent feeder visitors, generally. Then I started noticing that he would chase off other birds! Not cool. He'll just sit on the finial of the feeder pole most of the day. When other birds show up, he'll fly at them to chase them away, even a red-bellied woodpecker! It turns out that mockingbirds are very territorial, and not just towards others of their species. When they find a food source, they take it over and defend it. So, now, I'm thinking, "great, he came in and took over the neighborhood." Just like the Mafia!


So, while I was trying to get a photo of the phenomenon for this post, I noticed that there were no birds at my feeders. None. Strange for the time of day, in the winter, when I had just refilled all the feeders. I was also trying to think of ways to take back my feeders from this mockingbird bully. I even confess to thinking about our neighborhood hawk maybe taking care of this for me. Yes, a mafia hitman!
No sooner did this thought occur to me than a big shadow went across the yard from over the house. Then this landed under my Cedar tree! If this was lurking about on our roof or in one of the larger trees, that would certainly explain the distinct lack of birds about. If you've read my earlier post on the Sharp Shinned and Cooper's Hawks, you'll remember their favorite food is other birds. They think bird feeders are the equivalent of an all-you-can eat buffet!


I got photos of it in the tree on the other side of the yard after that. The photo was taken at the top limit of my digital zoom, but with a little enhancement help, you can clearly see its markings and the shape of its tail. You'll also remember from the previous post that the best way to tell a Sharp Shinned Hawk from a Cooper's Hawk is the shape of its tail. I use alliteration as a way to remember: Sharp Shinned, small size and square tail. The Cooper's Hawk has a curved tail. I'm fairly sure this one is a female because its size was large enough that I had to check the tail to be sure it wasn't the larger Cooper's Hawk. The coarse brown streakiness of its plumage and the white above the eye are indicative of a first year juvenile, with the eye streak unique to the Sharp-Shinned.


Well, for the mockingbird anyway, the incident had a happy ending, for now. I seriously thought I was going to have to rename this post "To Mourn a Mockingbird" for a minute, though!

"Bicycle Birding"

Or: "Why I Haven't Been Blogging This Summer"

I got it in my head to cross-train this summer and added cycling to my running so I can do a duathlon. That has seriously cut into my backyard birding time. But, I have gotten good at just hearing a bird and knowing what I'm hearing. I've also learned to stop looking for the birds I hear! That gets pretty dangerous since I don't steer well when I'm turning my head. It also slows me down. I ride out in the country, mostly along corn and soy bean fields, but part of the route takes me along a river.

Some of the birds I have heard and/or seen during my rides:
Indigo Bunting (my favorite and the one I have improved at recognizing the most by it's song)
Meadow Lark
Eastern Bluebird
Carolina Wren
House Wren
Red Winged Blackbird
Eastern Wood Pewee
Red-tailed Hawk
Chipping Sparrows
Eastern Kingbird
Mockingbird
Red Headed Woodpecker
Barn Swallow
Tree Swallow
LOTS of Mourning Doves
Cardinals (of course)
Turkey Vultures - which gets very disconcerting when you're having a tough ride!

Of course, the old myth about Vultures circling waiting for something that is dying is just that, a myth. What they actually "look" for is the smell of a certain chemical of decomposition that is only given off after about 2 days - so they can't "sense" when something is about to die. So I try to shake it off.

Some of these I have been lucky enough to have fly across my field of vision, so I could ID them by sight. The important thing is being able to quickly pick up on the salient features. For me, I kinda of take picture in my head and then start reviewing my internal database for what it could be. That way, I don't have to slow down or take my eyes off the road. Same with the song. I kind of play it back in my head after I hear it. Of course for the very familiar birds, like a Cardinal or a Mourning Dove, I don't have to do that. But for a swallow, I can easily ID it as a swallow by it's shape. Then I review in my head if it had a rusty/reddish chest (Barn Swallow) or a white chest (Tree Swallow).

So, use your favorite site, like What Bird, or something like an Identiflyer (there's also an app for iPhones now!) to get familiar with the different songs. That way, you too can multitask and do some birding while you get some exercise.

Flicker "Flicking"

It's been a long time since I posted, but I caught this video this morning of my local Northern Flicker "flicking" mulch around my Dogwood and then feeding on my suet feeder and thought is was an interesting look at its behavior....perhaps where the name "Flicker" comes from? The video on the feeder does a good job of showing the yellow under feathers on the tail, as well. Enjoy!

Requiem for a Raptor

Today was a sad one in our neighborhood. Our neighbors found a dead Red Tailed Hawk across the street from their house. We live in the country, with farm fields, woods, and a lake. I had noticed a Red Tailed around here more frequently than I remember in the past. It's an inviting habitat for them . . . plenty of juicy rodents and rabbits around.

[Note, there is a photo of the dead bird at the bottom of this post - it is not graphic, but it might upset small children if you let them see it - so use your best judgement]

She had a large chest wound - but we weren't sure whether it was caused by another predator after her death or perhaps that she was shot. I contacted Kathy Hershey at Utopia Wildlife Rehabilitators who lives less than a mile (as the hawk flies) from us. I also put in a call to the DNR Law Enforcement office in our area since there was some suspicion it could have been shot. I also knew it is against federal law to be in possession of one, so I didn't touch it or let anyone else touch it. There are tough penalties for killing raptors - you can't even be in possession of their feathers without a license.

With Kathy's permission (she has a federal license and works with the DNR on these matters) I brought it over to her. The hawk was actually much heavier than I expected. I did use latex gloves, but I would have loved to run my fingers across her back to see how it felt. Kathy did a necropsy to see if she could figure out what happened. The hawk was not emaciated or obviously ill. Her wings were intact, so it is not likely she was injured by a vehicle on the nearby state highway. As for the wound, it was hard to be sure. She had clearly been visited by some sort of scavenger after her death. Kathy was going to have the veterinarian she works with x-ray it for bullets/pellets. We should know more tomorrow.

The really sad thing is that it wasn't just the death of one of these magnificent raptors - sad as that is. This bird had two eggs in her fallopian tubes. We don't know if they were fertilized or not. But if she had already laid one, it will not survive. It takes both parents to nest and raise their young. Without the mother, any other eggs will not survive. Now, there is likely a male hawk out there who will lose this season for sure in raising young. Perhaps he will find a new mate next year, but maybe not.

There is also a possibility it was a natural cause. Sometimes a female will have a problem laying eggs that can cause death. Or, an egg can break in the fallopian tube, causing a fatal infection. I am hoping it was a natural cause, not a human encounter.

This is nesting season for hawks. If one parent is lost, the young won't survive. We nearly had an excited Red Tailed Hawk hit our windshield near here just yesterday. They don't exactly look both ways before crossing the street when in hot pursuit of a rabbit or rodent. So keep your eyes open and watch for them when you are driving - especially in the country near fields where their favorite prey hangs out. Remember, it is we who are the encroachers on their homes, not the other way around.

Baby, It's Cold Outside

I love to watch birds in the winter. It makes you feel needed! Feeding birds in the summer does not really support them. They have ample food sources to survive without the feeders. It just gives you a chance to watch them closer up. In the winter, though, you can see their demeanor change. I threw a bunch of seed out on top of the snow this morning and they absolutely swarmed it! And I am not talking about birds that normally swarm feeders in the suburbs like sparrows and starlings.

I have had juncos, purple finches, house finches, goldfinches, song sparrows, nuthatches, carolina chickadees, carolina wrens, tufted titmice, hairy woodpeckers, downy woodpeckers, red-bellied woodpeckers, yellow-shafted flickers, and, the prize of them all . . . an eastern towhee. That's just today!

They seem much more eager in the winter. They also chase other birds off much more often, even birds that normally have a very sociable nature. The towhee was jumping at the juncos to run them away from the thistle on the snow. From what I have observed in the summer, towhees are very shy and I have never seen them exhibiting the chasing-off behavior in the summer. It's gratifying to know a simple pile of seed on the ground can make it a little easier on the birds when their normal food sources are buried under 8+ inches of snow and ice!

Another important item you can provide in the deepest of winter is a heated bird bath. They don't need it to bathe so much as to have a clean, fresh, non-frozen source of water. I have one that mounts on my balcony railing without any holes to be drilled, so I can take it back down in the summer and use my traditional bird bath. It also gives you another chance to watch them up close. The colors just seem so much more striking against the snow! So, throw out some seed, put out some water and watch them flock to you!

Gold(finch) Rush

Have you noticed your thistle feeders being drained at an alarming rate the last couple weeks? American Goldfinches are just now raising their broods. And anecdotal evidence shows that they are becoming an extremely successful species, so there are lots of little beaks to feed! The reason they wait until late summer to breed is that their primary food supply in nature is thistle (nyjer if you buy it in bags). They are also quite fond of the down from the thistle to line their little nests with. That plant doesn't have seed until this time of year in the Goldfinch's breeding range.

As you can see from the photo, I always let some of the volunteer sunflowers grow around my feeders in the spring so there are also plenty of sunflower seeds for them. They love those, as well. If you look closely, you can see one of the males hanging over the top edge of a flower to get to a tasty seed. This is sort of a "Where's Waldo?" excercise, though, since the male American Goldfinches are just about the color of a sunflower!

You can continue your scavenger hunt of the photo to find the House Sparrows, the House Finches and the female Goldfinches all over the shot. When I accidently thumped the window with my camera, the sky around the feeders turned brown with birds! So keep your feeders full for the finches!

The Fungus Among Us

Ok, so this isn't technically a fungus. It's a slime mold - and it's not even quite a mold for that matter. In fact, their classification, it turns out, is quite a topic of debate among scientists who debate such things (ewww). They are affectionately known as "dog vomit mold" as well . . . further explanation unnecessary. Wikipedia has a pretty good article on them. I believe what we are seeing is Dictyosteliida .

Why am I putting such disgusting looking things on a birding blog? Well, these crazy things kept me from my favorite birding location for about a week in the last month. I have always had pretty serious mold allergies, but over the past 10 years or so my allergies and asthma have been almost an afterthought they are so mild. We have been seeing these things growing in our mulch most of the summer - it's been unusually wet. I hadn't given them much thought - they were an interesting curiosity and I just assumed they were a fungus and nothing to be alarmed about - they didn't seem to bother any of my flowers or other plantings. Then one night while I was lying on the swing, I had a very sudden onset of severe allergy symptoms and an asthma attack that was the scariest in probably 20 years! It even scared the kids. Fortunately, my inhaler opened me back up pretty quickly.

There had been 2 or 3 molds that had gone to "spore" stage right there by the swing. I had left them because I figured trying to clean them up in this powdery form would just spread them more. The dogs had broken them open, though, which causes a brown cloud of spores to release every time they are touched. We contacted our local Ag Extension Agent, who confirmed they are essentially harmless to plants and the best thing to do is scoop them up to get rid of them. Also, the best way to prevent them is to keep the mulch raked, which aerates it to prevent the growing conditions.

I made sure I was not even near home when my husband cleaned them out. I am now very cautious around them. The series of pictures here is of one that started yesterday and was ready to release spores tonight! It's a very cool process where the single cell organisms signal chemically that they have run out of food, they all collect together into an amoeba like state called a slug, "build" ladders out of themselves so the top organisms can release spores up (a whole 2 mm) higher. This process is what has the rapt attention of so many scientists.

My husband has now very dutifully (and carefully) removed them from the mulch around my favorite birding spot. Back to birding!