Quoddy Nature Notes – Tree Swallows
Old man winter is finally defeated when the Tree swallows nest. The Canada geese may already have goslings; the ravens
have three pretty homely heads sticking out of the brush pile way up in a spruce near our house, and the robins have set up housekeeping on a shelf I built on the side of our barn, specifically for robins. I have to travel around Pembroke a bit to see that the Tree swallows are starting to nest, since we haven’t had any at our house since the early 1990‘s. The population of Tree swallows has dropped since then, and I haven’t been able to learn the reasons why. At the time English sparrows were accused of using the nest boxes put up for Tree swallows or Bluebirds, but English sparrows themselves have suffered a decline in numbers. Such are the mysteries of nature.
Tree swallows are very widespread across North America. They have been known to breed in almost every state in the Union, and winter along the Gulf coast and into Mexico. The primary food of Tree swallows is small flying insects such as mosquitoes and other beasties like black flies, so with the onset of these pests the swallows are always welcome. We have four other members of the swallow family (Hirundinidae) that we see here in the Quoddy region and these are the Barn, Cliff and Bank swallows and the Purple Martin. The Barn swallow has the forked tail; the Cliff swallow has a light spot above its tail; the Bank swallow has a dark necklace, otherwise, with white underneath and dark above, looks like a Tree swallow, and the Purple Martin is the biggest and mostly all dark. Of these additional swallows, the Barn swallow is the most common, but with the decline of agriculture their numbers are pretty low. Purple Martins are pretty rare, and Rough winged swallows may be spotted, but I have never heard of them nesting in the area. We also have the Chimney Swift, which looks like a swallow (or more like a cigar with wings) but the swift is in the family Apodidae and more closely related to the hummingbirds.
Tree swallows like open fields and a pond or two nearby. I have put up hundreds of nest boxes over the years with the hope of attracting Tree swallows or Bluebirds. These birds may use the same type of area, but harvest different types of insects. Chickadees also use these nest boxes, especially if they are near some woods. Tree swallows are generally individual nesters, but sometimes, like along East River road in Pembroke, they might set up a small colony. Every April I like to check some of the nest boxes I had set up for necessary repairs and to read the results of last year’s efforts. Years ago I got permission from Moosehorn to put a series of boxes in Hobart meadow, and this year I conscripted a few Boy Scouts to help me with the chore. It was a little discouraging, because last year was a poor year for Tree swallows and all seven boxes had been used but were unsuccessful in their attempts for a new generation. With high hopes we cleaned out the boxes and even put up another.
In late August and September our Tree swallows will leave for the south. Huge flocks of them will stop at Cape Cod for a while to see if there are any late flying insects and to gorge on the many bayberries growing on the dunes. Tree swallows are one of the few animals that can digest the wax in the various bayberry species. From there they will winter along the Gulf coast, and largely surviving on more species of bayberries, until next year when we will welcome the Tree swallows back to the Quoddy region. We won’t even care if they smell a little like bayberry.
Cooper’s Hawk vs American Crows – Southwest Harbor
Flicker was alive, which made the dynamics between COHA and AMCR more unpredictable. The quarry was struggling. The COHA created a protective hood over its prey with outspread wings, and the crows, with feathers erected, darted in from all angles and tried to get the COHA off balance. Unclear that the Crows were attempting to score some red meat, but that appeared to be the case. The game ensued for several minutes, with the COHA twisting to retain a defensive posture, occasionally lunging with opened beak, and the crows attempting to dart in and out and get the Cooper’s off balance.
The end of the struggle happened when the Cooper’s lost balance briefly, and miraculously, the NOFL leapt into flight and made a beeline out of the yard. Amazing after being held for so long. Cooper’s departed the scene immediately thereafter; heard the crows mobbing calls off in the woods.
Made me think about flickers I banded at Manomet in the 70s, and how tough their plumage is. My memory is that they have really thick and firm feather shafts. Tough to “foot” these birds to death when you have to defend your lunch against crows coming at you from every side. Ain’t nature great?
Cheers,
CK
Southwest Harbor
Quoddy Nature Notes – Fox Sparrow
Foxes, except for Fox news, are usually shy and not comfortable around people, but being bashful is really apparent in the Fox sparrow. There are, however, a couple of ways he really shows off, and one is his scientific name. The Fox sparrow is still confusing the ornithologists who can’t decide if the critter has a lot of subspecies or just different populations of the same bird. Around here in the Quoddy region we have Passerella iliaca with a subspecies iliaca. In Western Canada you may find P.i.altivagans; in the Rockies you might find P.i. schistacea or towards California P.i. stephensi or coastal P.i.fuliginosa or P.i.megarhyncha or up towards Alaska P.i.unalaschcensis. Carrying names like that it is no wonder the poor bird is shy and retiring. After a bunch of DNA tests and a lot of meetings and discussions by scientists, Fox sparrows may or may not be split into four separate species and/ or lumped into a different genus. The other noticeable characteristic of Fox sparrows is their foraging method. Sibley describes it as” …In one abrupt sequence, while the body remains relatively stationary, a slight hop allows both feet to reach far forward then quickly sweep backward, kicking out debris from underneath the bird to reveal any food items…”. Sounds like some break dancing maneuver to me. If I was a bird I would learn the less ostentatious barnyard chicken scratching method. That goes better with my handwriting.
The Fox sparrow is the largest of our sparrows at about seven inches overall length. It is unique to North America, and our version has a handsome rufous tail and its upper parts are also reddish (hence the name ‘fox’) with a gray wash.
The Fox sparrow is the largest of our sparrows at about seven inches overall length. It is unique to North America, and our version has a handsome rufous tail and its upper parts are also reddish (hence the name ‘fox’) with a gray wash. Its breast is white, but with heavy rufous streaks, more so than any other sparrow, and its legs are a dull pink. The beak of our (eastern) version is yellowish brown and built to handle small and medium sized tidbits like weed, grass, blueberry and elderberry seeds and sometimes insects and spiders, but a western variety P.i.megarhyncha has evolved a gray colored massive bill that can scrunch some pretty rugged seeds. All variations of the Fox sparrow feed on the ground, and make a considerable ruckus in their search for food especially kicking around in dry leaves. One would suspect that they would risk attracting predators like weasels and feral cats, but they must be relatively cautious because their numbers appear to be stable.
Alas, the Fox sparrow in the Quoddy region is just a transient. They come through here in early March and visit a bit then head up to their breeding grounds from New Brunswick to Alaska. They generally overwinter in the Southern US. E.H. Forbush wrote that he had a couple of Fox sparrows at his bird feeders overwinter in Massachusetts in the hard winter of 1903-1904. Ever the scientist, he recorded one eating 103 seeds in 2 minutes and 47 seconds. Usually Fox sparrows overwinter along the Gulf coast but a ways inland from the shore, and they seemed to have learned to do this even before oil drilling was common in the Gulf. From there they make a silent journey primarily to Canada to raise a new generation, and I’ve been sort of jealous of the Canadians that I’ve never heard a Fox sparrow sing. In “Birds of Canada” Taverner writes “…This sparrow remains within the limits of civilization only for a few days in spring and autumn. Occasionally in spring it greets us with a song of full clear tone that is equaled by few other birds and rarely surpassed.” I guess I feel better.
Quoddy Nature Notes – Juncos
It hasn’t been a very exciting winter in regards to our bird feeder activity. The heavy spruce cone crop seemed to supply all of the nutritional needs of our fine feathered friends, and our black oil sunflower seed bill so far this season has been pretty small. Towards the end of February we got a few more customers with the arrival of a half dozen blue jays, and shortly after that, a dozen Juncos. If your bird guide dates from the 1970’s it might list under ‘Junco’ a bunch of different species that inhabit North America, like the ‘White-winged’, ‘Oregon’, ‘Pink-sided’, ‘Slate-colored’, ‘Gray-headed’, Shufeldts’, ‘Carolina’, and ‘Red-backed’ junco. However it has been determined that these are all the same species, Junco hyemalis, or Dark-eyed junco, which makes life a lot easier for us birders. The only real rarity around here that might cause the birders’ lines to buzz would be if someone spotted a Yellow-eyed junco Junco phaeontus.
A dark eyed junco sits in a balsam fir tree.
Many juncos hang around here all winter, especially the young males, since they want to be here and establish territories for the nesting season. The older males may go south to the Mid-Atlantic States for a little easier wintering. These adult juncos want to get back in the spring, but they are pretty confident of claiming their former territories. The females, however, have none of the real estate worries and may migrate all the way to the Gulf shores for the winter. All of them will be back by late April, have their property squabbles ironed out in short order and begin nesting here in the Quoddy region in May. The female does the work of building the nest. I guess since she is going to use it she doesn’t trust the man of the house to follow her instructions, and she wants it done just right and in the right place. The nest is usually on the ground and pretty well hidden under some roots or overhanging dead grass or shrubs. Dad’s job, during the construction and also the incubation of the eggs, is to stand guard and look important. After the 11-13 day incubation period he does help in feeding the young with small worms and insects. The feeding chore at the nest is only for about two weeks, and then the young are fledged. The parents worry about the youngsters for a few days before starting on brood number two, which is common in this area.
Juncos are pretty rugged birds. One can often see them during a semi or full blizzard foraging for small seeds and grit on the side of a country road. Edward Forbush noted in his book, “Useful Birds and Their Protection” that juncos were a great help to agriculturists because they consumed so many of the seeds of the … “pernicious weeds of witch grass, amaranth, lamb’s quarters and sorrel.” He even quoted a Dr. Judd that timed a junco eating 93 seeds in 2 minutes and 23 seconds. I pretend to help them with an increased bounty of thistle seed and fine cracked corn, and, of course, all of the grit and pernicious weed seeds that they can find.
Since Juncos are ground nesting birds they and their nests are subject to being preyed upon by raccoons, skunks, free roaming cats, weasels and foxes. Sharp-shinned hawks, kestrels, and Cooper’s hawks can catch them in flight. Fortunately, even though juncos may be pretty low on the food chain, they are also quite prolific, and their numbers seem to be in good shape. Other birds, like starlings, crows and quail, have a special word for a group of these birds. I don’t know if there is a distinct word for a flock of juncos. Since they’re my juncos (at least when they are in my yard), I’ll call it a ‘Jehoshaphat’ of juncos.
Mourning Dove
A mourning dove (Zenaida macroura) resting in a balsam fir.
Quoddy Nature Notes – Cross Country Nature Notes
July was a busy time for us as we flew out to California to a grandniece’s wedding and a mini vacation. Although I’m certainly not an experienced air traveler, but here’s a little advice: have a little patience with the confusing guards and regulations and go with the flow. If you like to gawk out the window (like me), select a seat before the wing, and remember flying to the west coast is the reverse of POSH (Portside Out, Starboard Home), otherwise the sun is a nuisance. The flight was educational in many respects. Across the Great Plains each piece of land stood out, a symbol of the property rights promised in our Constitution. Each piece represented a unique idea; an investment in time and money and hope for increased prosperity. How unlike the social insects, like bees and ants! But with people, this is the system that seems to work best for all.
Stellar's Jay
Next came the mountain states, with snow still evident in many places and finally a landing at San Jose, and then fearfully off to compete in the notorious California traffic with an unfamiliar car to the Santa Cruz area. The weather was very comfortable. A typical day starts heavily overcast with a temperature about 60 deg, but around noon the clouds clear and it warms to the lower 70’s. The spring rains had been heavier than usual, and the streams in the mountains were still high from the melting snow, but any ground not artificially watered was hard and dry, as it would typically abstain from raining until November. Somehow most woody plants would adapt, and I made several whistles as sap had loosened the bark, but the grasses and others of their ilk exhibited discomfort and the hillsides were brown. The coast had many of our familiar Herring gulls, but more of the smaller Heermann’s gulls (thanks, Herb), and the little birds at the picnic table were mostly Brewer’s blackbirds. A few sanddollars, miscellaneous shells, and stems of giant kelp 2 inches in diameter dotted the beach. The inland birds were Barn, Tree and Cliff swallow; California towhee; Stellars jay, Raven, Crow, Bushtit, Junco, RB Nuthatch, Turkey Vulture and Robin. Visiting the few ‘Sloughs’ (swamps)we saw Coot, Longbilled Curlew, Yellowlegs, Pelican, GB Heron, one frightened snake that scooted away, heard some Bullfrogs but saw no turtles, lizards, leeches or salamanders. We did see some deer. Our White tail deer are much more handsome than those California deer. There were essentially no biting insects, and I saw some honeybees and three unidentified butterflies. But the trees! Ah! Magnificent! The redwoods went straight up into the morning mists and beyond, and even stumps of trees cut a 100 years ago looked dramatic, as did some of the carcasses left behind. But time was short. Those that were scheduled to wed got married, we said our farewells to old friends and relatives, and, remembering my seating advice, boarded the plane in the airport in San Jose, surrounded by the brown hills, and flew home.
Aphrodite Fritillary
The following weekend we did the next portion of our Nature Notes here in Maine where we participated in the annual Entomological BioBlitz at the Schoodic Education and Research Center of Acadia National Park. This year the focus was on Lepidoptera, and in a frenzy of collecting from noon July23rd to noon July 24th, our group of about 110 dedicated net sweepers managed to collect and identify over 320 species of moths and butterflies. I’m still not very good at understanding the complexities of nature, and insects add another dimension to the confusion, because there are so many and they are small, and the way they do things seems so strange. For example, how does the tongue of a moth or butterfly work? I can’t even identify most of the moths. I guess I’ll have to buy more books.
Leucistic Robin – Pembroke (Map 37)
Robin during our recent snowstorm eating barberry berries. An interesting different color pattern but a guy robin just the same.
Quoddy Nature Notes – What’s Everything Eating?
by Fred Gralenski
Male Pileated Woodpecker. I don't know if this was the guy that made the hole or not.
I like to watch critters to see what they are doing, and this time of year most are looking for something to eat. Bird feeders are a good place to start. We use black oil sunflower seeds in one feeder, fine cracked corn in another, Nyger seed in another and a cage with suet. We also put out the foodscraps that we don’t compost, like fat and bones. This buffet attracts Blue jays, Chickadees, Red-breasted nuthatches, Mourning doves, Crows, Juncos, now and then a Hairy woodpecker and, of course, Red squirrels. Our sock of Nyger seed gets the least use, as the Finches and their irruptive cousins haven’t visited us, but the Chickadees and Nuthatches might land on it if everything else is empty. In the barn I may put out meat scraps or slices of old hotdogs left in the back of the freezer, and quite a few different critters will help themselves, including Red squirrels, Deer mice, Weasels and Shrews. I was reminded of this the other day when I was filling my chain saw and a shrew ran by my boot. We have five species of shrews here in the Quoddy region, but he didn’t seem to be a Short-tailed or a Pygmy or a Water shrew, so he must have been a Masked or a Smoky shrew. Besides hotdog parts, this time of year shrews eat insects (cluster flies hibernating in my barn) and anything else they can find, including each other. Pretty secretive critters, I plan to study them more sometimes. Outside, shrews are usually at the snow/ground interface foraging for any bug or critter. Shrews may surface when crossing my driveway and, if the snow is soft, will push through and make a little tunnel. They have pretty weak legs and don’t normally hop. The shrews may prey on voles and Deer mice under the snow cover. The voles are living on plant parts that they have stored and are also digging down to bulbs and chewing the bark off of woody shrubs in the flower garden. They also may surface to cross a driveway to find some other goodies. Deer mice are living on seeds some of which they might have stored themselves. They are a little more apt to come into buildings than voles or shrews. Jumping mice are hibernating, unless they come into a building and find a sap (like me) to feed them. Whatever that critter is, it doesn’t like peanuts.
Hole where a Pileated got his dinner. The hole is 2" wide by about 3" high and the bird had to go through 2" of solid Red Spruce to reach the punky area where the ants were hibernating. Imagine the work going into that? The hole was about 2 1/2 feet up from the ground, and was out of the snowline because it was right on the side of my driveway, and this is why I cut it down. I felt that it would blow down at an inopportune time. The woodpecker did find some ants, but there were many more closer to the ground.
The deep snow is great protection for the small animals, but bad for the foxes, bobcats, coyotes and other predators like hawks and owls. I think that even Pileated woodpeckers are having more of a problem. Pileated woodpeckers eat Carpenter ants during the winter. Ants may hibernate ten to fifteen feet up in a dead tree, but in my experience the great majority of hibernating Carpenter ants are within two feet of the ground. With two feet of heavy snow on the ground, many of the hibernating ants are not having nightmares about the ‘Cock of the Woods’ rapping on their bedroom door.
And, of course, with heavy snow we have to worry about the deer, and there have been articles about whether or not we should feed them. When we lived in Northern New Hampshire the deer would browse the cedar quite heavily, and the browse line could be noticeable. Cedar is one of the better foods for the deer in the winter, and probably the mainstay of their winter diet, but I notice the deer especially like tree lichens. If cedar is the bread and butter for deer then tree lichens might be considered their cake, or here in Maine, Whoopie pies.
So looking into my (ice) crystal ball, I’ll make a prediction for the coming summer: Mice and voles will be more numerous, as many will survive the winter and their predators will be fewer, but I don’t predict a plague; deer will be OK around here as the food seems to adequate and the predators few, but further inland the deep snow will have a detrimental effect; owls will take a beating, but the survivors for the summer will have easy pickings, and my Pileated woodpeckers? I hope they make it OK. I’ll cut down on my ration of ants just so they can have more, even though Pileateds seldom come to the feeders.
Snow Bunting
Snow Bunting in E. Machias, ME. Usually these guys are in groups, but this one was foraging by himself.
Quoddy Nature Notes – Red-breasted Nuthatch
by Fred Gralenski
Red-breasted Nuthatch on a suet feeder (bait bag from a lobster trap).
Even though I dearly love the Black-capped Chickadee, the Maine State Bird, I think the Red- breasted Nuthatch is my favorite winter bird. The nuthatch sounds so contented when he’s on the bird feeder and telling the world how lucky he is, with his nasal, “nyank, Nyank, NYANK!” and subsequent twittering. How does a tiny bird make a nasal sound? That’s one of the interesting mysteries the animal world. Another mystery is how quickly this contented bird can make a loud untranslatable squawk at some other bird that he deems is trespassing in his space. I think we are pretty fortunate that feistiness is often inversely proportional to size.
We have two kinds of nuthatches here in the Quoddy region: the Red-breasted Nuthatch, Sitta canadensis, and the White-breasted Nuthatch, Sitta carolinensis. From their scientific names one can correctly guess that the Red-breasted is the more northerly of the two species, and is more common in coniferous forests. The White-breasted Nuthatch is bigger, but sometime the Red-breasted Nuthatch is mistaken for a White-breasted if its colors have faded in late winter. An unmistakable trait of the Red-breasted is the dark line through its eye. Nuthatches are pretty acrobatic birds and prefer to forage on trees upside down, and work down headfirst from higher up. All woodpeckers and the Brown Creeper check out trees by going up, and they can’t come down headfirst. It is thought by some ornithologists that this ability gives Nuthatches a little different perspective of the bark of a tree and they might find food that a woodpecker has missed. The climbing ability of both types of birds is an interesting study in dynamics that has never been completely explained to me. Most woodpeckers have two toes facing forward and two toes facing back and they keep their feet side by side and when holding onto a tree lean back on their stiff tails. Woodpeckers move with a jerking motion, but keep the same stance. This indicates that they must sort of jump forward, and the instant before they release their grip on the tree, their tail tilts them forward. They still must have to reach out and grasp the tree, and the distance traveled per jump is pretty short. Nuthatches have it a little more complicated, as they don’t rest on their tail. As a matter of fact, they have hardly any tail at all. To compensate for this when foraging they keep one foot a little ahead of the other and the rear foot acts like the tail of a woodpecker, but with the added feature that it can grip. The Nuthatch then can fight gravity with its strong legs in either the head up or head down position. Our Nuthatches usually stay around here all winter but may move if the food supply gets too low. This time of year Nuthatches are usually in the company of Chickadees and a Downy or so and sometimes an erratic Brown Creeper. I used to see them with Golden-crowned Kinglets, but Kinglets don’t seem to be as common as they once were. Red-breasted Nuthatches readily come to feeders and love sunflower seeds and suet. Nuthatches haven’t learned to hold a sunflower seed to a branch with their feet and whack at it like chickadees. They wedge the seed under a piece of bark then whack at it there. Nuthatches also store seeds for future use. They store these under bark or in stumps or any place handy, and somehow remember most of these hiding places.
By early May the Red-breasted nuthatches will pair up and make a small cavity in a dead tree and start to raise a new generation. Just outside of the cavity entrance the nuthatch usually smears pitch from a pine or spruce, apparently to deter predators or any other unwelcome company. They supposedly will nest in birdhouses, but I’ve never seen any evidence of this in the many birdhouses I have put up. But I’ll try again this year.
SPRING REALLY IS COMING!
Watch the Blue Jays feeding each other. This is a sign of courtship, as is their call. Listen for the ‘squeaky clothesline’ call.
Herring Gull
Bar Harbor (Map 16)
A herring gull found an easy meal at the town pier in Bar Harbor. We spotted the bird when it was trying to tear apart a starfish. We watched it shake the starfish repeatedly for about a minute. When it finally broke into two pieces the gull swallowed the part with three legs after a few tries, then downed the second piece with two legs easily.
Going out for seconds!
Looking in the rock weed. Nothing here.
Success! The gull had to go all the way to the end of the pier before it found another starfish.
The gull repeated the process of shaking the starfish until it tore into two parts. It took the gull a full minute to tear the starfish in two but just a few seconds to swallow its meal. When it was done it walked to the top of the pier and napped in the sun.
Hummingbird Activity
Talmadge (Map 45)
I have a hummingbird feeder outside my window. The buzz of a male zigzagging back and forth a few inches behind a female caught my attention. She watched him over her shoulder, her head moving back and forth with him. After 30 seconds of this he knocked her off the feeder. She flew up off the ground quickly and back to the feeder and he knocked her off again. She stayed down a minute or so and is now sitting on a bench, panting. It’s 87*. When the male returns she crouches down, closes her beak and doesn’t move.
American Bittern
Thursday, May 20, Rangeley, (Map 28)
On my round about way to the post office this morning, I went up woods road and saw a bittern standing in the road. This time, my camera was close by and I was able to get a few shots. KB
Blue Bird
Talmadge (Map 45)
I’ve lived here for 13 years. In that time I’ve seen blue birds only twice. Once was in late autumn a few years ago. The second time was yesterday. I haven’t seen him today but I can hear him singing.
Quoddy Nature Notes – Spring Stuff
by Fred Gralenski
In case you haven’t noticed, spring has come to the Quoddy region. I like spring. After I get over being in an April 15th funk, I like to rake the gravel off the grass, smooth the dirt on my driveway and get to play with my tractor, pick up the rocks that have popped up, and work in my woods collecting and processing next winter’s firewood and sawlogs. I usually do most of the latter in the winter, but it is a yearly job since the weather dictates what trees get blown over. This past winter was mild, and the ground didn’t freeze very hard with the one big snowstorm that we had. Looking over my journal for 2009, the last pile of snow in the yard melted on May 5th; over a month later than this year.
Most of the flowers are a couple of weeks ahead of last year, as they are largely dependent on temperature. The Mayflowers, or Trailing arbutus, are already past their peak even though it’s only the beginning of May. Other flowers, like Shadbush, Hobblebush, cherry, violets and Rhodora seem to be similarly ahead of a normal schedule, and the ubiquitous dandelion really likes the Quoddy region this year. Insects also like the warmer temperatures, and the bees are common in the flowers. Most of the bees now are the small solitary bees, probably of the genus Andrena. These are our earliest bees and are frequently seen buttered up with pollen from the flowers like dandelion and Forsythia. The Andrena spp. are also called mining bees because they generally live in the ground. Among these many bees on the early flowers can be noticed an odd looking, fuzzy, long legged thing that likes to hover close to the flowers while sipping nectar. This is the Bee fly Bombylius major. They like to eat nectar like a real bee but don’t like to set up housekeeping to raise a family. They lay an egg at the entrance of a solitary bee’s tunnel and the hatched Bee fly larva crawls inside and sets up shop on the skin of the solitary bee larva. The Bee fly proceeds to suck the innards out of the Solitary bee larva without making a visible wound. The insect version of drastic liposuction.
Butterflies are also coming onstage. Some butterflies like the Mourning Cloak and Commas overwinter as adults and may make a real early appearance. Some, like the pesty Cabbage White (see picture), may overwinter as a pupae and emerge by the middle of April to be our commonest butterfly around here, and some, like the Red Admiral, are appearing now on their migrations from further south. This season is much different from last year, when the cold, wet spring delayed or eliminated many butterflies in our area.
Critters that are not so dependent on temperature are the snowshoe hares. The varying ratio of sunlight to darkness triggers their color change from white to brown, and the majority have mostly changed. There doesn’t seem to be a fixed ratio for all individuals, as Mother Nature apparently is always adjusting, and during the color transition period a pretty dark brown rabbit may be seen alongside a white one.
And, of course, the birds. Back in April 29th I saw my first momma Timberdoodle with four ‘doodlets. Our Ravens are back and this year and are using the same nest as they did last year. At 50 yards from the house they couldn’t get much closer, but after three years they still aren’t trusting enough for me to get a good picture. Our ravens must have young by now, but the nest is 50 feet up in a slender spruce and way beyond my ability to peek. Some Black ducks in one of our ponds seemed interested in setting up housekeeping, but they also are not trusting. The most colorful birds, the warblers and their ilk, are just starting to arrive, and some of us will spy on their arrival on May 22nd at Moosehorn. If you can make it for 6:30AM you are all welcome to come and join us.
Talmadge (Map 45)
Territory wars are in full swing this week. There are three yellow bellied sapsuckers banging out their territory this morning. One is in a nearly dead ash tree and the other two are on phone poles. Chickadees are picking up tufts of dog hair for their nests. RF
Talmadge (Map 45)
Domestic meets wild. Eastern wild turkeys having been hanging out with my Bourbon Reds. They are four jakes. There are no signs of mature toms or hens. The wild turkeys aren’t their usual leery, skittish selves when they’re here. I walked 10′ from them before they moved a few feet away. When I want my toms to gobble I say “Tommy!” in a somewhat high pitch. These jakes have started answering me too. They walk through the soon-to-be planted fields several times a day. As much as I enjoy seeing them, they are pests with potential to cause a lot of crop damage. We chase them off (which is why I was so close to them) every time we see them. This photo is two wild turkeys in front of my two toms.
We’re going! We’re going!
“Tommy!” They replied with gobble gobble gobble times three.
They didn’t leave. They took a right around the hen house, cut through part of the garden and came back to my turkeys.
We’re not going! We went in circles trying to push these birds off into the woods.I said, “Go!” They said…
something that I’m sure is unrepeatable in a family publication. Enough of this. We need them to be afraid of us but when that doesn’t work we bring out the old, slow farmcollie. They don’t know she’s too slow to catch them. They were 200′ from the house when the collie appeared. And then they were gone.
An Eagle Handling Story
SH sent this story about a bald eagle in distress. Helping Hands for the National Bird.
Saco (Map 3)
Ogunquit (Map 1)
February 12, 2010
I never knew seagulls were banded until Feb. 12, 2010 when my wife was feeding them in the parking lot at Ogunquit Beach. I happened to notice this one with bands on both legs. DH
Woodland/Baileyville (Map 36)
I saw a pair of mallards in an open water ditch this afternoon. They are the first wild ducks I’ve seen this year. RF
Windsor (Map 13)
These are some recent visitors to the bird feeder. Except for the ducks in a tree, they are Muscovy hens that are part of the breeding flock at the farm. RH
Male Downy Woodpecker. Thanks to DH for the identification.
(Muscovies! They’re domestic but the fact that ducks perch in trees was news to me two years ago. Robin, editor)
American Goldfinch
Cardinal
Rangeley (Map 28)
February 22
I stepped outside after dinner and heard a saw-whet owl calling towards town. First one I’ve heard this year. KB
