Yellow-Billed Cuckoo Plays the Missouri Ozarks.

 A completely unique and unfamiliar bird song struck me on a Spring day as I walked through a dense cove on a narrow trail in the Missouri Ozarks. The vocalization sounded like a harsh series of misplayed piano notes, unique and odd, I thought.

I followed the sounds and there it was: Perched on a branch about fifteen feet from the ground was a yellow-billed cuckoo. The tail feathers were long in relation to the sleek body, dark above and white below. The tail feathers had a pattern of white circles which reminded me of the spread feathers of a male peacock.  Yes, the bill was yellow from below. Thank God for my Field Guide to Eastern Birds.
The yellow-billed cuckoo (Coccycus  americana) is not a bird that you'll see everyday. In fact, I've never seen or heard another since my Missouri Cuckoo experience.  To be honest, I did not know that cuckoos were found in the U.S.

I remembered cuckoo clocks and, of course, thought of the hand-carved  Black Forest cuckoo clock which hung in my mother's front room, usually silent until someone remembered to set the weights correctly. The cuckoo sounds from the clocks of the same name, are supposed to mimic the song of "the common cuckoo,"Cuculus canorus, a separate genus of cuckoo found throughout Europe.

How often have you heard something like "That's cuckoo!" or "What a kook!" Both statements refer to the goofy little bird which, on the hour, pokes out of a clock and flaps its wings while singing, "cu--cu, cu --cu," something like the actual call of the common cuckoo found in Europe.

The name "cuckoo" has become an adjective meaning silly. However, when I hear the word, "cuckoo,"  I remember that combination of rattles and moans which led me off the beaten path to the tree with the live cuckoo.

I wonder how many Americans have any idea that cuckoos are found in North America.  The Yellow-Billed Cuckoo is just one of the three species of cuckoo which breed  mostly in the Southern part of the united States. They winter in South America, especially in Argentina.

Check out the Cornell Lab of Ornithology for a great image and a sound clip of the vocalization of the Yellow-Billed Cuckoo.




 

Some Summer Birds Stay Behind in Winter.

The summer birds are gone: the warblers, fly catchers, orioles and goldfinches have all flown away along with most of the ducks. We do have some remainders, though. During the last one hundred years, the cardinals and robins have learned to stay here in the upper Midwest and endure the harsh winters. So, they stay and make me pay attention to them during my morning walks.

We had a strong frost this am but a few mallards float defiantly in the bright sunlight on the ponds that I frequent .Canada geese waddle around on land, determined to pass the winter with us, too. There is not an abundance of food but somehow these winter residents eake out a living.

Yes, the crows are crowing and the Blue Jays seem always to be scolding. The chickadees flutter around close to me and hang on the bark on the sides of trees.

The snow birds (Juncos) haven't arrived yet but soon flocks of them will liven up the scrub bushes and barren paths.

Summer is dying and the bushes are losing more leaves with every breeze. But, the birds are still here. And, so I will get up in the morning and see what they are up to.

 

Gentrification of the White-Tailed deer.

Birds did not show up this morning as I walked along a dirt path but unexpected wildlife did.

Four yearling deer stood still not ten feet from me in the first light of an October morning. With their light grey, furry, pointed ears, huge dark eyes and black noses, they appeared out of a cool mist and startled me.  I had turned a corner on the rustic path that I walk most days -- and there they were.

 The deer were browsing some of the last green leaves of Summer and were mildly interested in me standing there so close by.  They made no attempt to move away: they just stood there munching, looking at me. So, I excused myself...I really did --out loud! I felt like I had interrupted their breakfast.

I continued down the path thinking about the abundance of deer so present these days even in our cities and suburbs.  These deer are gentrified, completely at peace with the walkers and talkers who move through their environment. They are not domesticated, just habituated to the humans who must seem so curious to them.

There are far more deer in America than when the pilgrims arrived. As the forests of the East and Midwest were leveled and agriculture took over as much of the land as was possible, more brush and what environmentalists call "edge" appeared. One example of edge is the strip of vegetation that farmers leave along creeks and rivers that pass through their land.  That's where many species of birds find food and cover. It's where deer live, too. They don't live in the forest.

Years ago, the world's expert on moose, deer and elk was Margaret Altmann, a researcher whose home bordered the Bridger Wilderness Reserve near Yellowstone.  I went with her once on horseback through forests and brush while she observed white-tailed deer through a monocular.  Her riding horses were unshod and stealthily made their way without disturbing the natural behavior of wildlife.

I wonder what she would say about our citified deer. I know one thing: She would be curious to know how civilized deer differ in behavior from wilderness deer. Margaret Altman has been gone for many years now but I think, were she alive, that she would be amazed how these deer accept us within their territories.

 

The Song Sparrow Observer.

My introduction to the behavior of birds happened when I read Margaret Morse Nice's "Studies in the Life History of the Song Sparrow (1937, originally a U.S. government publication and later reissued in a Dover edition in two sturdy softcover volumes.) I was fascinated, hooked.

Song Sparrow, Melospiza melodia. (Wicki photo,Ken)

Here was a woman, trained as a scientist who produced  a  remarkable account of the life history of the Song Sparrow, Melospiza melodia, simply by making detailed notes on her observations of this common species which she studied in her backyard and surrounding neighborhood for many years. No lab needed or wanted.

When I was at St. Louis University in a research master's program, our lab did extensive studies on the Song Sparrow. At that time, the National Science Foundation helped support research into the inheritance of species-specific song. So, we isolated birds in sound proof enclosures and recorded their vocalizations.

However, I was allowed to study Song Sparrows in their habitats, too. I trudged through meadows and savannahs in and around St. Louis, Missouri making notes on my observations of this species and tape recording their calls and songs. I got so that I could easily identify Song Sparrows by their calls alone as well as by their song.  Later, I did some field work at the University of Wyoming Research Center in Grand Teton National Park where Song Sparrows share habitat with Lincoln's Sparrows and Fox Sparrows.

By observation I learned that Lincoln's Sparrow is smaller than the Song Sparrow and with no dark spot on the breast. The Fox Sparrow has a dark spot on its breast but is larger than the song sparrow and chunkier.

Lincoln's Sparrow and the Fox Sparrow had their own species-specific flight patterns and, of course, the songs were different than the Song Sparrow.

I wish I could have had the opportunity to thank Ms. Nice for her wonderful book on Song Sparrows. If I had not read her book, I might never have learned how important detailed observations are to an animal behavior project.. I might have thought that not being able to control the environment would lead me to unscientific results.

My experience was just the opposite. I was able to observe Song Sparrows in natural situations.  To see males hop higher and higher until they reach a perch from which they would sing is something I could have never seen in a lab.  Bobbing movements as they flew from one tree to another; "sneaking behavior" as the female indirectly returned to a nest which was well-hidden in a bush; males singing against one another to establish territory, these are behaviors I would never would have seen in a controlled laboratory environment.

I made notes carefully in day journals which became the basis of a small  scientific contribution to the study of this species. Thanks, Ms. Nice.


Sources: Nice, M. M..  "Studies on the Life History of the Song Sparrow,"  Dover reprint, 1964.  Out of print but available used from Amazon.com.

Cornell University's  website is very helpful in differentiating Fox, Lincoln's and the Song Sparrow.http://www.birds.cornell.edu/brp