The American Bald Eagle Rises Again.

It is only in the past few decades that the American Bald Eagle has recovered in numbers sufficient to
be removed from America's  Endangered Species List.



American Bald Eagle, copyright  Edward Howe, 2013

I thought I would never live to see a Bald Eagle in the wild.  However, sitting at my sister's breakfast table one morning recently on a chilly, clear day, I looked out across the Fox River and saw a pair of bald eagles perched on an oak tree branch above the fast-flowing river.

I know that there is controversy over whether banning DDT was necessary to the preservation of the American Eagle. The argument was that DDT caused the eagles to produce eggs with defective shells.  Both we and the eagle have survived this ban and I am glad that substance is not used anymore.

Benjamin Franklin did not like the Bald Eagle because he observed that it wasn't uncommon to see eagles steal prey from other birds rather than go hunting for their own dinner. Also, he had seen many times that a handful of air-born sparrows could harass and chase the big raptors away.  Lazy and non-aggressive, American Bald Eagles, Franklin thought, could not represent the industrious and courageous spirit of America.

At first, Franklin considered that the rattlesnake would be a good choice as America's symbol.  He ended as a champion of the wild turkey which he insisted was an impressive and aggressive native American bird more representative of the American spirit.  But, Franklin lost out and I'm glad.

Bald Eagles do take advantage of other raptors and flee from pestering passerines but, no American bird pierces my heart with a glance like the Bald Eagle. I think I could stare down a turkey or a house sparrow, but not an eagle intimidating me with bright eye and yellow beak.  The white feathered Bald Eagle stands for strength, the kind of strength emblematic of America.

I'm glad that these days just about any American can look up and catch a glimpse of  this majestic bird soaring against a blue sky and feel one with it, if just for a moment.

 

Northern Cardinals Clearing Their Throats.

What is so urgent to the cardinals this morning?  Here are two males flying about and chirping away and it's thirteen degrees as I sit on a bench in the early morning light watching flashes of red move through the trees.

copyright: dedayrace at www. flickr.com

I have to dig out an old bird book to look up more about cardinals.  I remember that at the turn of the twentieth century, "redbirds," then a common name for cardinals, did not winter north of St. Louis. In the last century the winter range of Cardinals has grown to include southern Wisconsin and Northern Michigan.

I once heard territorial song from a cardinal as he perched at the tip of a large bush one frigid January morning just outside of Chicago.  This morning, in early December, the cardinals aren't singing yet, but they are clearing their throats.

My theory is that, these days, there is much more stuff for cardinals to scavenge. Seeds are abundant from local gardens and what ecologists call "edge."  "Edge" is the ecological niche that borders forests.  It's where bushes, grasses and wild flowers find a healthy place to grow, produce seeds and provide "cover" for birds.  It's taken a few hundred years for us to beat back the forests and carve out space for our farms but now their is plenty of edge, enough to support winter flocks of cardinals, sparrows and other passerines.

 Forget  harsh Northern winters.  After all, common sparrows and blackbirds seem to have had no trouble managing cold and snow. The cardinals have learned that they are welcome to the winter table, too.



 

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

Now, there is nothing wrong with using binoculars to identify birds and to peek-in on their behavior. I could hardly do without my trusty binoculars.  Yet, I find that I don't need them as much as I once did. Non-birders don't always need them, either.

I can view the activities of a flock of sparrows, like I did this morning, without magnifying an individual bird. In fact, I literally can't see what the flock is doing if I'm trying, often unsuccessfully, to focus in on one bird. It's like the reverse of old saw: "He can't see the forest for the trees." Sometime I want to view the activities of an entire flock of birds, the entire forest of them.

White-throated sparrows and house sparrows were flocked up this morning as I walked a path through a huge field of tall grasses on a brilliant sun-shiny day. The birds were fluttering here and there along the path pecking at the seed which was deposited along the path by the wind. I think the birds cannot feed within the thick tall grass of this remnant of Illinois prairie which spreads out on both sides of the path.

As I approached, the flock took refuge close-by in scrub brush growing here and there along the path but when they saw I was no danger to them, they returned to the path to feed. They can still find cover since autumn is just beginning and the trees and brush are still lush and verdant.

I didn't need my binoculars at all. I simply took in the entire scene of passerines feasting on seeds here in early autumn. This kind of flock behavior has developed over eons. The birds don't fight within their species and they don't compete across species lines. They have learned to cooperate.

 Maybe, we humans could learn something from inter-species flocking. We could at least learn to tolerate one another's presence.