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.

The Case of the Disappearing Canaries.

The canaries were gone. Three males had simply disappeared from three separate cages.  Those canaries were “the control” part of an experiment in animal behavior at a major mid-western University some time ago. 

On a cool Saturday morning, I entered the laboratory where our department was studying how birds learn species-specific sound.  For example, is the song of the song sparrow (Melospiza melodia) innate or is it a learned behavior? Does the male song sparrow chick have to hear its species song before it can sing it, or will he sing a song sparrow song without ever hearing it sung by a mature male first? Researchers want to know these things.

Back to the canary controls.  Those  individual males were part of a research project of one of our graduate students who was studying bird song in canaries. The controls were kept in typical wire cages in the basement of our building. They heard one another sing. We controlled the light by timers and the canaries dutifully sang when it was light.

 The “experimentals” were male canaries housed two floors above the basement in  sound-proof cages with built in speakers where we could record their vocal efforts.

That Saturday morning, when the graduate student came to check on them, the controls were gone.  The experimentals, however, in their sound proof boxes complete with ventilation systems, were fine --healthy and active. 

  How could the controls have escaped? The door leading down into the basement lab was always locked and the graduate student and his mentor were the only ones who had keys. “They’ve got to be down there,” he said. “Help me find them.”

So, we went downstairs into the basement lab and, sure enough, the cages were empty and the small, metal access doors to those cages were still fastened shut.

We began searching behind everything in the basement. No birds.   Next, we checked the rafters. The concrete wall of the basement stopped just below the first floor where joists took over.  We got a ladder and began searching the dark spaces between the joists.

“Hey! I think I found one,” my friend yelled. “Up here, in the rafters!’   With that he shone a flashlight into the space and found himself face to snout with a boa constrictor.

The mystery of the disappearance of the birds coincided with the disappearance of a six-foot long pet Boa constrictor from a third floor lab which had gone missing two weeks before. Someone had left the terrarium open and the snake had slipped out, squeezed through the space around a recently repaired water pipe, got into the wall and followed the pipes to the basement.

Once in the basement, the snake sensed the canaries. He entered each cage by compressing himself between the wires of the cage, attacking the birds one-by-one, and then after constricting the life out of them, he consumed them.  He then sought a hiding place in the rafters to rest and to digest the birds.

The ex  The experiment was certainly compromised because the controls were critical to the validity of the experiment. Somehow, the graduate student saved the project, but he had to have evidence that his controls had actually existed. You can probably figure out what he had to do next. Nearly two weeks later, the boa deposited several tiny bundles of sad-looking, yellow feathers onto the floor of his terrarium.

There are no snakes indigenous to the Canary Islands or the Azores, the natural home of canaries.  Did our controls flutter and flee from the constrictor?  Did they know innately that this crawling thing entering their territory was deadly? My guess is that they knew. No parent had to teach them that an enmity was set between their offspring and the spawn of the snake.

By the way, our research concluded that canaries sing whether they've heard other males sing or not. However. It helps in their development if they have heard other males sing. Eventually, they get it right.

 

 

 

A Murder of Crows Woke Me up Today.

I am walking quietly in late autumn along a dirt path which meanders through a savannah. The field of goldenrod on my right waves deep yellow with every breeze. The trees and bushes are still green and lush.  Every few paces I flush a sparrow or two out of the bushes which grow along the way. It's a blue-sky day and the sun's rays fall on me like a blessing. It's quiet.

Then, they come: the crows. Their "kaw-kaw-kaws" announce to the wildlife world that I am there --at least it seems that way to me. A half-dozen crows fly high above me "kaw-kaw-ing"  like motorcycles coughing and sputtering as they glide slowly along. Crow calls are loud, irritating to my ears and to my soul.

Genus Corvus seem like the rogues of the bird world. They disturb the harmony of field and forest.  They ravage seed crops. They have been known to steal, and not only shiny things. A bunch of crows is referred to by the collective noun, "murder."  A "murder of crows:"an apt concept, isn't it?

From jackdaws to common crows to ravens, these scavengers make up a third of the members of the family Corvidae. To most people, they are simply crows and not welcome.

Edgar Allan Poe's "The Raven" uses the image of this dark bird to express the melancholy Poe feels at the loss of "Lenore, nameless here forever more." The poem would never have worked with a song sparrow or downy woodpecker. The bold, insistent rapping announces the raven's presence.  Once let in, the raven brings a mocking gloom to Poe's soul. The thing speaks and vocalizes finality with its"nevermore" refrain.

Crows of any type flying over my head bring on a feeling of dread, like an omen of bad luck
So, my reverie this morning hasn't lasted long, a  murder of crows has startled me into another reality.





 

The White Robin of the Ozarks.

I once saw a white robin.  Now, I know that this might be hard for you to believe but I know what I saw.

There he was (she?) hopping around with his head cocked to one side, stopping every few feet to stare into the short grass of my front lawn in the Missouri Ozarks on a late autumn morning. I couldn't believe my eyes: He was cream colored with a few streaks of light brown here and there on his wing feathers.

I phoned a well-respected local birder with the news. He didn't take it too well and thought I was mistaking a robin for a mourning dove. He came over later that day and verified the sighting: The white robin was still acting like a robin.

It was the behavior of the bird that caught my eye. If it looks like a robin, if it hops and searches the ground like a robin, if it has the form of a robin, it's probably a robin --no matter its color.

In the wild, female cardinals don't look red at all. They are a drab green and brown and don't reveal the red color of a cardinal until they take flight and flash the underside of their wings. Red-bellied woodpeckers don't have red bellies and the yellow-bellied sap sucker's ventral area doesn't look very yellow to me. Let's not even talk about a titmouse.

Whether my morning robin was a rare color variation or a true albino, I'll never know for sure.  But, the behavior of my ghost-like morning robin, reminds me that you can't always judge a book by its cover, nor a bird by its color: By their behaviors, you shall know them.


 

Canada Geese Honk at Dawn.

"Not 'Canadian Geese' but 'Canada Geese,' please!"  With these words
I was corrected by a friend who tries to save me from embarrassing faux pas.

Regardless of what you call them, I think those geese are elegant looking in flight. Even on the ground they walk around with a confident air and are presentable in their formal blacks and greys.

Most of our geese (I live twenty miles from Chicago.) are gone now but some, of course, stay the entire winter. Locals feed them at a small park close-by where Canada Geese honk on and off during even the coldest weather.

Their "honk-honk" and an answering "honk-honk" tell me that a pair of Canada Geese are up there flying, even if I can't locate them right away this morning.

I hear and identify many birds by their calls and songs. I don't always see them. The high-pitched, sharp, location call of a Cardinal is easy to identify. Everyone knows the "caw-caw" of a crow.
The chirps of  house sparrows are omnipresent. (What a big word for such a small bird. And, perhaps I should reserve that word for the presence of the deity.)

This morning at dawn I first heard, then saw two Canada Geese flying over my house. They lifted my spirit somehow and made me feel part of something bigger than myself. I wasn't alone at dawn.  Others were waking, taking flight and honking for life.

A Windborne Bird.

My artist friend is now long gone but her art and poetry still startles me and warms me up sometimes.
Some event will happen in my life and suddenly her brush strokes reappear in my memory, strokes that I thought I had forgotten. She painted with words, too.

Here is one of her poems about love:

Love
is such a
Misused word.

I wish I
had another
to express
when
My heart is
A windborne bird,
When I see a
Strange wildflower.
                               (Kathryn Bradford Dyer)

See what I mean?

 

Goldfinches, Canaries and Late Summer.

Goldfinches swirl and dip around me as I walk a dirt path in the savannah of a Du Page forest preserve on a sunny and breezy late-summer morning. They startle me as they flush from a large bush and scatter into the sea of goldenrod to the left of me.

In the Spring, male Goldfinches are bright yellow with black streaks along their wings. Females are drab in comparison but show some yellow and the same dark striping along their sides. This morning the individuals in this flock all look pretty much the same. The non-birders call them"wild canaries." That's fine with me.

The domestic canary (Serinus canaria domestica) sings a loud warbling song while the wild goldfinch (Spinus tristis) settles for a short, musical chirping which passes for a song. Both species look great in sunlight.  Their yellow feathers shine. 

Years ago, in the early morning, as light began to stream in through my window, I used to have to cover with a heavy blanket the nesting pairs of canaries which lived in three cages in my dormitory room. Otherwise, the competing canary songs would make it impossible for me to sleep. I made them believe that it was suddenly evening again, so they went to sleep.

This morning's Goldfinch convention was the first sign of flocking that I have noticed.  Here it is September 6 and I should expect that from now on I'm going to see the finch families grouping up.

The goldfinches will leave soon. The juncos (snowbirds) will arrive; the house sparrows will stay and along with the cardinals, they will flock together. After all they are finches.  Theyall eat seeds, live close to the ground, and flit and bob here and there as they fly. So, what t'heck why not flock in peace.

I love the change of seasons. The absence of territorial bird song in the mornings and the thinning out of the species just offers me an opportunity to see flocking again.







 

At dawn this morning  the swallows were sailing far above my head twisting and rising, then gliding. As the glides slowed, the birds would speed through the air again with a rapid series of wing flaps

I think they were Barn Swallows but they were flying so high before sunrise that I couldn't ID the species for sure.  Could have been Chimney Swifts.

I wondered what they were doing as they soared and turned so rapidly. Were they feeding?  Do insects fly ten stories up in the air? Or, were they just feeling perky this morning and airing out their wings?

I'm sitting here on a bench in the middle of an urban area and watching bird behavior.  It's amazing that many species of birds --including the swallows-- are not only surviving but thriving within the concrete jungle we call home.

I read yesterday in the Chicago Tribune (August 24, 2013) that an entire colony of Night Herons have set up a rookery on a small island on a pond in Lincoln Park, our downtown oasis of green. Night Herons are on the Illinois endangered species list which makes this even more remarkable.

In the '60s it was feared that there would be little wildlife left in and around the big cities. Our life style requires cutting down trees, eliminating bushes, spraying with pesticides and paving just about everything in sight.

The deer don't care; they live in Chicago's forest preserves and parks. The coyotes go about their predation right in our front yards (Beware, poochies!) Beaver in the Chicago River climb up on shore and cut down the succulent tree plantings of the Park District..

And, birds nest and produce new generations when we aren't looking. Suddenly the birds are there, swooping and making fantastic turns in the morning sky.





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The Silence of the Birds.

The birds were silent this morning. Yes, I know, it's late August, far beyond the nesting time for the Midwest's bird population. It's one of the signs, though, of declining summer.

Some of the seasonal birds are already gone --I haven't seen or heard a warbler in awhile.  Even the cardinals are taking a break.  The sparrows, however, chirp now and then to let me know that they are still here.

Fifty years ago Rachel Carson wrote a blockbuster book, "Silent Spring."  Insecticides and other
intrusions of modern society, would, she said, decimate the great song bird populations.  There would be no more Spring song in the meadows because there would be no more birds. Even America's national symbol, the Bald Eagle, would disappear from the skies.

Because environmental awareness was a new idea in those days, her book was a breath of fresh air for many of us.  We began to listen more carefully for bird song and look more intently to bird populations. As a nation we began to wake up and pay attention to the environment.

Largely because of Rachel Carson, DDT was banished as an insecticide. DDT inhibited viable egg production, especially among Bald Eagles which were placed on the endangered species list. Though the DDT link is still disbelieved by many, the Bald Eagle population has recovered. Recently, I noticed a pair of eagles perched in a tree as I was sitting at breakfast at my sister's home near St. Charles along the Fox River.

In six months Spring will be back and so will the songs. This morning's silence just makes me yearn more intently for the concert.


 

When God Sends a Singing Bird.

"Keep a green bough in your heart and God will send their a singing bird."

I received that little piece of advice thirty years ago and I've tried to remember it during tough times.
A birthday card brought these words to me and I kept the card for a long time. The card may be gone but the sentiment rests somewhere in my soul where the good things go.

But, wait! There's more!

My sister had suffered a stroke which threatened her life. It was in deep winter as I drove down to Southern Illinois to be with my brother-in-law at this difficult time. I was feeling depressed --there is no other word for it. I was sitting in the cold one morning on the porch of my sister's house praying morning prayer when a Song Sparrow flew into a tree right in front of me and sang...and sang.

Song Sparrows have a short but cheery song. Just what I needed. I can identify a Song Sparrow and its vocalizaions because I spent the better part of a year working on a research paper for my degree in Biology on that species..  My subject was the bird I was hearing on the back porch of my sister's house in late December when I was ready to cave-in with anxiety. Song Sparrows don't sing in Winter. This one did.  I know the sparrow was sent to me to make things easier for me and to remind me to hope.

Early January, another year, bitter cold, a death in the family and I'm getting ready for Sunday Mass in the parking lot of a suburban parish. It's a cloudless sky as the sun, so far away begins to rise.   This time there is a cardinal, bright red, singing from the top of the tree right in front of me.  Quite early for this species to be singing and setting up territory on that frigid morning.  But, that was what he was doing. I took his presence as a harbinger of God's presence.

Birds come unbidden and in surprising ways into my life and they bring me hope.  Right now I've brought out a green bough and it waits confidently for another singing bird.

The Quetzal, the magnificent bird of Central America

Indigenous peoples of Central America had high regard for the elegant Quetzal whose graceful long back feathers reach down its back forming what looks like a wonderfully long tail. The species is colorful and has a distinctive song which is easy to hear in the cloud forest of Costa Rica. Hearing it is one thing, seeing it, another. The bird may not be rare but it sure is elusive.

I'll bet birders (Those who work on tallying a life lists of birds they have seen.) come from all over, and pay a lot of cash just hoping to see one of these legendary birds.

Recently, I spent nearly two weeks in the Monteverde region of Costa Rica and was fortunate enough to see two individuals at two different sites. One was a male, the other a female. Most people only have two or three days to wander the cloud forest. I was lucky enough to have had much more time plus a guide who led me to a nesting area. On my own, I would never have discovered this wonderful bird.

 The foliage was dense and it was misty but my photo gives you some idea of the beauty of this bird.

Aztec rulers wore Quetzal feathers in their headdresses and appeared before their people arrayed in the dramatic plumage of  this marvelous bird.

The Aztec chief god was Quetzalcoatl,a who sometimes was illustrated as a feathered serpent.  The feathers, of course, were from Quetzals.

It is an amazing thing that this bird has survived and still lives in the forests of Costa Rica and other Central American countries. I am blessed to have seen and heard them.

 

My Experience with Pale-Billed Woodpeckers and Quetzals in Costa Rica.

A Male Pink-Billed Woodpecker in Costa Rica.
(GWatt, copyright)

 Recently in Costa Rica I saw a bird so striking in its beauty that it is still hard for me to believe it exists.  No, I’m not talking about the spectacular Quetzal of the Cost Rican cloud forests, though I saw them on two different occasions.  I’m Talking about the Pale-Billed Woodpecker of Costa Rica.

I didn’t even know the species existed until a pair of these giant woodpeckers sailed over my head and landed in a huge dead tree.

Yes, I know this blog is suppose to be about Mid-Western wildlife, but it is the experience that I am about to describe to you that renewed my interest in wild birds.  Two weeks in the cloud forest of Costa Rica was a real inspiration: Thus this bird story.

The Pale-Billed Woodpecker is the largest woodpecker in Costa Rica.  It grows to 37 centimeters (15 inches). Although the crest of the female is black, the male has a bright-red face, neck and crest.  Along with white stripes on each side of its back on a black background, the Pale-Billed Woodpecker is a study in contrasts of white, black and red.   The abdomen has striated striping which appears to be brown or rust-colored.

 Long ago I had observed and studied the American Pileated Woodpecker of the mature hard wood forests of the U.S. At first, I thought my two bird were that species.  The Pink-Billed looks like the Pileated but the head of the male is entirely red, not simply the crest. 

Each morning two of these large magnificent birds would fly over where I was sitting to tap-tap their way up and down and around the trunk of a large, dead tree nearby. Both male and female came quietly most mornings. I never heard vocalizations but their double tap is as distinctive as a call.