Male northern cardinal (photo by Steve Gosser, 2010)
This week is much too warm for snow in Pittsburgh but we can dream as we listen to seasonal music. A favorite is Winter Wonderland, written in Pennsylvania in 1934, that includes these famous lines:
Gone away is the bluebird here to stay is a new bird. He sings a love song as we go along walking in a winter wonderland.” — Winter Wonderland
Back then eastern bluebirds left northern Pennsylvania in the winter but a new bird had arrived and its population was growing. The song’s writer, Richard Bernhard Smith, may have been referring to northern cardinals.
Originally from the South, cardinals arrived in Pennsylvania in the early 1900s in response to habitat change and warmer winters. As soon as they could survive year-round this new bird was here to stay.
By now our climate is so much warmer that Carolina wrens, Carolina chickadees and red-bellied woodpeckers are additional new birds in Pennsylvania. Nowadays bluebirds linger until it’s quite cold in Honesdale, PA, the town that inspired the song.
New birds find it easy to stay in our not-so-wintry wonderland.
Most robins move south in the fall but some remain north in large flocks that wander in search of abundant fruit. They choose Pittsburgh in December because we have lots of fruit on our native trees, ornamentals, invasive vines, and shrubs.
Oriental bittersweet, Pittsburgh (photo by Kate St. John)Bradford or Callery pear fruit, Pittsburgh, Nov 2012 (photo by Kate St. John)Ornamental fruit tree, Dec 2019 (photo by John English)
Hackberries, a native tree (photo by Kate St. John)
When the fruit is gone and the ground is frozen, the robins will leave. I expect that to happen in early January.
We usually see American robins (Turdus migratorius) with their wings closed. They perch in a tree, sit on a nest, or walk with their classic 3-steps-and-stop gait. Even in flight robins close their wings, flapping and gliding in a pattern similar to their walk.
This view of a robin with open wings reveals a surprise. The robin’s armpits, called axillaries, match its belly.
Williamson's sapsuckers, immature and adult, Bend, OR (photo by Pati Rouzer)
Red-naped sapsucker (photo by Andy Reago & Chrissy McLarren)
Red-breasted sapsucker (photo by Patty McGann)
Lewis's woodpecker (photo by Mick Thompson)
Acorn woodpecker (photo by Patty McGann)
Gila woodpecker (photo by Mick Thompson)
American three-toed woodpecker, Bend, OR (photo by Pati Rouzer)
Black-backed woodpecker (photo by Patty McGann)
Downy woodpecker (photo by Patty McGann)
Nuttall's woodpecker (photo by Mick Thompson)
Ladder-backed woodpecker (photo by Mick Thompson)
Hairy woodpecker (photo by Mick Thompson)
White-headed woodpecker, Bend, OR (photo by Pati Rouzer)
Pileated woodpecker (photo by Patty McGann)
Northern flicker (photo by Patty McGann)
Gilded flicker (photo by Steve Valasek)
If you’re from Pennsylvania you may not realize we have few woodpecker species compared to the western states of California, Oregon and Washington.
Sixteen of North America’s 22 woodpecker species regularly occur in the Pacific states while only seven occur in Pennsylvania. Five of our species are also found out west though the yellow-bellied sapsucker is rare.
Let’s take a look at western woodpeckers compared to Pennsylvania’s.
Western Woodpeckers (Pacific states)
Pennsylvania Woodpeckers
1
Williamson’s sapsucker
(Yellow-bellied sapsucker is rare)
Yellow-bellied sapsucker
2
Red-naped sapsucker
3
Red-breasted sapsucker
4
Lewis’ woodpecker
Red-headed woodpecker
5
Acorn woodpecker
6
Gila woodpecker (California & southwest)
Red-bellied woodpecker
7
American three-toed woodpecker (not in California)
8
Black-backed woodpecker
9
Downy woodpecker
Downy woodpecker
10
Nuttall’s woodpecker (California only)
11
Ladder-backed woodpecker (California & southwest)
12
Hairy woodpecker
Hairy woodpecker
13
White-headed woodpecker
14
Pileated woodpecker
Pileated woodpecker
15
Northern flicker (red-shafted)
Northern flicker (yellow-shafted)
16
Gilded flicker (California & Arizona)
With the most habitat diversity and a lot of trees, California wins the prize in the western woodpecker tableau.
Where are the purple finches, pine siskins, and red-breasted nuthatches this winter? Where are the evening grosbeaks?
If you’ve noticed a lack of winter finches in the eastern U.S. this autumn you’re not mistaken. They’re staying up north.
In his 2019-2020 Winter Finch Forecast Ron Pittaway explained that seed and fruit crops in northern Ontario, Quebec and Newfoundland are exceptionally abundant this year. The winter finches have enough to eat so they’re staying home. Here’s who’s not coming to visit, not even to southern Ontario:
Pine grosbeaks
Purple finches: They usually come south, but not this year.
Red and white-winged crossbills
Common and hoary redpolls
Pine siskins
Evening grosbeaks
Red-breasted nuthatches
Bohemian waxwings
Even blue jays will be less abundant because many are staying north.
Cornell Lab of Ornithology updated their live feeder cameras at Sapsucker Woods in Ithaca, New York for an even crisper view of the birds.
Watch their feeders from the comfort of your home (click here). Stay tuned overnight and you may see an unexpected visitor. This flying squirrel was a nice surprise on 15 October 2019.
Like other members of the Corvid family, blue jays (Cyanocitta cristata) are very intelligent and have strong family ties. Some of their intelligence and social awareness is put to use to fool each other, especially where food is involved.
Watch the video above by Lesley The Bird Nerd to see how an adult blue jay played a trick on a young one that was planning to steal his food.
Baby bird east of Safety Sound, Alaska (photo by Barb Bens)
Last Sunday our Partnership for International Birding tour saw this baby bird near the mouth of the Solomon River east of Nome, Alaska. It took us a while to identify him.
His looks like a sparrow with white outer tail feathers but his back has golden camouflage like a golden plover.
This spring a pair of blue jays nested in my backyard and fledged a single youngster before Memorial Day.
The fledgling was short-tailed, perky and adventuresome, often standing wide-eyed in exposed open places. His parents followed him everywhere and seemed to say, “Be careful! Don’t stand out in the open like that!”
But the fledgling was too naive. By the third day he went missing, undoubtedly dead. His parents started to build a new nest.
They scouted together in my backyard, gathering moss and rootlets. According to the nest description in the Petersen Field Guide to Birds’ Nests blue jay nests are …
Bulky, well hidden in crotch or outer branch of coniferous or deciduous tree, 5-50 ft above ground, commonly 10-25 ft. Built by both sexes of thorny twigs, bark, mosses, string, leaves; lined with rootlets.
The second nest is so well hidden that I didn’t find it, but here’s what it would look like (photo by Henry T. McLin).
The pair has time to raise a second brood, especially if the female laid eggs in the first week of June. From first egg to fledging takes 38 to 45 days:
Blue jay egg laying takes 4-6 days (one egg per day, clutch of 4-6)
(*) Unfortunately the second brood failed, too. I saw a nestling on the ground, too young to fly, on July 7. I repeatedly placed it up high in the vicinity of the nest but the nestling kept hopping back down to the ground. Eventually it hid under the lip of our bird bath.
Blue jay baby on ground, 7 July 2019 (photo by Kate St. John)
