Kentucky warbler, Harrison Hills Park, 27 May 2024 (photo by Charity Kheshgi)
1 June 2024
This week was “All Peregrines All The Time” with a notable exception.
On Memorial Day Charity Kheshgi and I wanted to see a Kentucky warbler (Geothlypis formosa) so we went to Harrison Hills Park where they breed. It didn’t take long to hear one singing in an extensive thicket along the Pond Trail but we could not see him. We waited patiently for him to appear.
What an elusive bird! We never saw him fly from one end of the thicket to the other though he did it many times. He even flew, unseen, over the trail we were standing on. We must have waited half an hour before we got a glimpse of him in the shadows.
Kentucky warbler, Harrison Hills Park, 27 May 2024 (photo by Charity Kheshgi)
And then he perched and sang (photo at top). Ta dah! A Life Bird Photo for Charity.
We also saw an eastern wood-pewee (Contopus virens) building a nest.
Eastern wood-pewee with nesting material, Harrison Hills Park, 27 May 2024 (photo by Charity Kheshgi)
She had already decorated the exterior with lichen …
Eastern wood-pewee nest in progress, Harrison Hills Park, 27 May 2024 (photo by Charity Kheshgi)
… and was now working on the nest lining. She placed material inside the cup and used her belly to form the interior.
Eastern wood-pewee building nest, Harrison Hills Park, 27 May 2024 (photo by Charity Kheshgi)
Her mate sang “Pee Wee” in the woods nearby.
Birds of the World says the “female often gives a plaintive, two-noted wee-ooo when nest building” but we didn’t hear that sound. She was busy.
In early April WildlifeKate (@katemacrae) introduced us to a pair of Eurasian nuthatches (Sitta europaea) who were remodeling a nestbox she’d provided at Gwyllt Hollow in southern Wales.
When I was a kid in the 1960s common nighthawks (Chordeiles minor) were so common that they attracted my notice and inspired my love for birds. In the late 1970s many flew above my neighborhood on summer nights, hawking moths over the Magee Field ballpark lights. In the 1990s their population began a steep decline and by the late 2000s I noticed it in my neighborhood. This year I haven’t seen a nighthawk yet. Their decline has gotten worse in the last 20 years.
Nighthawks are nightjars and they are all in trouble including whip-poor-wills and chuck-wills-widow.
Interestingly you only have to count nighthawks by the light of the moon because they call more often when the moon is shining. The next full moon is 23 May, right in the middle of the survey period.
Rainbow around the nearly full moon, North Park, Pittsburgh, 16 March 2022, 8:01pm
Eastern cottonwoods (Populus deltoides) rely on the wind for both pollination and seed dispersal. In the spring the male and female trees each produce an inflorescence.
The males produce catkins which drop off the tree when the pollen is gone. The females produce flowers whose seeds are embedded in fluff to carry them away on the wind.
Eastern cottonwood inflorescences: male and female (photos from Wikimedia Commons)
By the time the cottonwoods have gone to seed warbling vireos (Vireo gilvus) have returned to the trees on the shore of Lake Erie. Though the birds look nondescript their song is the sound that fills the air in the parking lot at Magee Marsh in May.
Yesterday at Presque Isle State Park we watched a warbling vireo building a nest in a cottonwood. The nest is a cup that hangs from the fork of two small branches. Both sexes help build it.
In s. Ontario [the region of Lake Erie], nest exteriors fashioned with insect and spider silk and cocoons, paper and string, and bits of birch bark; exterior walls composed of grasses, plant fibers, bark strips, plant down, hair, leaves, fine twigs, lichens, and rootlets. Linings were fine grasses, pine needles, plant fibers, rootlets, feathers, and leaves.
p.s. Here’s a mnemonic to help you remember their song:
The mnemonic of “If I see you, I will seize you, and I’ll squeeze you till you squirt!” is very useful in identifying and remembering this bird’s song.
While easily heard, the Warbling Vireo can be difficult to spot. They tend to perch themselves high in treetops. When they are seen, this common bird is often described as “nondescript”.
If you’re wondering whether to go birding, don’t wait! Spring migration has been exceptionally good in the past few days migration. The slideshow, above, shows just a few of the 58 species Charity Kheshgi and I saw at Schenley and Frick Parks on Sunday 5 May.
The birds are here right now and they’re fairly easy to see despite the early leaf cover. They’re on the move. Don’t miss them. It’s time to get outdoors!
p.s. Did you notice that the first two birds in the slideshow are “Nashville” and “Tennessee” ?
I happened to be on a quiet section of the boardwalk when I noticed a crowd forming ahead. Many people were focusing binoculars and cameras at the spot where two guides were pointing and explaining a bird. I rushed over to find out what was up.
On my first look at the bird, I thought “golden-winged warbler” because of its yellow wing, yellow crown, and whitish chest (see example at top), but something wasn’t quite right. Word was spreading through the crowd that this was a Brewster’s warbler, the hybrid offspring of golden-winged x blue-winged warblers. Though not technically a species, for me it was a Life Bird.
The big difference between a Brewster’s and a golden-winged is that the Brewster’s looks pale with a white throat (not black) and a black eyeline (not a wider face patch). Here’s a side-by-side comparison of a male golden-winged warbler vs. a Brewster’s warbler.
This diagram embedded from Cornell Lab’s All About Birds shows the warbler’s parents on the left and the Brewster’s in the top right corner. The parents can also produce another variation: a Lawrence’s warbler (bottom right) which I have never seen. Click on the caption to read about their genetics.
I left Magee Marsh yesterday morning while it was raining steadily so I missed the Brewster’s reappearance but my friend Kathy Saunders saw him on 3 May in the same place as the day before.
Now that the breeding season is here the air is filled with birdsong from dawn to dusk. Birds sing to claim territory and attract a mate, but they also appear to sing for the joy of joining others in song. Is the dawn chorus actually a community performance?
In the 1920s British cellist Beatrice Harrison discovered that when she played her cello in the garden the birds responded, approached, and sang along.
Fast forward to modern times. Two decades ago in Chicago, musician Lisa Rest lived in a third floor apartment whose windows were level with the tree canopy. On warm days she played her piano with the window open and eventually noticed that birds approached her window and sang while she was practicing.
Because Lisa has perfect pitch she could tell the birds were singing in key with her music. Soon she became interested in birds, continued playing music with them, and started a blog named Goldbird Variations. The birds were especially drawn when she played Bach’s Goldberg Variations.
Read how her journey began at her blog post below or click here to listen to Aria to the Goldberg by Lisa Rest in which she’s accompanied by house sparrow, house finch, white-throated sparrow and northern cardinal.
Last month my friends and I were debating the identity of a woodpecker photographed by Donna Foyle during the Backyard Bird Count. Is this a downy woodpecker or a hairy? The photo’s partial view and low light conditions make it an interesting ID challenge.
First let’s look at two clear photos of both birds, downy woodpecker (Dryobates pubescens) and hairy woodpecker (Dryobates villosus), then talk about the field marks.
The downy woodpecker is 3/4 the length of a hairy woodpecker and weighs less than half. However, this is a tricky field mark when you don’t have both birds next to each other. (*Thank you, Laura, for reminding me in the comments.)
The easiest field mark when you’re looking at a solo bird is the length of the beak relative to length of the head.
Downy vs hairy beak lengths compared to the head length front-to-back (photos from Wikimedia Commons)
The downy’s beak is shorter than his head front-to-back.
The hairy’s beak is the same length as his head front-to-back.
Unfortunately the bird in Donna’s photo seems to have an intermediate bill length. Perhaps it was the angle.
The size of the white patch on the downy woodpecker’s neck is larger than the one on the hairy. David Sibley illustrated this clue to their identity in an article in 2011. The clue is subtle in my comparison photos but the bird in Donna’s photo seems to have a large white patch on its neck. Downy?
Downy vs hairy white face patches compared (photos from Wikimedia Commons)
The fourth clue is on the back of the male’s head but you need a photo to see this.
The red on the back of the male downy’s head is a continuous line.
The red on the back of the hairy’s head is broken by a vertical black patch.
Downy vs hairy red on back of the head compared (photos from Wikimedia Commons)
And finally, downy woodpeckers have dots on their outer tail feathers while hairy woodpeckers have all-white outer tail feathers. Photos of missing white dots were not useful so there is only this illustration.
Like our chickadees, Eurasian blue tits (Cyanistes caeruleus) are cavity nesters who may nest in backyard boxes.
The nest box shown below was lovingly decorated by the landlord and equipped with a camera to view the comings and goings of prospective renters. This bird seems satisfied and will soon take up residence.
There have been quite a lot of viewings here, but this client was keen to have a better look around inside. Feedback was positive. They felt it was more spacious than they had thought and they were keen on this furnished option. Great views from the front door!#GwylltHollowpic.twitter.com/i90DKbZXFf
