I used to think that the wood thrush had the best song of all North American birds until I stood on a trail in north central Michigan this week surrounded by singing hermit thrushes. What a privilege to hear them!
If you’ve never experienced their ethereal song, don’t put off the experience for two decades as I did. Hermit thrushes (Catharus guttatus) nest on the ground in coniferous or mixed northern forests. As our climate warms their preferred habitat will be disappear from the eastern U.S. By 2050 their eastern breeding range will move north into Canada at Hudson Bay.
The Kirtland’s warbler is a habitat specialist, breeding only in young jack pine forests and almost exclusively in this area of Michigan. When the forest became fragmented and no longer burned to regenerate, the warblers’ population crashed in the 1960’s and early 70’s. Listed as endangered, it recovered from a low of 400 individuals to an estimated 5,000 birds thanks to careful forest management and control of the brown-headed cowbird, a nest parasite.
When not in Michigan, Kirtland’s warblers winter in the Bahamas, then migrate north through Florida and Ohio. During migration solo birds are sometimes found in Ohio in early May. This one, photographed by Brian Wulker, was in Stubbs Park near Dayton on 6 May 2016.
Kirtland’s warbler (photo by Brian Wulker via Flickr, Creative Commons license)
Kirtland’s warbler, Montgomery County, Ohio, 6 May 2016 (photo by Brian Wulker), Creative Commons license on Flickr)
I can tell you there are plenty of insects for birds to eat in north central Michigan’s woods. The mosquitoes are frightful!!
UPDATE: yes we saw the Kirtland’s warbler. It’s amazing how loud his voice is, even when he sings with his back to us.
(all photos by Brian Wulker on Flickr, Creative Commons license; click on the images to see the original)
Yellow-breasted chat, June 2017 (photo by Anthony Bruno)
7 June 2017
Last week I got tired of seeing the same woodland birds so I drove north to the scrubby fields of Clarion County. Thanks to Tony Bruno’s photos I can show you what I saw.
Pennsylvania doesn’t have grasslands like the prairie states but we do have former strip mines planted in grass to recover the land. As soon as shrubs gain a foothold our grasslands turn into scrubby fields.
Piney Tract and the Curllsville Strips are two great places in Clarion County for grassland and scrub birds. Here’s my own photo of “the bowl” at Piney Tract, State Gameland 330. Tony was at Curllsville.
Piney Tract, Clarion County, 1 June 2017 (photo by Kate St. John)
What can you see in habitat like this?
Yellow-breasted chats (Icteria virens), shown at top, are very fond of the thickets. Easier to hear than they are to see, Tony was lucky to see this chat at Curllsville. Click here for a sample of their loud song.
Henslow’s sparrows (Ammodramus henslowii) love wide open spaces where the shrubs are stunted. They perch on twigs so small that I tend to overlook the birds so I find them by tracking their songs. It’s amazing how far this simple “fish lips” noise can carry.
Henslow’s sparrow, June 2017 (photo by Anthony Bruno)
Northern harriers (Circus cyaneus) nest on the ground in the scrubby fields. The brown-colored female is camouflaged at the nest while her gray-colored mate harasses everyone in the area. A male harrier shouted at me at Piney Tract. Tony encountered this one at Curllsville.
Male northern harrier, June 2017 (photo by Anthony Bruno)
I also heard three prairie warblers (Setophaga discolor) singing from the shrubs at Piney Tract, but I could not find them. Here’s what I would have seen if I’d waited longer. This is what I heard.
Prairie warbler (photo by Anthony Bruno)
Now’s a good time to visit the scrubby fields while the birds are singing. Click these links for directions to Piney Tract and the Curllsville Strips.
(scenery photo of Piney Tract by Kate St.John; all bird photos by Anthony Bruno)
p.s. Why are there strip mines in Clarion County? There are three coal seams that tilt downward from north to south under western Pennsylvania. The seams touch the surface along the lacy yellow edges on this DCNR map. Clarion County is so lacy it’s hard to find it under the word “MAIN”.
Map of coal seams in Pennsylvania (from PA DCNR, 1999)
On May 23 I saw my neighborhood’s first American robin fledgling of the year.
He’s the same size as his parents but has a speckled chest, almost no tail (his tail hadn’t grown in yet), and a loud voice. He follows his mother around my backyard. When she walks three paces, he walks three paces. He maintains his distance, begging periodically, until she has food in her beak. Then he rushes her to get it.
In four weeks, around June 20, he’ll become independent. Meanwhile his mother will build another nest, lay, incubate and hatch another brood. If she’s quick about it they’ll fledge five weeks after he did, around June 27.
Robins raise two or three broods per year and though only one or two survive per nest it’s enough to keep their population booming.
(photo from Wikimedia Commons. Click on the image to see the original)
Have you seen an orange-crowned warbler? Have you ever seen his crown?
Orange-crowned warblers (Oreothlypis celata) are difficult to identify because they are so dull. They’re drab grayish-yellow or olive-yellow birds with no wing bars and no obvious field marks except for yellow undertail coverts, very pointy beaks (like so many other warblers) and faint gray eyelines.
Like ruby-crowned kinglets, orange-crowned warblers don’t raise their head feathers unless they’re excited. Kinglets are often excited but these warblers are calm. I’d never seen an orange crown … until now.
Thanks to David Amamoto we can finally see how the bird got his name. Great photo, David!
I’m a city person so farm practices are somewhat mysterious to me. Nonetheless, in the last 20 years I’ve noticed a change in how the fields look in the spring. They used to green up with the rest of the landscape but now most of them are brown and as empty as parking lots like the one shown above. There are no birds here, no swallows wheeling overhead.
The fields look different because herbicides are used to control the weeds. There are different poisons for different crops — for instance one for soybeans, another for corn — and the crops are engineered so they can grow in the presence of specific poisons.
As the growing season begins you can tell where herbicide has been used because there’s a stark mechanical line between treated fields and the neighboring untreated landscape.
The telltale brown-green line: brown where herbicide was applied, green where not (photo by Kate St. John)
Here’s a field where there are birds.
This field is green though weedy, Ottawa County, Ohio, early May 2017 (photo by Kate St. John)
Yes, those plants are weeds. They will probably be treated with herbicide soon and the field will turn from green to yellow as they die.
Because of herbicides and insecticides, large scale farming takes less work. Millions of acres of U.S. farmland are truly empty now. No plants. No insects. No birds here.
p.s. As I say, I’m a city person and don’t know much about farming so if I’ve got it wrong please leave a comment to correct me. … To which Dave C left this comment:
“Those fields are sprayed in the springtime and will be planted with corn and or soybeans. These crops are called” Roundup ready crops” (as in Montsanto’s Round up that everyone buys to kill weeds around home).”
Father robin looks at his eggs and nestlings, 8 May 2017 (screenshot from American Robin Nestcam at Cornell Lab). Click on the image to watch the nestcam.
American robins (Turdus migratorius) live and nest near us but they’re so common that we often don’t notice them. Here’s an opportunity to watch a robin’s nest up close.
On Monday May 8, Cornell Lab of Ornithology announced the first hatchling at its American Robin Nestcam in Ithaca, New York. Baby robins take only 12-14 days to fledge so there will be lots of activity between now and May 20-22.
When I tuned in this morning before dawn there was no adult on the nest. I know so little about robin behavior that I was full of questions. Are the chicks already past the brooding stage so they don’t need an adult overnight? Was the mother up early to look for food? Or did something happen to her? I’ll have to watch and find out.
p.s. You can tell the male and female apart using this subtle characteristic: The male’s head and face are very black. The head and face of the female is much less black, shading toward brown.
Years ago Chuck Tague taught me that gray catbirds (Dumetella carolinensis) are a special signal during spring migration.
Catbirds spend the winter in Florida, Cuba and Central America, then return in the spring after the first tantalizing migrants (the blue-gray gnatcatchers and Louisiana waterthrushes) but before the big push of warblers, thrushes and tanagers.
Because they’re the leading edge of the best part of migration, Chuck always announced his first gray catbird of the year. I’ll carry on his tradition.
Yesterday was the day! On 28 April I saw my first gray catbirds of 2017 at Enlow Fork in Greene County and at home in the City of Pittsburgh.
This year the catbirds did not arrive alone. At Enlow Fork we also saw rose-breasted grosbeaks, scarlet tanagers, Baltimore orioles, wood thrushes, northern parulas, American redstarts, common yellowthroats and more.
I’m still waiting for an indigo bunting. Maybe today … 🙂
p.s. Many of us learned a lot from Chuck Tague who passed away last June. This coming Thursday, May 4 at 7:30pm the Wissahickon Nature Club will hold an All Members Night A Tribute to Chuck Tague. Bring up to 12 slides or digital photos to share. Click here and scroll down for location and meeting information.
