Outside My Window

Because I like birds, people often describe a bird they couldn’t identify and ask me if I can tell them what it was.  This week a request from my sister had me stumped for a while. 

My sister’s house overlooks a salt marsh in coastal Virginia.  From her back windows she can see a host of birds I never see at home:  bald eagles, osprey and great egrets, to name a few.  Mary isn’t a bird watcher but sometimes she sees something unusual and asks me what it is.  This week she wrote:  “A large bird – like a goose - I don’t know – has been hanging out at our marsh for the past 4 weeks by himself and he is all black except for under his tail or wing.  Mom and Dad saw it yesterday and didn’t know what it was either.”

Based on that description I sent her some photo links of brants and greater white-fronted geese.  She wrote back, “Nope isn’t that…I looked again with binoculars (wish they were stronger but they are not).  It has a long neck like a swan.  Black except white under its wings.  Beak is reddish.”

There are no black swans native to North America but they do exist in southern Australia.  I wouldn’t even know about them except that they’re sometimes imported to adorn man-made ponds and I’m familiar with a small flock at the water hazards of the Ponderosa Golf Course in Hookstown, PA.  Google and Wikimedia came up with this picture.  I sent it to my sister and she replied, “100% YES!”

What will happen to this bird?  Who can say?  He’s alone, imported from a remote place, and probably escaped from his former life as a pond ornament.  His large size protects him.  A salt marsh in southern Virginia where it rarely snows is probably just fine for the winter. 

And for me?  Another victory in Remote Bird Identification.

(photo from Wikimedia Commons, in the public domain.  Click on the image to see the original)

By weight, five of these   equal one of these  

How do I know?

When five house sparrows perch on my “squirrel proof” bird feeder, the lid tips and the feeder closes.  That’s exactly what happens when one common grackle lands there. Four house sparrows aren’t enough.  It has to be five. 

Does your feeder do weight conversions?  Post a comment and let me know.

(photos by Chuck Tague)

We’ve had a spate of hot, humid weather that’s finally going to break this weekend.  I shouldn’t complain – after all it’s August – but I’m no lover of heat and humidity and my nose tells me it’s time for a change.

My nose?  Well, I have a pretty good sense of smell.  Too good at times.  I love the scents of honeysuckle blooming, crushed mint leaves, warm pine needles, rain in the distance and damp earth at the end of winter.  (Remember the first day you smell the earth in spring?)

Right now the hot, soupy air is great for holding smells but the hotter it gets the more unpleasant some of those smells become.  I’ve been forced to think of this when, out on a walk, my nose suddenly detects spoiling food in a nearby garbage can or dog poo next to the sidewalk.  I give those spots a wide berth but the worst smells are hard to escape … the whiffs of something dead in the bushes. 

Fortunately turkey vultures have an excellent sense of smell and they love this stuff.  On my hikes I see them soaring overhead, sniffing the breeze, looking for the source of the smells I recoil from.

I hope they find that dead something-in-the-bushes.  They shouldn’t have much trouble.  It’s been fine weather for vultures.

(photo of a turkey vulture at Shaver’s Creek by Marcy Cunkelman)

For me the common nighthawk is an iconic species.  Its diving courtship display so fascinated me as a ten-year-old that I developed a lifelong interest in birds.

Nighthawks used to be easy to find in my Pittsburgh neighborhood in summertime. I live across the street from a floodlit ballpark where I could watch them hawking insects at dusk in the bright ballpark lights.

But not anymore.  Common nighthawks have declined precipitously in Pittsburgh and the eastern United States, so much so that some states list them as an endangered species.

Common nighthawks are not hawks but nightjars, relatives of the whip-poor-will, whose diet consists solely of flying insects including mosquitoes, moths and flying ants.  They’re incapable of torpor and must eat hundreds of insects per night so they require warm weather and plentiful bugs. 

Nighthawks range widely in the Western Hemisphere migrating from Argentina to Canada.  They used to arrive in Pittsburgh around May 5 and leave by September 5.  During fall migration hundreds of birds would pass through at dusk for two weeks starting at the end of August. 

Surprisingly, common nighthawks have not been well studied, though new efforts are underway.  What is known is that in the northeastern U.S. they used to nest in natural areas.  Then in the 1890s they began to nest almost exclusively on gravel rooftops in cities and towns.  In the 1990s people replaced gravel roofs with rubber roofs and nesting opportunities disappeared.  Meanwhile something must have gone wrong at their wintering grounds or in migration (probably pesticides) because year after year fewer migrants leave in the fall and even fewer return in the spring.

Ten years ago there were several nesting pairs in my neighborhood but last summer there was only a lone individual calling for a mate who never came.  This year he called for two weeks and was gone.  I don’t think I’ll ever again see them nest in my neighborhood.

Considering their rapid decline, I may live to see common nighthawks go extinct east of the Mississippi just as peregrine falcons did when I was young.

With human help peregrines came back.  Can we save the nighthawk?

(photo from WikiMedia taken by Daniel Berganza near Miami, Florida.  Click the photo to see the original.)

When Chuck Tague sent me this picture of a scarlet tanager I was struck by something I had never noticed before.  The underside of this black and scarlet bird’s wings is neither black nor red, it’s white!

This got me thinking of other birds whose underwings are an unexpected color. 

My favorite are those of the rose-breasted grosbeak.  The rose color from the male’s breast is repeated under his wing.  It’s a real trick to see this because he just won’t hold his wings open.  I discovered the color one day when I was sitting below a male grosbeak and he glided over my head to a nearby branch.  His color took my breath away.

Not colorful, but equally surprising are the black “armpits” of the black-bellied plover.  This bird is named for his breeding plumage but you won’t see a black belly on him in the winter when he visits the Atlantic coast from New Jersey to South America. 

I remember the first time I tried to identify a non-breeding black-bellied plover.  It was February in Virginia Beach.  Slowly and carefully I examined a flock of three drab birds and tried very hard not to scare them so I could carefully note all their features.  I was a “newbie” to shorebirds and I could not figure them out.  For 15 minutes I watched those birds, had no idea what they were and was careful, careful not to startle them.  Then someone walked by with a dog, the birds flew, and I saw their black armpits.  Black-bellied plovers!  I certainly felt like a fool.

Do you have a bird whose underwing color surprised you?  Leave a comment and tell us about it.

(photo by Chuck Tague)

I had her, but what I hadn’t counted on was that she had me… as you shall see.

When I got home this evening I checked the budgie trap and saw that the birds had eaten all the food in the seed cups, both inside and outside the cage.  Excellent!  I refilled the seed cups and went indoors.

Just before dusk Budgie arrived to feed as she usually does.  She perched on the outside seed cup so I walked up to the cage, keeping my head low and talking to her as I came.  When I got close she flew into the cage. Oh my!  I closed the door.  I had her.

She was immediately frantic, flying wildly inside the cage, poking at the corners, back and forth, back and forth, trying to find a way out.  I took the cage down, set it on the back deck and sat nearby, waiting for her to calm down.  My cat watched from the window but Budgie was oblivious to everything but the possibility of escape.  She continued to beat against the cage.

I was beginning to feel bad and I was doing a lot of thinking.  Budgie had had a taste of outdoor life and already felt safer in my neighborhood than in the cage.  She had been having the time of her life though it meant she’d probably die young and abruptly.  The wild birds had accepted her and I could hear them making alarm calls as she struggled inside the cage.  That made me feel even worse. 

If I was her, what would I want?  I have to tell you that I love the outdoors.  Today I spent the whole day hiking at the Clarion River.  If every day of my life could be as beautiful and every day included time outdoors I would be happy even if it shortened my life.  I decided I would rather die suddenly and happy than be stuck indoors.  

I looked at Budgie and asked her what she thought.  She wanted out.  I put the cage back on the branch.  I took her picture in the dusk.  And then I opened the door and let her fly free.

We both learned something today.  Budgie learned not to trust me and I learned that I prefer to see her outside my window.

p.s. Thanks to Veronica Snyder for loaning me the cage and to all of you for your helpful suggestions. I have learned a valuable lesson, though it’s not the one I expected to learn.

(photo of Budgie, temporarily captured in my backyard, taken at dusk with my cell phone)

For those of you following the budgie saga, here’s a new development.

The blue budgie who’s been visiting my backyard feeder since last Monday has shown improvement in the past week.  She’s gotten better at flying and is well fed enough that she doesn’t spend all day with her beak in the trough. 

She’s expanding her range (I saw her foraging at the end of my street) and she feels good enough to be bossy about my feeder (it’s hers now). 

Budgie is still less attuned to danger than the wild birds and tends to hang out with their fledglings.  They ask each other if there’s any reason to be worried about danger.  None of them can think of a reason so they sit and wonder why all the other birds have left.

Under the circumstances Budgie’s life is likely to be pretty short in the wild, so many of you posted suggestions on how to capture her.  I liked the idea of hanging a bird cage in place of the feeder.  Voila!   Veronica Snyder loaned me a bird cage and offered to take Budgie if I can capture her.

When I brought the bird cage home, Budgie was perched on a branch above the feeder.  I talked to her as I brought the cage to the base of the tree and she watched with interest as I prepared to hang it.  I had to take the feeder down and it involved some banging – so she flew – but I was encouraged that she was trusting enough to stay and watch as long as she did.

Now that the cage has replaced the feeder I’ve seen several birds fly by wondering how to get to the seed inside.  I think budgie will be the first to figure it out.  Will I be there to see it?  Will she let me close the door?  Stay tuned for details.

(photo of “the Budgie trap” by Kate St. John)

For the past three days – maybe longer – there’s been a blue budgie at my backyard bird feeder.  She has a small blue/gray band on her left leg and looks like the bird in this Wikimedia picture except she has pale skin above her beak.  I’ve read that males have blue ceres and females have pale ones, so I am guessing she’s a female.

Budgerigars – nicknamed budgies – are originally from Australia but have been bred in the U.S. as pets for many years.  My backyard budgie is obviously an escapee so I can’t count her on my Life List.  Alas.

Her pet-store origins show.  She is not particularly wary.  Unlike wild birds who constantly watch for predators, she feeds with her head down and barely looks up.  Fortunately she hangs out with a family of mourning doves so someone is always watching, but mourning doves fly faster and wait longer to flush than she should.  Sometimes the doves are frightened of things she doesn’t care about – like grackles – so she ignores them.  Sadly she’ll probably become hawk food unless she’s lucky.

I thought of trying to rescue her but she won’t let me come within six feet before she flies into the trees.  Her owner – if I could find him – might be able to pick her up, but not me.

How do I find out who lost her?  I am writing & calling as many places as I can think of.

In the meantime I’m keeping my feeders filled and hoping the mourning doves warn her of danger.  With a flock to keep her company she’ll enjoy her freedom for a while.

(photo of a male budgie from Wikimedia Commons)

So how do you say his name?

Darryl Ford Williams called the other day to tell me she had the largest “Woody Woodpecker” she ever saw making mincemeat of a stump in her back yard. 

Based on her description I suspected it was a pileated woodpecker.  Not only are they large but they resemble the famous Woody Woodpecker cartoon character, though Woody’s supposed to have been modeled on the acorn woodpecker who doesn’t even have a crest. 

Darryl sent me a picture and my hunch was right – a beautiful male pileated.  I can tell he’s a male because he has a red moustache.

But having to tell her his name threw me into a quandary.  I had just had a conversation with another birder about pronunciation of bird names and I knew that I probably pronounced this one incorrectly … or did I?  I couldn’t remember.

I say ”PILL-e-a-tid” but I’ve heard “PIE-lee-a-tid” and “PIE-lated” as well.  Since I’m from Pittsburgh and have a Pittsburgh accent (when I don’t concentrate on what I say), I usually doubt my own pronunciation.  Before I even opened my mouth I was stuck in the classic “tomayto, tomahto” problem.

Google to the rescue where I found this humorous article on how to pronounce bird names.  Apparently there are two valid pronunciations for pileated so I can have my choice.

Or to paraphrase a Gershwin song, “You say pie-lee-a-tid and I say pill-e-a-tid.  Let’s call the whole thing off.”

(photo by Darryl Ford Williams)

Everything is connected to everything else. What happens when one part gets damaged?

When this spring-fed fountain was built years ago at Jennings in Butler County the water was clear and clean. Now, like many waterways in southwestern Pennsylvania, the water is orange and smells like sulfur, a victim of acid mine drainage.

Acid mine drainage (AMD) is a coal country problem that’s especially acute in southwestern Pennsylvania, West Virginia and southeastern Ohio. It comes from primarily two sources: abandoned coal mines and mine tailing piles. While a coal mine is active, the mine operator pumps water away from the coal but after the mine closes or the mining company goes defunct the mine fills with water and the chemical reactions begin. Nearby, coal waste piles are left exposed to rain and runoff. Soon the water supply is orange and the streams go dead.

In both cases the water is reacting with pyrite, a ferrous mineral found with our coal, that forms sulfuric acid and dissolved iron. The process is exacerbated if the pyrite was crushed, as it is during mining, and if the water contains an iron-oxidizing bacteria called thiobacillus ferrooxidans.

As the water becomes more acidic it dissolves heavy metals including lead and mercury. These precipitate out on stream bottoms when cleaner water joins the flow.

It’s a nasty brew. Aquatic insects and invertebrates die, fish disappear and the birds who depend on both abandon the waterway.

Even warblers are affected by dead water. The Louisiana waterthrush eats aquatic macroinvertebrates (clams, snails, worms and nymphs) and cannot thrive in the presence of acid mine drainage. Powdermill Nature Reserve conducted a study in the late 1990s which showed a dramatic difference in Louisiana waterthrush nesting success on two adjacent streams: Powdermill Run, a clean stream, and Laurel Run, polluted with acid mine drainage. The clean stream hosted nearly three times the number of nesting pairs.

Throughout our area many AMD sites are being cleaned up using passive treatment with constructed ponds and wetlands. Some of these sites are visitor-oriented where you can learn how it works. There is one such site at Jennings Environmental Education Center and another at the Art and AMD project in Vintondale. Unfortunately AMD treatment costs money to construct and maintain so many waterways continue to suffer.

I hope that money will become available in the future to clean up more AMD sites.  Not only will we benefit from it but the herons, kingfishers and Louisiana waterthrushes will thank us.

(photo by Kate St. John)