Spruce Loses His Winter Coat

I was in the backyard the other morning, checking to make sure the woodpeckers had not finished all the suet in the feeder, when Spruce Bringsgreen called to me.

"Look, Margo, my winter coat is gone!"

Sure enough, Spruce, whose boughs were heavily laden with snow for what seemed like forever, now showed their usual blue-greenness. 

After our late January foot of snow, followed a period of intense cold, the slowly warming temperatures started working to melt the white stuff until I could not only see a good swath of the front and back lawns, I could carefully walk in the two inches or so of remaining snow to get to my compost pile and find just enough thawed area to dump several weeks of coffee grounds and other worm food.

Then, a month later, we had another foot of snow. This time, however, there was no deep freeze to follow but very warm (for February) temperatures.

Spruce in the winter coat he has finally shed.
(Margo D. Beller)

As Bernd Heinrich points out in his book "The Trees in My Forest," conifers including firs and spruces have boughs that point downward. When covered with snow the boughs are pushed against the trunk and the snow slides off ... eventually.

"I am so glad to be rid of that coat," Spruce said. "Yes," I replied, "I am getting tired of all the snow, too. It gets depressing after a while to always have to put on my boots to take out or take in feeders. The sun never gets to the area behind the enclosed back porch that I have to walk, and with all the recent melting by day and freezing by night it can get rather slippery."

"Didn't I see you putting down some gray stuff before?"

"Yes, that was some old cat litter. It helped after the first storm when there was ice, but when the melting started it became mud and left quite a mess on my boots. This time I am leaving that area alone and walking very carefully so I don't fall again."

"I will be glad to get rid of those juncos," he said. "They've been hiding out in my branches but they seem to be anxious to leave, and there are so many they are annoying some of the other birds I've hosted such as the red-breasted nuthatches and chickadees."

Over the past week there has been an increase in the number of birds singing territorial songs or drumming on trees to warn potential rivals away from a preferred nest site. A Carolina wren showed up in the yard for the first time in weeks. Canada geese have been getting restless to move now that lakes and rivers are nearly free of ice. Daffodils have started growing. So have the weeds.

"Don't worry," I said, "the juncos will be gone soon and they'll be replaced by catbirds like the one that screamed at me when I got too close last summer. There must've been a nest nearby, perhaps in you."

"Not me," he said, "tho' I don't mind catbirds or even the robins that build nests in my upper branches they don't always use. What I do mind is when a hawk that goes after your feeder birds hides in my branches."

He meant the accipiters, specifically the small sharp-shinned hawk. Accipiters are accomplished fliers. If they aren't strafing the ground looking to pick off a bird or squirrel they are diving into bushes or trees to catch a meal. The larger accipiter called the Cooper's hawk is another hazard to the feeder birds.

"Well, Spruce, considering the number of birds that are in decline because of climate change, pollution, the destruction of forests for more residential houses and agriculture, I can put up with the occasional hawk in the yard. I'll just make sure one doesn't set up housekeeping in your branches."

"That would be fine," he said. "Is the snow done for the year?"

"Gosh, I hope so," I said. "Maybe the occasional snow shower. But the forecasts I see are mainly for higher temperatures. Anything from the sky would be rain."

"That means when the snow is all gone you'll soon be cleaning up the winter mess in your garden, right?"

Alas, yes.

Watching the Neighbors: Look Who's Here

Watching the neighbors is a long-time suburban occupation that has become even more important, at least to me, as people stuck working indoors or with small kids at home take to the streets in greater numbers during this time of coronavirus to keep from going stir-crazy. 

Cooper's hawk nest, 2020 (Margo D. Beller)

I keep the shades open on sunny days and so I am frequently distracted at my work by all the passersby, wondering if they are neighbors and, if not, who they could be. There are also the service trucks pulling into neighbors' driveways, landscapers doing the annual "spring cleanup" lawn service and the occasional herd of deer I have to go outside and chase off.

It was because my office shades were open one day this week that I saw a large shape fly over the house and wondered what it could be. That evening, when I went outside to take in the bird feeders, I learned what that shape was and I was less than excited.

I've had bird nests in my yard, including a robin's nest for a good hunk of last summer. The house wren box is a nest I provide. I've even had hawks of different types in my yard, but they are usually passing through, hunting for a meal.

But to discover a Cooper's hawk, with mate, building a nest high in my next-door neighbor's maple tree with a birds-eye view of the feeders, I knew this was trouble.

Cooper's hawks are accipiters and, like their smaller relative the sharp-shinned hawk, are very nimble hunters in parks, woods and backyards. Unlike the bigger and bulkier buteos such as the redtail hawk, accipiters can maneuver through tree branches and bushes after their prey, especially after the hawks have matured to become better hunters. I have seen mature accipiters catch and kill birds and I've also seen immature accipiters miss and then sit on the lawn or atop the bird feeder looking, to me, puzzled.

Watched like a Cooper's hawk, the larger female on the right.
(Margo D. Beller)

About the only "good" thing about having Cooper's hawks rather than sharp-shinned hawks around is the former prefers medium-sized birds rather than, say, a titmouse or chickadee. Cooper's prefer mourning doves and one of my least favorite birds, the European starling. But they will also go after other medium-sized birds including common pigeons, robins, jays and flickers, according to Cornell's Ornithology Lab. Cooper's have been known to eat chipmunks, mice and squirrels. (I can do with fewer chipmunks.) 

But a cardinal would be just the size for a Cooper's and I have a pair that use my house-shaped feeder daily, the male prone to taking a seed and then jumping on top of the feeder pole to eat while showing others this feeder is his. When he did that the day after I discovered the nest I watched nervously until he left. After that I noticed no other birds came to the feeder and the squirrels high stayed in the trees.

The hawk pair seemed to be more concerned with building their nest of sticks the day I found them. They flew to a nearby oak and laboriously broke off smaller twigs to add to what had already been built up in the V formed by two branches high in the tree. Again according to Cornell, "Nests are piles of sticks roughly 27 inches in diameter and 6-17 inches high with a cup-shaped depression in the middle, 8 inches across and 4 inches deep. The cup is lined with bark flakes and, sometimes, green twigs."

Robin's nest, 2019 - I don't mind nests like this in my yard. (Margo D. Beller)

Typically it takes two weeks for a nest to be formed, so this one couldn't have been started that long before (bird traffic at the feeders had not appeared to be down, tho' since I was working I couldn't be completely sure).

Once I realized what was going on I grabbed my binoculars to confirm my guess as to what kind of hawk these were. One look at the prominent "eyebrow" confirmed they were Cooper's. Then I got my camera and used the telephoto lens in hopes of getting a decent picture of the nest. (My picture above was taken the next day.)

The next morning, around 7 a.m., both hawks were back to their nest building. I heard robins, cardinals and Carolina wrens calling as usual, except nowhere near my yard. When a Cooper's is in the area, birds like low. So do squirrels, which were not their usual boisterous selves chasing each other around the yard. I got my camera and started taking pictures again, especially when at one point in their twigmaking both hawks were on the same branch.

They looked at me intently. Then the male left and I heard it call "kekkekkek" from another tree. The female looked at me a little longer before leaving. I checked the nest throughout the day but they never returned.

Typical male cardinal behavior, photographed through
the backdoor screen. (Margo D. Beller)

That afternoon the squirrels were back looking for dropped seed under the feeders and the house finches, woodpeckers and cardinals were back eating. The danger was gone.

It was likely the hawks realized I had discovered the nest, or perhaps they didn't like me taking pictures. Unlike the redtails "Harold" and "Maud" whose nest I discovered many years ago in another town, this nest was in plain sight and close by. Seeing me taking pictures these hawks were likely as unhappy to have an intrusive neighbor as I was to have a bird-eating menace. It was easier for them, and safer for their prospective young, to abandon the nest and start over someplace else. Cooper's hawks are not an endangered species and I am confident that eventually the female will lay anywhere from two to six eggs in her one brood of the year.

Had these birds picked a tall Norway spruce or some other type of evergreen where the nest (and they) would be hidden, I'd never have seen them and perhaps not realize the danger to the feeder birds until too late. But they had picked a maple tree that had not leafed out yet, and even as I was taking pictures fish crows were cawing and circling the tree. Crows don't like having hawks in the vicinity either.

So the Cooper's hawks are gone and the danger is past for the cardinals and other feeder birds, at least from this source. My human neighbors, however, remain as noisy as ever. 

Bird Eat Bird

One of the handy books I keep on my shelves of birding guides is "Birds at Your Feeder: A Guide to Feeding Habits, Behavior, Distribution, and Abundance." It was one of the first books I bought when I got interested in birding.

It gives species accounts for dozens of birds that are likely to come to feeders including northern cardinals, white-breasted nuthatches and white-throated sparrows along with birds I'm not likely to see in New Jersey such as black-billed magpies and pyrrhuloxia. Want to know what kind of seed will attract a goldfinch? This guide will tell you.

Immature Cooper's hawk that missed a meal.
(Margo D. Beller)

This is what it says for sharp-shinned hawks, the first species in the book:

Favorite feeder foods: Mourning dove. blue jay, European starling, dark-eyed junco, pine siskin, house finch, house sparrow.

Infrequent choices: 21 additional prey species, similar in size to those listed above.

Or as MH likes to say, "What's a sharpy's favorite food? Birds at your feeder."

Yes, it's a bird eat bird world out there, particularly in winter when birds must flock to feeders for food when they can't find berries or bugs. They become more visible and so do the predators that eat birds to survive.

This morning I came out with the feeders to find a dusting of snow on the patio and the lawn. I sat on the enclosed porch in my coat to await the male cardinal that always seems to know when I have put out food. He came, taking a seed and then chasing away the white-throated sparrow on the baffle below it. Aside from these birds there was very little activity as the snow continued falling lightly. Two titmice came to grab seeds and fly to the pear tree to eat.

Then, as I looked ahead, something large and brown came up from the ground to the roof of the porch where I sat. A mourning dove? Then why is the titmouse suddenly giving its high-pitched alarm call? I soon saw the answer when the sharp-shinned hawk flew from the roof to a nearby branch. Juvenile accipiters (including the larger Cooper's and northern goshawk) are brown but become gray as they mature. This one was a juvenile - brown and empty taloned. I have seen sharpys fly close to the ground to pick off a meal so this one must have flown into my yard low and, for whatever reason, flown up to the roof where it could be seen by other birds and avoided.

Immature redtail hawk observed in my backyard. (Margo D. Beller)

Eventually, the sharpy flew off to the trees on the next street but then passed over my yard on the way to the woods on the edge of the community garden behind the houses across the street. Not long after, the jays began hitting the feeder and the titmice, house sparrows and house finches came to eat, not be eaten.

In time, the juvenile will learn it must become a better hunter if it wants to survive the winter. Accipiters are built for speed and agility. Their wings are such they can fly between trees, which larger hawks such as a redtail can't do. I have chased sharpys out of my hedge. I have been buzzed by sharpys while in the woods. In my yard alone I have seen an adult literally pick a junco out of the trees, crushing the life out of it with a nauseating pop. I caught one sharpy after it had grabbed a chickadee, which it took into a neighbor's shrub to finish. Catching a big, plump bird such as a mourning dove will feed a crow-sized female sharpy very well (female hawks of all types are always larger than the males).

Mature sharpy finishing off a mourning dove in the backyard.
(Margo D. Beller)

No raptors will turn down a bird meal if it can't catch anything else. Great horned owls will eat the much smaller screech owl. Turkey vultures have been known to push young birds from a nest to kill and eat them (which is why you will often see crows and other birds attacking vultures that get too close). Both northern and loggerhead shrikes have the nasty habit of killing smaller birds and impaling them on a branch to snack on later. (The shrike is known as the "butcher bird" for this reason.)

I know, all birds have to eat, even the ones that feed on the birds at my feeder. I get that. Still, not in my yard. This is why when a raptor appears in my yard trees I stand outside near the feeders, to study it while protecting the feeder birds. The raptor eventually flies off to look for its meal elsewhere.

Backyard Feeder Drama

This weekend has not only been Presidents Day weekend and Valentine's Day weekend but the weekend of the Great Backyard Bird Count run by, among others, the Audubon Society and Cornell. These counts are useful as a way of getting the average person as well as the avid birdwatcher involved in reporting what they see and how many, which helps the scientists get an idea of what species are increasing and which are on the decline.

Adult sharp-shinned hawk with prey in hole (Margo D. Beller)

This particular day, Sunday, Feb. 15, the wind has been howling and I've had to go out twice to re-set a feeder in danger of being blown off the pole. I came downstairs at 7:30 a.m. and the birds were already all over the 4 feeders I left out despite the risk of wind. It is wicked cold out, wind chills in the minus numbers and even the enclosed porch's thermometer is showing me 10 degrees.

In short, it's cold and the birds gotta eat to survive.

The early risers are there - cardinals, chickadees, titmice - and a few surprises including a pair of American goldfinches and a Carolina wren that nestled inside the house feeder as the wind rocked it like a cradle. When things calmed it flew to the suet feeder and took advantage of the pounding a larger hairy woodpecker had given the near-frozen fat to take a few nibbles before flying off. I like Carolina wrens and if I had been outside I am sure I'd have heard it singing from somewhere nearby.

But I did not go outside. And at 8am, just as a cloud of house sparrows and house finches descended to push off the birds I do like, there was a gust of wind and a sudden large bird in the yard I just knew to be an accipiter and all the birds scattered. The bird flew to a low branch, giving me a perfect view of it. I saw it was an adult (gray feathers, red breast), male (smaller than the female) sharp-shinned hawk with its rounded head and square tail.

Juvenile Cooper's hawk (Margo D. Beller)

Accipiters are the most feared birds in this area. The sharpy and its larger cousin, the Cooper's hawk, are lightning fast and agile enough to fly between trees in a forest, going after birds, squirrels and other smaller animals. I have seen sharpys fly out of a bush. They seem to come from nowhere (unlike the larger red-tailed hawk, a buteo, which either hovers in the air or sits atop a pole or tree before dropping down to grab prey in an open area like a highway).

The sharpy sat for 10 minutes before catching another gust of wind out of my backyard. It took another 20 minutes for any birds to return to the feeders, and I was not surprised they were the intrepid chickadees and their cousins the titmice.

When I told MH about the sharpy he reminded me what it says in one of my reference guides, "Birds at Your Feeder," when it comes to sharp-shins and Cooper's - they like birds at your feeder.

We have hawks fly through at all times of the year, going after birds, squirrels and chipmunks. We've had a small flock of turkey vultures that somehow found a frozen rabbit carcass in a corner of my yard. We've had broadwing hawks, red-tails and even a juvenile northern goshawk, the largest of the accipiters, that somehow found its way to a low branch in my backyard for a day.

I find the accipiters most interesting. When they are young they are brown, streaky and not very good at catching prey. We've seen several near-misses over the years including the time an American tree sparrow flew out of our caged feeder just as a juvenile Cooper's hit it from the other side. It sat atop the feeder stunned, and I took a picture. I've seen juvenile Coopers on a branch on one side of a tree trunk trying to grab at a squirrel on the other side. It would be funny to watch if it wasn't a life and death struggle. The hawk wants to eat, the squirrel wants to live.

Juvenile Cooper's hawk (R.E. Berg-Andersson)

But accipiters have to learn fast if they want to survive and by the time the streaked breast goes red and the brown feathers turn gray they know how to hunt very well - unfortunately for the junco and the chickadee and the mourning doves I've seen picked off in the yard over the years.

The only thing that kept today's sharp-shinned hawk from catching any of the many birds at my feeders was that sharp wind blowing it off course. Today, the little birds got away. Tomorrow?

I've no doubt that sharpy found something in another yard to fill its crop and allow it to live to hunt another day.