Chance and Habit

It is my habit to take my first cup of coffee outside. I enjoy doing this on a Sunday morning, especially if I can get up early when it is cool, there is little chance of a lawn service or homeowner abusing the quiet, there are few cars about and the birds are singing.

Carolina wren, Cape May (Margo D. Beller)

I expect the cardinal to be singing in the morning. Having it joined by a Carolina wren is an unexpected but not total surprise. Carolina wrens are the only wrens that stay in my state all year, so even with the departure of the resident house wren some weeks ago, just before the last of the apple harvest, hearing a Carolina wren sing in the yard in August is a joy.

However, standing up, going to the screen door to find this wren and seeing a rubythroated hummingbird fly to the feeder for the first time in days is pure chance.

Chance is why birdwatchers go out into the field and look for birds in even the worst weather. We may go to a specific place we know or have read about, but when we get there we have little idea of what we will find.

How not to do a park - undeveloped area of Central Park
of Morris County (Margo D. Beller)

Here is an example. The other day I went to a new (2015) park we passed on the road that turned out, like Greystone near me, to have been a state hospital that was allowed to fall into disrepair, so much so that, after much controversy, the buildings were condemned and removed to create this tranquil 256-acre park.

Unlike what is now the Central Park of Morris County, this park, run by neighboring Somerset County, features a paved hiking trail. There is also a scenic overlook of a brook featuring a paved platform and two benches. It is very well done (unlike the Morris County park where the land where the Kirkbride building once stood is empty, overgrown and just sits there, useless unless you like off-trail bushwhacking, which MH and I do not).

We walked the trail and the environment suits the habits of many of the birds I'd expect to find in a park - chipping sparrows, field sparrows, goldfinches, bluebirds, robins, catbirds, Carolina wren, cedar waxwings. At the overlook I found, a great egret, a great blue heron and redwinged blackbird.

Marsh wren, Bombay Hook, 2017
(RE Berg-Andersson)

I was at that overlook twice, on our way in and on our way out. As I was leaving to catch up with MH, a redtailed hawk flew out of the wood, chased by the much smaller blue jays rightly viewing it as a threat. But right after that, when I was a short distance away, I heard the distinctive reedy chatter of a marsh wren! I had been looking at the cattails wondering if one could be there. These are secretive birds usually found along the seashore, not in a county park. They usually sing for territorial reasons, not because a redtail is being chased off.

Pure chance it was there or that I had heard it.

This is why we go out, searching for the chance to find a bird where we may or may not expect it.

The "rare" or unusual reported bird could be migrating north in spring or south in autumn, which may be why the marsh wren was in the park. Or perhaps an unusual bird got blown off course and now it is in an area completely foreign to it, at least until global warming brings the ocean to my back door. A storm forces ocean birds to an inland lake. A western bird or even one from Europe shows up on the wrong coast.

An Allen's hummingbird showed up in NJ a few years ago and the quick-thinking people running the natural area where it was sighted rushed out with a heat lamp and feeder to keep it alive through the winter. From this misfortune came the chance for this and other easterners to see an unusual, western bird.

Waiting for the chance to see a bird
at the thistle sock (Margo D. Beller)

I walk one spring morning in my town and down by the brook I hear the distinctive call of a Blackburnian warbler male, black and orange. This bird will soon fly north to pine forests but right now, it happened to stop at the maples over the brook. Pure chance I happened to be at the right place at the right time.

This is why I can't understand why people who have the habit of a daily walk do so with so little enjoyment, their ears covered, or are so gung-ho to walk 1,258 steps they can't stop a few minutes to take in the world around them. Those walking on a lunch hour are particularly bad, so eager are they to fit in as much of the "outdoors" as they can in an hour.

But is it really outdoors if you are not looking at the world around you, scaring up the ground birds as you trudge on? Is the sound of a titmouse singing "Peter Peter" so distracting to your habit that you can't listen to it?

Out of habit you are ignoring the chance of seeing the world around you.

The Love Song of H. Wren

The house wren singing at first light is looking for love.

Mating turkey vultures (RE Berg-Andersson)

From the smallest wren to the largest turkey vulture, this time of year in New Jersey - late April into May - is when males use particular tactics to attract a mate so they can follow their internal instincts and perpetuate the species.

The house wren uses song, a cascading series of notes repeated again and again, sometimes for hours, from the tallest trees. The song will bring over curious females while warning off any challenging males.

We humans can put words to some bird songs -- "Drink your TEA" (eastern towhee), "Who cooks for you?" (barred owl), "teakettle, teakettle, teakettle" (Carolina wren) come to mind. The mockingbird and brown thrasher mimic the songs of other birds - they are fine indicators of what can be heard in a particular patch.

Some birds use "song" that doesn't sound like song to us. The white-breasted nuthatch's high-pitched nasal "hee-hee-hee-hee-heh" is song, at least to another nuthatch. The hoots of a great horned owl are song.

The wren in my yard has discovered the nest box I hang every year in my apple tree, now in glorious bloom. So the wren is not only trying to draw a mate with its "Look at me!" song, it is also trying to protect prime breeding territory from another male. So the song is also saying, "This is mine!"

Many birds go to extremes to attract a mate. The American woodcock - an otherwise not very showy bird that spends its life skulking in the brush, almost invisible because of its mottled brown coloring that blends in with the fallen leaves, probing mud for earthworms with its long bill - attracts mates by calling out a nasal peent at dawn or at dusk, and then hurling itself high in the air, sometimes 20 or 30 feet up, before returning to the launching pad. The male that can jump the highest wins. Females will fly in to investigate and ultimately there will be a pairing, mating, young.

White-throated sparrow, not in breeding colors yet
(Margo D. Beller)

At dawn in my yard lately, I have been hearing the love/territorial songs of robins, cardinals, titmice, the house wren and chipping sparrows, which make a long, dry trill. Sometimes I'll hear the grunts of fish crows, and the "old Sam Peabody, Peabody, Peabody" of one of the few remaining white-throated sparrows. These winter birds get a bright white throat and "eyebrow" at breeding time with a bright yellow spot near their eyes, but there will come a point when they will fly north to nest. The one (or two) still in my yard remains for the feeders but usually these birds take off when the catbirds arrive.

Like the woodcock, many birds use aerial display. Hummingbirds fly huge loop-de-loops to show a potential mate that his genes will make bigger, stronger young - very important in a species where, after the mating, the male takes off and the female does the nest building, child rearing and feeding alone.

Sounds like some humans, doesn't it?

People and birds are similar in that way, the males dressing their best, showing a potential mate he is bigger, stronger, richer than the other guy. If he attracts a female's attention and they "date" he will offer her gifts to solidify the bond - and get him what he wants. He offers, she accepts.

The main difference between birds and humans is a bird's mating season is only for a limited time each year (and doesn't take place online or in a bar). While pairs of some birds are monogamous until one dies - mute swans, cardinals and Canada geese come to mind - most birds stay "monogamous" only during the breeding and nesting seasons. Once the young are large enough to fly and feed themselves, the adult pair separates, going south to their winter territories in the late summer or early autumn.

However, like the hummingbird, many the males of many species mate and move on, trying to mate with as many females as possible. In the case of the redwing blackbird, they may have multiple mates at once. The object here is continuing the species, making more blackbirds, hummingbirds, turkey vultures and house wrens.

This morning I sat on the patio to listen to the wren sing. He flew from the apple tree to a high branch of an oak to a higher branch of an elm. But then I saw something interesting - the male called from my right and another wren, the female, flew into the nest box on my left. So the male was successful with his song and now the singing is to fight off potential rivals!

This year's house wren, singing (Margo D. Beller)

As the female adds sticks to the box for her nest and lays her eggs, the male's song will become a little softer and won't last as long, at least around her. He'll still do his "Stay away, guys" warning but the softer song will be a song of reassurance to his mate that he is nearby, watching, protecting. When the young are born the song will go very soft, so as not to alert potential predators there are vulnerable young for the taking. But he'll still sing, to reassure her he's still around, at least for now.

Different birds sing for different reasons, if you consider the hoots and howls of an owl or the grunts of a turkey vulture or double-crested cormorant to be singing.

Same with people. When I call or text MH while I am away from home, such as hiking in the woods listening to birds, I am reassuring him. I don't sing all that well, so it's the next best thing.

Where Are the Vultures?

Gloomy days bring gloomy thoughts, especially around the time of the year-end holidays. Where did the months go?

In recent weeks many of my friends have lost loved ones. As I write the first day of winter officially begins around 6 pm ET. It's dark and cold at 5 pm. For a variety of reasons we can't visit our families for the holidays, although we will be dining with a good friend nearby. It has been weeks since we've had a day that started sunny and stayed that way. A huge mid-week storm is expected, which will test our new roof and deer fencing.

Holiday card montage by Margo D. Beller

Last year around this time I wrote a post for another blog about how many of my friends contact me, and I them, once a year through holiday cards. This year I notice we didn't get cards from some of those friends, and I wonder if all this time they've been sending us cards only because we sent them cards first. We only had 20 cards on hand to send out this year. One friend sent us an ecard and three sent us cards before we sent out ours. The vast majority have not bothered but we have sent the cards to them.

Why is that? Do they dislike us now? Are they too used to putting all their news on Facebook? Have they reached that age where they want to simplify, simplify? Or are they just waiting to hear from us to see if we are worth the effort to go out, buy a card, write a note, sign it, address an envelope, seal it and put on a stamp?

One gloomy thought among many.

Here's another: Where are the roosting vultures?

From 2012 into 2013, on my early morning walks, I would see them in a small, sunny meadow on the old Greystone property trying to warm up before flying off to seek a meal. Then came last winter's heavy and almost continual snows. It was hard and sometimes dangerous to walk from my house to this part of the property (thank goodness sidewalks have been put in along the main road within the last year) and so I avoided this area all winter.

Turkey vulture (R.E. Berg-Andersson)

Now I wonder if the vultures did, too.

When the grass grows long the vultures don't hang out in the field. They want to see what's coming. (Canada geese do that, too, which may be why the grass is not mowed.) I would find a few turkey or black vultures in trees along the road, soaking up the sun on a dewy, cool morning. I was expecting the vultures to come back to the field once the grass was mowed but that hasn't happened.

Why? I have my theories, all of which involve  distruction of habitat.

1. There are fewer dead deer to feed them.

2. The state of New Jersey (which holds this parcel while my home county holds most of the now-parkland around it) waited too long to mow.

3. Last year's snow forced the vultures to other areas they like better.

4. The many people using what was once a mental institution and is now a county park made it too noisy (there is a playground, ball fields and cross-country track) and uncomfortable for the raptors to hang around.

5. Nearby residents who didn't want vultures warming themselves on their roofs on cold mornings took measures - either on their own or with state help - to force them off.

Black vulture (R.E. Berg-Andersson)

Vultures are far from endangered and even at Greystone they aren't completely gone. Every so often a couple of black vultures or a turkey vulture will suddenly rise from the Greystone property beyond my neighbors' houses. It's possible they are just roosting in other sunny areas, rising from the still-green hemlocks where they sleep to get a little protection from the elements. Or I'm not looking around at the right times.

But I miss seeing all those vultures running around the field in the sun like chickens, or sitting in trees in groups, their wings spread to dry and warm in the rising sun. Vultures are ugly up close and their need for dead animals to eat and survive disgusts many.

But aloft these big birds soar majestically and I enjoy watching them. Their absence adds to my winter gloom.

Birding in One Place

There are competitors who run marathons. Then there are those who sit to win.

New Jersey's World Series of Birding was Saturday, May 12, and unlike the baseball series this only lasts one day.

The Big Stay Team

At 7am on this particular Saturday, Scherman Hoffman sanctuary director Mike Anderson and his team were at their perch on the hawk watch observation platform high in the Bernardsville, N.J., hills. As the sun rose over the trees they had already seen or heard over 50 types of birds, an impressive total made more so if you know they had spent the night in sleeping bags on this platform, tallying what was out there starting at midnight.

The World Series of Birding is a charitable competition that began in Cape May in 1984 with the aim being to find as many birds as possible in a day and collecting money based on how much is pledged per bird. The winnings go towards bird habitat conservation.

Within the competition are divisions. Some of the most competitive teams run all day, from midnight to midnight. You need a reliable car and lot of people to see or hear a lot of birds in very short periods of time because these folks must zip from High Point in the northwest corner of the state to Cape May at the southern tip and as many places as they can hit in between. Before the day of competition they’ve already scouted locations and worked out their route for maximum birding in minimum time. NJ Audubon’s Cape May Observatory has such a marathon team, as does the Cornell Lab of Ornithology in Ithaca, NY, and many others from farther away. Many have corporate sponsorship. One winning NJ team included the famed Roger Tory Peterson, who helped them find 201 species in 24 hours, and that put the competition on the map.

But there are also teams that, while competitive, are not quite as gung-ho about it. One category is to bird only Cape May, which makes sense because the area has so many types of birds, both resident and passing through.

Some don’t even spend the whole day at it. Another small team out of Scherman Hoffman, led by Randy Little, left the sanctuary at 7 am. Their route took them through the Scherman Hoffman trails and into the neighboring Cross Estate, which is part of the federal Jockey Hollow park several miles away. By the time they got back at noon they had 61 birds and still weren’t done, heading out in two cars (after a brief rest back at the sanctuary) to bird parts of the nearby Great Swamp. They planned to finish at 3pm.

Black-throated green warbler, Scherman
Hoffman, May 12, 2012

Mike’s team was part of the Big Stay division, which means recording what you see and hear from one place, in this case the platform on the third floor of the visitor center.

Sitting is harder than you might think. You need a strong constitution, a comfortable chair and at least two people with good hearing as well as binoculars and scopes because one must verify the other’s findings for the birds to count. (What you really need is at least three so one can go to the bathroom while the others listen.) A sense of humor helps, too. It was cold that Friday night into Saturday morning, the platform was hard for sleeping and then the sun came out in a cloudless sky and the day got pretty hot, dry and breezy.

But there are payoffs.

The first bird recorded on the platform after midnight was a screech owl, the second a booming great horned owl. As the sun came up, the hungry migrants who needed to eat and rest from their journey north started hitting the trees and singing. The scarlet tanagers were easily scene; the Baltimore orioles (like the one pictured), black-throated blue warblers, rose-breasted grosbeaks, ovenbirds and great-crested flycatchers among those easily heard.

Then came quieter ones like the Cape May warbler, its call weak but its face striking, that showed up on the spruce branch at eye level with the platform. Or the magnolia warbler in the tall holly, which was seen as those on the platform (which now included visitors drawn by the prospect of a good birding day) were joking about being fooled yet again by a house sparrow. It quickly became all business as binoculars were raised and the holly raked over until just the tiniest bit of movement revealed the bird, which showed for a millisecond before flying to a tree farther away. Still, it counted.

Common birds are counted, too - cardinal, titmouse, white-breasted nuthatch, catbird, robin. This is probably one of the few times a house finch at the feeder or a flock of flying grackles or a lone starling are celebrated.


Baltimore oriole, Scherman
Hoffman, May 12, 2012

 Meanwhile, Randy’s team had made its way along the driveway and down to the river, finding a number of warblers including a rare (for the sanctuary) Wilson’s warbler plus other birds, some of whom will breed in the sanctuary. Up on the platform, the sitting team could not hear the calls of the Wilson’s warbler or the Louisiana waterthrush that shows up every year along the river trail because the leafed-out trees blocked the sound. But they could see the common loon and great blue heron that flew over.

It is like the blind men and the elephant. The perspective is different depending on where you are.

As Randy’s team kept moving, trying to find as many birds as their limited time allowed, Mike’s team had tallied 73 birds by 1:15 pm, including broad-winged and sharp-shinned hawks. The team had long ago shed their warm jackets and had switched from finding migrant songbirds to the daytime raptors taking advantage of perfect weather conditions to fly north.

Had Mike and his team - which won the Big Stay division last year with 80 - been out in the field, driving hither and yon, they might not have been as relaxed as they were (when birds weren’t sighted, of course) or as Randy’s small group were in their limited travels. To these people it was a competition but it was also an excuse to get out of the house and do something they enjoy.

Some people let the competition - ticking off the birds on a list - take over. Some people are nice, some can be jerks. Some will be helpful and point out a bird you might‘ve otherwise missed, others will ignore you when you ask what they’ve seen figuring they worked for it and so should you.

What can get lost, even in the World Series of Birding, is the birds themselves. Imagine, 73 different types of birds seen or heard just by sitting in one place. It could be you in your backyard if you were lucky and had the time or the inclination to just sit and listen.

Not many do.

The totals, as of 1:15 pm, May 12, 2012

We should be grateful there are events like the World Series of Birding to remind us that habitat, in New Jersey and elsewhere, is being obliterated by housing “developments,” utility lines and golf courses. The money earned by the Series winners will help preserve what land is left for the birds.

When the winners were announced the next day neither Mike’s nor Randy’s team won their divisions. The most birds seen in New Jersey in 24 hours were 207 - 207! - by a marathon group that included Pete Dunne, who was with that previous winning group featuring Roger Tory Peterson that had found 201 species.

The Big Stay division winner, with 80 species, was a N.J. Audubon team out of Atlantic County, on the ocean just north of Cape May County and where the Forsythe National Wildlife Refuge, otherwise known as Brigintine, is located. Mike’s team ended up with 77.

So it goes.

Meanwhile, the birds continue their marathons north. The winners of this World Series get to create another generation for us to enjoy.

Communing with the Cardinals

When my friends ask me which of the many birds I’ve seen is my favorite, I know exactly what to answer.

I have three.

The carolina wren: It sings its lovely songs - it knows a lot of them - all year, even in the coldest, snowiest winter. It flits around the edges of my yard, is wonderfully colored and easy to identify and I always feel honored when it makes an unexpected appearance at my seed and suet feeders.

The black-capped chickadee: This one will explore just about anything, isn’t afraid to hang upside down while gleaning for seeds and has a lovely song that starts up high and comes down. To me it sounds like “Hey, sweetie.” It will come to the feeder, grab a sunflower seed and fly to a nearby bush to eat. It is inquisitive and isn’t afraid to fly close. Even the “dee-dee-dee” call is calming.

But I have to admit the first among equals is the cardinal. The red of the male or the warm brown (red at the crest and bill and tail) of the female look pretty in a green bush or pine tree. The crested bird is big and easy to identify. It is monogamous (like the wren but unlike the chickadee) and when courting its mate he will give her a seed in a way that looks like a kiss. Both birds sing but the male is more obvious, loudly proclaiming from the top of a tree in spring.

What I like best about the cardinal is it is reliable, coming every day at dawn and at dusk.

We all know the phrase about the early bird getting the worm. I think it refers to the robin, which gets up in the dark to call and then to eat. But robins don’t come to seed feeders. When I am up at dawn I can look out at the feeder and know one of the cardinals will be the first bird to visit. If I am lucky enough to be home at dusk I know it will be the last bird to visit.

At these times I like to stand at the kitchen window and watch the cardinals, communing with them, if you will.

They seem so calm and comfortable with each other, like my husband and myself and other long-married couples I know. The gentle “kiss” could be MH greeting me when he first comes downstairs in the morning. The pair fly together, calling with hard “teeks” as if to say, “I am here, where are you?” “I’m right here, where are YOU?”

In winter I’ve had as many as four cardinal pairs jockeying for feeding position. Like all birds there is a pecking order, with the most inferior and his mate forced to wait off to the side until the others eat - these birds will sit at the feeder a long time cracking the seeds with their large finch bills - before they can have their meal. (I keep a lot of seed on hand.)

It is easy to put human traits to birds but cardinals aren’t people.

I keep four feeders going in winter but the cardinals, being bigger, can only come to the one that looks like a house. Last winter, when the snows were deep and the neighbors didn’t fill their feeders we had so many finches, sparrows and other birds at ours the cardinals would scream at them and attack. It was a horrifying reminder that Nature isn’t always placid and winter can be much harder on the birds.

Remember that the next time you complain about 4 inches of snow on a weekday morning. At least you know where you’ll get your next warm meal.

Winter aside, there are other hazards like cowbirds (which frequently drop their eggs in cardinal nests), hungry hawks and people who chop down a tree or bush with no thought as to what might be nesting inside.

Cardinals are in no danger of becoming extinct - at least not yet.

Give man the time to think of ways to jar Nature’s delicate balance and perhaps the cardinal, along with the rest of us, won’t be around much longer.

In the meantime I’ll watch for the cardinals to make their regular visits at dawn and dusk, a bit of certainty - for now - in an uncertain world.

This brood has flown

It was bound to happen sometime.

Things were getting loud and rambunctious at the wren box. The parents were shuttling back and forth so fast and so often I doubt they ate anything themselves. The young got so big the parents had stopped going into the box to feed them unless it was to feed one in the back, crowded out by more dominant siblings.

And the parents would not stop scolding me. All I had to do was walk out the back door and one or the other would be chittering. Much of that was to tell the young to be quiet so they wouldn't give away their position. That's instinct, although considering they were in a box I had put up in an apple tree, rather silly.

But I put up with it.

The apples in the tree where the feeder is hung were getting riper with the hot weather, and the squirrels were increasing their visits and dropping more chewed apples. This required me to go out more often to pick up the remains or pick apples I could reach before the deer came along...although based on what is under the tree my actions are also pretty silly.

Then MH and I went away for the July 4 weekend.

We came back on the 4th, a Monday this year. There were no apples on the ground when we came home but there were the next morning. The wren scolded me as usual. But on Wednesday there was silence as I picked up the apples. I reached up and shifted the box and it was as light in weight as the day I put it up.

But while out of the box the wrens have not left my yard. The male house wren will sing in the morning, particularly if the carolina wren on the next block is singing - which he does quite loudly for a small bird, to my delight.

Lately I have heard the brood but not seen them as they move among the dense shrubery. Momma wren chitters when I first come out, as if to say to her family "Be careful." But she does not come to the tree as I work. (This was a good thing because I wanted to come out and pick as many apples as I could reach or knock down with a stick, which I wouldn't do if the box was in use.)

And who knows, the male may start a second brood in the house. Wrens are not monogamous - when the young can take care of themselves, the party's over.

Whether there's one brood or two, at some point the young will start feeding themselves and will, at the right time, feel the need to head south as the air cools. With any luck one of them will remember my yard and come back.

When he returns and starts singing he will find the box - clean and empty - waiting for that year's brood.

Love is Blind

I do not like cowbirds.

They are ugly birds. The male is black with a brown head that looks all black in dim light. The female looks like an oversized, gray house sparrow.

I do not like the female because she also has an ugly habit of dropping eggs in the nests of other birds. This is known as parasitizing.

The cowbird isn't the only bird to do this. Some cuckoos drop eggs into the nests of other cuckoos, for instance.

But parasitizing is the only way the cowbird can continue the species. Cowbirds don't build nests. Nor do they kick out other birds to take the nests, as owls do. It is not known why they must use the nests of songbirds.

That is why at this time of year, when I am hearing the first broods of chipping sparrows, starlings, robins and titmice making a ruckus as they chase their parents begging to be fed, I expect my annual sighting of some pair of adult birds being harried by a particularly large, aggressively hungry chick.

One year I was walking to the train and saw a pair of carolina wrens feverishly trying to fill the mouth of a cowbird chick that was double their size. Cardinal nests are also prone to parasitization and, like the sun rising in the east, I will soon hear the very loud screeching of the cowbird chick in my bushes following an adult cardinal that is desperately looking for something to feed it.

You would think the wren, for instance, would recognize the intruder in its midst. Some types of bird do. The yellow warbler will build an entirely new nest over an existing nest if it spies the larger cowbird egg, neglecting its own eggs in the process of starting over.

But most birds, like the carolina wren and the cardinal, are not programmed that way. If there is an egg, the adult sits on it. And if that slightly larger egg hatches first, as cowbird eggs do, and the chick manages to push some or all of the other eggs or hatchlings out of the nest in order to hog the food, it isn't noticed by the parents. In their minds, they are raising the next generation.

But it's the wrong generation.

In Michigan, where the population of Bachman's warbler was practically wiped out thanks to a nasty combination of habitat destruction and parasitization, it is policy to catch and kill cowbirds within the designated Bachman warbler jack-pine habitat.

It may seem cruel but that has helped the Bachman's population slowly re-grow.

This isn't a problem for the cowbird. This is one bird where the destruction of its usual habitat has helped it.

Cowbirds were farm birds, picking bugs off the cows and the fields. But with "progress" has come suburban developments built on farm fields. There may be fewer farms but the cowbirds adapted and thrived. Too well, in fact.

One thing that amazes me is that after being raised by a pair of cardinals, for example, the cowbird chick will grow up and somehow intuitively know it is not a cardinal. Then it will find other cowbirds and at the correct, programmed time mate and start the parasitation process all over again.

To me this makes the cowbird, literally and figuratively, the dark side of nature.