From Bird to Borb

I like to look at the individual birds who come to my feeders, to tell them apart from each other. This is my oldest female red-bellied woodpecker. See how she has a brilliant red forecrown (nares) and a rather narrow gray forehead? 

She also has a red V poking down into the gray forehead over on the right. I wonder if she got old enough, if the bright red would spread up from her forecrown and meet the red coming from her hindcrown?

Older females have more testosterone which makes for brighter coloration. Think of red feathering as warpaint. Brighter birds do better in conflicts. Older females can hold their own against rivals better than younger females. 

Right after she left, another female redbelly came. This one is younger, with a limited amount of golden orange, not red, in the nares and a very wide gray crown band. Almost like she's got a really receding hairline, right? 

A starling plumped down on the hook over her head and she underwent a startling transformation.

The bird became...

a borb.

I am not one to use cute names for birds, but THIS is a BORB.

Only when the starling turned its pointy end away did she relax a bit into a birdier shape.

Maybe I can eat a little more, he's busy...

Better keep the blimp going in case he tries to come over here.

Just another gray morning, gazing out at the feeders. I eat my Cheerios first thing, take Curtis on a good hike, fill the feeders, and race into the studio to watch the first flurry of activity as everybody descends and the titmice and jays bear off the peanuts in the shell first.

Fourteen cardinals in a steady count; here are half of them.

The next day there were 26. Exponential cardinal proliferation.

I wonder how they all get the idea at the same time to come to my feeders. Snow smokes out the flame.

This is the time of year I can't do without my bird feeders. I buy six pounds 

of raw suet at a time, slice it up to the right thickness to fit in the Lifelong Suet Feeder, and store it in baggies in the freezer.

 

Orioles and Rosebreasts, In Detail

This frigid spring weather really smokes out the birds. I've been very thankful that I overbought on peanuts and seed a few months back. I remember thinking, "Now how am I going to use 50 pounds of  peanut halves?" Well.

But when orioles come in, I have to get creative. Turns out a grapefruit half will serve just as well as a navel orange or Clementine.

This is an interesting plumage. It's an adult female Baltimore oriole, and she's fairly old, as evidenced by the increasing black coming in on her face and back. Some might think this is a young male, but the secret to sexing Baltimore orioles is in the tail. No matter how much black an old female Baltimore has on her head and back; no matter how bright her orange breast, she will always show an olive-brown, not black tail. So don't be fooled by male-like coloration. If the tail is olive-brown and dull orange, it's a female.

Male Baltimores have black deck feathers on their tail. The deck feathers are the two that sit atop all the rest, forming the center stripe of the tail.

I got this smart fellow to try Zick Dough by loading an exhausted Clementine half with it. He took a shine to it right away.

When a bird does something novel, other birds watch it. This female rose-breasted grosbeak wondered about the Clementine the young male oriole was feeding from.

I've had good luck with peanuts and rose-breasts. Everybody seems to like peanuts. Though this is the only rose-breast this year who's gone for them.

He liked them so much he got into some good spats with the resident redbellies over access. Red is a battle flag for birds. He's intimidating her with that fancy shirtfront.

She is, however, better armed in the poking department, having a vicious stabber rather than a pincer.  

Rebelly: I WIN.

Rosebreast: I wait.

They love my Bird Spa, with its bubbling water. Rose-breasts are avid bathers. Seeing one on it always stops my heart, in a good way. 

This little female grosbeak was watching the oriole eating fruit. So. Is that good to eat? Should I bump you off and try it?

Look at the oriole's response! Ha ha!! He is evil!

His evil eye sufficed to drive the grosbeak away. Look at her beautiful yellow wingpits! If this were a young male, they'd be pink. And carmine-rose on an older male.

Here's a young male rosebreast, taking off from our sycamore,  from early autumn. Isn't that underwing gorgeous? So that's how you sex a bird in all-brown plumage. In rosebreasts, yellow= girl, pink= boy!

 I raised a baby grosbeak one summer years ago--Jeffy. He was one of my favorite clients EVER. So gentle and sweet and easy to be with. When I released him, he hung around eating from little cups of mixed vegetables and mealworms around my yard. At the time he left, he still had yellow wing linings. Though there was no way to be sure, I had a strong feeling he was a male. 

I didn't see Jeffy for several weeks. Then one September day, he came out of nowhere and circled over me, calling, as I worked in the garden. I was SO excited to see him. And I saw his pink wingpits, and knew I'd been right about his sex all along. That was such a great moment, one of the gifts of sticking with rehab and being there for the magic moment when a bird returns to say hi and show me his wingpits. This is my watercolor of that moment (as described in The Bluebird Effect). 

The older a male rosebreast gets, the more immaculate his coloration. Young males will show an admixture of brown in their black parts, especially on wings and head, and lots of speckling on the breast and flanks. Look at this amazing male, probably in his second spring (though as always I'm happy to be corrected!He's got fully black feathers in his wings, so maybe he's in his third spring?)  Wing linings are pale pink, and he has a very small pink cravat. Lots of streaking on the underparts, as well, and brown mottling on head and back. Taken May 2, 2016 here. Click on the photo to embiggen it and see the details I'm talking about.

This is interesting. I've been digging around trying to find out how long it takes a male rose-breast to attain full adult plumage. Found this in Birds of North America (now known as Birds of the World!): 

"Some males may not acquire complete Definitive Alternate (what we plebes know as breeding) plumage until their third year or later. Smith (Smith 1966a) cites a single male that was banded as a yearling in 1961 and did not acquire a completely bright-pink bib until 1965. "

Whoa! Like a bald eagle, taking four years to get that cravat? WHO KNEW? Probably not the case for all individuals, but still. Who knew?

This is the best shot I've ever gotten showing molt in a second spring male rose-breasted grosbeak. Look at the retained juvenile plumage in wings and tail! It shows as dull brown. He's got the remnants of the broad white crown stripes he wore as a juvenile.  All his ebony finery is still on its way in. And the deck feathers on his tail are newly grown, and black. Taken May 3, 2016, in Whipple, OH.

 This one has just a few black specks on his breast. But look at the extent of the carmine on this boy! Runs all the way down his midline, goes almost from shoulder to shoulder across his breast. From what I've observed, I suspect the rose cravat gets more extensive as he ages, as well. I'm fascinated by the progression of molt in birds, especially as it is used to age them. 

It has been such a delight having grosbeaks around this spring. They are one of the great gifts of early May. I know they're helping keep me content on the gray rainy cold days when I'm not grubbing in the garden or ranging through the forest. 

Another reminder, my last. Tomorrow, May 9, I will be participating in the Virtual World Series of Birding, with an all-star team of 22. Proceeds from our pledges will go to monarch butterfly research. The money is needed more than ever, with the recent slaying of two of Michoacan's most ardent monarch conservationists by drug cartel fiends on the butterflies' mass wintering grounds. My esteemed friend Mark Garland has put together the team. I'm included for geographic diversity, since most of us are from the East Coast. I got 61 species on my place alone on my dry run May 7, so you can do the math if you wish to pledge. At 10 cents per bird, that would be $6.10. :) Who knows how many species we can rack up, with people like Louise Zemaitis and Michael O'Brien birding their yard in Cape May? Scott Weidensaul will be checking in, with highs in the 30's and blowing snow in northern New Hampshire. Seth Benz's forecast on the Maine coast isn't much balmier. Nowhere but Texas, where Angel and Mariel Abreu will clock in,  is the weather going to be salubrious, but we're all going out and seeing all the birds we can. I'm hoping for peeks of sun, but it won't even reach 50 degrees here tomorrow. 

 I'll be birding around my admittedly largeish "yard" and along my bluebird trail, as I feed hungry babies in the box and leave little crocks full of live mealworms on the box roofs. Just got back from my second run today. All are warm and well-fed. One more run before nightfall. 

 If so moved, you can pledge for monarch conservation here: 

https://www.worldseriesofbirding.org/teampage.asp?fundid=1485

Thank you so much!

Happy Thanksgiving Critter Update

I'm not sure what this post is going to be about, except that it's about gratitude. It's about being amazed and grateful every single day at the things I'm able to witness. The house is like a blind and I watch from every window, unseen. And when I see something good I either shoot through the windows (usually) or I ease a door open and slip quietly outside and schneak up on whatever it is I've spotted. 

 

The meadow is like a great big canvas, and the frost and the plants and the deer are always painting something on it.  

A mother and fawn come walking slowly up the meadow around dawn on a frosty morning. I scurry like a scalded ape into the studio where my big camera lives. Then I ease the sliding glass door open and step outside onto the raised deck, into the breathtaking cold. 

If I do it right, they never know I've come outside. I have to do it slowly and keep a low profile, moving only when they're not looking up.  I love deer photos when they're not looking right at me. Candids are ever the best, whether you're at a wedding or just a walking.

One local I keep tabs on is a rabbit, born in early summer 2018, that Phoebe named Half-ear Smalley. Out of the oodles of rabbits born here this year, this brave little one has survived and now comes to the feeder. I don't know what happened to its ear. Mowed off as a kit? Who could say?

I put corn and seed on this flowerpot, which is now a Smalley feeder.

 These pictures are for Phoebe who named the rabbit and will be happy to know it is still pigging out at its flowerpot feeder. It never took the carrots she kept putting out for it. I think that thing about rabbits liking carrots is maybe a fable. Smalley likes corn!

Speaking of candid shots, this is one I've been after for months. I kept hearing a woodpecker doing something at the corner of my south studio window. I didn't know what it was doing, and I'd never been able to catch it red-handed...or naped...

until one day when I heard it and scuttled into the kitchen with my big rig and captured a male redbelly in the process of gagging up a peanut

which he then wedged into the window sash for easier processing. He didn't seem to be cacheing it (otherwise I'd have a cascade of peanuts when I open the window). He was just using the window frame to hold it for pecking apart.

 Mystery solved, and no damage being done. Thank you, little redbelly. I will now smile when I hear your claws scritching on the window frame, and the ratt-a-tat of your pecking, and try to get more photos of you, instead of wondering whether you're pecking holes in my bank account.

And only a few days later, I found him poking sunflower hearts into Liam's bedroom window. He was perched on the crappy weatherstrip that comes with newer Pella windows, and that invariably peels off and sticks out, no matter how many letters you send to HQ in Iowa.

The "technician" who came here twice told me it was my house's fault that the weatherstrip peeled off the windows. Oh. Really. I see. No, I don't. Seriously???

  One thing good I can say about the weatherstripping on these windows: When it peels off, and it will, it makes a handy redbelly perch. Even if it makes your house look tacky.

 I spend a great deal of time photographing blue jays. It is probably an understatement to say I'm obsessed with them.

I'm obsessed with capturing blue jays in flight. It's more fun than any video game you could dream up, and all you have to do is put corn and sunflower and peanuts out, then wait for them to fly down or up to it.

I get a lot of terrible photos. I get some images that are almost great. Oops!

 And every once in a great while I get something that takes my breath away, and the reward is rare and intermittent enough that I keep pressing that lever, hoping, hoping, hoping. Please click on this one. And if that's not a bird of Paradise then I don't want to go to Paradise. I want to stay right here.

 This is Frost, the silver-browed bird who first showed up December 27, 2017, right after I last saw Jemima. 

Against all expectations, Frost stayed to breed here this past spring, and then disappeared in August when his two kids were on their own. And then he came back in October. He has a pattern of being gone for two to three months at a time. I have no idea where he goes. I'm just ecstatic when he returns. He checks in at the feeder every four or five days lately. I'll take it. I take whatever I can get when it comes to blue jays.

 

 Jays, a couple of doves, and my beautiful little Japanese Stewartia, showing fabulous fall color, even though it didn't bloom this past summer. That's OK. I can tell it's winding up for a great show in 2019.

On Liam's birthday, November 8, Frost came into the feeder area. He stopped my heart by flying right up to the window, the way Jemima used to do. He bounced lightly off the netting and landed on the tomato cages just outside, the way Jem used to. Oh my gosh. It was like seeing a beautiful ghost.

He gave me a real close look at his silver brows before he went back to gathering corn again.  What Frost displays is not leucism. It's called progressive graying, and it's analogous to mine (and maybe yours). I don't know how old Frost is, but he's pretty silver. That said, there's a hatch year jay in my gang this winter who shows about half that much silver, so I don't think it's necessarily age-related in birds.

To be only a few feet from a jay--it still takes my breath away. I love them so very much. I love them more for understanding them so well. Please look at his sweet little feet, all wrapped around the wire like they're made of modeling clay!! I just want to smooch him right on the frost.

I call Frost "he" now because I watched him coming in alone to the feeder and ferrying loads of peanuts to what I assume was an incubating mate in mid-June. I don't think a female would have done that.

That's it for the animal update from Indigo Hill. More will be coming. There's so much going on here! and I'm so grateful to be able to witness it.

Happy Thanksgiving everybody. Good luck with your turkeys. I'm going to have to haul out my Bittman to make sure I do the stuffing right. I haven't gotten to cook many turkeys in my life, but by gum I'm cooking one tomorrow!

While I'm Shooting...

 Garrett the red-headed woodpecker is my muse. He lures me away from the drawing table and encourages me to enter bird time. I have to wait for him to show up at the Zick Dough log. And while I wait, all kinds of other beautiful things happen. This may be my favorite male cardinal shot yet. What if cardinals were as rare as red-headed woodpeckers? I'd be chasing this glorious bird all day. If I'm even tempted to take cardinals for granted, I have only to remember the Welsh birder who stayed a week with us who'd splutter "BRILLIANT! God! Look at THAT!!" every time a cardinal showed up in the yard.

I love this shot, too, of a female cardinal who is giving me the hairy eye for sitting just inside an open patio door. She knows the rules, and I'm breaking them. The door is supposed to be closed at all times.

She's all, "Really, Zick? You're shooting me through the open door? Where I can hear your shutter? And you're thinking that's just gonna be fine with me? Well, it's not. It's not fine. Good thing you make nice food, Missy."

Underlighting is a wonderful thing, especially if you're the color of a ripe bell pepper.

I was stunned to see one of my good old friends, Blondie the leucistic cardinal. She's been in our yard for at least three years, but she's always been on the north side of the house.  I'd never seen her in the backyard, and I'd never seen her sample Zick Dough before this beautiful sunny morning. See the white feathers in her crest? It seems she gets a few more every year. What a lovely thing she is. And a good mother. She had a couple of broods last summer. Not a good shot; she was suspicious and I was overexcited to see her,  and she vanished when she heard the shutter. But she'll be back. Zick Dough is like that.

I'm abashed and puzzled to say that only one eastern bluebird is eating Zick Dough with us this winter. I don't know why that is. Maybe there will be an influx when the weather really clamps down. (Nope, not even the weekend ice storm smoked more out). Maybe she's a loner. She has a male friend who occasionally comes in, but both of them are terribly shy--the most skittish bluebirds I've ever had. But she is very, very beautiful and graceful. Nothing dumpy about this gal! even though she eats lard and peanut butter all day. I love the harmonious color of the weeping willow in the background. Overcast is ever my favorite for bird portraiture.

She is so tight-feathered and lovely she looks like a Larry Barth carving to me.** Here, she shows the classic "hump back" of the bluebird. Roger Peterson said they look like they have poor posture. I think her posture is perfect.

**If you do not know who Larry Barth is, you owe it to yourself to click that link. If only to see him subdued by a six-year-old Liam in a Superman suit.

Another Melanerpes woodpecker, the red-bellied, M. carolinus.  (The red-headed is Melanerpes erythrocephalus). Most people never get close enough to see the ruby-red eye of a mature redbelly. I remember the first time I held one in  my hand...all I could look at was its beautiful fiery eye. I love my redbellies, too, and they know it. I still miss Ruby. Maybe there's another Ruby out there. I ask each redbelly who visits if they would like to try to fill her shoes. None yet seem up for the role of Zick Pet. A tame redbelly is a marvelous thing. They are suspicious birds by nature.

For now, I'll appreciate every minute with Garrett, for as long as he chooses to stay.  Bill had only a morning with our star bird before he had to leave for Las Vegas. Every time he called home I'd prattle on about Garrett. Garrett does this and Garrett did that and just today he...

Bill stopped me and said, "Do you realize you haven't said the words "red-headed woodpecker" once since I left?"

Hmm. Yeah. That's true. He's not a red-headed woodpecker any more. He's Garrett. Does that make me crazy? (The implication was there, hanging on the line between us).

Well.  Bill spent all day today (a Saturday with about 1/2" of ice coating everything) running from window to window trying to get shots of Garrett doing all the cool things a red-headed woodpecker does. And prattling on and on about the cute things Garrett was doing...

and I just smiled. Another one bites the dust.