Connecting the Dots: A Mystery Egg

And now for connecting the dots. I love a good mystery, and am all about connecting dots. 

I found an eggshell fragment down Dean's Fork.  It was pale, unmarked blue, and it was BIG. 

It was too big and pale for a robin, and too big for a cuckoo, though cuckoos lay amazingly large eggs. It was too small for a duck, but entirely too big for a songbird. There is a limited complement of birds who lay unmarked blue eggs, and I quickly ran through them in my mental catalogue. 

The only candidate left was one I'd seen in an Instagram post by my dear friend Donna Quinn.

Donna watches the nesting green herons in the lakeside development where she lives. She listens to their calls and watches as they raise their young. These are her photos of newly pipped eggshells. You can see the fresh blood vessels still inside the shells. The neat margins mean the chick cut the shell, not some random predator.

I thought we had a match, but I wanted to be sure. So, being the Science Chimp, I adjusted my photo to actual size on my computer screen, by comparing it to my actual hand. 

Then, I traced the photo, fingers and all. Working from the natural curves of the shell, I "completed" the eggshell fragment with pencil lines, restoring the outline of the (imagined) entire egg as the curves of the shell fragment guided me.

My reconstructed egg worked out to 27 x 37 mm. 

Measurements in my nest and egg identification guide were 29 x 38 mm. 

Close enough for me. There are green herons nesting down the Fork, and I'd found and identified their pipped eggshell. Oh, what a feeling! I've seen them so very seldom down there, but this is incontrovertible evidence that not only are they present, they are nesting!

Maybe someday I'll see a young one. Maybe someday I'll see an otter down there. 

The pond is ever more precious with each passing day. We made a pilgrimage on the evening of July 4, knowing we'd see something good.

The waters are clearing as rain holds off. When it's dry, the beavers no longer have to disturb the bottom for mud with which to build the dam higher. 

We watched a red bat, big and just as red as a cinnamon stick, making figure 8's over the dam. We briefly glimpsed that otter I've been tracking as it struck terror into the hearts of bull and green frogs in the cattails. We could trace its progress by the frantic flops of frogs. Phoebe made out its chocolate back and grayish-tan chin and under-neck. (It's not in the photo, and neither is the bat. Both too fast for me!)

 And as we drew near, we saw this big doe pop up over the dam rim, having walked up the dam from below. Now that was cool! Just look at her reflection in the clearing water!

As you know, the real world is where I love to be. But there's another livestreaming event coming up at 8pm on Thursday, July 9. 

It's a lively but relaxed conversation, an interview of me by my friend, the wildly talented singer/songwriter Todd Burge. We'll talk about art, life, creativity, Sugarbean the skunk, and Dustin, the song sparrow the kids and I raised this summer. Afterward, there will be time for live questions from you! I'll answer them as best I can on camera, live. 

The link to the show is here: 

www.facebook.com/peoplesbanktheatre/live 

and it's happening Thursday July 9 at 8 pm.

Dustin is big on social media, but he hasn't hit my blog yet. 

Best Save of the Summer-Mystery Nestling

Things are starting to calm down a bit on the rehab front. I've learned how to say the word "no," and there's a midsummer lull in the nesting cycle. Oh, it can get crazy in May and June. And so can I. Baby bird questions come over the phone, by text, via Facebook, via Instagram message, and by email. It's especially deadly in the age of social media, because photos accompany these requests for assistance, and they're all urgent. The other way to look at it, though, is that photos, easily taken and instantly shared, eliminate the need for me to ask the 20 questions it used to take to figure out what we had over the phone. They save me the time and frustration of having to puzzle out an ID for each waif. 

Back in the bad old phone days, a man called and told me he had found a car-hit bird on a night drive. He thought it was some kind of pheasant. I asked him what color it was. 

Dark brownish.

I asked him to describe its beak. He said he couldn't see one. Hmmm. OK.

Does it have big eyes?

Yes!

Whiskers around its face? 

Yes!

I guessed it might be a whip-poor-will, and it was. Crummy shot taken by car headlights on my road in May 2011:

One lady called and told me she had found a huge baby bird under an eagle's nest at a West Virginia campground. She was sure it was a baby bald eagle (in late June) and was all concerned about federal regulations should she be caught with it. A million things whizzed through my brain, but not a single one of them was, "She really has a bald eagle!"

OK let's back up. Please tell me how big "huge" is. Can it fit in your hand?

Yes. But it's really big!

What color is the inside of its mouth?

Orange.

Can you send me a photo?

It was a naked nestling robin.

People are not trying to pull my leg.

 They know what they think, and nothing more.

It scares me, actually, to think that anyone couldn't tell an eagle from a new baby robin.

 Things have definitely gotten better for those of us who answer questions, now that everyone has a great camera in their pocket. I've been wriggling with delight, wanting to share my best and easiest save of this crazy summer. It's a triumph of technology, of putting good people in instant touch with the right person--someone who knows a little something about birds. I got an email from Mary, who has written me long and thoughtful letters about my blogposts over the years. 

Sat. Jun 20

My girlfriend Stef has a lake house on Lake Huron near Rogers City, Michigan, and says this baby bird is on their beach.  She’s trying to keep a horde of local dogs away from it, and hoping the mommy will come back.

Andrew can’t identify it, but guesses starling.  It has pink under its chin and under its tail.  It doesn’t seem to have the orange mouth that starlings have.

Any ideas?

Mary's first email had a video that I tried, but couldn't open. I asked for a still shot and got this: 

Another email came in right atop that one and I opened the photo with it.

4:44 pm Stef just sent this photo.  Andrew now says it’s some pelagic bird on account of the honking bill.  What sayeth JZ?  I wonder if it could be a loon?

Thanks!

My heart literally skipped a few beats. I had never laid eyes on a nestling belted kingfisher. But it's all there, albeit still in pinfeathers! Isn't that the coolest looking little thing!? Poor wee thing can't be more than 10 days old! Not only that, but I could see the sandy lakeshore bank which held its nest burrow, from which it undoubtedly tumbled! 

I fired an email right back. 

5:02 pm Baby belted kingfisher. Please look for a hole in the bank above and put it back in the hole. If you can't find a nest hole, or if there is one that has been dug out by a predator, get it to a rehabilitator quickly.

They eat small baitfish.If you can get ahold of those, do it. Don't feed anything preserved. Chicken breast will do in a pinch. Must save this little bird!

I thought about it and added some more information in a second email. 

Belted Kingfishers nest in holes dug straight back into sandy banks just like the one in the photo behind the baby. 

The holes are very deep. You may need to push him back in with a yardstick or tongs once you find the hole. Hole will be about 4" across and pretty obvious. Listen for alarm rattle of adults, krrrrr! and watch for them flying around. 

Then I sent a third. I was really frantic for this little bird. Such an easy save it could be, but I wasn't there to do it. It seems like every time I encourage people to look for a nest, they tell me there's no nest in sight. As if baby birds just drop from the sky. There HAS to be a nest nearby! Tiny baby kingfishers don't walk...they tumble out of holes and wait to be rescued! My ALL CAPS come out in situations like this. 

I hope to God your friends can get it back in the nest. Such a precious baby. If not I hope they will feed it ASAP and find a rehabilitator. Please let me know what happens! The mother will NOT feed it on the beach. It HAS to be put back in the nest burrow. Please tell them that leaving it on the beach will accomplish nothing. They must either put it in the burrow or get it into care ASAP. It is getting sunburned.

JZ

On Sat, Jun 20, 2020 at 5:28 PM Mary wrote:

I forwarded Stef both of your emails with instructions.

6:09 pm. 
Stef sends her profound thanks!  They found the nest opening, put the baby back in, and because you told them, they gently pushed it way down in the hole.  It went back 3 feet or more!

So the baby is back in the nest, thanks to you!

Another happy ending, we hope.

JZ 7:46 pm 

And we are sure this is the nest. Parents attending, right? Make sure somebody visits.

Yes the hole goes waaay back. I guess you aren't getting him back once he's that deep in.

I''m thrilled to be able to help!

Can’t be certain, this was a bit east of our place. They did hear a similar whirring call. Patrick [Stef’s son-in-law] said when he put the little guy in the burrow, he knew just what to do and scooched himself in.

Oh, I was SO relieved to hear this! If they heard whirring from inside the burrow, they had found the right hole. I bet that little sunburned kingfisher was glad to be back in the cool, dark confines of its burrow!  I wrote back: 

Oh my heart. My kids are elated to hear this, too. Best rehab question, best save of a very, very crazy season (well, besides little Dustin the song sparrow!) 

All's well that ends well!

Speaking of burrows...In the last year, I've gotten to know a pair of naturalists who recently bought property about a half-hour away from Indigo Hill. Thanks to this dratted virus, we haven't been able to get together very much, but we have a lively correspondence and we talk on the phone, too. It's been wonderful and incredibly enriching to have David and Laura Hughes as almost-neighbors. They know more than me about pretty much everything, and are intensely curious. Then they go the whole distance and set up trailcams and blinds and stuff. Two people can do a lot more than one, especially if they share a common goal. 

Laura and I were wondering together how kingfishers deal with their poop when they're confined to a burrow. The burrow is dug by the pair, using their chisel-bills and tiny feet.  Imagine the fish emulsion produced by five baby kingfishers, confined to a burrow for as long as 29 days! They don't shoot it out the hole--too inconvenient, because the burrows can be from 3-7 or as long as 15 feet, straight into the bank! Not only that, but a stream of whitewash coming out of a burrow would clearly announce its occupants to predators such as rat snakes and raccoons. So what do they do??

Laura discovered that once a baby kingfisher poops, it immediately scratches dirt up onto the wall and covers it up! She took a photo of the interior of the burrow. Odorless. Clean. And doubtless enlarged by all the scratching. If birds aren't the coolest creatures on earth, they're darned close.

And now, the piece de resistence: the Hughes' video of a food delivery by an adult kingfisher to its chicks. If I am not mistaken, the adult has brought a bullfrog for lunch. You can hear the 'whirring noise" Mary referenced in her email. Look how the chick comes to the front of the nest burrow and backs away, bearing the frog. Isn't it CREEPY??

These five chicks all fledged successfully, and have been seen with their parents since. Hooray! Mo kingfishers, mo betta. 

              

 If you love this video like I do, and want to see more absolutely incredible clips from my neck of the woods, expertly made by Laura and David Hughes, hit this link to access a collection of their YouTube Hughes videos. Many thanks for your talents, neighbors!

Into the Arms of Dean's Fork

On this June morning, I woke before light, as I usually do, and lay in bed planning my day. I decided that the best thing I could do would be to walk down Dean's Fork with Curtis and celebrate the return of the beavers. Maybe I'd get some photos for this post! I hung the big rig over my shoulder and grabbed my binoculars, harnessed the cur to a belt around my waist, and off we went. 

The feeling I get when I walk down Dean's Fork is much like the one many do when passing through the doors of a church. I feel as though I am delivering myself and all my cares to a greater power. I feel it working on me the entire time I'm there. Discoveries await me, each time, and I can never anticipate what they might be. That's the deliciousness of being attuned to nature. It's subtle stuff. You have to look for it and be open to it. You can't go barging along talking or listening to music. You must let the only input be that of nature. That's when the magic happens.

Northern pearly-eye, my first of the season, June 15

I think of my visits there as "delivering myself into the arms of Dean's Fork." Because that's how it feels. Like I'm being wrapped up in something much bigger than me. Look at this beaver dam, in a sinuous Z, perfectly and powerfully engineered to hold back who knows how many hundreds or thousands of tons of rainwater. The dam itself is easily 20' high. It was made by two rodents only of the materials they could transport in their teeth and arms. Think about that. The intelligence, the design of it all. It takes my breath away. It is as precious to me as any architectural work of man, because what work of man creates habitat for so many other creatures?  Humans transform habitat, but rarely for the benefit of other life forms than humans. Concrete and glass are notoriously unkind to winged ones. Here, in this perfect construction site, the waters teem with life, and they're a magnet for wildlife you'd never find otherwise. 

I didn't see a heron on this joyful trip, but I saw where the shitepoke sat.

And shat.

I smiled so big, picturing a great blue heron, all angles and spikes, delivering the evidence of its visit to the road below. 

That evidence, transient and nourishing, going back into the earth without a hitch. Unlike the evidence of human passage. What LOSER would dump his (losing) lottery tickets and beer cans in this sacred space? A loser, that's who. Only someone insensate to beauty could defile this place. 

In the muddy road just alongside the pond, some opossum tracks...

and the greater prize, some good clear river otter tracks. For now, they might be eating crayfish, but oh, when the fish come in! I thrill to think of fish rising to the surface in the evening.

And the greatest prize of all, my lottery win: a sighting of the engineers! I have to go pretty early in the morning or late in the evening to catch them. They're crepuscular. I was delighted to see the two interacting when I got there. They were grooming each other with tooth and claw. But so gently, no red. 

I have to think that the smaller animal (on shore) is a female, while the enormous dirigible is a male.

He gave me a direct stare, surely unaware that I had advocated on his behalf.

Eased into the water and swam as close as he dared.

And then, with a hugely satisfying kerPLOOOP, he clapped his flat tail against the water and dove deep.

I love that sound! It's like throwing a pumpkin in a pool! 

Though we'd had 3/4" of hard rain the night before, the stream crossings on the road were all absolutely fine. When the dam has been destroyed, they become impassable to foot traffic, unless you either want to wade barefoot or have the water come over your boot tops. But now, the dam holds back the flood, and that makes life easier for those who live on the road. I wonder if anyone else has noticed this but me?

Puddles on the road were another matter. We got through, but only just. Yes, that one is heart shaped. I love it because it's a frog factory, and because it keeps cars and many trucks from getting through. Less traffic is better, always. 

Curtis and I reached the Ironweed Festival grounds and looked back, having walked facing the light the whole way down. 

How beautiful it all is. I know that, now that the cattle are gone, it won't be open for very long. Already, groves of sycamores have started up, and they're taller than me. We must be ready for the change that inexorably comes. We have all had so much change of late. 

Oh, how the sky reflects in the creek. 

I can envision the day when this young sycamore will take my breath away. I hope I'm still here when it's big enough to do that.

I found Moneywort, in the primrose family (Lysimachia nummularia), growing in a wet ditch. I looked at the plant and turned it over in my hand and mind, and decided it was either a loosetrife or a primrose. I was happy to find it was a primrose! Love that plant taxonomy, now practically innate, kicking in as I puzzle. Carroll Williams' Plant Taxonomy course at Harvard was one of the best, most fun, and most useful I ever took. Plus, we drew!!

Down toward the end of the Ironweed (or Corn Salad) Festival Grounds, I found at least five pairs of song sparrows. I have a new appreciation for these birds, having raised one up from nothing this summer. I saw some fledglings about 10 days younger than mine, and smiled. I knew what their parents were dealing with. I was amazed how many breeding pairs were packed into that one old field. I envisioned setting up a study to map their territories, then discarded the idea. I study birds all the time, but not in that way. No netting, no banding, no blood samples. 

If song sparrows have a heaven, this is it.

Can you spot the phoebe in his element? 

We got to the end of the line with a creek crossing my boots couldn't handle. This is the face Curtis gave me when I told him we had to turn back.

He'd have happily gone on for miles more.

As it is, it's a four-mile walk, round trip. I do it happily, though it's all downhill on the way down, and uphill going back. What helps is that the light is beautiful on the way back, because the sun is behind me.

It was a good day for large rodents.

Woodchucks, genus Marmota, are in the family Sciuridae, the squirrels. That makes sense. 

They are not so very different. Beavers (Castor canadensis) are in the family Castoridae, the rodent suborder Castorimorpha, along with gophers, kangaroo rats and pocket mice. That is one heck of a mouse.

A mouse with skills. Here's its house, with an underwater entrance and chambers lined with fresh dry grass inside. 

Beavers, and the habitat they create, are miracles. I can't think of another animal that so profoundly impacts the surrounding habitat, in such delightful ways. Water is precious; water is life, and this pond bursts with both. I saw a newly-fledged belted kingfisher trying the waters on my next to last visit. Wood ducks almost always squeal and scurry away, taking a little piece of my anxious heart with them when they do. Into the arms of Dean's I go, and I come home changed for the better.