WarblerFall Joy

It's that time of year when I sit at my drawing table and write with my head turned all the way to the left.

Out the window is my WarblerFall. I have the window open no matter the weather so I can hear the relaxing burble of trickling water. I can also hear the flllltttttpp! of little bird wings as they bathe, and can grab my camera to record the action! 

 Mourning dove family (baby is atop the fountain).

August and September are the prime months for the WarblerFall,  up here on my usually dry ridge. Gobs of birds are passing through, largely unnoticed, until they hear its siren call! 

A female American redstart graces the WarblerFall 20Aug2022

See how I have flat stones covering the entire bottom of the basin? You want water no more than an inch deep for the small birds you're trying to attract. Give them a variety of depths using flat rocks to adjust.

I've found no better way to keep track of what fall warblers, vireos, thrushes, finches, buntings, sparrows, and tanagers are slipping through my sanctuary than the WarblerFall. Its trickle draws them into my yard and down to drink and bathe. That gentle burble is an irresistible come-hither to a wonderful array of birds.

Mourning doves have an adorable habit of holding one wing up when they're bathing.

Sprinkle me there. Right there. 

As a little recap, I spent the last 30 or so years thinking about it, and then spent last summer figuring out how to economically construct the best bird bath possible--where to get the right components and how to put it all together. I made an instructional video and a set of detailed pictorial instructions. Both are available at 

                                                              www.warblerfall.com

If you haven't visited yet, there's a fun 2-minute promotional video that ought to give you a laugh at the very least. Zick as Bobby Flay. But I'm dead serious about the product. Since its official launch in the pages of BWD Magazine's inaugural issue July 1, this little bird bath has blown me and a LOT of others away. People have fun building it. They set it up and get wonderful bird action, often from species they wouldn't expect to see in their yards. Then they share their photos and videos on social media. I have been delighted with what I've seen from all over the country. And it's a gas to see how others interpret my instructions and use the materials at hand.

Cardinals are in the WarblerFall all the time, proving that it's not just for warblers!

Just a note: In the instructional video, I talk about placement of your WarblerFall, and make a point about why placing it on the ground is important. However I would love to do this, I can't, though. That's because I have a pack of murderous eastern chipmunks, who, over the past year, developed the habit of trying to pounce on birds as they bathed. They never caught one, but they got close. After much cussing and thought, I solved the problem by elevating the WarblerFall about 16" on an overturned ceramic planter. The chipmunks don't even try to get up there, and the birds bathe in peace. The elevation doesn't seem to deter anyone but those flat-footed 'munks.

Here's a common yellowthroat enjoying a good soak. 

 I think the most compelling thing about this fountain is the way it draws the completely unexpected. Watching it is kind of like playing the slots. You get these intermittent rewards that keep you watching. And then you hit the jackpot! 

Did my dear friend Laura ever think a yellow-billed cuckoo would come down to her backyard to bathe? No, and neither did I!! I didn't even know they bathed in water! 

That is WarblerFall Magic, right there. Laura told me that she quit feeding birds in summer because she thinks it's better for them not to have supplemental food. But the WarblerFall more than made up for it. She's had an absolute blast with it, as you'll see in subsequent posts. 

I'm posting this to remind you that NOW, August and especially September, is prime WarblerFall time. Birds are migrating. Flying so far and for so long builds up a powerful thirst. They just can't resist

a drink and a cool bath. Welcome them to your yard! Visit

www.warblerfall.com

and thank you so much for supporting me by investing in my invention--the little bird fountain that could! 

Gift of the Ice Storm

Winter Storm Landon's been an absolute brute. Here in southeast Ohio, it's dumped many inches of cold rain which, thank goodness, was rain and not snow. Thoroughly sick of moving through, dealing with, shoveling, and stumbling around in snow! The rain washed away almost all of the 16" of snow that had fallen over the last few weeks.  Thing is, it was still raining hard as February 3 turned to night, and the birds went to bed damp. Huddling in their roost cavities or in the cover of tree branches, those wet feathers froze to the substrate around them. 

So on wakeup, this white-breasted nuthatch was doubtless frozen to the inside of his cavity. His wet upper tail coverts and at least one wing feather were stuck. As he struggled to get free, they were pulled out. But the ice kept them glued to his tail all day long. 

What you see, then, is this weird plume-tailed variant of a white- breasted nuthatch. The odd shape of the feathers owes to the fact that upper tail coverts are quite long, running down the back and over the top of the tail. The black one is a wing feather, though. So he was pretty good and stuck--wing feathers are a lot harder to pull out than coverts or tail feathers-- but he got out.

Here's an unfortunate mourning dove who is wearing her tail on her wing. Rats. 

Long pointed tails are nice for maneuverability in flight (and dove flight is amongst the speediest around), but they're a liability in ice storms. 

Last but not least, my dear Bob the hand-raised song sparrow is back to looking like a ping-pong ball. Dang it!! 

Yes, he's still here with me, and I'm so glad of that. Released in September at 27 days of age, he's hanging in there, almost five months later!  I know he'll be well-fed through whatever the winter of 2022 throws at us. But dang. Ice storms--I hate them, and not because I usually lose power. I hate them because they're so tough on the wildlife I love. 

Losing a tail isn't quite as bad as it looks. A brush-loving species like a song sparrow can adapt. Even a mourning dove can fly just fine without a tail. It's harder, for sure, but they survive. And they should have a decent new tail within three weeks. Since the feathers were pulled out, the empty follicles are already gathering themselves to make more. 

I corresponded today with a kind woman from Athens Ohio who has five turkey vultures hanging around her backyard. Like us farther east, they are encased in ice after a rainy night that turned frigid. I explained that grounded turkey vultures are a thing in ice storms; that they cannot fly if their feathers are icy, and there are no thermals to give them lift. She and her husband thawed some chicken and offered it to the birds. Interesting twist: they have a 5' chain link fence around their yard, and the vultures are on the ground, inside the fence. Coincidence? I think not. If a white-tailed deer knows enough to jump into a fenced backyard to give birth (and they do!), I submit that a turkey vulture knows enough to know it's safer in a fenced yard than outside it. Something to think about, something to ponder. 

As I shot photos of my suffering songbirds, it occurred to me that there might be some cavity-roosters in my bluebird boxes in trouble. Could some have gone in to roost last night, wet, and not come back out? A little voice was tugging my sleeve. Go check. Go check. See if anyone is in need.

So I packed a nylon drawstring bag (for weak cold birds) and a screwdriver (to open the boxes), called Curtis Loew, and set out to the meadow to check some boxes. I heard a coyote bark several times nearby and stopped in my tracks. Curtis stopped, too, and let out one short, sharp bark. 

Hey. I know you're here. This is me, Curtis. 

I saw him before Curtis did. He was sitting out beyond the big pine, watching us. Wow. That is interesting. Coyotes are usually just shadows disappearing. Not this one.

I called Curtis to me, and he was only too happy to run back with me to the house. A romantic might think the coyote just wanted to play in the snow, but I wasn't about to offer my best boy for an experiment, or my heart for more breaking. I left my grateful and sensible Curtis inside and grabbed my big Canon rig. When I came out the back door, the coyote was still sitting out there, and that's how I got that first photo, from my deck. 

Do you see that sumac clump in the left foreground? That's how I got the rest of the photos. I snuck along the back of the house, ducked behind the low spruce by my fishpond, lined myself up with that clump of sumac, and walked in a straight, unwavering line toward the animal, staying always behind the thickest part of the shrub. 

I trusted he was still there, but I never took the chance of exposing myself. I just kept walking. I wasn't going to blow my cover just to see if he was waiting there.

 Finally I got to the sumac clump and peeked through the branches to catch sight of the animal, who had moved off to the side.

And look where he's sitting. That's the iron fence around Bill's grave, and the big Virginia pine that stands by it. Ice has brought its boughs to the ground. 

Though I stayed mostly behind the sumac clump, I'm sure the coyote knew I was there.

After all, he'd been watching me. 

I knew it was a male when I enlarged this photo. Click on it and you'll see, too.

The size of his tracks alone suggested a male.

It was a big coyote. The front pawprint shown here was 2 7/8" from heel to toe.

The hind paw (below)  is narrower, and has a smaller heel than the front paw.

Here is the imprint where he had been sitting when I first spotted him. 

And here he is loping along. There's a 16" span between the pawprints. 

After watching me for awhile, he stood up and turned to leave. What a long neck he has! 

He stood for a moment, looking. It was moving to make contact with a wild creature, here in this place I come visit every day. The way he looked back at me sent a feeling through me, something benign and wondering, not threatening. 

I guess this is the best shot. He was so red against the ice and snow, so warm. I wondered what he was thinking. I wondered why he and his pack have spared Curtis these past three years. If they'd wanted him dead, they've had a million chances to do it.

For now, and I hope for as long as Curtis lives, there is peace, and this beautiful red wild one, walking easily through the snow. 

All this, within sight of the house, with the ice still dripping off the sumac from last night. 

Ice storms are hard, but this one brought me a gift.

Here is where he melted back into the woods.

There were no birds trapped in my boxes--I checked.

There was just the little voice, telling me to go out and help,

the gift,

 and the silence when he had left.

 

Plucky's Gift

What ever happened to that half-winged mourning dove?

You know I wouldn't leave you hanging if I could help it.

I had this whole post written on a plane. And the Internet swallowed it. The photos stayed but the text disappeared. Never had that happen before. Now I'll probably say something completely different than I did while hurtling over Kansas at sunset. One of the things I like about blogging is that I have no idea what's going to come out when I sit down. I started this one, and what came out was "One Day in Light" (the last post). When I'm blogging, I enter into a conversation with you, and it can go anywhere.

I saw the ghost of Ellen on March 11. I'm at the point where I can recognize certain deer naked eye at rather long distances. I raised the blind in the bedroom and saw Ellen against the west border of the meadow. The camera revealed that it was actually Flag, her daughter. All the little Elleny things in her gestalt at several hundred yards, that added up to Ellen for me, made me smile so big. It was like a visitation from her mama.

 

Nobody would give a passing glance to a small plain doe like Flag, unless they had known her mama, and come to love her so. I grow fonder of Flag every day.

 

I almost never see Flag without Buffy. Doughty little Buffy. I'll always wonder if she was related to Ellen, because they were always together, too, though they didn't get along very well. 

 

I have watched Flag take corn right from under Buffy's nose, and have never seen one iota of aggression between them. That's saying something, because I've seen Buffy fight.

Here's Buffy kissing Flag back in January 2017. Flag was still a little fawn. She'd just lost her mother in November.

Buffy, left, Flag right, today. See how much warmer-toned Buffy's hair is?
Buffy's also got tear tracks from her weepy left eye.

Buffy gave me a good laugh on March 8 when she stamped me. Deer stamp when they see something they don't like. Which would be me, through the window, at my drawing table.

 She stamped me with both front feet!

 

 Come on, Buffy. You know me. Stop punching more holes in my poor mushy lawn.

I do notice a difference in these two (the only ones who come in to clean up the jays' corn) and the other deer at Indigo Hill. Buffy and Flag are much more approachable in the field, more likely to watch me pass at a safe distance than the others, who all bound off. They know the Corn Lady, know my schedule, know my voice. It feels good to be recognized, even if I can't throw my arms around their necks.

Speaking of recognizing...A small gray female mourning dove, the avian equivalent of Flag, came walking in from the direction of the trumpetvine tangle on March 1. 

  

 Nothing to distinguish her on the left side, unless you were to notice the fresh white edging on her secondary wing feathers.

 

But on the right side...oh yes. Hello, Plucky! Look at that regrowth! There's still a lone black primary exposed, one of the two that remained after the hawk attack. But here come the primaries!

Luckily, she gave me a closeup.  It took only two weeks for all those feathers to regenerate. That, to me, is amazing.

In a few more days, she'd be virtually indistinguishable from the other doves.That won't stop me, and hasn't. I'm still looking for a small, grayish dove--probably less than a year old-- with a pale cheek and fresh wing feathers. So far, I haven't seen her again. But I take that to mean that she no longer needs to hide in the vines and gobble down grain at my feeder simply to survive.

 

As is so often the case,  I find myself scrutinizing groups, looking for one special creature. It may seem silly to some, but for me it's time well spent. Looking for Plucky taught me that each mourning dove has a unique spot pattern on its wings. Like this one--likely an immature, who is sprinkled with small dots.

 

And this mature male, with his iridescent neck and large oval spots on his coverts and tertials.

 

 I'd never realized that about mourning doves before Plucky came into my life. And I will recognize her should she appear again, as her wings are very lightly spotted.  And that's something to be able to say, that you could pick one special mourning dove out of a flock. That's the gift of close observation.

When Plucky finally took flight March 1, she corkscrewed as she went, but not nearly as badly as she had before. No longer would she have to walk from the tangle to the feeders and back.

Plucky had gotten her second chance.

I Love a Survivor

I first saw her come walking in with a flock of mourning doves, to the corn and sunflower seed I offer ground-feeders. It was February 15, 2018. For a moment I just stared at her, then I picked up the camera and started shooting. Her left wing was missing perhaps half its secondaries.

 but that was nothing to what I would see next.  Her right wing was practically gone. All the flight feathers save two long primaries had been torn out, some of her back feathers with them.

 I envisioned her struggling beneath a Cooper’s or perhaps a sharp-shinned hawk, held down while her wings were plucked nearly bald. Somehow, she must have struggled free and gotten away. I couldn’t imagine how, unless she hid in dense cover. Even that would be a weak defense against an accipiter; they tend to go in feet first after prey. For all I know, it happened right here, where the little male sharp-shinned hawk who's been hunting the yard this winter likes to hang out.

Particularly sweet that he's perched on the Destroying Angel birdbath my father made out of an old harrowing disc. Howdy DOD!!

Could he have been the one who plucked her? 

Thinking about the pluck shadows of the accipiter kills I've examined, there have usually been lots of wing feathers scattered around. I've always wondered why a hawk would pluck a bird's wings. All the meat is in the breast. Why bother?

After much thought, it occured to me that a small hawk holding prey as large as a mourning dove would do well to denude its wings before going in for the coup de grace. It's analogous to a housecat giving one quick bite to crush the shoulder of a songbird--an instinctive maneuver--almost invariably  the first thing a cat does to a bird it's caught-- that has given me far too many rehab clients who will never fly again. First, remove means of locomotion. Then, go in for the kill. 

Yep, I'm looking at you, crazy little sharpie boy. 

I love you in all your ferocious beauty, but I always heave a sigh of relief when you're done scoping the yard and you whirl off to terrorize somebody else.

I think the hairy woodpecker knows. But she's not talking. 

Well, this time Sharpieboy didn't get a meal. Here she is, still walking around.Somehow, she’d pulled it off. She'd been in the hawk's talons, and she'd struggled free.  Now here she was, trying to survive with half of one wing. She was nervous, her head held high. She dipped her head briefly to take a few grains of corn, then raised it to look for danger. She had to be even more vigilant than her flockmates, to see the predator first. I couldn’t imagine the constant stress she was under.

Inevitably, something frightened the doves and they all took off in a whirl of whistling wings. One remained. She froze, standing as tall as she could. She looked all around with barely perceptible head movements. The flock was long gone, but after checking carefully for danger, she sprang into the air in the direction they’d flown. My jaw dropped as I watched her rise on a steady 45 degree angle, her left wing pumping madly, carrying her up and forward. With the uneven thrust, she rolled hard to the right as she flew. My unbelieving eyes watched as she corrected with a half-roll left. On and on she twisted and corkscrewed until she was out of sight. What a bird. Wow! I wondered if I’d ever see her again.

Two days later, on February 17, she walked into the yard alone, from the direction of the compost heap. Thick tangles of trumpetvine crisscross in a dense lattice perhaps five feet deep.

To my amazement, new pinfeathers had already emerged from the empty feather follicles. Regrowth had started. Certainly, she was no more flightworthy than she'd been two days ago, but she was on her way. 

Another couple of days passed, and I saw her emerge from the trumpetvine tangle. It was February 19. I was moved to see her walking instead of flying. It seemed she'd decided to stay in the dense cover, close to my offerings of corn and seed. Let the flock travel. This bird had decided to lie low. 

She'd set up residence in the safety of the trumpetvine, and was commuting by foot to the cafeteria. And people say mourning doves are dumb.

Will you look at those secondaries! They're not only coming in; the feathers have burst their sheaths, like paintbrush tips! Even having studied the lightning development of baby birds, this seemed extreme for only four days' growth. Holy cow!

 She made her way quickly to the corn and filled her crop. I believe she was eating but once or twice a day, gobbling as much as she could, filling the baglike crop in her chest. The crop is an enlargement of the esophagus that serves as food storage. She could draw on that all day long.

She then gamely walked back into the tangle to digest, rest, and keep growing those feathers. Little thing's misshapen from all the corn she's packed in. Smart, smart, smart. Surviving. Doing what she has to to make it, given the handicap.

I am filled with admiration for this mourning dove. She announced her arrival in the yard on February 19 with a hard landing--a bounce and a full roll before she sprang to her feet and headed for the corn.
I shook my head and chuckled, and decided to call her Plucky.

It was hard to leave this story, this bird, and my watching post for a week to travel to California. I like following individual birds. I hoped hard that I'd be granted the privilege of seeing Plucky grow her wing feathers back and fly right. 

 I do love a survivor. 

Thank you for all your good thoughts and kindness. I have been surfing the invisible wave of your goodwill. :)