Indigo Buntings: Full Circle

Regular readers of this blog know that there is nothing, nothing, nothing that pleases me more than being able to tell the whole story. No matter how many days, weeks, months or years may come between the inception (Piper's arriving in April 2012, staking claim to the yard in July, singing on the farm bell, Mrs. Piper's building a nest on July 30, the incubation of her eggs and eventual hatch of two young on August 14, their growth and fledging on Day 10, August 24)...and the satisfying conclusion of the story. Sometimes you don't get that satisfying conclusion. Sometimes you luck out and you do. (I'm thinking of Shelly the box turtle, who came back a whole year later; I'm thinking of the gray tree frog eggs that finally became froglets; I'm thinking of the rose gentian that finally bloomed, two years later; I'm remembering Garrett the red-headed woodpecker and that magical winter (s)he spent with us...will she come back in 2012?)

 The trick is being there for it, watching for it, being ready for  the moment. So when Bill and I, doing some morning tower birding, spotted Mrs. Piper accompanied by two begging fledglings way out in the prairie patch in the sideyard, I went on high alert. Got a lot of photos of them as hopeless dark dots. It was September 9, 2012, and the babies, not seen since they were a rather reptilian 10 days old, would now be 26 days old. Ohhhh I wanted a photo of one of those little reptiles, transformed into a bird. But they wouldn't come any closer, and I was loath to break up the family breakfast by walking closer. Eventually it was time for me to head downstairs. Bill stayed up in the tower awhile longer. And shouted down, "ZICK! They've moved to the north border! Look in the sassafrases!"

And there were two newly minted indigo buntings. Oh my goodness. What a difference two weeks make.

I stood glued up against the trunk of my Japanese maple, hiding under its canopy, and shot as Mrs. Piper came in with a grasshopper. Oh glory be. 

Full circle.

As I write this, it's September 18. Yesterday morning, a male indigo bunting rose up out of the Pipers' prairie patch and gave a brief but indescribably sweet flight song, something I hadn't heard since late July, when Mrs. Piper was winding up to build her nest. It was early morning and the light was bad but I grabbed Bill's binoculars from his car and dashed around to get up-light of the bird. He'd landed in Piper's favorite cherry tree. Could it be Piper??

I didn't have my camera with me, but I was able to make out a bird with a blue head, brown back and chest, white belly, and blue wings and tail. Wow. If that's Piper, he's done some serious molting since I saw him last. 

As I stood amazed, Mrs. Piper and the two bairns flew up from the prairie patch to join the bird in  Piper's cherry. They chipped and talked and goofed around, flying little loops, for all the world like a family reunited. Holy cow. Talk about full circle! 

But it's never safe to assume. So I wrote my Molt Guru, Bob Mulvihill. 

Dear Bob, I'm launching in on a day-by-day photo story of the lives of the indigo buntings that nested in our yard. Want to ask your opinion on something. The male, Piper, who's featured in today's blogpost, made himself very scarce when his mate started incubation. I actually think he left the territory; he didn't come in for daily baths and didn't sing. I thought I might have seen him farther out the meadow. The two chicks fledged and are still being fed by the female in the yard and vicinity on Day 35, which is a bit of a surprise to me; hadn't thought they'd feed their fledglings quite that long after they left the nest. Now, yesterday morning, I saw and heard a male indigo give a flight song on Piper's territory, and land in "his" cherry. The female and young were with him. The light was terrible but I managed to maneuver uplight of him and he seemed to be a patchwork male, with brown on chest and back, some blue on wings and head. Would that be Piper? Do full adult males go into an eclipse molt and go back to brown for winter? 

Both babies are still completely in pale brown, so I know it wasn't one of them.  Thanks so much. JZ

Bob wrote me right back: 

Yes, Piper would almost certainly be starting his prebasic molt by now, replacing his bright blue "alternate" or breeding plumage with brown "basic" or winter plumage.  And, he likely will get browner day-by-day.  But, he will still have some nice blue highlights here and there even when his prebasic (= post-breeding) molt is finished.  I'll send you a couple of pics if I can find some for comparison.

Best,

Bob

This bird was photographed on October 2, 2003, at Powdermill Banding Station in western Pennsylvania. 

For a glimpse of just what cool stuff Bob gets to see and share, check this link to Powdermill's website. 

An earlier stage of molt, the brown basic plumage just starting to come in. I saw streaks of brown running down Piper's blue breast.

And that top photo of the brown, blue-winged male bunting is pretty much exactly what Piper looked like. To see him there reunited with his mate and two offspring, well, that was a fine moment. As I write, on September 18, she's still feeding them on Day 35. Bits and pieces, put together. That's how you get a picture of a bird. 

Thanks to Bob Mulvihill, whose email signature includes this:

"It's nice to be important, but it's more important to be nice."

--sign over the work table of a man named Jeno, who was a master cabinet maker at Boswell Lumber in Somerset Co., PA in the 1970s, and who unfailingly dropped whatever he was doing to help a young boy turn rough drawings of his latest idea for a custom bird feeder or nest box into well-fitting pieces that could be assembled into the real thing!

Indigo Buntings: Fledging Day!!

Morning of August 24, 2012. Day 10. Whoops, somebody's not IN the nest. He's ON it. Good thing I checked from afar...

Preening, just like a big boy. The beauty of standing back with a telephoto on manual focus. 

It's happened. They're out. I can hear the other one scrabbling and fluttering in the roses. 

The day is hot as Hades and they're baking in that border.

I am unprepared for how very tiny they are. If you grow rudbeckia and roses, you'll see what I mean.  This is barely a three-inch-tall bird. Don't miss his foot and the rest of his body under the rudbeckia seed head--pretty cute! He's not begging--he's panting here. I'm glad they're feathered, mostly, to avoid getting sunburned.

Mrs. Piper chips, spits and scolds me from her lawnchair perch. Good job, Mrs. Piper. I'm so proud of you, pulling off that brood of two all by yourself. 

She gives me a parting shot that fills my heart.

The two fledglings would stay in the border all afternoon. By the next morning, they were gone, presumably led off to the cooler woods by their mother. Oh, how desperately I hoped to see them again, and perhaps even photograph them. But this would be the time that Mrs. Piper did not want humans around--while her babies were flightless and scrambling. So I'd see neither hide nor hair of the young birds. Now, every once in awhile I'd see Mrs. Piper at the bath. So I knew she still had a reason or two to hang around, and only hoped that the two fledglings were thriving and growing. 

 I'm not telling. Thanks for the clean tub, by the way. 

Least I can do for you, little Muse.

Indigo Bunting Nest-Part Four

Indigo buntings, Day 8 in the morning. They're looking pretty reptilian, but they have brown back and wing feathers bursting the sheathes all over, so I feel confident there will be a transformation coming soon. Technically, these babies could fledge at any time. Amazing, I know, to think of this mostly-naked prickly little thing leaving the nest, but you have to grasp just how dangerous it is to stay in the nest to appreciate why that might be a good thing to do.

Day 8 in the afternoon. I know they'll be going soon, and I can't resist documenting the changes over the next few hours. You can see by their eyes that they're wise to me. I do love this shot and am glad I got it.

Oh, you dear little things. Thank you for facing around. I needed that goggle-eyed stare for our afternoon salon.

The garage garden as it looked this summer. Tall and wild. I never got a chance to prune the roses before they formed buds, well before the forsythia got going. Whew, what a wild spring it was! The cardinal mosaic in the foreground was a gift from a dear couple for whom I rehabilitated a titmouse whose wing their cat had injured. He's the titmouse in The Bluebird Effect, whose chapter is entitled "Nobody Can Cuss Like a Titmouse." Unlike about 90% of cat casualties, he went on to live and eat more peanuts. A small miracle, one I was more than happy to assist.

Behind that is my beloved rain barrel, which collects all the water for my freshwater Amazon tank and then, once the fish have used it, my orchids. Then some roses, and the hibiscus is behind the roses near the curve in the sidewalk.

Oh boy. Day 9, 8/23/12. These babies are ready, Eddie. Giving me the hairy eyeball they are. I am skeert to get any closer for a better shot. They might explode.

Thanks to their bald heads and protruding eyes, they're still looking startlingly like young cowbirds, but are about half the size of a nine-day old cowbird. Wish the camera had chosen the birds instead of the leaf to focus on, but that's too bad. I'm not going any closer. Still, you can see that their feathers have mostly erupted, and they are now equipped with some insulation, which they're going to need more once they're out and hopping. Flying really isn't in the cards for a few more days. They'll flutter-hop and clamber, that's what they'll do.

I do believe it's going to happen tomorrow. We tiptoe around the nest in the evening, as we're eating dinner right nearby on the picnic table. Please, no whiffleball or Frisbee tonight.

On that...I'm often asked why birds choose to nest in high (human) traffic areas. Unfortunately, most people conclude it's because the birds are stupid, or haven't somehow noticed that people tromp up and down that sidewalk all day. I wondered, for instance, about the robin who plopped her nest in the bird's nest blue spruce right next to the loudspeaker at Marietta's drive-through McDonald's. WOULD YOU LIKE ME TO SUPERSIZE THAT SIR?? At first blush, it looked like a big DUH on her part. But guess what? Her babies all fledged. Into a parking lot, but she got them out of there to some trees. Time to think again. Birds like that robin and Mrs. Piper deliberately choose these areas because they're too heavily traveled for raccoons and snakes to want to go there. Same goes for the Carolina wren in your hanging basket, and for the phoebe on your porch light, the one who flies off and scolds every time you open the door. 

She wants you there. 

So when a bird nests in a place that's inconvenient for you, or where you think she might be subject to too much disturbance, carry on business as usual. Water that hanging basket to the side of the nest, but don't stop watering it. Relax. Know that she chose the site for a good reason and is willing to accept the disturbance in exchange for protection from predators. 

Birds are never, ever clueless. Well, the three domestic mallards I have to stand on my brakes for every morning may qualify. But wild birds aren't.  

Next: FLEDGING DAY!!