Eagles Don't Always Come Home - Birds's Nests

Bald eagle on the nest, Phippsburg, Maine spring 2010

Eagles make enormous nests spanning 4-5 feet across. They are messy, clumsy looking nests. They do hold these giant birds and the chicks, along with whatever food they bring home.

This next nest is a Tree swallow nest. It's sitting on a bed of Thyme in my garden. In the top third of the nest in the center is an egg. This nest came from a Bluebird box on our property which is occupied by Tree Swallows. That's why the nest is square in shape. This nest had been recently abandoned, though not long before. There is feces still on the bottom right corner. This is an elegant, inviting nest.

Like eagles, Ospreys build huge nest, too. Also like eagles, they usually return to the same nest year after year. This one is on top of a utility pole. The photo was taken in February. See the snow? Osprey build nests in high places like this and are often seen atop cell phone towers. The Osprey nests are frequently disruptive to whatever the intended purpose was of their commandeered superstructure.  Under certain circumstances, power and cell phone companies have permission to remove nests.

I have a book about nest identification. It's a Petersen Field Guide titled "Eastern Bird's Nest" by Hal H. Harrison. I find bird's nests harder to identify than the birds themselves, which can be very difficult. Nests vary in appearance depending on available materials. A robin may use hay rather than sticks if that is what available. In that case, the nest would look blond and very different from one constructed of twigs. 

I'm guessing that this is the nest of a type of thrush, but I can't say for sure. It's about 4 inches across and had a mud cup consistent with thrush nest building.

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This nest is tiny by comparison to the others. It's about 3 inches across. It probably is the nest of a vireo or warbler. Moss was used on the lower half. Then, Pine needles and grass were wound around together to form the interior. It looks dry and cozy.

This nest is that of a North American robin. They use mud to make a cup and then weave other material around in the mud. The nests are about 5-6 inches across. Robins aren't too fussy about where they nest and often construct nests on and around houses. This one was attached to the side of a house in a climbing Hydrangea vine.

This nest is probably that of a flycatcher, perhaps Olive sided. Thought it looks quite whimsical, it's solidly constructed.

Baltimore orioles build nests about 40 feet up in deciduous trees and construct this pouch style nest. I love the pieces of tarpaulins that have been woven into it. On the bottom right are some white lumps of stuffing. They have been pulled from a pillow, mattress or sleeping bag.

A few years ago, I used to go almost daily to a Bald eagle nest to see what the birds were up to. I followed the progress of the two chicks born there through to the day they took their first flight. The next year, I went eagerly to the nest again. I hoped to catch another season of wonder in nest building, courting, mating and growing Bald eagle chicks.

It was early in the Maine spring. Bald eagles start courting and working on their nests in March here. The nest is on the shores of the Kennebec River where it empties into the Atlantic Ocean. Unrelenting wind blows hard, raw and cold. My fingers froze. Several times, I pulled them back into the sleeves of my jacket, like retreating turtles. I cupped one hand in the other alternately blowing warm breath into the hand cave. I put in my time in my deep desire to see the eagles. But, no eagles.

Days went by. I wondered, "Geez, where are they?” The Bald eagle pair had nested there for several years, so it was not a new place to them. I had seen them in the air a few times, so I knew they were around. But, they were not nesting. There had not been any construction or other disruptions by man in the area. What could it be? Why had they forsaken me? Me? What about me? Of course, whether they nested there or not had nothing to do with me, but somehow it felt personal.

Like a little kid, I wished really hard for them to bring in a stick or even just light on the rim of the nest to investigate. I wished like a child wishing for a certain Christmas present though she knows that Santa Claus doesn't really exist. When I heard them keening from high in the sky or across the river, I pleaded hard. "Please, please, please," as if they could hear me or understand.

But, no eagles. I had time to look around, to ponder what had changed that made this familiar nest no longer appealing to them. A few years before, they had a different nest a couple of hundred feet away. A wind storm snapped off branches from the huge, White pine that held it. That year, they moved to this newer site. Like a bridge inspector I peered at the superstructure, looking for cracks, signs of crumbling, or changes in integrity. Then, I saw it.

Slithering up the side of the tree, sixty feet into the air above me, meandered a green video cable. It crawled from the woods before climbing up the opposite side of the tree from where I had been watching. The anaconda wire was the feed for a nest cam. The BioDiversity Research Institute had positioned a camera in the nest to monitor the Bald eagle population. In the process, they had captured and banded one of the adults. Should that bird be found dead, they could know about its life history.

             I was outraged like someone had stolen my lunch money! Though heartbroken and angry, I tried to be logical. Wasn't it a good thing to monitor the eagles? Most people can't go sit and freeze their fingers to see a nest and then, hopefully, one day the ensuing young. Most people sit in their offices, stealing moments to look at video cams across the planet. They are voyeurs to the lives of puppies, heinous baby sitters, cheating partners, and eagles. Video cams and photography are ways in which the average person gets to see things they otherwise would not. And in that, they become invested in their welfare. Monitoring of eagle populations is how we came to realize that we were killing them off in the first place!

To protect our resources, it's better to know more about them, even when sometimes there are counterproductive outcomes. There’s risks and always good and bad to everything. And, truthfully, there could have been other reasons the eagles did not come back to that nest having nothing to do with the plastic cable and camera. There are normal, natural reasons that eagles do not nest every year; it’s not always pathological. Perhaps they were just bored and wanted a new place with granite countertops and stainless steel appliances, like everyone else.           

This past spring, a friend of thirty-five years called. She said she wanted to talk to me about something. 

  "What's up?" I asked.

            "I don't want to talk about it on the phone," she said.

            "Oh, come on! Just tell me!" I said, but no, she wouldn't.

So, we made a date to meet. That gave me a week to think about what she could possibly have on her mind.  

            My first thought was that something was wrong with her husband, or kids, or grandkids. "Oh God, I hope nobody's sick." I agonized. I asked my husband what he thought. "Do you think maybe there's something wrong with Mike?" My husband had no idea, either.

            With nothing to get my teeth into for a possible reason, I began to wonder if I had done something to tick her off. We hadn't talked much for months, actually. Come to think of it. So how could it be anything? It must be something. Like walking with a rock in my shoe, I went over and over every conversation between us for the past six months. I analyzed and worked over all of it, but remained mystified. Nothing. I couldn't come up with anything. Though I was at a complete loss, for the week before we were to meet, my guts were in a knot. She was my oldest, dearest friend. Nothing like this had ever gone on between us before.

            When I got to her house we hugged as we always did. Her dogs barked and jumped on me, scratching my leg through my pants as they always did. She screamed at them to get off, as she always did. She poured us each an oversized glass of red wine, as she always did. Then we, sat down in the living room, and she let me have it. Which she never did. 

            She told me I was an arrogant, social elitist snob. She said that I had totally changed and did not even look the same anymore. She said that since I had lost weight and become a celebrity, I thought I was too good for everybody else. She dredged up some year old, now friendship ancient history events, which had made her angry - things I could barely recall, never mind defend, things she had harboured for a year. She beat me over the head with the details, clear and fresh in her mind. She punched me with the word 'arrogant,' slapped me with 'snob,' screamed 'know it all,' until my ears were ringing. It was a first rate mugging.

            Like most people who are assaulted, I forgot that I ever took martial arts classes. Every kick boxing move I practiced in the gym had forsaken me. I was in disbelief at what was happening. I stared blankly at her, then laughed and blurted just the worst possible, wrong thing.

            "You're such an idiot, a moron! You can't be serious! What the hell...." I trailed off. She had to be joking. My glass of wine suddenly seemed all wrong in my hand. I set it down on the side table, carefully, before I dropped the whole thing or snapped the stem in half.

            "And that's another thing!" My old pal's smoking rant had only just begun, as it turned out. And I had just thrown gasoline on it.

            When it was 'over,' I was crying and feeling sick to my stomach. The room was quiet. Even the dogs had stopped their incessant barking, always the background to our conversations. I was still wearing my jacket, but I was cold. My fancy scarf and earrings I had chosen specifically for her to see now seemed ridiculous. My stomach churned and growled.

            "So," said my pal. "Ya ready to go out to dinner now?"

            "No, no," was my weak response.  "Are you kidding? After that?" 

            When she stood up I think I flinched. She said "I gotta let the dogs out. I'll be right back."

            She came back into the room with the bottle of wine. Still standing, she topped off her own glass. Wine dribbled down the neck of the bottle onto the carpet. She made no move to blot it up. Normally, an overly fastidious person, she would have jumped on it with a sprayer of Resolve.

            I thought, "Okay, I’m going to rise above this tantrum, this tirade, this whatever-the-hell." It had obviously bothered her, too. I said we might as well go to dinner, which we did. It was stiff. It was awkward. I watched every word that came out of my mouth. I edited and checked every joke. The spontaneous, apparently arrogant, elitist snob, know it all was having a time out.

           It's been months since that happened. I've thought about it every day. Reliving that verbal vomit session on her couch is replayed in my head nearly every night as I'm drifting off to sleep. She is my oldest friend. Friends should be able to tell each other what they feel like, right? Friends should clear the air, right? Friends should be honest, right? Friends should forgive each other, stay loyal, and get over it, right? But, I can't. I've lost some golden thread of trust. I've been told I'm a monster, a self serving, hideous beast that has stomped on my friend. And not just once. No! Apparently many times! I've been told I'm oblivious, self absorbed and uncaring!  I've been told I'm not lovable. And I can't get over it.

        There's a crevasse between us now. I see it every time we speak. My off the cuff, slap stick, jokester self dangles over the darkness waiting to die in every conversation. I can't be me anymore. In a friendship, if you can't be who you are, what is there? A friendship is where trust, loyalty and forgiveness are everything. In every other social relationship, we are at known risk. We know we would be fired for certain things, thrown out of an office for certain things, or even arrested. But a friendship is a relationship we choose because of safety in the bond.

         I don't know what to do with this. I don't know where it will end up. I take each day with her, one at a time. Maybe I'll forget. Maybe I’ll forgive. One thing I do know is that sometimes eagles do not come back to the nest.              

To watch a live Osprey nest came, visit this site: http://explore.org/#!/live-cams/player/live-osprey-cam

FLYday - Bald Eagle and Herring Gull Fight

Adult Bald eagle being harassed by Herring Gull, Phippsburg, Maine, May 2012

FLYday is an homage to what our feathered friends do best, fly. 

I took this shot on the end of our pier, 120 feet out into the ocean. I was wearing my bathrobe. 

On my photography web site, you will find almost 8,000 images of Maine taken by me. 

http://robinrobinsonmaine.com 

FLYday - Great Blue Heron Food Battle

Great Blue Herons, Ardea herodias engaged in food battle. The heron on the left is biting the legs of the fleeing heron on the right!

Phippsburg, Maine

FLYday is an homage to what our feathered friends do best, fly.

For more wading birds, see this link: http://www.robinrobinsonmaine.com/photos/swfpopup.mg?AlbumID=13998997&AlbumKey=FQwq63

FLYday - Juvenile Bald Eagle

Juvenile, Bald eagle, Phippsburg, Maine

(I took this photograph while wearing my bathrobe!)

FLYday is an homage to what our feathered friends do best, fly.

FLYday - Sandpipers And Plovers, Maine

 

Sandpipers and Plovers in migration, Phippsburg Maine, Popham Beach 2011

FLYday is an homage to what our feathered friends do best, fly.

FLYday - Barn Swallows

Barn swallows in flight and feeding fledglings while on the wing.

FLYday is an homage to what our feathered friends so best, fly.

FLYday - Bald Eagle

Bald eagle, adult Phippsburg, Maine

An homage to what our feathered friends do best, fly.

FLYday - Turkey Vulture Chimney Top Take Off

Turkey Vulture Taking Off From Chimney Top, Phippsburg, Maine April 18, 2011

An homage to what our feathered friends do best, fly.

So Many Birds, So Little Time - Bald Eagles Like The Beach

Young Bald eagles, Atkin's Bay, Phippsburg, Maine April 18, 2011

The eagle on the left is older than the one on the right. Bald eagles like the beach!

"Hey! Give me back my iPod!" Bald eagles like listening to music.

"Watch me nail this landing!"

Bald eagles, two youngsters, probably 3rd and 4th year and an adult, Phippsburg, Maine April 19, 2011

Remember that you can click on any of these pictures to see them larger. In the photo to the top right of the bottom collage, there are two eagles mixing it up so closely that they look like one.

     This is the time of year when I start gardening for other people, or "Weeding For Dollars." From now until July fourth, it's exhilarating! The brown months have folded seamlessly into the newness of the green months. The whole planet is coming on full force with blooming flowers, fresh air and signing birds. Over the winter I had become somewhat starved for birds. Our part of the earth, muffled in snow, didn't hold much for bird song. I'm a listener, too. I was so wanting for the sounds of birds that a few times, I imagined I heard birds when cracking, frozen branches and keening wind were the sources. Now, the trees and sky are alive! From every quarter, someone is singing, even me! I've been thinking when my back finally gives out, perhaps I 'll start a career in opera. I'm sure my children will be pleased that I have goals.

     I love the work, but like all things, sometimes it can be a real drag. There are the days when it's hot, buggy, or wet. This first part of the season, it's cold which will only give way to Black flies, mosquitoes, ticks and Brown Tail moth rashes. Have I mentioned Poison Ivy? But, for all of that, I am out of doors in gorgeous places. The gardens are beautiful, this I know because otherwise I'd have some explaining to do to myself. And I usually don't start talking to myself until the middle of August.

     I do get resentful though when I feel like I'm being taken away from photography. I often remind myself that toiling in other people's yards like a Bend-Over-Betty lawn ornament does give me opportunities to see amazing things. I almost always get a few photographs out of it, too. So many birds does make it hard to concentrate on weeds, though. I have to stop looking up for every tweet, chip and chur to pull, hack and tease. And rake. Then rake some more and rake again. And haul. There's so much to be done and so many distractions, yet so little time.

     I may be  jumping the gun by saying this, but I am finding the gardening work easier this year. Having  spent the winter working out and controlling my consumption, I've lost thirty seven pounds. At just five feet tall, so that's a load o' lard, over twenty four percent of myself, to be exact. So, I'm moving with comparative facility and energy this year. I was recently asked if I had some medical emergency that prompted the weight loss. "Yes," I said. "Oh dear! Are you alright? What was it?" the inquirer pried. "When bending over to tie my shoes meant holding my breath and suffering the spins, that was the medical emergency," I explained. They thought I was joking, but I wasn't. I've even given up red wine, which anyone who knows me would never have predicted possible. So, when I nonetheless had a full blown hallucination this morning, I was taken by complete surprise.

     I've slimmed down enough that I no longer dread looking in the mirror. I don't even avoid it. Yes, ladies and gentlemen, it's true. It's been a decade since I've been able to stomach my own stomach. But today, I caught my reflection and saw that I have the beginnings of an abdominal six pack! Well, maybe only a four pack, and possibly merely better definition of a couple of rolls, but something different from what has ever jiggled hello to me from the mirror before. I have a  beach body! And I don't mean one of those human potato people that unabashedly parades themselves on the Volga River, either. I have always admired their guts, or perhaps I should say courage. Those portly women looking like half cooked dumplings in bikinis seemed to like themselves well enough nor have cared what anyone else thought. Their junk in the trunk wasn't enviable, but I have held their bravery in high regard.

   Now, I feel like a super hero with abs of steel and I'm shedding my bathrobe! I'm going to celebrate my newly remodelled temple with a belly piercing! About 1970, when I was fifteen, my mother wore a navel jewel. That was before body piercings unless one had come from the Congo or some other exotic place, but my mother came from Topsham, Maine. She was a mill worker with five children to feed, but she managed to have belly jewels!

     She wore several colored jewels which she interchanged to titillate my father. Revelling in her own outrageousness, she revealed  the jewels to us children when she swapped out the colors. "Look! I've found an emerald green jewel!" She would squeal with delight, lifting her shirt up for us to see. I was at once, horrified and captivated by her belly flesh which looked to me like cottage cheese. "How does she keep them in there?" I wondered to myself. "Glue? Suction?" I never dared ask. On what little TV programming there was then, men and women were not even shown in the same beds! Yet, my mother pranced around our tiny, gundgy kitchen flaunting a navel jewel. She staunchly believed she was doing us a favor by being a living example of not giving a damn what anyone thought of her body. Her parenting skills were way ahead of the curve in that regard. So, to honor her, and myself, I'm going for the gold: belly piercing it is. My deflated middle doesn't look like cottage cheese, though. It's more like a slumped Brie. Vive la France! I don't want a timid stud nor jewel for my navel novelty, either. I've commissioned my husband to find something unique from the dump. I'm thinking a chrome hub cap might do just the trick. The glinting disk should be visible from space. Be looking for me on the beach this summer with my new, shimmering field mark.   

...................................................................................

     Bald eagles do like the beach. They are usually found near water and in large numbers when there is enough food, like ducks and scavenged fish. The numbers of eagles in Phippsburg has increased tremendously in the past decade. I see 3-5 of them every day without trying and know of two active nests close by. I frequently see them when I'm gardening, though how I do this bent over to the ground is an as yet, undiscovered talent.  I have yet to see a Bald eagle sporting a navel jewel or belly piercing, but will report promptly if I do. The top series of photographs of the eagles on the beach was a lucky find after a long day of spring garden clean up. The two eagles are about a year apart. The eagle with the whiter head is the older one. Bald eagles are sexually dimorphic; males and females have the same plumage and only vary slightly in size. The second set of images was captured the day afterward, also while I was gardening. The two young eagles in the bottom collage are the same two that were on the beach. They could be siblings, but not nest mates. The mature Bald eagle flying with them is probably one of their parents.

     Golden eagles are seen in Maine on rare occasions. Though they are often confused with Bald eagles in various stages of plumage, they are not even closely related. Plentiful in the western Rockies, Golden eagles are birds of mountainous areas that hunt mammals and other birds. Though Golden eagles have a different body shape than Bald eagles, both birds as juveniles have longer tails, broader wings and stouter bills than the adults. A young Bald eagle may look to the inexperienced eye like an adult Golden eagle.

     Bald eagles have brown feathers speckled with white usually until they are five years old. They are sexually mature when they have white heads. They may develop fully balded heads as early as three years, but that's very rare. A significant field mark is leg covering. Golden eagles' legs are completely feather covered, while a young Bald eagles' legs are bare, like little boys wearing nickers before big boy pants. Golden eagles are most easily confused with Bald eagles as first year juveniles when they have a white rump. In flight, as juveniles, they also show white under their wings. Bald eagles also have white under their wings as juveniles through their second year. This is the plumage phase when less experienced birders are apt to erroneously report having seen a Golden eagle. I've done it myself. Zut alors! In birding as in medicine, we say "If you hear hoof beats, think horse, not zebra." In Maine, if you see a funky looking eagle, it could be a Golden, but it's more likely to be a Bald eagle that hasn't come into its star spangled, balded glory. It's simply not mature enough to flaunt its navel jewel.

Thanks for some of the information to:

Wikipedia.com

Sibley, D.A., The Sibley Guide To The Birds (2001), Knopf: New York (2000), pp. 126-127

"KIWI!!!!" Or Maybe a Woodcock

American Woodcock April 7, 2011 Phippsburg, Maine

This wasn't a rush, because it was  lone woodcock. One is a woodcock, two or more are still woodcock, like deer are still deer.  A group of woodcock is called a "rush," "fall", "flight", "plump," or "cord." Don't let anyone cheat you; a cord of woodcock measures 4 by 4 by eight feet.

Look closely at the back end of this bird. Naughty, naughty, naughty!

      My sainted husband is not a birder, but he does know what makes his little wifey happy - BIRDS!  Though he isn't good at identifying birds, he has developed a pretty good eye for the weird, odd, curious and standouts. That is why he is married to me, after all. He recently called me at home from his cell phone yelling "KIWI! There's a kiwi on Popham Road, come quick!" I didn't ask questions because that would slow me down. I jumped into the car and sped in pursuit. On the way, I pondered, "Kiwi?" What the hell was he talking about?

     The American Woodcock and the kiwi don't even reside on the same continents, so I was pretty sure that he was looking at a woodcock. But, an exciting thing about birding is, as the saying goes, "You just never know!" Distributions of species of birds changes as the environment changes (I'm trying not to say "global warming"), birds get blown around by weather events, and people obtain and release foreign species. So, most anything could be possible and is at least worth consideration. Birding allows every one of us to morph from the tweedy Professor Henry Jones, Jr. into Indiana Jones. That is, if you're willing to drop everything and take off in the pursuit of the living artifacts.

This is me hot on the hunt for the Phippsburg kiwi

      Of course, when I got there, the kiwi was gone. But, I could hear two of them in the woods. Body snatched by the spirit of Indiana Jones, I raced silently through the forest. My heart pounding, with breath quick, I could almost feel the coveted golden idol in my hands! My ancient Temple Of Trees was filled with booby traps entangling my feet. I stepped  unwittingly into a snare and was lurched by my ankles high into the canopy. But! From my boot tops, I grabbed my Bowie knife and cut the line, swinging from the end to the ground. Now, camouflaged in leaves and mud, I continued. "I must retrieve the golden idol before my arch rival, French ornithologist, Michuad Fahaydue!" Twice, I flushed them but was left with a ghostly whirring of wings through the branches. Light failing me, I would have to return to my University in Indiana, to search another day.
   Of course, I went back the very next day. Sure enough, it was an American woodcock. I do understand why my husband thought "kiwi."  The birds are not dissimilar in appearance to the untrained eye, the eye of one whose birding knowledge does not go beyond a can of shoe polish and his wife's undying gratitude for the effort. The kiwi and the woodcock have vaguely similar morphology, but that's where all similarities end.

Kiwis lay the largest eggs relative to body size of all living bird species on earth.

    Kiwis, are from New Zealand and not even remotely related to woodcocks. The kiwi is flightless, while the woodcock is not and the kiwi is endangered. American woodcock, sometimes called "Timberdoodles,"  are not endangered. However, their numbers have been steadily decreasing by about one percent a year since the 1960s. When young forest was plentiful, woodcock were abundant. But many brushy areas have grown into mature forest, where woodcock do not live. And human development has destroyed much of the birds' former habitat. In true action movie form, The National Fish And Wildlife Foundation has a "Woodcock Task Force" which targets woodcock populations for conservation. "Save the woodcock!" Do you suppose they wear camo. to their meetings?
     Like the snipes they are related to, the woodcock are a popular game bird. They present a particular challenge to hunters because they are so hard to see on the ground. They are elusive targets; when startled into flight, they bely their portly shape, quickly zigzagging through the trees. Some species, especially those endemic to islands,  have been hunted to near extinction. Artists value the woodcocks' pin feathers used for fine painting work. The woodcock are a group of seven or eight very similar living species. But, there are only two woodcock that are widespread, most of them found in the Northern Hemisphere. Indiana Jones would groove on the notion that eight species of woodcock are known only from their fossil records.
     As the name implies, woodcock are woodland birds that live near wetlands, streams and rivers. Oddly, they are actually a sandpiper, and a wading bird! They are unusual in this group (sandpipers, dunlins, curlews, etc.) of birds as the only members that live, nest and breed in the woods. They are one of the few shorebirds widely hunted for sport.
     Like all wading birds, they have a very long middle toe. For wading birds, the middle toe acts like a snow shoe, distributing the bird's weight over a greater area so they don't sink into the mud. They have eyes set wide apart on their heads which gives them 360 degree vision. With their long, slender bill they poke around in the dirt for worms. Unlike most birds, the top of their bill is flexible at the tip. The guess is that they actually feel the worms underground with their tongue and bill tip. But, no one really knows what's going on under the earth. A woodcock rocks its body back and forth without moving its head as it slowly walks around, stepping heavily with its front foot. This action may make worms move around in the soil, making them easier to detect. The woodcock in these photographs was doing just that while maintaining a sideways eye on me.
     I waited a long time, hoping that the bird would do something a little more interesting than humping along the ground, walking like an Egyptian in search of supper. Suddenly, it hunched up, extended its neck, then ruffled its feathers. Camera trained and ready, I squealed, "Oh yeah!, It's gonna do something and I'm ready!" It arched its back slightly then shot out a load of poo, as you can see in the second photo. Oh, well, action is action in the wildlife world. Be careful what you ask for. Woodcock are mostly nocturnal wandering around in the wooded dark looking for food. In the day time, they rest like the one you see here.
     Though they are a common bird, they are often hard to find because of their cryptic plumage. They blend into their surroundings of usually fallen leaves. You may actually nearly step on one in the woods or, as is the case, on the grass and never know they are there. Had I not been on a quest for this particular bird, I would have  missed it entirely.

     Woodcocks in North America are migratory. In Maine, they start appearing in mid March.

A spring freshet, Phippsburg, Maine April 2011

This is the very sort of habitat woodcocks love!

     My earliest sighting was February 12th here in Phippsburg a couple of years ago, but that's early. They become conspicuous when they begin to mate. In the spring, they often begin mating on lingering patches of snow. Where the woodcock displays is called a "singing ground." In the elaborate display called "roding," the males begin to call on the ground, "peent! peent! peent!" It's a high, nasal sound with a slight buzz that you might have heard and mistaken for spring frogs or insects. One of my gardening customers has a solar powered gizmo for warding rodents from his stone walls. It emits an electronic peenting buzz every fifteen seconds which sounds exactly like a woodcock. I've been foiled more than once skulking around his property looking for the hiding bird.

     Once peenting, the bird  flies upward in an ever widening spiral for two to three hundred feet! As he rises, his wings begin to twitter. Once descending, he chirps and starts a zigzagging, diving pattern to the ground. Nearing the ground he silently lands near a female if there is one. On the ground, he starts peenting again. The displays are usually at dawn and dusk and can go on all summer, long after mating is finished, but they're most common in spring. 

     Having completed this doctoral disertation, I must be be off in search of an emu reported to be near, or was that the fog horn on Seguin I heard? Now, if only I can find my bullwhip..........

For some of the information, thanks to:

wikipedia.com

allaboutbirds. org

whatbird.com

Elphick, J. in The Golden Age Of Lithography: 1850-1890, BIRDS - The Art Of Ornithology 2008, Scriptum: London (2004), pp 241

Tudge, C., 2008. In The Bird - A Natural History Of Who Birds Are, Where They Came From And How They Live, Tudge, C. PLOVERS AND LAPWINGS, SANDPIPERS, SNIPES, CURLEWS, DOWITCHERS, PHALAROPES, AVOCETS AND STILTS, JACANAS, PAINTED SNIPES OYSTERCATCHERS, THE CRAB PLOVER, STONE CULEWS, PRATINCOLES AND COUSERS, SEED SNIPES, THE PLAINS WANDERER, SHEATHBILLS, GULLS, TERNS, SKUAS AND JAEGERS, SKIMMERS AND AUKS: ORDER CHARADRIIFORMES, Crown Publishers: New York (2008), pp 136-37

Sibley, D.A., The Sibley Guide To Birds, 2000, Knopf: New York (2001), pp 192

Keppie, D. M., and R. M. Whiting, Jr. 1994. American Woodcock (Scolopax minor). In The Birds of North America, No. 100 (A. Poole, and F. Gill, eds.). The Academy of Natural Sciences, Philadelphia, PA, and The American Ornithologists' Union, Washington, D.C.

FLYday - Osprey With Flounder

Osprey With Flounder, Phippsburg, Maine

An homage to what our feathered friends do best, fly.

FLYday - Snowy Egret

Snowy Egret, Phippsburg, Maine

An homage to what our feathered friends do best, fly.

FLYday - "Go Goosey, Go!"

A weekly homage to what our feathered friends do best, fly.

Canada goose, Phippsburg, Maine

FLYday - Belted Kingfisher

Belted Kingfisher, female in flight, March 5, 2011
An homage to what our feathered friends so best, fly.

"Out Of Place" White-winged Crossbill, Common Redpolls

Common redpolls and White-winged crossbill March 14, 2011 Phippsburg, Maine

White-winged Crossbill, male March 14, 2011 Phippsburg, Maine

     A flock of about a hundred and thirty Common redpolls is still here. Among them has been this lone, male, White-winged crossbill. As boreal forest birds, it's highly unusual for either species to be here this late into spring. Maine has seen unprecedented numbers of Common redpolls this winter. Though they look somewhat out of place, the birds seem comfortable in this environment far from their northern homes. They don't spook easily and are aggressive at the feeders. I've carefully studied the flock of redpolls hoping to see a Hoary redpoll, but no such luck. I did notice that some of the Common redpolls were wearing high heels and the White-winged crossbill was wearing false eye lashes. Hoping to fit in, boreal birds are known to don this type of attire when they travel south to the cities.

     My husband and I just came back from a trip. We travelled south to see family and to see the Philadelphia Flower Show. Though we only went to New Jersey and Pennsylvania, for us it was a big trip. Jersey and PA are after all, south of here and closer to spring. We don't often get off the Phippsburg peninsula, and when I do it usually involves a police escort and zip ties. My children have both moved away from Maine and I sometimes wonder if my reputation is one of the reasons they fled. But, they haven't completely escaped me; occasionally, I visit them. And when I do, I try to clean up my act. Both of my kids are now adults. They have complete lives with respectable jobs, friends and images of their own far removed from when they lived with me. I don't want to embarrass them. I remember with crystalline clarity the days when I held my breath fearing that it was they who would embarrass me. I don't recall anything either of them actually did that mortified me, but I do recall the anxiety of fearing that they might.

     My daughter's life is now in New Jersey, land of concrete, asphalt and the most shopping malls per square mile of all fifty states. She is a stylish, citified and gorgeous, young woman. She wears huge, hoop earrings and boots with four inch heels as day-to-day wear. On her worst day, she looks like a super model.

    I, on the other hand, live where practical shoes dictate all outfits. I look comparatively like a troll that's lost its bridge. I sleep in plaid flannel and wear snow shoes to bed! The day we left, it was zero degrees Fahrenheit and we still had two feet of snow pack, making these nightwear choices prudent. Most days, I'm also bundled in layers of mismatched fleece.

     My daughter and I had not seen each other in eight months. Suddenly, I envisioned myself through her eyes. I looked like a bear! Now, the mortification tables had turned and I felt woefully inadequate. I would have to do something radical to myself in order to not be an embarrassing hick, a gnarly Nanook of The North, an Ellie May Clampet without great legs. First off, I bought high heeled boots. For several days, while in my bathrobe, I wore them around the house for practice. Nothing pegs a country girl quite so fast as when she falls off her own shoes. After I had that licked, I got a hair cut. That involved two and a half hours in a salon chair. With a reciprocating saw, the beautician whacked a foot off my coif. It took half a pound off my body weight and ten years from my face. But, I wasn't done.

   Of late, on television, I've been watching Real Housewives Of Atlanta. The trashy, reality TV series fascinates me because the women are preposterous. Yet, they do exist in real life, albeit in a bizarre social context. They represent a world and people so far removed from me that I find it easier to conjure Martians. And, in that respect, I find them educational. It's always good to get in touch with what's out there that you can't possibly imagine. I also learned something practical beyond the bare sociology, too.

     I discovered that they all wear false eye lashes and they wear them all the time! The fake eye lashes are what account for some of their vapid, doe-eyed blinking. I noticed this when one of the ladies was crying in a fit of despair and her eye lash came off in her hand like a soggy caterpillar. Some of the "housewives" are not classically pretty women, but they do have gobs of money to throw at their problems. They definitely know how to make the most out of their less than perfect god given selves. So, I decided I'd try it. I'm sure that they spend bundles on expensive false eye lashes made from the furs of endangered mammals. But, I bought a five dollar set from a chain drug store in the same aisle as the cigarettes, condoms and on sale cans of Spanish peanuts.

    Like the high heeled boots, it took some practice in the privacy of my own home to master the application. Naturally, or not - as the case may be, I put them on crooked a couple of times. I got the adhesive in my eyes more than once, which ruled out reading anything for a couple of hours, but I persevered - anything for the cause of fashion. When I left for New Jersey, I no longer looked like a country bumpkin; I looked like a squinting bear with a thorn in its foot and a limp.

     I'm just not a glamorous person and my fashion artifice left me feeling like a silly fraud. In the mirror, I saw a stranger in my own skin. Beneath the Bambi lashes, killer heels and  fancy do, I was still just me. I know my daughter loves me regardless of what I look like or even if I were to embarrass her. She loves me as I love her, unconditionally, no matter what. She sees me for who I really am and I feel beautiful in her eyes; I feel okay. It's a pivotal moment for parents when we realize that our children accept us for who we are, and sometimes for who we are not. From the moment my children were born they have punctuated my life with moments of beautiful clarity.

Displaced Baltimore Oriole at the 2011 Philadelphia Flower Show

"No matter how foolish you feel, someone always looks worse. "

The Redpoll Riot - Bathrobe Birding

"They're everywhere! They're everywhere, north, east, south and west!"

Common redpolls, clockwise from left female, female, male and bottom is male again. First year male birds look very similar to females and can be hard to distinguish.

     Redpolls like birch trees. When they hit the feeders en masse it feels like an invasion!



(Remember that you can double click on these images to see them larger)

     These adorable, scrappy little birds are Common redpolls. Redpolls are a woodland bird of the northern tier of the United States, breeding in the taiga. They only come this far south in the winter. As a rule, less than 2 % of all the redpolls reported to Cornell Lab of Ornithology are reported this far south. I get a few every year, but this year I've been invaded by a spectacular riot of redpolls. Maine birders have been reporting unprecedented numbers.

     This has been an irruptive year, that is the birds are busting south from their normal northerly range in search of food. The irruptions are a cyclic phenomenon. Redpolls eat tiny seeds. They have pouches in their throats that allow them to gather lots of food quickly, and then take off to a safe place with it. They eat mostly seeds of catkin bearing trees like birches and spruce seeds. When there is a crop failure of these seeds, the birds have to look elsewhere. At about latitude 44, our coastal Maine homestead is rich in high latitude spruce and birch trees .

     Redpolls forage in flocks sometimes numbering in the hundreds. The flock that has been hanging around here for the past two weeks is about fifty strong. Constantly on the move, they descend from the sky in rolling waves. They are busy, finchy and acrobatic birds that are well adapted to feeding at the very tips of small branches, hanging upside-down, and using their feet to hold food. They also forage on the ground, especially in winter. I see them suddenly and then, just as suddenly, they are gone. Like a lot of finches, they have an undulating flight pattern. Slightly bigger than an American goldfinch, they could easily be mistaken for them in the sky. Though they seem so finch like, the redpolls closest bird relatives are the crossbills, another bird of the northern forests given to irruptions. Like the crossbills, I can usually hear the redpolls even before I see them. They are quite vocal, constantly making contact calls within the flock. The call is a dry reeling song like goldfinches with a rolling burr at the end. 

     Sometimes redpolls are in mixed flocks of goldfinches, winter sparrows, juncos and other small winter birds. Rare visitors to southern Maine are Hoary redpolls, though they have been reported near here this year, too. I have yet to see one, but I scour these flocks looking at every bird in the hopes of finding one. You'll be the first to know when I do!

     Depending on who you talk to, there are either one, two or six species of redpolls. This is because birders like to argue. Actually, it's because there are so many variations that without DNA samples, redpolls are hard to nail down. One of the species lives in Finland, so if I tell you I've seen one here, you'd better check my pulse and cut off my bar tab. The other two that are known to occur here are Common and Hoary. Hoarys are a little bigger with a smaller bill. They have a frosted look, thus the name "hoary," which is not a misspelling of slutty behavioral traits. I know what you were thinking! It can be tricky telling the difference between Commons and Hoarys because there are lots of variations. To anyone's knowledge, the two don't interbreed which would make them Common Hoars. Redpolls are named for the red knot on their heads. Males have pink or cherry red breasts depending on how old they are. Females just have the knot, or 'poll' on their heads. Red Poll cattle are named for the same thing, the red knot on their heads, but they don't fly. If they start falling out of trees like the redpolls have been, my advice is "don't look up and keep your mouth shut."

These are Red Polls, not redpolls. Though they can be tipped, let's hope they never fly.

Thanks to allboutbirds.com, wikipedia and the following for some of the information:

Sibley, David A 2000, The Sibley Guide To Birds. Knopf: New York (2000) p 532

"Which Of These Things Is Not Like The Others? Which Of These Things Isn't The Same?" Waxwings, Crossbills & Siskins

Bohemian waxwings gorging on crab apples

Cedar and Bohemian waxwings. Can you pick out which are which?

The Cedar waxwings in this photo are numbered so you can find them amongst the Bohemian waxwings. Cedars are slightly smaller. If you look under their tails, they are white. Bohemians have reddish coverts and less white around the face than Cedars.

In this collage, there are 105 birds.  Nine of them are Cedar waxwings. Double click on the collage to make it bigger, then see if you can pick out the nine birds that are different. The photo is repeated with numbers by the Cedar waxwings.

The photo on the right is of a Cedar waxwing. The image clearly shows the 'wax' tips of the primary feathers.

White-winged crossbills bickering with a Pine siskin over feeder rights, or maybe they are going to get it on!

     When I was a kid, I loved Highlights Magazine. The 'picture in a picture' puzzles fascinated me. I felt like they were made especially for me to figure out. How fast could I find a key hidden amongst a tree full of toucans or a shoe in the shapes of a leopard's spots? First published in 1946, the magazine is still going strong today. I read my first Highlights Magazine in Boston in 1964.
      I was a sickly child, so spent a lot of time in waiting rooms of doctors' offices. The year that I was nine, I was hospitalized several times with protracted fevers that medicine could neither remedy nor explain. For months, my temperature sky-rocketed then plummeted over and over again inexplicably. By the time I learned "Fever Of Unknown Origin," I had lost enough time from school that my academic progress was cause for concern.
     Monstrous ear aches kept me awake, moaning and rocking myself back and forth, alone in a quiet house where everyone else was sleeping. After a while, I quit crying because it just made my head hurt more. I stared into space waiting for the sun to come up, for sleep, for whatever until it was gone. Between bouts, I was weak and tired. My exhausted parents were frightened, the doctors worried. When the earaches stopped, the fevers continued.
     The first time I was hospitalized was in the middle of the night. I was in an isolation ward with babies in steel cribs with cages over the tops so they couldn't get out. Some of the babies could stand up. They'd hold onto the bars and jounce up and down, screaming until they were too exhausted to keep it up. They'd collapse in a heap of soggy diapers and sleep for a while, only to start up again the second they woke. No one came.
   The doctors wanted my blood when the fevers were in full swing. In the middle of the night, they'd wake me up to draw my blood. Dr. Lacey wore a white coat and had warm hands. "Count backwards from one hundred, Robin. Can you do that for me? Just start counting," he'd say. I watched the blood from the needle in my arm meander along a little tube into a vial, then another vile, and then a third. "ninety-eight, ninety-seven, ninety-six...." I whispered under my breath. This would go on for a week, then I'd go home. Before I was strong enough to go back to school, the fevers would start again, and back to the hospital I would go. I was always the same, though each time, the screaming babies were different.
     Eventually, I was sent to Peter Brent Brigham Hospital in Boston for two weeks. My family couldn't stay with me, so I was there alone. Tests were done, things that hurt and things a little girl shouldn't have to know about. I knew not to complain, not to cry, to be brave. I walked the halls of the old hospital staring up at the tallest ceilings I had ever seen. An occupational therapist was called to stave off my boredom. She taught me to hammer sheet copper. I hammered three daffodils nodding in the sun.
    For no good reason, the fevers stopped and stopped for good. In the mean time, I had read loads of Highlights Magazines. I particularly liked the puzzles where the reader had to pick out the one thing in the picture that was different from all the rest. I  became lightening fast at it, a skill that would serve me well as a birder in later years. I learned about big cats in Africa, penguins at the Arctic circle, Right whales in the sea,  and more. Those were the formative days of my eventual obsession with the natural world.
     All sentient creatures have the ability to discriminate. Our survival depends on being able to tell what plants are food or poison, if something is too hot to handle or a crevice too wide to jump. We get it right enough that we don't walk off cliffs or eat deadly mushrooms too often. Animals also use these skills for finding mates. In the case of waxwings, the red, 'wax' tips on the primary feathers are believed to signal the age of a bird. Younger birds that haven't had as much experience mating, nest building, laying eggs and rearing young have fewer wax tips than older, more street smart birds. Waxwings side hop when courting, suggesting that it's all the better to see the wax tips with. This seems simple enough, but mate picking is knotty business.
    We humans have more gaps in our understanding about what makes birds choose one another than we have solid science. To our eyes, the waxwings in the group photos above look so much alike, that unless we are looking for a difference, they all look the same. Though I have searched extensively, I have not found one single reference to reports of hybridization of Bohemian and Cedar waxwings. Logically, we would say that the birds can pick out subtle differences. But this is where it gets tricky: in spite of their powers of discrimination, there are birds that crossbreed readily. Mallards and American black ducks, Common and Barrow's goldeneyes,  and mergansers are some that do. It's not common, but it's not rare, either. In the 1980's there was a chick documented that was progeny of a Pine siskin and a Red crossbill, two birds of different species which look distinctly different by anyone's standards. The DNA of the chick was traced by ornithologists verifying its parentage [1]. Who'd a thunk it? This is one more reason to practice the adage of birders to "look at every bird." You might be the first to see the picture in the picture, the one that's not like the others. Keep reading your Highlights Magazines cover to cover.
    
 1. Tudge, C.  "Keeping Track: The Absolute Need To Classify," The Bird (2008), New York: Crown Publishers (2008), p77