Bird Bio: Blue Grosbeak

Male Blue Grosbeak

Female Blue Grosbeak.

Now that fall migration is underway there will be many opportunities to see lots of different birds passing back through TN on their way to Central and South America.  The Blue Grosbeak is one of those birds and while not rare one usually has to put in a little leg work to find.  Unlike the Rose-breasted Grosbeak that regularly visits feeders in the spring and sporadically in the fall, the Blue Grosbeak rarely visits feeders.  In fact, we’ve only had a handful of reports of Blue Grosbeaks at feeders over the course of my 23 years at the store.  This is curious to me because both Grosbeaks seem to share similar food preferences. 

The Blue Grosbeak is about 7 ½” in length, a Cardinal sized bird. The male is a deep blue, similar to the Indigo Bunting, with a thick conical bill (slightly narrower than a Rose-breasted’s), and has broad, rusty brown wing bars.  They are commonly seen in or adjacent to scrubby fields and meadows.  Fields that have not been cut are more likely to produce these beautiful birds.  I have seen them on the Harpeth River Greenway, Hidden Lakes Park, and Gossett Tract. 

The female could easily be mistaken for a female cowbird.  Look closely for the soft brown plumage above and lighter brown below, with 2 buff wing bars.

Have the binoculars at the ready because the next 8 weeks will be full of nice surprises if you get out and look a little harder.  And in your own yard a good clean and consistently available water source can produce some very interesting visitors.

Next week more on hummingbirds and the hummingbird celebration taking place at The Warner Park Nature Center August 25th.

Late Summer and Fall Butterflies

For the backyard birder the next couple of months will be a little on the dull side in regards to wild birds.  The breeding season is over, with the exception of some final Bluebird nests, and the usual cast of bird characters will typically become a little less busy at the feeders, at least until the end of October.  Fall migration, of course, will provide opportunities to see all the neo-tropical migrants heading back to Central and South America.  Hopefully, hummingbirds have picked up their pace at your feeders and are providing their unique “aggressive” style of entertainment.   Remember to keep nectar fresh and to clean feeders regularly.  There is no particular time to take your hummingbird feeders down.  It is not true hummingbirds will not migrate if feeders are still available. 

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Eastern Tiger Swallowtail

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Pipevine Swallowtail

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Monarch

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Black Swallowtail

Now is a great time to turn some of your attention and interest to butterflies and late-summer and fall wildflowers.  My yard has been very busy with Eastern Tiger Swallowtail, Pipevine, Spicebush, and Black Swallowtail.  And most summers I get to see Giant Swallowtail and Zebra Swallowtail.  It’s so easy to get a good look at these butterflies because they are so intent on getting nectar from flowers they seem to barely notice your presence. Other common yard butterflies include: Red spotted Purple, various Frittalary’s, Sulphur’s, Skipper’s, and of course Monarch’s. 

Spicebush Swallowtail

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Gulf Fritillary

And when the fall wildflowers are at their peak one can spend hours observing and identifying the plants and the butterflies at the same time.  Some of the areas I frequent are loaded with Ironweed, a tall (up to 10”), stalky plant that has clusters of intensely purple flowers, and Tickweed with its yellow flowers, and the several varieties of Sunflowers.  The purples and yellows and all the greenery make for quite a show and the butterflies can’t get enough of it. 

Both subjects are challenging so a really good field guide is needed to help one get started. The definitive guides to wildflowers of TN, “Wildflowers of Tennessee the Ohio Valley and the Southern Appalachians”by Horn, Cathcart and butterflies, “Butterflies of Tennessee” by Rita Venable are available here at the store. To help you get started we are offering 20% off both of these fantastic field guides.  There has been a lot of buzz over the return of the wildflowers book so if we run out of our first order we will promptly re-order and honor the sale price. 

Friday the 10th through Thursday the 15th both books are 20% Off. 

Hummingbird Happy Hour

The Warner parks have been conducting bird research since the 1930's. Today, Park staff and volunteers conduct extensive banding and bird counts, and take part in Project FeederWatch, a survey of winter bird populations across North America conducted by the Cornell Lab of Ornithology and Bird Studies Canada.

Join the Warner Park Nature Center for the second annual Hummingbird Happy Hour on Friday, September 7, 2018 from 6:00pm- 9:00pm. Proceeds from ticket and art sales will support the Bird Information, Research and Data (B.I.R.D) programs, keeping these programs free and available for schools, families and Park visitors.

Tickets are available for purchase at the Warner Park Nature Center or online through the Friends of Warner Parks website. Click Here to purchase tickets.

Miscellaneous Bird News

Once in a while as I am considering subjects to write about for our blog I run out of inspiration.  So, this week I’ve decided to try something different and touch on a number of “odds and ends”.  A mixed bag if you will of current bird issues to ornithological vocabulary. 

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Finches with Eye Disease

We’ve been seeing some evidence of House Finches with an eye disease known as Mycoplasmal conjunctivitis, or House Finch eye disease.  And just yesterday a customer inquired about a bird that seemed sick.  It did not move away as she approached, as if it was not really aware of her presence.  The bird turned out to be a sick House Finch.  We had one behind the store the other day that was afflicted with the disease.  We hear reports and see evidence of this every year that range from sparse to wide-spread.  
Birds infected with House Finch eye disease have red, swollen, runny, or crusty eyes. In extreme cases the eyes become swollen shut and the bird becomes blind. House Finch eye disease is caused by the bacterium Mycoplasma gallisepticum. This bacterium has long been known as a pathogen of domestic turkeys and chickens, but it has been observed in House Finches since 1994. The disease has affected several other species, including American Goldfinch, Evening Grosbeak, and Purple Finch
You might observe an infected bird sitting quietly in your yard, clumsily scratching an eye against its foot or a perch. While some infected birds recover, many die from starvation, exposure, or predation. If you’re a songbird it’s impossible to survive if you can’t see.
When birds are concentrated in a small area like at a birdfeeder the risk of a disease spreading within that population increases.

What To Do
If you detect a sick finch at your feeders the standard procedure is to take down your feeders for a few days to a week and give them a very thorough cleaning.  Cleaning your feeders is always a good idea and is recommended it be done on a regular basis.  Clorox wipes are very handy to give your feeder a quick clean particularly around the feeding ports.

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Altricial vs Precocial

Almost all of us have seen baby songbirds in a nest.  We know they are completely dependent on the adults to keep them warm as they are featherless for the first few days and to bring them food while in the nest developing.  They are completely helpless and mostly immobile.  And the adults continue to feed them for weeks even after they have fledged. This is referred to as altricial.  Altricial birds include herons, hawks, owls, and most songbirds.
Precocial means young are capable of a high degree of independent activity immediately after hatching. Precocial young typically can move about, have their eyes open and will be covered in down at hatching. They are generally able to walk away from the nest as soon as they have dried off.  They will also begin searching for their own food. Examples of precocial birds include most duck species, Wild Turkey, Quail, Killdeer and Canada geese.

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Have you seen them?  I’ve seen several in the past few weeks.  I’m referring to bald cardinals.

In mid to late summer it’s not uncommon to see Northern Cardinals, and sometimes, Blue jays, completely void of head feathers.  This odd appearance can sometimes be attributed to the summer molt, or more likely from feather mites. 
Most bald-headed-bird reports occur in summer and fall, which are typical molting times. According to the Cornell Lab of Ornithology many of these strange-looking birds may be juveniles undergoing their first pre-basic molt, which produces the first winter adult plumage. For some unknown reason, the bald birds may have dropped all of their head feathers at once. Staggered feather loss and replacement is the normal pattern.
It is possible that the baldness is caused by feather mites, or lice. A mite infection is the likely explanation for the loss of head feathers only.  After all, the head is the one place a bird would not be able to preen effectively to control mites.    Feather mites are tiny arthropods, whose feeding destroys feather shafts.  This is not a condition the affected bird will not recover from.
But why does it seem to affect primarily Cardinals and Blue jays?  Do other songbirds have effective methods of removing these parasites from their heads?  We’re just not sure.

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Interesting Behaviors of Birds

Wood Thrush Shop employee, Eli Haislip, recently photographed an adult Red-bellied woodpecker feeding a juvenile Northern Flicker.  Over the course of a few days he witnessed the Flicker following the Red-bellied woodpecker and begging for food.  So, is this an example of hybridization, where two different but compatible species mate, or an example of a Flicker laying an egg in the Red-bellied’s nest?  I looked for information regarding hybridization among songbirds and there are examples ranging from rare to common.  Some examples of common hybridization include Baltimore and Bullock’s Oriole and Indigo Bunting and Lazuli Bunting.  Examples of rare hybridization include Blue jay and Stellar’s jay and Eastern Bluebird and Mountain Bluebird. This juvenile seems to possess all the field marks of a Northern Flicker and none of the Red-bellied woodpecker but we may just have to settle for uncertainty.

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Adaptable Bluebirds

I’ve always tried to point out to people that Eastern Bluebirds are not nearly as choosy about nest-sites as they have been portrayed.  If Bluebirds really needed such specifics in the location of a nest-site they probably would have been extinct by now.  And there’s nothing natural about a birdhouse but they, as well as other species, have adapted to using them because they “represent” something they would find in nature.  I have seen Bluebird nests in large horizontal pipes, a hole in a basketball goal pole, and even in a stack of cement foundation blocks.  But a new one was presented to me by a customer recently.  A pair of Bluebirds used the abandoned nest of a Robin, Phoebe, or Barn Swallow.  It was hard to see detail in the picture but the nest was built of mud and plant material on a ledge against the wall of the house under an eve.  The Bluebirds raised an undetermined number of young in this nest.  

Bird Bio: Cliff Swallow

If you’re a paddler or fisherman and spend time on local rivers and lakes you have probably seen and experienced the Cliff Swallow.  This bird arrives in middle-TN in early spring from March to early April from its winter home in Southern South America.   

The Cliff Swallow is about 5.5” in length with a wingspan of roughly 13”.  Like other swallows they are aerial specialists catching their main food source, flying insects, on the wing.  It is similar to the Barn Swallow in appearance. The difference is the Cliff Swallow has a squared tail as opposed to a notched tail, and has a tawny, buff colored rump and a white patch on the forehead.  It has a chestnut face with bluish black head.  You must see one through binoculars to appreciate the beautiful color contrasts and details.

Once a western U.S. bird only its range has increased from Alaska to New England and south into Mexico.  The reason may be that they have continued to adapt to man-made structures like bridges and buildings for nest building.  Cliff Swallows are colony nesters with most colonies numbering between 100 and 200 nests.  Both male and female construct distinctive, gourd shaped-mud nests.  The mud is shaped into pellets and one by one set in place.  Nest building takes from 5-14 days but in many cases birds return to nest-sites and repair the year previous nest.    Nests are placed on a vertical wall, usually just under an overhang and usually over water.    The male and female tend to the nestlings, which fledge when about 24 days old.

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Side Notes:

•        Some of you are seeing Bluebirds nesting for a third time.  Usually by mid-August a third nesting will be completed, although I have seen a few times Bluebirds fledge in the first week of September. We stock live mealworms year round in case your Bluebirds need a little assistance.  Currently we distribute mealworms in styro cups, however, if you have a suitable container at home (like a reusable plastic container)we can fill it for you.  Just bring it with you and we can add the desired amount.  The less need for styro the better.
•        We are hearing from some of you hummingbirds are beginning to increase in number and frequency at feeders.  Be patient if you haven’t seen much activity yet.  This will change soon.  We hear all too frequently that people are leaving nectar in their feeders far too long.

IMPORTANT!  Nectar is only good in the feeder for 3 to 4 days, less if the feeder gets a lot of sun.  You will not get much activity if the nectar is hot and spoiling. 

•        Be careful to not purchase too much seed as we enter the dog days of summer.  Believe it or not the feeding will slow down at your feeders.  Storing a lot of seed in a container for several hot months may result in a mealmoth hatch.  Buying smaller quantities and using it up completely before getting more is a good strategy.
•        The Wood Thrush Shop offers free at home Squirrel-proofing Consultations.  John and Jamie have been busy making house calls assisting customers frustrated by squirrels.  We know our product and where it works best enabling us to suggest real solutions to your bird feeding problems.  It is in our best interest for you to have squirrel-proof feeding stations.  We’ll make it happen.