KAREN'S HERON, SALLY'S KENTUCKY BIRDS, AND THE WI LOCAL REPORT

Photograph by Karen Anne Kolling

Karen, who lives near the water is attempting to protect the verge area from human modification by documenting the wildlife. She sent this photo in for a positive identification. Now I've not dealt with shore birds in decades, raptors having filled my life for the most part, but I ID this bird as an immature Great Blue Heron, Ardea herodius. Any nays from out there?



Photograph by Donna Browne

Dear Donna,

I am not a great birder but I do love them and every year I have several feeders outside on my deck, and I enjoy watching the activity there. I was thrilled to see a pair of orioles early this summer and went out and bought a feeder and stocked it up but never saw them again. I have seen a pair of scarlet tanagers (a first) and two male indigo buntings in the early summer, and one stayed around but I never saw mate or babies.

The usual suspects were here this summer: a pair of chickadees, a pair of titmice, 2 pair of cardinals, a bunch of house sparrows, 6-8 gold finches, a pair of hummers(and now I have a bunch of hummers that have air wars above my feeders); at least one pair of house finches; a new guy, a very lonely chipping sparrow who hung out with a pair of white throats who have come and gone all summer, and a Carolina wren who never seemed to have mate this year; I don't know what happened to her, they have nested every year and fed young in a box on a little tree outside the house, but I have never seen the babies fledge to my feeders or anywhere else. They stay very close to the spruce tree so perhaps I just never have seen them, and they do nest out of my regular view. Mr Wren-I love his song- stays around all year and occasionally comes near the feeder, more often he sits in the flower pot or chair back nearby and sings, but the female is not seen except in the spring of previous years.

The cardinals have had at least one clutch, a late one by the looks of the scraggly offspring that are still begging. The house finches had 2 babies with them at the feeder, but I have never seen baby chickadees or titmice although I have seen them making trips back and forth to the spots I think they are nesting in as if feeding young.

There are also a bunch of house sparrows and they had some young, too, I don't even try to keep track of them. My downy woodpeckers have not been around since winter, I miss them. I have a white breasted nuthatch and a brown creeper on occasion also.

This year and last year the birds had very late clutches, I assume 2nd clutches as I have no nests to observe but the begging scruffy fledglings are hard to miss in August-September. I thought that was really late for babies last year but I have them again this year, too. We had a very dry early summer last year; this year it was quite wet at that time but we have had a 3 week dry spell and are just now getting rain.

The Robins had 3 clutches last year but I have seen no activity this year; perhaps they moved their nest. I have a mature red shouldered hawk that feeds rarely at my ornamental pond (overgrown this year and has only frogs and lilies) which the deer also enjoy.

There has been a juvenile Cooper's on occasion out in the edge of the woods. It got something gray with flashes of white earlier this spring, and I hoped it was NOT one of my chickadees!. I see a juvenile every year but never the adult coop, so I do not know if they are nesting nearby or not. Mama deer showed up with two brand new tiny spotted fawns about 3 weeks ago, also late I think, but I have seen other moms, all with two babies with spots, along the highway in the past few weeks so it isn't just at my house! I have not seen any baby squirrels this year.

Don't know if that is of interest or not. I haven't noticed much change except the wren and the robins. The late clutches are what I find odd the past two years. I just am not used to seeing begging babies in September for goodness sake!

Sally Seyal, Prospect, KY (wooded suburb outside of Louisville)

Sally,

I often see the juvenile Cooper's Hawks that predate the feeders but the adults are a different story. They have learned far more stealth and I rarely see an adult unless I come round a corner and they and I surprise one another over the wood pile for instance or the Crows and squirrels spot the hawk and their mobbing brings it to my attention.

I too see Orioles, both Orchards and Baltimores for a few days in early summer, and then they disappear. They prefer a more woodsy environment, than mine, though I have numerous mature trees, as do the neighbors, but evidently not enough. Or we don't present enough privacy for them, one never knows their individual criteria. I assume they are on their way through to woodlots and luscious local orchards. That may also be the case with yours, or perhaps they move into your near-by woods and stay there to protect the location of their nest. In that case you may yet coax them out in a hard year.

Young Black-capped Chickadees? They are so tiny and are supposed to stay hidden being fed by their parents while they learn to fly from the ground up. Though I always have one or two pairs that breed nearby, the young tend to go unseen.

In 2007, I heard from a neighbor that one Chickadee fledgling had taken refuge in her garage, cared for by her parents, and stayed until it looked like one of the adults. Therefore who would know that she had just been recently fledged.

In 2008, I found the Chickadee chick pictured above and featured in the blog, begging his brains out from the rhubarb patch. His parents were desperately attempting to lure her to a small sheltering evergreen across the park path. After numerous adventures, they eventually succeeded and I presume he survived as there are currently more Black-caps visiting the sunflower seed feeder now, than when the season started. They are tough to keep track of as they tend to be virtually identical, not to mention teeny. D.B.

I too have been seeing evidence of fewer and later young this season. For instance, last week a mixed flock of migrating birds blew in following the trailing edge of a storm.

Within the flock was a male Robin with juveniles, one of which he was still feeding. Obviously the youngster was not fully weaned yet (up right in photo) but also obviously as of the sighting he was keeping up with the other migrants, at least so far. Fascinating.

In 2006 the local Robin's nest had a perfect season: 3 clutches with 4 young each who fledged. In 2007, their success was also respectable. In 2008, there was Garage Boy, (see Wednesday, June 11, 2008 http://palemaleirregulars.blogspot.com/search?q=Doorstep+Dove) but by late July as things became very dry, there wasn't a Robin to be seen in the area. They had moved on.

The Cardinals produced one male fledgling in the territory that I saw. Though in 2007, as a first year pair, they produced none successfully.

Doorstep Dove and Friend, the Mourning Dove pair who have been featured on the blog since they first bonded in 2006, raised 3 chicks to maturity that year. In 2007, by the end of the season, they and 5 well grown young could be observed. The family group could be seen gathered together every evening at sunset, sometimes for as long as an hour--grouped round the edge of the birdbath, taking in the last rays of the sun.

In June 2008, Doorstep and Friend had an unusual rare brood of three young though they weren't nearly as apparent as their young had been in previous seasons. Now Friend and Doorstep briefly appear at the bath come evening for a drink and then briskly depart. Though two or three other Doves visit the feeder with them during the day. The change of behavior may well be due to the lurking Cooper's Hawk that arrives in late afternoon. I don't have a true count of their success this season as they, like most of the breeding birds in the area have become far more wary of foraging in the open due to the hawk. I tentatively put their count at 3 surviving young.

Unfortunately there is a hunting season on Mourning Doves in Wisconsin which makes me quite heartsick. The report from the Wisconsin DEC for hunters, reports the Mourning Dove population is far lower coming into hunting season than it has been for the five previous seasons. I do so hope Friend and Doorstep will still be there when I return to Wisconsin.

The Chipping Sparrows who ordinarily produce a brood before being heavily predated by Cowbirds for the rest of the breeding season, missed their first clutch. One Cowbird chick was fostered and then they produced five chicks of their own in late August when the Cowbirds had already moved on.

(Interesting how nature deals with this sort of thing isn't it?)

The Wisconsin Turkey observers report that many first clutches were unsuccessful and some hens have second clutched, with the poults being currently only the size of Grouse as opposed to the almost mature sized young that would be usual for September.

As in Kentucky, the deer were still on the move in late Spring and young arrived much later than usual with a high incidence of twins.

The White-breasted Nuthatch has returned from breeding and is busy hatching sunflower seeds into the bark of the Maple trees in the backyard.

One of the winter WI birds, a Dark-eyed Junco, came by for one day, fed up and then continued on his way.

Photograph by Karen Anne Kolling

And the mammals?

Fluffy the Opossum, hasn't been caught under the feeder in the middle of the night all summer. I fully expect her/him to return to the feeder come cold weather.

Though "someone" is yet again eating the ripening tomatoes before I can. The still growing 8 inch watermelon that was on the vine disappeared a week and a half ago.

It occurred to me that I may have been unfairly blaming Fluffy for all these garden predations. Last week before by return to NYC, I flipped the back light on in the middle of the night looking for him and what should I see? A very fat raccoon bottom complete with lush tail heading rapidly out of the circle of light. A first! I turned off the light, whipped out the door, and heard raccoon claws scrambling on tree bark. I then took photographs, blindly in the dark of course, of all the trees in the direction of the sound. Bringing them up later with the adaptive lighting mode of the photo editor, brought no joy. That chubby bottomed mammal had eluded me.

Squirrels? The breeding female in the territory produced two broods this season. Of the initial litter on first appearance, the three young had very very sparse fur. Their skin was completely visible through their coats. It was unclear as to whether the issue was some kind of parasite that had infested the nest, a dietary deficiency or what? The afflicted squirrels would appear and lay flat on the picnic table in the sun for long periods. Unable to pin down the problem, beyond the usual fare from the feeding area, I began offering more nuts, and fruit. Eventually, for whatever reason, their fur slowly began to thicken and now their coats look normal, though their tails are still on the skimpy side.

The second litter of four appeared with normal fur and proceeded in maturation.

New this season is the appearance of the resident Thirteen-lined Ground Squirrel, Pancake. And now and again, a new phenomena, one of the shrews periodically goes for something on the ground of the feeding area.

Chewy the Chipmunk is still in residence and another smaller Chipmunk has also appeared sporadically to feed. I did not see a sudden influx of a Chipmunk litter under the feeders but that doesn't mean there wasn't one. Litters have occurred before and the only reason I realized they had occurred was that two young did themselves in by youthful indiscretions. Chipmunks tend toward the solitary and are seldom seen together, at least in my feeding area. Though I did see a group coming out of the hedgerow to feed at Thresherman's Park.

Nature tends to take care of herself if allowed what has unfortunately become the luxury of being allowed to do so.

Donna Browne

Morning Chipmunk

As I've been taking photos of the Thresheree for the club, I've been staying onsite. This morning when I crawled blearily out of my tent, I saw I had company. There was an Eastern Chipmunk, Tamias striatus, sitting on a piece of old weathered wood about 15 feet away. And unlike Chewy this Chipmunk did not bolt at the sight of me. He looked wary for a moment


Then picked up something and began to eat. Just like Pancake the Thirteen-lined Ground Squirrels, Chipmunks are also omnivores. They eat grain, nuts, worms, fungi, bugs, plus bird's eggs. In a way, they are teeny avian predators who are sometimes eaten by larger birds themselves.


The something may be a kernel of corn as that is one of the grains that's grown on the property and looks about right from the little I can see. The other grains are sorghum and wheat, both of which tend to be smaller and more oblong.


Thresh is keeping an eye on me but he still isn't going anywhere. Eastern Chipmunks do stash food for winter and they are larder hoarders. They store all their food in one place, their burrow and live there until Spring. Whereas, some Western Chipmunks, there are 23 species in the west, can be scatter hoarders--a little here, a little there. (The only other Chipmunk species is in Asia.)


I must have moved a little too fast as he's stopped chewing momentarily.


Back to noshing, things must be okay again. Eastern Chipmunks have two litters a year, whereas, in the West, one litter is the norm.


While Thresh is looking for another tidbit, I'll tell you a tidbit I discovered about Chipmunks. I always wondered why mycorrhizal fungi, the fungi that helps many of our tree's roots to efficiently absorb water, didn't produce air spores to spread itself.

Chipmunks turn out to be the answer.

They are a chief starter of tree seedlings because of their food stashing habits. And part of the food they stash and never eat are the seeds for trees.

Well, it turns out that as the Chipmunks evolved along with the trees, the mycorrhizal fungi spores are dispersed by the Chipmunks along with the tree seeds that they cache. They have what's called a symbiotic mycorrhizial association with underground fungi and the underground fungi have since lost their ability to spread their spores through the air.


Thresh checks around for more breakfast.


Nothing else being apparent on his old log, Thresh gives me a last look before scampering down the side and disappearing into the foliage. Personally he's not in the least interested in the fact that he has a symbiotic association with anything.


Donegal Browne
P.S. My email box has been down for two days. It should be back in running order very soon.

What a Day.

Hooray! A bird. Why do I say hooray a bird? Because Labor Day Weekend is fast upon us and Thresherman's Park is readying itself for the Thresheree. Now this is the area where I come to be made a fool of by Crows. This is the place the hawk, tentatively ID'd by Kevin and Sally as a Red-shoulder comes to hunt but as of today, there isn't a creature in the place.


Hey don't leave! It's all driving me crazy too. It's noisy and dusty and suddenly far too many people have descended on the park.

Okay, we're gathering a group of whatever these are. From the vocalizations and the pointy wings I'm thinking it's Killdeer. I realize I'm quite grumpy. Over stimulation by people and people things does it to me every time. This place in particular as my opinions are very different from the norm and then, well, I've become the Thresheree Photographer. (What was it thinking?)

On the other hand, any wild thing that allows me to watch it always makes me feel better and the place is usually full of wild creatures. And wildlife always does make me feel better. Why is that? No self-consciousness on my part?

I am being a little unfair but aren't we all often unfair when we're grumpy?

After all, the guys out harvesting sorghum are funny, and nice, and the process is quite fascinating. Sorghum syrup, for those who don't know, was one of the things our ancestors used as a sweetener. It's quite tasty and much better for us than sugar. What is happening here is the leaves are being removed from the stems as they interfere with the pressing of the stems which is how the sweet juice is procured. It's fascinating as that isn't even a sharpened stick. It's a piece of slat. If you have the correct move down, you hit the leaf at the joint just right and off it comes. It takes some technique and skill.

This is the sorghum mill, a real one that was moved here instead of being junked, and it's run by steam from a steam engine. You can see part of the engine on the far left. The juice is pressed out and boiled down to syrup using the steam. A similar process is used on the sap that makes maple syrup. It takes quite a bit of technique and expertise to run the mill and make the syrup so I think this is great. Here is a bit of human technical skill which is being handed down which is quite lovely. I admit steam engines are fascinating. They come in all shapes and sizes and as no one really uses them anymore the running of them also has to be handed down through generations. And it's no walk in the park. If you screw up you can find yourself in pieces on the other side of the barn.

And what have we here? These are separators, or threshing machines. They separate the chaff from the grain and they're run by steam engines as well. The idea is that at 11am on Saturday, all these machines will be threshing at the same time and break the Guinness World Record.

Now keep in mind that everyone of the separators is being run by a steam engine. Some here are the only example of their kind left in the world. Which often means the owner is nearly the only one left in the world who intimately knows how to run it. I give slack for things in which there is only one left and also for the few people left who know how to run them.
the much bigger originals that will be running the threshers tomorrow. There are 29 threshers and therefore there needs to be an equal number of steamers. Not really a problem as the Wade Brothers, owned I think forty of them. They were farmers who just couldn't stand seeing nifty stuff thrown away so they collected them up from all over the countryside when other farmers "upgraded". The Wades never threw ANYTHING away theirs and anyone elses.

Which leads to this. But in the scheme of things there really aren't all that many left in the world...so no, that doesn't make me particularly grumpy.

Well this made me grumpy. It's parked where the turkeys often come out to forage. No turkeys today. And I admit it, I'm prejudiced against gas engines.

Here's an example. There are hordes of John Deere tractors in the world. Why or why must they be here? They aren't that old and quite similar to many things still in use.

It leads to this. And actually it leads to much more than this as all of these are owned by just one person. And soon everyone and his brother will be riding around on them all as they are remarkably simple to drive, not a whole lot of technique and expertise here. They'll be kicking up dust, making things crowded and scaring the animals.

Besides when you have those, you have to have these. Sigh. One thing does lead to another. Is human sloth at the bottom of it all?

Speaking of which, this really sets me off. They've gouged out more woods. Playing.

More of the same. You know what, THIS is actually what made me grumpy. It made me grumpy because it made me sad. For some people the woods is only good for playing with rock and dirt machines. There is no sense that it's alive or that living things live there or that they have any right to exist anyway.

So not being able to stand it anymore, I've escaped. And thank you, thank you, there are still a few birds in the world.

Look carefully, see the white patch on the wing. Definitely Killdeer. They're one of my favorites. They're ground nesters and the ones in which the dad pretends to have a broken wing and leads predators away from the family.

This time of year they're hanging together in family units which then unite to become flocks. And they're having a grand time, swooping, diving, circling and vocalizing. Killdeer are quite talkative. I think there is a constant state of letting everyone know were everyone else is.

They're beautiful to watch in flight.

But it's too good to be true, here comes another flatbed--and what, for good measure another gasoline truck both rumbling quickly in our direction.

The Killdeer chitter and then they are gone across the treeline for a little peace and quiet. I'm getting grumpy again.

Then an antique car appears out of the treeline. Wait just one minute, that break in the trees wasn't there yesterday. Hmmmm. Why not, I head for the break on the trees too. Aha! The neighbors alfalfa field has been harvested and I'm betting....I walk through the break and up the hill...

...from the plastic barrels this field will be a parking lot tomorrow. But currently it's sanctuary from the machines on the other side of the trees.

Then I hear them. It's the Killdeer and I've disturbed them. Some are in the air chittering and gaining my attention while others will be running low through the cover away from me...the predator.

They're fast, they fly high, then swoop down. Then up again in a crazy erratic eye catching, that's the point after all, winged dance.

Eventually landing further away and with no doubt, some relatives.

I must have looked at them too hard because off they got again, chittering louder and flying faster. Well as P.D.Q Bach is wont to say, "Fast is good. Loud is better. Fast and loud is best."

Drat, I was distracted and I've lost where they went.

Aha! There's one. Is he allowing me to see him so I'll leave the rest alone? One never knows.

He does know I'm watching and he's being alert to me but not taking off. And of course this is a country Killdeer. Though in reality he is plenty far away though perhaps the camera makes him nervous.

Yes, he is absolutely aware of me. I always wonder what the evolutionary advantage of those stripes are?

Still watching.

If I'm going to stare, he's going to stare too.

I don't know if you can tell from the photos but he has scrunched his head down, making his neck shorter.

He then bobs his head several times quickly. I suspect he 's triangulating the distance to whatever it is he's after. I've not been allowed to watch them hunt before. This is great.

He goes for something and then he's back into the pattern of searching. (By the way, these guys tend to go across the field in N/S lines. Is it magnatism or in this case I'm betting it's just the furrows in the field.

He continues the scrunch, bob, walk pattern.

Then once again gives me the stare. Okay, okay, I'll go. Thanks though. You made my day.

The sun is going down after all, and then I hear them. Far to the west, it's cranes. Sandhills are calling and the pair comes out of the sunset. Quite possible the ones I watched last week. They've gone to another spot to forage. Another field newly harvested perhaps and are returning to the cover of the pond across the way for the evening.

They are truly gorgeous in flight. Time stops for a few beats. Well that was the cherry on the top of today. Not such a bad one after all. It is getting dark, so it's down the hill, to the treeline and...

...there are five or six...? Chipmunks? They could well be. Or perhaps Thirteen-lined Ground Squirrels? I'll stake it out soon before it gets this dark. Well, now we know at least part of the reason the hawk sits in a tree that overlooks this particular patch, now don't we?

Great day! Observed Killdeer hunting technique. Watched the cranes sail by. Saw the prey the hawk is after. Whatever might tomorrow bring?

Donegal Browne