Melodic song sparrow makes a good neighbor in any season

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Photo by Bryan Stevens • Song sparrows show a stripe breast that comes together in a large, central dot. This field mark is diagnostic in distinguishing the song sparrow from other little brown birds.

Recent cold and snow meant elevated activity at my bird feeders. Among the birds flocking to my feeders were several species of sparrows, including white-throated sparrow, song sparrow and dark-eyed junco.

Other sparrows in the region include field sparrow, chipping sparrow, swamp sparrow and white-crowned sparrow.

The white-crowned sparrow and the white-throated sparrow are both members of the genus known as Zonotrichia, which refers to two ancient Greek words for zone and hair, which refers to the pattern of streaks on the backs of these five sparrow species. The Zonotrichia sparrows belong to a large group of birds known as Passerellidae, or American sparrows, which also includes birds such as juncos, towhees and brush finches.

The song sparrow, unlike some of the other sparrows that made appearances at my feeders, is a year-round resident in the region.

Song sparrows, according to the website All About Birds, eat many insects and other invertebrates in the summer, as well as seeds and fruits in all seasons.

All About Birds also makes note of the fact that this widespread sparrow occurs in a variety of habitats, including tidal marshes, arctic grasslands, desert scrub, pinyon pine forests, aspen parklands, prairie shelterbelts, Pacific rainforest, chaparral, agricultural fields, overgrown pastures, freshwater marsh and lake edges, forest edges and suburbs.

Photo by Bryan • A song sparrow sings from the perch of a dilapidated bird box.

The scientific name for the song sparrow is Melospiza melodia, which translated from the Greek means “melodic song-finch.” It’s an apt name for a persistent, enthusiastic singer. The commonplace nature of the bird also makes it easy to learn to detect and identify the bird by its song alone.

According to All About Birds, male song sparrow use song to attract mates as well as defend territory. Laboratory studies have shown that the female song sparrow is attracted not just to the song itself, but to how well it reflects the ability of the male to learn.

Other sparrows produce well-known songs. Many Americans render the song of the white-throated sparrow as “Ol’ Sam Peabody, Peabody, Peabody.” For those living north of the border, however, the white-throated sparrow sings “O Canada, O Canada, O Canada.”

No matter how you translate this sparrow’s song, it’s a sweet and welcome addition to the spring aural landscape.

Some of the more descriptive names for American sparrows include orange-billed sparrow, white-eared ground sparrow, green-backed sparrow, olive sparrow, cinnamon-tailed sparrow, five-striped sparrow and golden-winged sparrow.

Many sparrows prefer to forage for food on the ground. It’s often helpful to purchase a supply of millet seed. When filling feeders with sunflower seeds, scatter a couple of handfuls of millet seed on the ground beneath the feeders or at the edge of a brushy area. Sparrows like to have quick access to dense cover, so they will feed more securely if the scattered seeds are within quick reach of shelter.

Although they are fairly common winter visitors in the region, white-throated sparrows, dark-eyed juncos and white-crowned sparrows depart the area in spring.

With the song sparrow, it’s not difficult to realize why the sparrows are often lumped together under the categorization of “little brown birds.”

The adult song sparrow has brown upperparts with dark streaks on the back and are white underneath with dark streaking and a dark brown spot in the middle of the breast. That dark spot is often considered a field mark that makes identifying this bird easier in the field. The song sparrow has a brown cap and a long brown rounded tail. Their face is gray with a brown streak through each eye.

White-crowned sparrows, in contrast to the song sparrow, are medium-sized birds with considerable gray on the breast and back of the neck. Adults of both sexes are adorned with bold black and white head stripes, which gives this bird its common name. Thanks to this distinctive feature, this sparrow truly stands out among a family of rather drab birds.

The white-crowned sparrow is known by the scientific name Zonotrichia leucophrys, which translates into English from Ancient Greek as “white eyebrow.”

Sparrows can be a challenge for beginners, but the winter season is a good time to learn how to differentiate these feeder visitors. The lure of food makes it possible to draw the sparrows in close for observation.

The sparrows will eat a variety of seeds, but I’ve had the best luck with black oil sunflower seeds. Just keep in mind that sparrows are ground feeders. It pays to also scatter some seeds directly on the ground for them. They will scratch and kick with their legs as they forage for the seeds we provide them during wintry days.

Once spring arrives, song sparrows will remain in your yards and gardens. They nest several times a season, so there’s the added opportunity of watching these little birds tend their young. They’re never going to compete with our more colorful birds, but song sparrows make great neighbors.

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Mary Anna Wheat will present a program on a trip to Arizona, Utah, Colorado and New Mexico in late September and early October 2023 at the next meeting of the Elizabethton Bird Club.

She traveled with a friend and former co-worker from Sept. 19 to Oct. 16, 2023, in those four states. Their focus was on scenery, archeology (Wheat’s friend is an archaeologist with experience doing archaeological work at Canyon de Chelly National Monument) and the annular solar eclipse. Birding was incidental, although Wheat noted that they saw or heard more than 60 species.

The club’s meeting will be held Tuesday, Feb. 6, at the Northeast State Community College’s Elizabethton campus at 7 p.m. The front desk can direct visitors to the meeting room.

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Photo by Bryan Stevens • A song sparrow perches on a weed stalk near a river.

Bryan Stevens has been writing about birds and birding since 1995. Email him at ahoodedwarbler@aol.com to ask a questing, share a sighting or make a comment.

Region provides home for several species of hawks

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Tom Koerner/USFWS * An adult Cooper’s hawk, such as this individual, is a crow-sized woodland raptor that breeds throughout much of the United States, southern Canada and northern Mexico.

Barbara Lake, a resident in Hampton, emailed me recently to share a sighting of a large hawk in her yard.

“This hawk was in our yard today and flew up to a tree when I opened the door,” she wrote. “(Its) back and the back of the head are black and the rest appears to be white. He didn’t cooperate by turning around.”

Barbara enclosed some photos with her email. I’ve known Barbara for about 20 years. We first met when she invited me to her home to view some nesting bluebirds on a television screen. She had placed nest cams in some of her bluebird nesting boxes, capturing real-time footage of the nesting activity of these songbirds.

I’ve enjoyed some observations of the region’s larger raptors, including red-tailed hawks and red-shouldered hawks, as winter has settled in for the long haul. I’ve also spotted a few American kestrels.

Based on the raptor’s relatively long tail in the photos provided by Barbara, I hazarded a guess that her visiting raptor was a Cooper’s hawk.

Anyone who travels along the region’s Interstate Highway System has probably noticed hawks perched in trees or on utility lines adjacent to the roadway. The section of Interstate 26 that runs between Unicoi and Johnson City is often a productive area for keeping alert for raptors. The raptor I have most often observed along this stretch of road is the red-tailed hawk, although I have also observed Cooper’s hawk, sharp-shinned hawk and American kestrel. In the time of spring and fall migration, it’s also possible to observe broad-winged hawks.

USFWS * An immature Cooper’s hawk perches on a branch in a tree located in the Klamath Basin National Wildlife Refuge Complex.

The red-tailed hawk is named for its prominent red tail. However, only adults show the characteristic red tail. The affinity red-tailed hawks demonstrate for roadsides is a double-edged sword. Viewing a large hawk from your car is an easy way to watch birds. For inexperienced or careless raptors, however, roadside living is often rife with the chance for a collision with a car or truck. The red-tailed hawk, which prefers open countryside, is attracted to the margins of roads and highways because these locations also attract their favorite prey, which includes rodents like rats, squirrels and mice and other small mammals such as rabbits.

Human behavior contributes to some of the problems that hawks encounter in the zone that brings them too close for comfort to motorized vehicles. When people toss trash from a car, the scent of the litter will lure curious and hungry rodents. In turn, hunting hawks are brought to the edges of roads in search of their preferred prey, increasing the likelihood of colliding with automobiles.

The Cooper’s hawk is a large accipiter hawk. A smaller relative, the sharp-shinned hawk, is also found in the region. The accipiter hawks are graceful and aerodynamic, designed to pursue prey through woodlands. Buteo hawks, such as the red-tailed hawk and red-shouldered hawk, are more of an ambush predator and not designed for the agile maneuvers that the accipiters can use to capture prey.

Some of the buteo species have adapted to life on islands, including the Galapagos hawk and the Hawaiian hawk. Some of these hawks have quite descriptive names, including the white-throated hawk, gray-lined hawk, zone-tailed hawk and short-tailed hawk. Outside the United States, raptors in the buteo genus are often known as “buzzards.” When the first European colonists came to the New World, they applied the term buzzard to types of native vultures as well as the large raptors like Swainson’s hawk and broad-winged hawk that reminded them of the ones back in Europe.

Accipiter hawks are also widespread. Accipiter is a genus of birds of prey in the family Accipitridae. With 49 recognized species, it is the most diverse genus in its family. Most species are called goshawks or sparrowhawks, although almost all New World species (excepting the Northern goshawk) are simply known as hawks.

Most accipiter hawks, including Cooper’s and sharp-shinned, prey mostly on other birds. The website All About Birds notes that small songbirds are usually safe around a Cooper’s hawk. Medium-sized birds, however, are not. Studies list European starlings, mourning doves and rock pigeons as common prey. Other birds that are often targeted by Cooper’s hawk include American robins, blue jay, Northern flicker, quail, grouse and pheasants. Cooper’s hawks sometimes rob nests and also eat chipmunks, rabbits, mice, squirrels and bats. According to All About Birds, mammals are more common in diets of Cooper’s hawks in the western United States.

Some of the more descriptively named accipiter hawks include crested goshawk, grey-bellied hawk, spot-tailed sparrowhawk, plain-brested hawk and little sparrowhawk.

All too often, our large hawks don’t receive the love they deserve from the public. They may even run afoul of misinformed individuals who may regard all predatory birds as “bad.” The reality is that all hawks are valuable components of a healthy, working ecosystem, with each species filling a certain niche.

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To share a sighting, ask a question or make a comment, email me at ahoodedwarbler@aol.com.

 

 

Nuthatches have embraced a topsy-turvy lifestyle

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Photo by Jack Bulmer/Pixabay • White-breasted nuthatches live topsy-turvy lifes and are just fine with it.

The passage of Winter Storm Heather delivered the first significant snowfall of 2024 to Unicoi County and the surrounding area. The storm’s wind, snow and ice also brought birds flocking to my feeders.

Ground-feeding dark-eyed juncos, song sparrows and white-throated sparrows jostled with each other while foraging. Carolina chickadees and tufted titmice made repeated sorties to the feeders, grabbed a single sunflower seed or peanut and carried off the prize. Northern cardinals and American goldfinches perched on my hanging feeders, hulling sunflower seeds as quickly as they could. Red-bellied woodpeckers and downy woodpeckers visited special hanging suet feeders. Carolina wrens skulked, scolded and settled for scraps dropped by other birds. Among these feathered visitors was another resident bird that is definitely worth a second look.

The power of flight gives white-breasted nuthatches, like most birds, a perfectly valid reason to disregard the power of gravity. The family of tree-clinging birds known as nuthatches lives an even more topsy-turvy lifestyle than many of their winged kin. Nuthatches prefer a headfirst stance as they search for food in the nooks and crannies in tree trunks and branches.

The United States is home to four species of nuthatches: white-breasted, red-breasted, brown-headed and pygmy. White-breasted nuthatches are probably the most familiar nuthatch to backyard birders in this area.

Because of their gravity-defying antics, the white-breasted nuthatch and other members of the family can provide hours of entertainment at our bird feeders. Individual white-breasted nuthatches will follow a single-minded path along the trunk of a tree or a branch on the way to a feeder. An individual nuthatch rarely varies from this path. It’s amusing to watch the jerky progress along the trunk as this bird prepares for a flight to a feeder holding sunflower seeds or a hanging wire basket of suet.

At my home, nuthatches typically remain aloof from the rivalry always ongoing between the chickadees and titmice. The white-breasted nuthatch is also a no-nonsense visitor. Rarely distracted by disturbances among other birds, this nuthatch is content to hang on to the wire frame of a suet basket and peck off chunks of suet or grab a single sunflower seed and go.

The more numerous titmice and chickadees give way when a white-breasted nuthatch claims a feeder. At times, however, among the frantic activity, a tufted titmouse or a Carolina chickadee will forget itself and fly to a position on a feeder already claimed by a nuthatch. If surprised enough to retreat to a nearby perch, the nuthatch will go through a rather comical little dance to express its displeasure. Wings spread out in a rigid pose, the bird will turn around in tight circles, showing definite resentment at being displaced by an offending chickadee or titmouse.

These displays are usually brief, unless they are directed toward another white-breasted nuthatch. A male-female pair of these nuthatches can peaceably visit a feeding area at the same time. Two male nuthatches — or two female nuthatches for that matter — show little toleration for each other. Their little dances of defiance are in these cases demonstrated for each other. Eventually, one nuthatch will give way, but these are stubborn birds, much more set in their ways than chickadees and titmice.

In our region, the stubby red-breasted nuthatch is another member of the family that occasionally finds its way to our yards. Smaller than the related white-breasted nuthatch and, as far as I can tell, complacent in the company of chickadees and titmice, the red-breasted nuthatch is always a welcome visitor. It has a tell-tale “yank yank” call that it produces when excited that sounds very much like little tin horns. The red-breasted nuthatch, perhaps because it spends so much of the year in more remote areas, can also be amazingly tame when it pays a winter visit.

Both of these nuthatches can be attracted to feeders by offering peanuts, sunflower seeds and suet. They are also cavity-nesting birds, but are more reluctant about accepting a nesting box as a place to rear young. They will gladly accept an old woodpecker hole or other natural cavity in a tree.

The brown-headed nuthatch is a specialist of pine woodlands throughout the southeastern United States, favoring loblolly-shortleaf pines and longleaf-slash pines. This nuthatch requires standing dead trees for nesting and roosting. They forage for food, however, on live pines. The birds are more abundant in older pine stands.

This small nuthatch is not at all common in the region, but there are some records. I’ve had much better luck finding the brown-headed nuthatch during visits to coastal South Carolina or suburban Atlanta in Georgia. In these southern locations, it can be a quite common bird.

These small birds will occasionally forage close to the ground, but they are often in the upper branches of pine trees. Their presence is often revealed by their call, which sounds amazingly like a squeeze toy. They produce their “squeaky toy” call persistently when agitated or curious. Brown-headed nuthatches often associate with mixed flocks in company with Carolina chickadees, tufted titmice, pine warblers and other small songbirds.

I also want to complete my list of North American nuthatches by adding the fourth species — pygmy nuthatch — to my life list. I have made two trips to western North America, where this species ranges, but haven’t managed to find this bird. Both the pygmy and brown-headed are among the smallest members of the nuthatch family.

On the other end of the size scale is the appropriately named giant nuthatch, which reaches a length of almost eight inches. The giant nuthatch ranges through China, Thailand and Burma. This nuthatch is bigger than a downy woodpecker, one of our more common visitors at backyard feeders in our region.

Worldwide, there are about 25 species of nuthatches, some of which have surprisingly descriptive names for birds that spend most of their lives creeping in obscurity along the trunks and branches of trees. Some of the more creative common names for these little birds include beautiful nuthatch, velvet-fronted nuthatch, sulphur-billed nuthatch, chestnut-bellied nuthatch, snowy-browed nuthatch and chestnut-vented nuthatch.

These birds are named “nuthatch” for the habit of some species to wedge a large seed in a crack and hack at it with their strong bills. I like to refer to them as “upside-down birds” because gravity doesn’t seem much of a factor in their daily lives. They are content to walk headfirst down a tree trunk or probe the underside of a large branch. It must give them an interesting perspective on the world around them.

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Mary Anna Wheat will present a program on a trip to Arizona, Utah, Colorado and New Mexico in late September and early October 2023 at the next meeting of the Elizabethton Bird Club.

She traveled with a friend and former co-worker from Sept. 19 to Oct. 16, 2023, in those four states. Their focus was on scenery, archeology (Wheat’s friend is an archaeologist with experience doing archaeological work at Canyon de Chelly National Monument) and the annular solar eclipse. Birding was incidental, although Wheat noted that they saw or heard more than 60 species.

The club’s meeting will be held Tuesday, Feb. 6, at the Northeast State Community College’s Elizabethton campus at 7 p.m. The front desk can direct visitors to the meeting room.

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Bryan Stevens has been writing about birds and birding since 1995. Email him at ahoodedwarbler@aol.com to ask a questing, share a sighting or make a comment.

Snow goose sighting on Dec. 31 concludes birding year

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Photo by Bryan Stevens • A  snow goose hanging out with a flock of Canada geese was found at a well-known Elizabethton pond on the last day of 2023.

The Elizabethton Bird Club’s 2024 calendars arrived just ahead of the new year, so I held a distribution on New Year’s Eve for people wanting to pick up a calendar at the parking lot at the Elizabethton campus of Northeast State Community College.

As I drove into the parking lot with my box of calendars I noticed a lone white goose sticking out like a proverbial sore thumb among several dozen Canada geese foraging in the grassy margins around the parking lot.

After a quick study, I determined the goose was a snow goose – the first that I have seen locally since December of 2022 when Erwin resident Joe McGuiness, who is also a fellow member of the Elizabethton Bird Club, alerted me to the presence of a snow goose at a farm pond along Massachusetts Avenue in Unicoi.

That snow goose, just like the one I saw at Northeast State, was hanging out with a flock of Canada geese.

 

Everyone arriving to pick up a calendar got to see the goose. In addition, the goose attracted some other onlookers. A driver of a tractor-trailer pulled into the parking lot, rolled down his window and leaned out of the cab of his truck with a pair of binoculars for a look at the snow goose. He had apparently seen the goose while driving past the pond.

Of the geese found in the region, the well-known Canada goose is nearly ubiquitous. Surprisingly, that’s not always been the case. In his book, “The Birds of Northeast Tennessee,” Rick Knight points out that the Canada geese now present throughout the year resulted from stocking programs conducted in the 1970s and 1980s. In earlier decades, the Canada goose was considered a rare winter visitor to the region. Seeing the Canada goose in every sort of habitat from golf courses to grassy margins along city walking trails, it’s hard to imagine a time when this goose wasn’t one of the region’s most common waterfowl.

The snow goose can still be considered an uncommon visitor to the region, but they do show up almost regularly every winter.

The world’s geese are not as numerous as ducks, but there are still about 20 species of geese worldwide, compared to about 120 species of ducks. While both ducks and geese are lumped together as waterfowl, most geese are more terrestrial than ducks. Birders are just as likely to spot geese in a pasture or on the greens of a golf course as they are on a lake or pond.

Photo by Bryan Stevens • A snow goose swims amid Canada geese at the pond at Fishery Park in Erwin, Tennessee.

The snow goose breeds in regions in the far north, including Alaska, Canada, Greenland and even the northeastern tip of Siberia. They may spend the winter as far south as Texas and Mexico, although some will migrate no farther than southwestern British Columbia in Canada.

The snow goose bucks the trends that show many species of waterfowl declining. Recent surveys show that the population of the snow goose exceeds five million birds, which is an increase of more than 300% since the mid-1970s. In fact, this goose is thriving to such a degree that the large population has begun to inflict damage on its breeding habitat in some tundra regions.

A smaller relative to the snow goose is the Ross’s goose, which for all practical purposes looks like a snow goose in miniature. The common name of this goose honors Bernard R. Ross, who was associated with the Hudson’s Bay Company in Canada’s Northwest Territories.

Here’s a quick history lesson. Hudson’s Bay Company is the oldest commercial corporation in North America. The company has been in continuous operation for more than 340 years, which ranks it as one of the oldest in the world. The company began as a fur-trading enterprise, thanks to an English royal charter in back in 1670 during the reign of King Charles II. These days, Hudson’s Bay Company owns and operates retail stores throughout Canada and the United States.

In addition to his trade in furs, Ross collected specimens for the Smithsonian Institution in Washington, D.C. Ross is responsible for giving the goose that now bears his name one of its early common names – the Horned Wavy Goose of Hearne. I wonder why that name never caught on?
Ross repeatedly insisted that this small goose was a species distinct from the related and larger lesser snow goose and greater snow goose. His vouching for this small white goose eventually convinced other experts that this bird was indeed its own species.

Ross was born in Ireland in 1827. He died in Toronto, Ontario, in 1874. He was described by other prominent early naturalists as “enthusiastic” and “a careful observer” in the employ of Hudson’s Bay Company. When John Cassin gave the Ross’s Goose its first scientific name of Anser rossii in 1861, he paid tribute to the Hudson’s Bay Company’s Ross.

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The large pond adjacent to the Northeast State Community College’s Elizabethton campus – known by many birders as the “Great Lakes” pond – has been a magnet for some unusual birds. Some of the more unusual birds found at this pond have included canvasback, American avocet, semipalmated plover, great egret, greater white-fronted goose and red-necked grebe. It’s also a reliable location for birds such as great blue herons and killdeers.

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To share a sighting, ask a question or make a comment, email me at ahoodedwarbler@aol.com.

Pileated woodpecker never fails to make spectacular first impression

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Photo by Jason Gillman from Pixabay • The pileated woodpecker is the largest woodpecker in the region, reaching a length of about 19 inches. By comparison, the region’s smallest, the downy woodpecker, is only about 7 inches long.

The ivory-billed woodpecker barely escaped a declaration of extinction in 2023. Whether this woodpecker, the largest in North America, is still alive is a matter for debate, but a slightly smaller relative remains an abundant and rather visible bird.

Over the years, many readers have emailed me about their encounters with pileated woodpeckers, which can be impressive and even startling when a sighting is unexpected.

The pileated woodpecker has actually had an abundance of common names associated with it. English naturalist Mark Catesby, who died in 1749, gave this large bird the name of “large red-crested woodpecker.” The Swedish botanist Carl Linnaeus apparently gave the woodpecker the scientific name of Dryocopus pileatus.

Another English naturalist, John Latham, apparently gave the bird the common name of pileated woodpecker, basing the name on the scientific name established by Linnaeus. Beyond this history of how the bird eventually got the name pileated woodpecker, there are a lot of folk names for this particular bird, including such interesting ones as “king of the woods” and “stump breaker.”

The loud vocalization of this woodpecker has also inspired names such as “wood hen.” Other names along these lines include “Indian hen” and “laughing woodpecker.” If anyone knows of other common names for the pileated woodpecker, I’d enjoy hearing about them.

Depending on whether you believe that the ivory-billed woodpecker still exists somewhere in Cuba, Arkansas or some other remote pocket of its former range, the pileated woodpecker is the largest of North America’s woodpeckers.

Pileated woodpeckers are cavity-nesting birds, and they use their large, stout bills to efficiently excavate their own nesting cavities in dead or dying trees. These cavities can be used in later nesting seasons by other cavity-nesting birds, such as Eastern screech-owls and wood ducks, that are incapable of excavating their own nesting cavities.

Photo by Bryan Stevens • A pileated woodpecker perches on a branch of a walnut tree.

Male pileated woodpecker show a red whisker stripe on the side of the face that is absent in the female. Otherwise, they look similar.

These large woodpeckers — they can reach a length of about 19 inches — often forage close to the ground on old stumps or fallen logs.

The pileated woodpecker is widespread in the United States and Canada, favoring wooded areas in both countries. This woodpecker has proven adaptable, now thriving even in suburban areas offering sufficient woodland habitat.

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I wrote last week about the limpkin in Hampton. Over the Christmas holiday, I managed to observe this remarkable bird. My mom and I both watched the bird while it foraged for food in a yard at a trailer park. Usually not found beyond Florida, this winter visitor has created quite a sensation in the local birding community. Getting to observe this unusual visitor made our holidays a bit brighter.

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Share a sighting, ask a question or make a comment by emailing me at ahoodedwarbler@aol.com.

Photo by Bryan Stevens • A limpkin roams in a yard at the River’s Edge trailer park in Hampton, Tennessee, on Christmas Eve 2023.

Limpkin discovery in December caps off the year in birding

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Photo courtesy of Tom and Cathy McNeil • A limpkin in Hampton, Tennessee, stunned the local birding community with its appearance in a most unlikely location.

At the end of the year, it’s a good time to look back. All years deliver some surprises when it comes to bird sightings, but 2023 seemed to truly produce some unusual and totally unexpected sightings for birders in Northeast Tennessee and beyond.

In the waning days of December, one of the biggest local bird surprises of the year took place in Hampton in Carter County when the birding community got word of a limpkin hanging out on the Doe River behind a trailer park. The bird, which usually ranges no farther north than Florida, is not exactly one that would be expected in Northeast Tennessee in the final days before Christmas.

 

Tom McNeil, a fellow birder, posted the news on his Facebook page.

“A big thanks to my brother, Ed McNeil, for alerting the Hampton community to keep an eye out for this limpkin that has been sneaking around since probably October,” Tom wrote.

Regular readers of this column will recall that Tom and his wife, Cathy, have seen several unusual birds this year, including storm-driven American flamingos in Tennessee and North Carolina, as well as an ancient murrelet at Chickamauga Dam near Chattanooga. Then, just as the year’s winding down, up pops a limpkin practically in their back yard.

According to Tom’s post, David Vines first reported the limpkin in November, but it has remained quite elusive.  However, Ashley Taylor spotted the bird on Dec. 17 and let Tom’s brother know that she saw it at the Rivers Edge community.

“I texted Brookie and Jean Potter,” Tom wrote. “They were on it in no time. Cathy and I rushed down and added it to our Carter County life list.”

Tom credited some awesome networking in the birding community and beyond in bringing the limpkin’s presence to light.

Photo by Bryan Stevens • A limpkin wanders near a canal in Orlando, Fla., in October-November of 2007.

The limpkin, known by the scientific Aramus guarauna, is also called carrao, courlan and crying bird. It’s a large wading bird related to rails and cranes, and the only species in the family Aramidae. Limpkins are found mostly in wetlands in warm parts of the Americas, from Florida to northern Argentina, but has been spotted as far north as Wisconsin.

These birds feed on mollusks, with the diet dominated by apple snails. Its name derives from its “limping” gait when it walks.

I’ve seen and heard limpkins on numerous occasions during visits to Florida. They are unique birds and can become so acclimated to humans that I have observed several limpkins at some of the busy Disney theme parks near Orlando, Florida.

Photo by Bryan Stevens • The limpkin remained present in the River’s Edge trailer park in Hampton on Christmas Eve, 2023. The bird has been spotted in different locations around the small town of Hampton since October.

My mom and I got to see the visiting limpkin on Christmas Eve. On a whim, we drove through the trailer park that had been the location for previous sightings. We drove all the way to the end of the road and were headed back out when we found the bird busy feeding in a yard of one of the trailers.

Why this bird is haunting the Doe River in Carter County, apparently for the past couple of months, is a bit of a mystery. It’s not likely to find apple snails in the Doe, but there are probably crayfish, small fish and plenty of aquatic invertebrates that will keep a limpkin nourished. The recent dip in temperatures hasn’t seemed to affect the bird, although it would not often be exposed to such cold in its usual range.

It’s like I’ve indicated many times in this column. Birds have wings, and they know how to use them. They can show up in some of the most unlikely places. Keep your eyes open and you may be surprised by what you find. Best wishes to all the readers of this column. I hope everyone sees plenty of good birds in 2024.

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To share a sighting, make a comment or ask a question, email ahoodedwarbler@aol.com.

 

Cardinals are wonderful birds to behold in bleak winter.

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TParadis/Pixabay • A male Northern cardinal braves snow and ice during the winter months when these birds are frequent visitors to backyard bird feeders.

Christmas 2023 is almost upon us. As is my usual custom, I want to share my enthusiasm for the Northern cardinal, one of my favorite birds.

Earlier in the month, I became concerned when December arrived with not a cardinal in sight at my home.

We’ve had a couple of cold spells, however, and that seems to have motivated my cardinals to return. In particular, one male cardinal has learned that I’m his easy meal ticket. When I arrive home in the evenings, I always add some sunflower seeds to the feeders so all the birds can have a quick treat before heading off to their nighttime roosts. This particular cardinal is usually waiting on the edge of the feeder even before I can get outdoors with a canister containing the sunflower seeds.

I have always enjoyed watching cardinals. The beauty of both male and female cardinals is undeniable. They’re usually nervous, twitchy birds, so it has been fun watching this particular male cardinal grow accepting of my presence.

The Northern cardinal, especially the brilliant red male, stands out against a winter backdrop of snow white, deep green or drab gray. Over the years, the cardinal has also become associated with the Christmas season. How many Christmas cards have you received this holiday season with a cardinal featured in the artwork? I’d wager that at least a few cards in any assortment of holiday greetings will feature the likeness of a Northern cardinal.

There is a possible reason that male cardinals try to outshine each other when it comes to their bright red plumage. According to the website Tennessee Watchable Wildlife, brighter red male cardinals are able to hold territories that have denser vegetation, feed young at higher rates and have greater reproductive success than males with feathers of a duller hue.

Photo by Bryan Stevens • A total of 15 Northern Cardinals were found the day of the Roan Mountain Christmas Bird Count last month.

The Northern cardinal belongs to a genus of birds known as Cardinalis in the family Cardinalidae. There are only two other species in this genus, and they range across North America and into northern South America. The two relatives are the pyrrhuloxia, or Cardinalis sinuatus, of the southwestern United States, and the Vermilion cardinal, or phoeniceus, a bird found in Colombia and Venezuela.

The Northern cardinal is a native and abundant bird. Cardinals are a widespread species, ranging westward to the Dakotas and south to the Gulf Coast and Texas. The southeastern United States was once the stronghold of the cardinal population. In the past century, however, cardinals have expanded their range into New England and Canada.

The cardinal accepts a wide variety of food at feeders. Sunflower seed is probably their favorite, but they will also sample safflower seed, cracked corn, peanuts, millet, bakery scraps and even suet. While we may get the idea that cardinals feed largely on seed, that is a misconception based on our observation of the birds at our feeders. Cardinals away from our feeders eat insects and fruit, including the berries of mulberry, holly, pokeberry, elderberry, Russian olive, dogwood and sumac.

The cardinal uses its large beak to efficiently hull sunflower seeds or deal with other foods foraged in field and forest away from our feeders. The large, heavy beak hints at the cardinal’s kinship with birds such as tanagers and grosbeaks. In fact, some of America’s early naturalists referred to the bird as “cardinal grosbeak.” Other common names include the apt “redbird” moniker and “Virginia nightingale.”

Photo by Bryan Stevens • Northern cardinals are a favorite for makers of Christmas ornaments.

Even once the holidays are past, there’s nothing like a glimpse of a Northern cardinal to add some cheer to a bleak winter day. It’s not surprising that such a popular bird has also become associated with many trappings of the Christmas season.

“You see cardinals on greeting cards, stationery, paper plates, paper napkins and tablecloths, doormats, light switch plates, candles, candle holders, coffee mugs, plates, glasses, Christmas tree ornaments and lights, bookmarks, mailboxes, Christmas jewelry,” writes June Osborne in “The Cardinal,” a book about this popular bird.

“And the list goes on,” Osborne writes. “Cardinals have become an integral part of the way that many people celebrate the holiday season.”

I can be included among such people. My Christmas decorations include an assortment of cardinal figurines and ornaments. There are other birds — doves and penguins for example — associated with the holiday season, but for me the holidays magnify the importance of one of my favorite birds. The cardinal, in its festive red plumage, appears made to order for a symbol of the holiday season.

Merry Christmas to all the readers of this column and best wishes for 2024.

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To ask a question, share a sighting or make a comment, email me at ahoodedwarbler@aol.com.

 

 

Kinglets among winter’s smallest, friendliest birds

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Photo by Jake Bonello/USFWS • A ruby-crowned kinglet living up to its name by displaying its cap of red feathers.

Most of winter’s resident birds have settled in for the season at my home.
From red-shouldered hawk to winter wren to dark-eyed junco and white-throated sparrow, many seasonal residents have all become part of the daily backdrop. These winter arrivals join such year-round residents as Northern cardinal, Carolina chickadee, tufted titmouse, Carolina wren and downy woodpecker.
Some other tiny birds are also a little more abundant this season. I’m hearing kinglets almost everywhere I go.

The ruby-crowned kinglet, one of North America’s smallest birds, is typically about four inches long and doesn’t even weigh half an ounce. A close relative is the golden-crowned kinglet, which is typically just under four inches in length, which makes the species the shortest of North America’s songbirds.

Photo by Beth McPherson • A golden-crowned kinglet being held carefully after a window strike.

How is it that the kinglets, among the smallest of North American birds, invariably choose to spend the harsh cold months of winter in our yards and gardens?
Chickadees, titmice and other familiar winter birds eke out an existence by supplementing some of their diet with fare from bird feeders. Although kinglets often associate with roaming flocks comprise of a mix of different species, the kinglets are not usually interested in the offerings at our feeders.

Kinglets are dedicated to gleaning tiny insects and spiders, as well as insects eggs and larvae, from branches and plantings in our yards. They’re so successful at it that they don’t need to turn to even a well-stocked feeder. A kinglet will on occasion sample an offering of suet or peanut butter, but this bird doesn’t make a habit of visiting feeders.

Kinglets are surprisingly tame at times and often exhibit as much curiosity about us as we display toward them. They’re very active birds, however, constantly moving from perch to perch. These bursts of hyperactivity can make them difficult to observe since they so rarely remain still.

In addition to the two North American species, kinglets, referred to in other parts of the world as firecrests, flamecrests or goldcrests, range throughout temperate North America, Europe and Asia, as well as northernmost Africa, Macaronesia and the Himalayas.

It’s the colorful crest of feathers atop their heads that have given all of them their common names. Kinglets belong to the family, Regulidae, and the genus, Regulus. The family and genus names are derived from a Latin word, regulus, which means “rex,”or “king” The name was apparently inspired by the colorful crown patches, often red, orange or gold, that resemble the royal “crowns” of kings.

This year’s bird calendar features a pair of tree swallows on the cover.

Although small in size, these birds more than compensate for it with a feisty spirit that does them well through the harsher weather of the winter months. It’s that indomitable spirit, curious nature and frantic antics that makes them such welcome companions during the bleak, cold months.

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The Lee & Lois Herndon Chapter of the Tennessee Ornithological Society is taking orders for its 2024 bird calendar.

The calendar will feature a photo of a pair of tree swallows on the front cover. The photo was taken by chapter members Eric Middlemas, who also contributed numerous other photographs for the calendar.

The inside pages of the professionally-produced calendar feature dozens more full-color photographs and an informative and educational grid. These calendars sell for $15 plus $2 for shipping. All sales help the club fund birding programs, public park feeders, conservation efforts and other activities in upper Northeast Tennessee. For more information on how to obtain a calendar, email ahoodedwarbler@aol.com.

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To share a sighting, ask a question or make a comment, please email me at ahoodedwarbler@aol.com.

 

Ancient murrelet unexpected state visitor

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Photo Courtesy of Tom and Cathy McNeil • An ancient murrelet found at Chickamauga Dam near Chattanooga is the first of its kind ever observed in Tennessee.

Tennessee got a visit from a new bird in late November when an ancient murrelet showed up at Chickamauga Dam near Chattanooga. As I’m fond of noting, birds have wings and can use those wings to show up in the most unexpected places.

A bird of the Pacific Northwest, ancient murrelets typically winter off the Pacific Coast, not on a lake in landlocked Tennessee. It’s little surprise that this bird represents the first-ever record of the species for the Volunteer State.

According to the website “All About Birds,” ancient murrelets are sea-going birds that nest in colonies on land, although usually within 1,000 feet of the shoreline.

The website also notes that ancient murrelets construct earthen burrows for nesting but also use existing cavities under logs or tree roots, crevices in rocky areas or gaps between grass tussocks. They’re also adaptable and readily use wooden nest boxes and sometimes even nest in walls or huts.

Readers may remember that I wrote about Tom and Cathy McNeil chasing after some hurricane-driven American flamingos in North Carolina and Tennessee back in August. Turns out, they went after the ancient murrelet, too, again with success, I am pleased to note.

Upon arrival at the Chickamauga Dam Day Use Area, Allan Trently, an East Tennessee State University graduate and a former East Tennessee resident, had a spotting scope already focused on the murrelet. How’s that for convenience?

The reports of the murrelet made me think back to my childhood reading of the books in the “Little House” series by Laura Ingalls Wilder.

As it turns out, the Ingalls family members were good amateur naturalists.

Wilder, writing as an adult, wrote about birds and other wildlife. She wrote in a time when birds like prairie chickens were still common on the vast grasslands of states like Kansas, Minnesota and North and South Dakota.

An interesting couple of chapters in her book “The Long Winter” offer details of a strange water bird that literally drops out of the sky into a bale of hay on the family farm near Silver Lake in De Smet, South Dakota.

The family consults a book titled “The Wonders of the Animal World” and conclude that the bird looks like a miniature version of the great auk.

The bird was definitely not a great auk, which went extinct in 1844. But there are some tantalizing clues that the bird might have been an ancient murrelet or a dovekie.

Laura Erickson, author of the blog “For the Birds,” dedicated one of her posts to the mysterious bird found by the Ingalls family. Erickson did her research and discovered records of ancient murrelet in South Dakota from November 1993. South Dakota has no records of murrelets, but neighboring Wisconsin had a few. One visiting ancient murrelet was shot by two boys hunting along Lake Michigan in 1908, and another was found dead under some Tomah power lines in 1949.

And then, along comes Steve Kolbe, who found an ancient murrelet at Stoney Point up the shore between Duluth and Two Harbors in January of 2021.

It was an opportunity too good to miss, and Erickson made the trip to see the rare visitor.

She noted in her blog that she immediately thought of Laura Ingalls Wilder when she learned about the bird. Erickson did get to see the bird, and she wrote that the sighting provided her with “a sense of connection with Laura Ingalls Wilder herself, the woman whose books so enriched my childhood and were so enjoyable to read aloud to my own children.”

The “Little House” books are a treasure trove to a time of abundance for birds. Wilder writes often of awe as she observed birds as the family ventured into new territory. Near Silver Lake, she saw great migrating flocks of geese, ducks, cranes, herons, swans, pelicans and hell-divers (grebes) and mud-hens (coots).

A mournful Charles Ingalls even brought back a swan, shot by accident. He tells the family he had never seen one in flight.

He also shot a pelican so the family could see one up close, but the smell made their examination very quick. If you’ve ever wondered, pelicans are not worth eating, according to Wilder. She wrote that their feathers reek of fish, making them unfit for even the stuffing of pillows.

Wilder also described all the sorts of ducks that migrated across the vast prairies, including mallards, redheads, canvasbacks, teals and bluebills. I’m guessing that the bluebills were scaups, a species of diving duck. In an almost poetic passage, she described “golden autumn days” when “the sky was full of wings.

Another birding story from the books, both humorous and serious in tone, involves an invasion of blackbirds that decimated a crop of corn and oats that Charles Ingalls was trying to raise.

The flocks of blackbirds defeat all their efforts to defend the crops, but there is a “when life hands you lemons, make lemonade” moment when Wilder writes, “For dinner, there is blackbird pie — even better than chicken pie. In addition, there is more bounty from the garden: new potatoes, peas, cucumbers and carrots. There is even cottage cheese and more tomatoes with sugar and cream.”

As Pa Ingalls declared at the end of the chapter, “a flock of pesky blackbirds can’t stop us.”

Considering their location in South Dakota, the blackbirds could have consisted of several species: red-winged blackbirds, yellow-headed blackbirds, grackles or cowbirds. It’s a little disappointing Wilder didn’t prove as descriptive in her account of the blackbirds as she did when writing of the waterfowl.

It’s nice to be able to bird vicariously through the exploits of the McNeils, as well as the long-ago stories from the “Little House” books by Laura Ingalls Wilder, but I do need to get out more and look for my own birds.

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To ask a question, share a sighting or make a comment, email me at ahoodedwarbler@aol.com.

Bachman’s warbler slips away into extinction 35 years after last sighting

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Louis Agassiz Fuertes, an American ornithologist, illustrator and artist, painted this pair of Bachman’s warblers. He also set the rigorous and current-day standards for ornithological art and naturalist depiction and is considered one of the most prolific American bird artists, second only to his guiding professional predecessor John James Audubon.

Back in mid-October, the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service delisted 21 species from the Endangered Species Act.

Unfortunately, the action came about not because of a successful recovery for the 21 species, but it was due to extinction.

According to the FWS press release, rigorous reviews of the best available science helped FWS determine these species are extinct and should be removed from the list of species protected under the ESA.

Most of these species were listed under the ESA in the 1970s and 1980s. Even at the time of their listing, some of these species had seen their numbers dwindle to very low levels. Others were probably already extinct at the time of listing.

The extinct species include eight of Hawaii’s honeycreepers, Guam’s bridled white-eye and little Mariana fruit bat, a species of fish from Texas and nine species of mussels.

The sad story of the decimation of birds and other species in Hawaii is a natural apocalypse of truly tragic dimensions. But one of the other birds recently declared extinct lived thousands of miles from the Hawaiian islands. That bird — Bachman’s warbler — holds an enigmatic place among my favorite family of birds.

I’ve always been fascinated with the Bachman’s warbler, possibly due to the fact it has a similar appearance to my favorite warbler, the hooded warbler. This small bird was also a fellow inhabitant of the southeastern United States, although it resided in cane brakes and flooded, forested swamps, not in the hollows and woodlands of Northeast Tennessee.

But to me, Bachman’s warbler remained only a painting in a book. When I began birding, I began making actual sightings of the real birds that had existed for a long time as mere images. Alas, Bachman’s warbler remained only an image, not a reality.

Early naturalist and artist John James Audubon produced the most famous painting of the species, but even his work was not based on real life observations.

This warbler was first recorded in 1832 by the Rev. John Bachman, who found the species near Charleston, South Carolina. Bachman later presented study skins and descriptions to Audubon, his friend and collaborator. The famed naturalist and artist never saw the bird alive but named it in honor of Bachman in 1833.

Some 19th century authors also referred to the bird as Bachman’s swamp warbler.

Experts believe that Bachman’s warbler bred primarily in two distinct regions: the southern Atlantic coastal plain and the Gulf Coast states north along the Mississippi River watershed to Kentucky.

In the southern Atlantic coastal plain, the bird bred in South Carolina near Charleston, though it is believed to have once bred as far north as Virginia and south into Georgia.

The Gulf Coast breeding habitat is located primarily in central Alabama, though reports from northern Mississippi and Louisiana are known. The species bred north of Alabama along Arkansas’s and Missouri’s St. Francis River.

Interestingly, there are some unaccepted records of successful nestings in Tennessee, as well as eastern Texas and Oklahoma.

“Federal protection came too late to reverse these species’ decline, and it’s a wake-up call on the importance of conserving imperiled species before it’s too late,” said USFWS Director Martha Williams in the release. “As we commemorate 50 years of the Endangered Species Act this year, we are reminded of the Act’s purpose to be a safety net that stops the journey toward extinction. The ultimate goal is to recover these species, so they no longer need the Act’s protection.”

In September 2021, the Service proposed delisting 23 species from the ESA due to extinction. Following public comment on the proposed rule, the Service withdrew the delisting proposal for a Hawaiian perennial herb in the mint family that has no common name. The plant’s reprieve was due to recent surveys identifying new, potentially suitable habitats for the species.

https://www.google.com/search?sca_esv=587524955&q=last+sighting+of+Bachman%27s+warbler&tbm=isch&source=lnms&sa=X&ved=2ahUKEwjWwrbFo_SCAxXPg2oFHeAoAmgQ0pQJegQIDxAB&biw=1249&bih=439&dpr=1.5#imgrc=I4lV-MgPIjqdRM&imgdii=867BLpmCYA7KDM

Once again, another elusive bird of the southeastern United States escaped a final declaration of extinction. FWS will continue to analyze and review information before deciding whether to delist the ivory-billed woodpecker. Bachman’s warbler and the ivory-billed woodpeckers may very well have been neighbors in some of their favored habitats. My own opinion on the likelihood of the largest native woodpecker still surviving is one of skeptical optimism.

According to the release, the 21 species extinctions highlight the importance of the ESA and efforts to conserve species before declines become irreversible. The circumstances of each also underscore how human activity can drive species into decline and eventual extinction by contributing to habitat loss, overuse and the introduction of invasive species and diseases.

The announcement came as the Endangered Species Act turns 50 years old. Throughout the year, the Department of the Interior has celebrated the ESA’s importance in preventing imperiled species’ extinction, promoting wildlife recovery and conserving the habitats they depend on. The ESA has been highly effective and credited with saving 99% of listed species from extinction.

The final rule to delist 21 species from the ESA due to extinction was published in the Federal Register on Oct. 17 and became effective 30 days after publication.

So, why the slim glimmer of hope for the ivory-billed woodpecker and the sad finality of the fate of Bachman’s warbler?

For people familiar with the bird who knew where to look, Bachman’s warbler continued to be observed from the mid-1880s to 1910. About that time, clear-cutting of southern forests began replacing selective logging, resulting in a much more devastating loss of habitat.

By the 1930s, sightings were rare, and in 1940 the last definite winter sighting was recorded. The last male specimen was collected on March 21, 1941, on Deer Island, Mississippi, while the last female specimen was collected on Feb. 28, 1940, on Ship Island, Mississippi.

Reports of birds from the Missouri and Arkansas breeding grounds lasted through the 1940s, while birds were reported breeding in South Carolina’s I’on Swamp until 1953. Individuals were reported from Fairfax County, Virginia, in 1954 and 1958, and a male was seen singing near I’on Swamp in April 1962.

On March 30, 1977, an immature female was seen in Brevard County, Florida. The last confirmed observation was in Louisiana in 1988.

Warblers are short-lived birds, so populations, although diminished, must have continued to exist to allow these sporadic appearances.

Unfortunately, no intensive effort was ever launched to save the species, at least not on the scale of projects to save whooping cranes, California condors, bald eagles and peregrine falcons.

Two other warblers — the golden-cheeked warbler of Texas and the Kirtland’s warbler of Michigan — remain endangered. Others, including cerulean warbler, are close to the edge.

Why this profile on a bird none of us will ever get to see? That’s simple. No creature should be allowed to simply blink out of existence. The Bachman’s warbler, like everything else in creation, was a marvel. Remember this fragile little bird and maybe we can be certain no others ever have to be added to a list of extinct species.

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To ask a question, share a sighting or make a comment, email me at ahoodedwarbler@aol.com.