Tag Archives: Bryan Stevens

Too short a season: Hummingbirds’ stay coming to a close

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Photo by Katy Jefferson/Pixabay • A male ruby-throated hummingbird perches on a sugar water feeder.

September’s right around the corner. Then comes fall, then winter, and the cycle of the seasons continues to advance.

Always there as signals to herald the imminent approach of a new season are the birds. Our feathered friends are quite remarkable in that regard.

I heard from Elizabethton resident Susan Peters recently via email about my recent columns on catbirds.

She reported that she has noticed that catbirds return almost exactly at the same time as the hummingbirds every year. She described the catbirds as very chatty for awhile when they first come back.

“I just assumed they were letting everyone else know they were back,” she wrote.

I agree with her. I think the constant vocalizing of the catbirds is an announcement to human neighbors as well as their fellow feathered kin that they are back in the vicinity.

Catbirds appear to stage different high profile periods during their yearly stay. My own catbirds are always at their most chatty when they first return in the spring, in later summer after the nesting season when they “reappear,” and again in fall just before they depart for their wintering grounds.

Photo by Bryan Stevens A curious Gray Catbird peeks from dense cover. Attendees at the fall rally can look for catbirds and other species at any of the offered bird hikes.

It was the other “feathered friend” mentioned in Susan’s message that I thought I’d riff on this week.

The ruby-throated hummingbird activity is rising at my home. Of course, that’s true for a lot of the wildlife. I’ve seen plenty of white-tailed deer, along with this summer’s fawns, as well as rabbits, groundhogs and raccoons during recent lazy late summer days. I think many of these visitors are trying to dry out from the frequent rainstorms.

If anything, the abundant rain has propelled an explosion of blooms, including jewelweed, a definite hummingbird favorite. Before the jewelweed burst into bloom a healthy crop of tiny red crocosmia blooms kept the hummingbirds coming back for more. I’ve also got some trumpet vines clinging to the wall of the family garage that also serve as a hummingbird attractant.

We’ve got six or seven more weeks to enjoy their company, and then come the inevitable winter months forcing us to await their return next spring as everything goes green once again.

It’s bittersweet when I flip the calendar page from August to September, but there are some good things to anticipate. Every season brings some of its own birds. Fall and winter mean migrating waterfowl, hermit thrushes and crowded bird feeders.

I don’t have anything against fall – it’s my favorite season. But I know that our ruby-throated hummingbirds, which returned only five months ago in early April, will soon be departing.

It won’t be only the hummingbirds. Warblers, orioles, tanagers and other migrants will also fly south to spend the winter season somewhere more hospitable.

Photo by Bryan Stevens • Late summer usually brings a spike in visiting hummingbirds.

Most of the hummingbirds that visited our gardens over the summer are getting ready to migrate back to their winter homes in Central America. The one that returned this spring and successfully nested are being joined at our sugar water feeders by the season’s offspring. That’s the reason there’s a spike in numbers in late summer and early fall.

The New World is home to about 360 species of hummingbirds. In addition to the ruby-throated hummingbird, I’ve seen eight other hummingbird species.

We’ve expended many adjectives in finding names of them all. Sometimes, words fail. Mere adjectives are somewhat inadequate in providing common names for many of the world’s hummingbirds, but that doesn’t keep us from trying to give descriptive names to each hummingbird species. For instance, we have the beautiful hummingbird of Mexico; the charming hummingbird of Costa Rica and Panama; the festive coquette of northwestern South America; and the magnificent hummingbird of the southwestern United States.

Other names are even more elaborate and occasionally outlandish, such as the white-tufted sunbeam of Peru; the violet-throated metaltail of Ecuador; the violet-throated starfrontlet of Peru and Bolivia; the hyacinth visorbearer of Brazil; and the rainbow-bearded thornbill of Colombia and Ecuador.

And in East Tennessee and across the entire eastern half of the North American continent, we have the ruby-throated hummingbird. It’s the single representative of this huge family of birds in this part of the world.

For the young birds, this will be their first epic crossing of the Gulf of Mexico, something the species must do twice a year to get to and from their summer home in eastern North America. We use the word “epic” far too often to describe achievements, but it applies to the feat of this tiny bird.

Photo by Bryan Stevens • A ruby-throated hummingbird visits a feeder for a sip of sugar water.

These tiny birds are about 3.5 inches in length and weigh two to six grams. That’s the weight of a penny.

Think about it. Something so small is able to fly 500 miles across open water between the U.S. Gulf Coast and the Yucatán Peninsula or Mexico.

This journey takes these tiny birds 18 to 24 hours of non-stop flying, with success depending greatly on the wind and weather conditions.

They can’t feed while flying over the ocean, so they tank up and double their body weight by eating heavy amounts of nectar and insects before the flight.

Some members of the species have chosen a safer coastal route around the edge of the Gulf through Texas instead of direct flight across. This turns a 500-mile journey into one that stretches to 1,000 to 2,000 miles. Regardless, that’s still a truly epic undertaking.

Keep your feeders filled with sugar water and add some extra flowers to your garden this fall seasons. You’ll earn the gratitude of visiting hummers. And, when they return next spring, consider yourself repaid in full.

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

Cuckoo column strikes a chord with readers

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Painting by Nick Blosser • Local artist Nick Blosser transformed a tragic ending for a yellow-billed cuckoo into a reflective and even beautiful work of art.

I got some feedback from readers after I wrote my recent column focused on yellow-billed cuckoos.

In that column, I happened to mention that I’ve probably seen almost as many cuckoos killed in window strikes as I have seen live individuals. That seemed to resonate. Although it is a sad way to get introduced to a species of bird, that appears to happen regularly with cuckoos.

“My husband and I loved your story on the yellow-billed cuckoo,” Mindy Blosser wrote in an email. “Several years ago we witnessed a tragic window strike of a yellow-billed cuckoo at our house in south Johnson City.”

She added, “It is such a beautiful bird.”

She said that her husband, Nick, is an artist and that he completed a watercolor painting to memorialize the bird.

“We thought you might like to see the watercolor,” she said.

They also agreed to let me share Nick’s painting with readers.

The painting, although obviously tragic in nature, manages to transform the moment into something reflective and even beautiful.

I also heard from Susan Peters, an Elizabethton resident, in response to the column on cuckoos.

“I really enjoyed your column on the cuckoo,” Susan wrote in an email. “You mentioned callers who had a bird strike into a window, and I wondered if you remembered the one I called you about. It was years ago at my parents’ home on K Street.”

She reminded me that the cuckoo at her parents’ home hit a big picture window and probably broke its neck.

Like the Blossers, Susan admired the beauty of the cuckoo.

“Such a beautiful bird,” she wrote.

Susan and I have corresponded for years through this column. And her timely email reminded me that I did indeed make arrangements to meet her and collect the cuckoo that died after the window strike. I transported the cuckoo to the biology department at Milligan University, at the time still Milligan College. It was probably one of the last specimens ever added to the collection of freeze-dried specimens maintained by biology professor Gary Wallace. He is now retired and has moved back to his boyhood home in Dover, Tennessee, in Stewart County.

When I gave some of my early programs on birding to local civic organizations, Wallace sent me out well prepared with some fine specimens from the collection. I recall that he loaned me everything from a blue-winged teal to a tiny ruby-throated hummingbird. The specimens were always a big hit with audiences. There’s just something about holding a bird in the hand, even if it is dead and preserved as a freeze-dried skin, that connects people with the long-expired bird and its kin.

Photo by Patricia White/USFWS • The black-throated gray warbler normally ranges across the western half of North America and Mexico. Its migration route is usually west of the Great Plains, but half a century ago an individual reached Tennessee only to die in a fatal fallout of migrating birds that collided with a communications tower on Holston Mountain Oct. 2, 1972.

When the Elizabethton Bird Club still met on the Milligan campus, Wallace often opened the biology collection to our meetings for programs that basically consisted of our members getting to marvel at the array of birds preserved by the college’s biology department. Some unique specimens included the first black-throated gray warbler ever found in Tennessee. Unfortunately that bird died in a fatal fallout of birds that collided with a communications tower on Holston Mountain on Oct. 2, 1972.

Although housed for many years at Milligan, the black-throated gray warbler was eventually transferred in the summer of 2011 to the Louisiana State University Museum of Natural Science after Milligan’s biology department phased out its own collection.

The black-throated gray warbler normally ranges across the western half of North America and Mexico. The species migrates primarily through the Pacific and Central Flyways, staying strictly west of the Great Plains. Well, usually staying west of the Great Plains! The specimen found on Holston Mountain more than half a century ago proves that even this species has occasionally wandered far beyond its usual range.

USFWS • A yellow-billed cuckoo perches in the open.

All too often, birds meet with accidents during migration or simply while living their daily lives. According to the ABA Rare Bird Alert network, an injured spotted rail was found and taken to a wildlife rehabilitation center earlier this month. Because the bird was immediately transferred into rehabilitation, its exact initial discovery location has not been publicized, making this mega-rarity not chaseable for Tennessee birders. “Chaseable” simply refers to the fact that many birders would have traveled a great distance to see such an unexpected discovery in order to add it to their life lists.

The spotted rail is a native to the freshwater marshes of Central America, the Caribbean, and South America. In other words, its discovery in Tennessee was extremely surprising.

Experts consider injured rails notoriously difficult to rehabilitate, but if this individual survives the first few stressful days, its chances of recovery should improve.

Birds have wings, and those wings can transport them to some unusual places. Their flights also occasionally take them into danger. It’s all part of the natural cycle. It’s also just one fascinating aspect of the lives of birds that keeps birders coming back for more.

Photo by Bryan Stevens • The waxy tips to the wing feathers are evident in this photograph of a cedar waxwing.

The seasons are beginning to shift. In recent weeks I’ve glimpsed young wild turkeys crossing local roadways. Cedar waxwings are beginning to flock at my home, no doubt lured by the ripening wild cherries in trees around my home. Ruby-throated hummingbirds are still visiting. An Eastern screech-owl has become a reliable serenader in the early evening hours.

Keep watching for unexpected visitors. As always, feel free to email me at ahoodedwarbler@aol.com to share sightings, ask questions or make comments.

 

Make an effort to win over gray catbirds

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Veronika Andrews from Pixabay • If all else fails, bribery works well on gray catbirds. Provide these birds with a treat and their confidence is more quickly given.

The gray catbird is a baffling bird with a personality that runs the gamut from introverted to extroverted, sometimes depending on the season and at other times seemingly just on a whim. With some gentle persuasion, however, people can gain a catbird’s trust and develop a fun friendship with these clever songbirds.

Bribery also works. One summer, I only needed to offer some less-than-perfect strawberries and blueberries. A few blemishes on the fruit didn’t bother the resident catbirds at all, and they soon became accustomed to receiving such treats.

Your first introduction to the catbird is likely going to occur when you hear what sounds like an irritable feline hiding in a hedge, thicket or dense shrub. Upon closer examination, you may get a glimpse of a charcoal gray bird roughly the shape of a Northern mockingbird but smaller. A black cap and a patch of rusty-red feathers under the tail are the only exceptions to this bird’s overall gray plumage.

Photo by Bryan Stevens A curious Gray Catbird peeks from dense cover. Attendees at the fall rally can look for catbirds and other species at any of the offered bird hikes.

I’m pleased to note that catbirds are doing well. A profile on the website All About Birds confirms that the species is common and has benefitted from stable populations from 1966 to 2019, according to the North American Breeding Bird Survey. An estimate from Partners in Flight gives the species a breeding population of 29 million individuals spread out across North America. In a time when many bird species are declining, this is welcome news.

Catbirds are experts at concealing themselves from prying eyes. The gray plumage blends into the shadowy sections of the tangles and thickets where the bird likes to hide itself. However, even when gray catbirds are reluctant to be seen, they’re almost eager to be heard. The catbird is extremely vocal, with several calls and songs in its repertoire, including the rather faithful rendering of a fussy cat’s meow that provides this bird its common name.

They’re part of a family related to thrushes that are known as “mimic thrushes.” Besides its surprisingly accurate rendition of a feline, the catbird has several other common vocalizations. Despite their shy nature, they’re extremely curious. Imitating their calls or simply producing a squeaky sound will usually persuade the bird to move out of cover and search for the source of the noise.

Catbirds are part of the parade of returning birds each spring that includes species like rose-breasted grosbeaks, scarlet tanagers, Baltimore orioles and indigo buntings, but because they lack the brilliant plumages of these other birds their arrival would probably go unnoticed if not for the fact they are extremely noisy for the first few weeks they are back. Then they go silent again and remain quieter as they take up the serious business of raising young.

Photo by Bryan Stevens • A gray catbird hides within the branches of a dense shrub.

However, in a mood that appears to swing with the seasons, gray catbirds emerge again in late summer and early fall when they feast on such fruit as elderberries and wild cherries while making their whiny cacophony of calls from any tangle or thicket where they happen to be.

The catbird belongs to the genus Dumetella. The name is based upon the Latin term dūmus, which roughly translated means “thorny thicket.” Dumetella, in turn, means “dweller in the thornbushes” or “small bird of the thornbushes.” It’s a rather apt description for a bird fond of habitats often dominated by thorny vegetation. Older common names for the gray catbird included cat thrush and slate-colored mockingbird.

They are related to thrashers and mockingbirds, but scientists find them just different enough to warrant placing the gray catbird in its own genus. A relative known as the black catbird, which ranges throughout the Yucatan Peninsula of Mexico, as well as northern Guatemala and northern Belize, also belongs to a genus of its own. Both catbirds are classified as “mimic thrushes,” or Mimidae, of which there are about 30 species in the New World. There is a totally unrelated family of catbirds that ranges through Australia, Asia and parts of Africa.

Photo by Bryan Stevens • Gray catbird have a rusty-red patch beneath their tail, occasionally seen as they dive for cover.

The gray catbird is not as an accomplished mimic as some of its relatives, such as the Northern mockingbird. Males have motivation to constantly expand their repertoire, however, as doing so increases the likelihood of attracting a mate. They imitate other birds, but some have been recorded imitating frogs and other non-avian singers.

While not generally considered a bird to visit feeders, people have succeeded in attracting catbirds to feeders designed to offer grape jelly or orange slices. Planting fruit-bearing shrubs and trees is the best means of attracting these fascinating birds to your yard and garden. Leave a few untidy edges to your yard. Gray catbirds will thank you.

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

Calling cuckoo brings back some birding memories

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Photo by Peter Pearsall/USFWS • A yellow-billed cuckoo perches horizontally along a bare tree branch. The species feeds prodigiously on a variety of caterpillars.

I heard the low, gulping call of a yellow-billed cuckoo concealed by a dense curtain of green on the ridge behind my home on Sunday, July 26.

The hidden caller reminded me that this bird has acquired the nickname “rain crow” for consistently calling prior to summer downpours.

The yellow-billed cuckoo migrates a great distance to spend the summer months hidden in the dense green canopy of our local woodlands. Cuckoos spend the summer months in southern Canada and across most of the United States, but the bird’s winter range extends as far south as Venezuela and Argentina. They make a roundtrip journey of about 5,000 miles every spring and fall.

In pursuit of their favorite food – caterpillars – the yellow-billed cuckoo provides a public service, removing hairy tent caterpillars and their unsightly silk tents from the branches of various trees. I certainly applaud these efforts. Only a handful of birds feed on these caterpillars, with the yellow-billed cuckoo being the first and foremost consumer of these pests. The cuckoo has a voracious appetite for these caterpillars.

Photo by USFWS • A yellow-billed cuckoo selects a surprising open perch for a bird known for its reclusive nature.

Staking out tent caterpillar nests would seem a good way to increase the chances of seeing these elusive birds. Personally, it’s never quite worked out that way. My best – and first – sighting of a yellow-billed cuckoo is now buried 30 years back among my birding memories. I saw the bird perched in a gnarled peach tree that once stood only a few yards from my home.

Another memorable sighting took place on Fripp Island, South Carolina. That bird, observed from a golf cart, shared a tree with a scolding blue-gray gnatcatcher. The discrepancy in the sizes of the tiny gnatcatcher and the large cuckoo was striking. I genuinely feared that the cuckoo might attempt to snack on the smaller bird.
Other sightings have taken place at Roan Mountain State Park, Winged Deer Park in Johnson City, Sycamore Shoals State Historic Park in Elizabethton and Douglas Lake in Cocke County.

In addition to sightings of live birds, some readers have reported window strikes to me, usually because they’re unable to identify the bird that suffered a sad demise after impacting a window.

The yellow-billed cuckoo is a large bird, which an observation in close quarters emphasizes. This bird can reach a length of nearly 12 inches, but much of that length is composed of its long tail. It easily matches the size of such familiar birds as blue jay and American robins.

The yellow-billed cuckoo has a long, streamlined body and a brown and white plumage. The underside of the tail features large white dots and the wings show some rusty-red feathers. The bird also has a large, curved beak that gives the species its common name.

I hear these birds every summer, but my sightings amount to perhaps a couple every decade. I’m sure I could see more cuckoos with extra effort, but this bird would still present a challenge.

Europe’s common cuckoo is famous in folklore and fairy tales for slipping its eggs into the nests of other birds. While the yellow-billed cuckoo does this on occasion, it is not in the same league as nest parasites such as brown-headed cowbirds.

Two other cuckoos spend time in the United States. The black-billed cuckoo is also found in Northeast Tennessee, but this species is even more difficult to locate than its yellow-billed cousin.

I’ve only seen black-billed cuckoos on a few occasions. My best and first sighting involved a bird that briefly perched on a snag along a hiking trail at Johnson City’s Winged Deer Park. I managed to get my binoculars on the bird long enough for a memorable look. I’ve also seen this species at Sycamore Shoals State Historic Park and at Hampton Creek Cove in Roan Mountain.

Another species is the mangrove cuckoo, a bird that in the United States resides only in southern Florida while also ranging the Caribbean, both coasts of Mexico and Central America, and the Atlantic coast of South America as far south as the mouth of the Amazon River. It’s no surprise that this specialist species is found primarily in mangrove swamps.

The yellow-billed cuckoo is known by the scientific name, Coccyzus americanus. Other cuckoos in the genus Coccyzus, which includes about a dozen species, are pearly breasted cuckoo, dark-billed cuckoo, chestnut-bellied cuckoo, grey-capped cuckoo, bay-breasted cuckoo and the great lizard cuckoo.

Although I haven’t seen one for a few years, I’m still glad to know that the yellow-billed cuckoo remains a lurker in the woodlands around my home. If you manage to lay eyes on this elusive bird, consider yourself fortunate.

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Bryan Stevens has written about birds, birding and birders since 1995. To share a sighing, ask a question or make a comment, email him at ahoodedwarbler@aol.com.

Future looks brighter for some endangered birds

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 Laurel Smith/USFWS • A group of Hawaiian stilts or ae’o cast their reflections in a wetland at Kilauea Pond National Wildlife Refuge, one of the few freshwater wetlands found on the Hawaiian Islands.

Everyone, including birders, enjoys reading some good news. There have been some recent success stories involving some of the world’s most endangered birds, including hopeful stories about the Hawaiian stilt and Guam kingfisher.

The kingfisher, extinct in the wild, survives in secure facilities around the world and has gradually increased to a population of about 150 birds. That’s a big increase from the 29 birds collected in the wild between 1984 and 1986 as a desperate attempt to preserve the species in captivity. A native name for the kingfisher is “sihek.”

M. Kastner/USFWS • An adult Guam kingfisher in captivity. The entire wild population was taken into captivity as a desperate move to save the population. The move seems to be working.

The kingfisher has made headlines in the past few months. Four chicks hatched at the Smithsonian Conservation Biology Institute in Front Royal, Virginia, in April and May. The hatching of additional chicks took place, also in April and May, at The National Aviary in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania.

Some of the captive-bred population has been returned successfully to the wild on a predator-free atoll near Hawaii. The Guam kingfisher was eradicated in the wild due to the accidental introduction of the brown tree snake to Guam shortly after World War II.

The stilt has been even more successful, recently being reclassified as threatened instead of endangered. The population now stands at about 1,500 birds, up significantly from the mere 200 alive in 1940.

Laurel Smith/USFWS • Ae‘o (Hawaiian stilt) are opportunistic feeders. They prey on chaete worms, crustaceans, insects, tadpoles and small fish in shallow waters or mudflats.

The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service posted on July 16 a release announcing the downlisting the aeʻo (Hawaiian stilt) from endangered to threatened under the Endangered Species Act.

“The downlisting of aeʻo is a huge achievement,” said Bridget Fahey, the Service’s acting regional director for the Pacific Region. “While there is still more work to be done to sustain the aeʻo’s recovery, today we want to celebrate the efforts of our conservation partners, including the State of Hawaii, the U.S. military, private landowners and local organizations.”

The aeʻo is a wading bird native to all the main Hawaiian Islands except Kahoʻolawe. The aeʻo was originally listed as endangered in 1970 due to destruction and alteration of habitat, hunting, introduced predatory animals and nonnative birds and diseases.

The aeʻo is closely related to the black-necked stilt, as well as the American avocet, another long-legged shorebird. The species are classified together in the family, recurvirostridae. The Hawaiian stilt is considered a sub-species of the black-necked stilt.

It’s time to start looking for shorebirds, a family of birds also known with a little more creative flair as “wind birds” along the region’s rivers, lakes and ponds. They are so named because so many species are capable of incredible long-distance migrations. A range of shorebirds migrate through the region in late summer and into fall.

My last sighting of black-necked stilts took place more than a decade ago in May 2014 during a South Carolina vacation. I observed three black-necked stilts at Huntington Beach State Park while walking on a marsh boardwalk near the park’s Nature Center. They flew toward the causeway, so I got into my car and drove there to try to re-locate them. I did find two of the stilts feeding along the causeway, but I never managed to re-locate the third bird.

Photo by Bryan Stevens
Two Black-necked Stilts forage along the causeway wetland at Huntington Beach State Park in South Carolina.

I watched the two stilts foraging for food in shallow water shared by egrets and alligators. The two birds, despite a somewhat gangly appearance, moved with elegantly efficient strides on their long pink legs.

I have seen this unusual shorebird in Tennessee only once on Oct. 13, 2004, at Austin Springs on Boone Lake in Washington County. The bird, first found by Rick Knight, drew many excited birders to the location for looks at this shorebird before it departed to continue its migration flight south.

As you might imagine, land-locked Tennessee is not an ideal location for finding shorebirds, but spring and fall migration brings a surprising variety of these birds through Northeast Tennessee. Black-necked stilts, however, are a rarity. I have also seen this species of shorebird on Fripp Island, South Carolina, as well as just outside of Wendover, Nevada, on a visit to the Bonneville Salt Flats.

The world of shorebirds has produced many lookalike species, including many of the small sandpipers often collectively labeled as “peeps” by birders. The black-necked stilt, however, is not at all likely to be confused with any other shorebird. It is a slender bird atop a pair of extremely long pink legs. It has a two-tone appearance with black upper parts and white underparts. The black and white dichotomy continues along the bird’s long neck and head. This bird also has a thin, needle-shaped bill that it uses to delicately pluck aquatic insects and other prey from water or mud.

The black-necked stilt’s long pink legs are exceptional. In fact, this species has the second-longest legs in proportion to their bodies of any bird, exceeded only by flamingos, according to the website All About Birds.

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

Birds of summer offer exciting observations

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Bryan Stevens • A great egret catches a small fish.

Summer birding is not always productive. Recent sweltering days have reminded me of that fact. There are a few birds, however, that seem to increase their profiles in summer instead of wilting and retreating to the shade until the season begins to cool off.

Here’s a look at some of my summer favorites and the reasons behind their inclusion on this list.

Belted kingfisher
Although this member of the widespread kingfisher clan can be found in the region all year, the belted kingfisher definitely keeps a high profile in late summer when a visit to any pond, creek, river or lake is likely to result in hearing this kingfisher’s rattling vocalization, often made when the bird feels alarmed or disturbed.

In her book “The Folklore of Birds,” Laura C. Martin writes that in some accounts the kingfisher, not the dove, was the second bird Noah released from the ark after the Biblical flood. Instead of looking for land, the kingfisher flew too high and the sun scorched the bird’s feathers. After his setback with the raven and now the kingfisher, Noah made the kingfisher remain on the ark’s deck to catch its food from the water.

Halcyon days, a term meaning a period of peaceful quiet, is derived from Greek legend. According to the legend, the god Zeus restrained the storms during the period when the kingfishers nest. The scientific name for the belted kingfisher is Megaceryle alcyon, a variation on the term “halcyon.”

Photo by Bryan Stevens • The scientific name for the belted kingfisher is Megaceryle alcyon, a variation on the term “halcyon.”

Martin writes in her book about a Cherokee legend about how the kingfisher acquired its angling lifestyle. The poor bird wanted to be a waterbird, but lacked the equipment to make a living at fishing. The other animals convened a council and, in pity for the kingfisher’s plight, endowed the bird with its spear-like bill. Since that time, the bird has been known as “king of the fishers.”

The “king of the fishers” is indeed to be envied by human anglers. Although not successful in every attempt, the belted kingfisher is certainly exceptional in its pursuit of fish. According to John Eastman in his book, “Birds of Lake, Pond and Marsh,” the belted kingfisher typically captures about 10 fish per day. Some human anglers would envy a success rate like that.

Great egret
Many long-legged wading birds, as a general rule, like to wander in late summer after the nesting season’s finished. Many of these birds are common in coastal areas, but in late summer they often show up far inland.

Some of the waders to look for in the region include wood stork, roseate spoonbill, tricolored heron and snowy egret. The wading bird most likely to actually put in an appearance at local ponds or rivers is the great egret.

The great egret became a motivational symbol for conservation with the foundation of the National Audubon Society in 1905. The National Audubon Society spearheaded efforts to end the mass slaughter of various bird species. Some birds were killed for food, but millions were also killed for their showy feathers that were destined to decorate stylish attire worn as a symbol of high fashion. As early as 1910, some states began passing legislation to abolish trade in bird plumes. The federal government also passed the Migratory Bird Treaty Act, which was a law first enacted in 1916 to implement measures to protect and conserve migratory birds.

In 1953, a great egret in flight was chosen as the symbol for the official logo of the National Audubon Society, which was formed in part to prevent the killing of birds for their feathers. Birds like great egrets, snowy egrets, roseate spoonbills and other long-legged waders had been decimated before people responded to the wanton destruction being visited upon these beautiful and awe-inspiring creatures.

The great egret belongs to the genus Ardea, which includes various egrets and herons. Other members of this genus include Goliath heron, black-headed heron, purple heron and pied heron.

Photo by Jean Potter • A common nighthawk rests on a metal railing.

Common nighthawk
This insect-eating bird is a member of the nightjar family, which includes such familiar nocturnal serenaders as chuck-will’s widow and whip-poor-will.

The name common nighthawk is a misnomer. The species is not strictly nocturnal and it is certainly not a hawk. The nighthawk doesn’t offer a serenade like whip-poor-wills, but it does produce a “pent” call that sounds much like an electric buzzer. It’s often the first indication of one of these birds swooping overhead.

Nighthawks form impressive flocks, often numbering in the dozens or even hundreds. They are often active in evening hours, but I’ve seen large flocks of these migrating birds in mid-afternoon. August and September are the best time to look skyward to enjoy the spectacle of a large flock of swooping nighthawks as they pass overhead.

Swallow-tailed Kite
This is not exactly a common summer bird, but like the wandering wading birds, late summer is a likely time to catch a glimpse of this aerodynamic, unmistakable raptor. Several years ago I got the thrill of adding a swallow-tailed kite to my life list in some agricultural fields in southwestern Washington County. I’ve also seen swallow-tailed kites in Florida. I also observed my first-ever Mississippi kite in Elizabethon in 2020 during a Spring Bird Count.

The swallow-tailed kite is a large, streamlined raptor with long, narrow, pointed wings, slender bodies and a long, deeply forked tail that gives the bird its common name. The small, sharply hooked beak is used to catch insect prey, as well as amphibians, snakes and bats.

Bryan Stevens • A male American goldfinch looks its best in spring and summer. By fall, the bright colors are replaced with the drab winter plumage.

American goldfinch
Goldfinch males still look sharp in late summer, but they do start losing that bold pattern of black and white against a backdrop of golden-yellow feathers. These birds also form fussy but sociable flocks that congregate at bird feeders or bird baths in many a backyard.

A sighting of a goldfinch can be memorable. I still retain vivid imagery of these birds from childhood, long before I could identify them by name. They would always appear in late summer, perching atop the three blue spruces in our yard. The trees are no longer standing, but the memories of those colorful yellow and black birds endure.

Summer is the season of plenty for American goldfinches. Roadside ditches are choked with chicory, evening primrose and other seed-producing plants often dismissed as “weeds.” Simply driving local roads can, and often does, produce sightings of flocks of American goldfinches as they forage for seeds. These small songbirds will readily visit feeders for sunflower and thistle seeds.

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Bryan Stevens has written about birds, birders and birding since 1995. Email him with questions, comments or sightings at ahoodedwarbler@aol.com.

Photo by Bryan Stevens • A great egret resting on a spit of land in a lake at Murphy Candler Park in Brookhaven, Ga.

Scarlet tanagers bring brilliance of tropics to local Mountains

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Photo Courtesy of Jean Potter
A male scarlet tanager brightens shadowy woodlands with a flash of tropical colors yet remains mostly inconspicuous in the forest canopy.

The berries on the mulberry trees at home ripened slightly ahead of the recent Fourth of July holiday. As the berries ripened, various birds descended on the trees. Among the visitors were American robins, cedar waxwings, gray catbird, wood thrushes and, almost without a doubt, scarlet tanagers.

The male scarlet tanager is a breathtaking bird that makes the mountains of northeast Tennessee, western North Carolina and southwest Virginia their summer home. The extraordinary appearance of the male scarlet tanager is certainly one that sets it apart from most other songbirds.

This tanager is not typically a feeder visitor, but bird enthusiasts have had varying degrees of success trying to lure these birds with fruit, such as orange slices placed in special feeders or simply spiked onto the branches of backyard trees. As an added bonus, orange slices can also attract birds such as brown thrashers, Baltimore orioles and gray catbirds.

The scarlet tanager indulges its fondness for fruit by incorporating various berries into its diet, Blueberry, mulberry, elderberry, serviceberry and wild cherry are all sure to attract scarlet tanagers and other fruit-eating birds. Plant some of these trees and shrubs to make your yard or garden more inviting to a range of our fine feathered friends.

Bryan Stevens • A male scarlet tanager stands out from other summer birds.

I usually have a few scarlet tanagers in residence around my home during the summer months, but I haven’t seen one in 2026. As usual, I have heard them. But listening to the male sing is not quite the same as observing this beautiful bird with its brilliant plumage of crimson red paired with black wings and tail.

Of course, like many other birds, the female scarlet tanager makes no real claim to the common name with her comparatively drab greenish plumage. However, the scientific name, Piranga olivacea, gives a nod to the olive-green plumage of females, young males and even adult males when they’re molting their feathers.

I began hearing a male scarlet tanager singing deep in the woods at about the time the mulberries ripped. I’m speculating that he got lured close enough to overhear by the mulberries.

So, why is it so difficult to lay eyes on such a brightly colored bird? The answer rests with this bird’s daily routine, which is usually conducted among the upper woodland canopy in such tall trees as oaks and poplars.

The male tanager does produce a distinctive song. Upon first hearing it, listeners might mistake the hidden singer for an American robin. Listen a little closer, however, and the song sounds as if it is being delivered by a hoarse robin with a sore throat. The male tanager also makes a vocalization described as “chip-burr” that is also easily heard.

Photo by Bryan Stevens
A scarlet tanager feeds on wild cherries. By late summer and early fall, even male tanagers have lost most of their vibrant plumage. 

If we were to see a scarlet tanager in a rain forest in South America, we might not be so surprised by vibrant plumage that has come to be associated with many tropical birds. The scarlet tanager is certainly better attired than most birds to provide observers a glimpse of a creature that would indeed look more at home in the jungle.

Worldwide, there have traditionally been about 390 species of tanagers. Experts have changed some of the ways they classify tanagers, so that figure has fluctuated in recent years.

Tanagers are a New World family of birds, concentrated mainly in the tropics of Central and South America. Some of the world’s other tanagers are known by extremely descriptive names, including bay-headed tanager, blue-and-black tanager, seven-coloured tanager, gilt-edged tanager, green-naped tanager, beryl-spangled tanager, opal-rumped tanager flame-faced tanager and blue-gray tanager.

The scarlet tanager ranges in North America with a couple of other relatives: Western tanager and summer tanager.

I am hoping I might still see a male scarlet tanager this summer, but it needs to be soon. The males molt their feathers in late summer and lose their vibrant red appearance. They usually remain in the region’s mountains through late September and early October. Tanagers are common migrants offering a chance to see them as they pass through to return to the tropics. They’re just not going to look as good in the fall as they do in spring and early summer.

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Bryan Stevens is celebrating 30 years of writing about birds, birders and birding. Email him at ahoodedwarbler@aol.com to share a sighting, ask a question or make a comment.

Unicoi County Summer Bird Count tallies 102 species

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Jake Bonello/USFWS • An Eastern meadowlark sings from a perch on a barb wire fence. Count participants found 10 meadowlarks in Unicoi County.

Members and friends of the Elizabethton Bird Club conducted its 13th Unicoi County Summer Count on Saturday, June 13, with 16 observers. Participants tallied 102 species, which is slightly below the average of 108 species. The all-time high was 112 species in 2016.

I counted in the Limestone Cove community to the Iron Mountain Gap along Highway 107. My count partners Brookie and Jean Potter covered Sciota Road during the early morning hours and got many great nocturnal species. Some of my best birds included blue grosbeak, yellow warbler, common nighthawk, yellow-bellied sapsucker and a singing dark-eyed junco.

Taking part in this count is almost like counting in my backyard since I can drive from my home to Limestone Cove in under 10 minutes.

The list:

Canada goose, 33; mallard, 33; and wild turkey 11

Mourning dove, 40; rock pigeon, 18; common nighthawk, 1; chuck-will’s-widow, 1; Eastern whip-poor-will, 14; chimney swift, 35; and ruby-throated hummingbird, 4

Photo by Bryan Stevens • A total of 10 killdeer made the count tally.

Killdeer, 10; double-crested cormorant, 2; great blue heron, 6;
black vulture, 7; turkey vulture, 19; red-shouldered hawk, 2; broad-winged hawk, 8; red-tailed hawk, 3; Eastern screech owl, 5; barred owl, 3; and Northern saw-whet owl, 1

Belted kingfisher, 5; red-bellied woodpecker, 14; yellow-bellied sapsucker, 6; downy woodpecker, 15; hairy woodpecker, 8; Northern flicker, 3; and pileated woodpecker, 12

Great crested flycatcher, 2; Eastern kingbird, 8; Eastern wood-pewee, 12; Acadian flycatcher, 51; least flycatcher, 3; and Eastern phoebe, 35

White-eyed vireo, 2; blue-headed vireo, 39; warbling vireo, 2; red-eyed vireo, 128; blue jay, 61; American crow, 130; fish crow, 3; and common raven, 5

Carolina chickadee, 69; tufted titmouse, 72; tree swallow, 27; Northern rough-winged swallow, 12; purple martin, 6; barn swallow, 40; and cliff swallow, 226.

Cedar waxwing, 22; red-breasted nuthatch, 9; white-breasted nuthatch, 20; brown creeper, 1; blue-gray gnatcatcher, 21; Carolina wren, 65; house wren, 15; and winter wren, 1

Gray catbird, 22; brown thrasher, 8; Northern mockingbird, 13; European starling, 162; Eastern bluebird, 23; veery 22; wood thrush, 38; and American robin, 162

Photo by Bryan Stevens • An American robin scans for prey in the grass and clover of a lawn. Robins were numerous on the count, represented by 162 individuals.

House sparrow, 16; house finch, 29; American goldfinch, 51; chipping sparrow, 32; field sparrow, 2; dark-eyed junco, 19; song sparrow, 88; Eastern towhee, 33; and yellow-breasted chat, 2

Eastern meadowlark, 10; orchard oriole, 1; Baltimore oriole, 1; red-winged blackbird, 28; brown-headed cowbird, 8; and common grackle, 42

Ovenbird, 42; worm-eating warbler, 18; Louisiana waterthrush, 14; black-and-white warbler, 25; Swainson’s warbler, 18; Kentucky warbler, 1; common yellowthroat, 3; hooded warbler, 78; Northern parula, 36; magnolia warbler, 1; Blackburnian warbler, 2; yellow warbler, 2; chestnut-sided warbler, 5; black-throated blue warbler, 32; yellow-throated warbler, 27; black-throated green warbler, 58; and Canada warbler, 11

Scarlet tanager, 26; Northern cardinal, 77; rose-breasted grosbeak, 6; blue grosbeak, 1; and indigo bunting, 56

Rick Knight, longtime compiler for the count, noted some missed species.

“As always, a few species are missed on count day, usually because they occur in low densities or are very locally distributed,” Knight said. “Not anyone’s fault, just something that happens.”

Missed in Unicoi County were wood duck, ruffed grouse, yellow-billed cuckoo, green heron, Cooper’s Hawk, great horned owl, American kestrel, yellow-throated vireo, golden-crowned kinglet, hermit thrush and American redstart.

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I noted in last week’s column that the Carter County Summer Bird Count found 119 species. That number rose to 120 species when Jean Potter turned in a photo to compiler Rick Knight. He agreed with her that the bird in the photo was a American black duck, which added an additional species to the count.

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

Photo by Jean Potter • A male hooded warbler flits through the foliage of a rhododendron thicket. A total of 78 hooded warblers made this year’s Unicoi County Summer Bird Count.

 

 

Male indigo buntings dazzle in bright summer sunshine

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Jim Hudgins/USFWSThe male indigo bunting in a quintessential bird of summer throughout the Eastern United States.

We’ve barely made it to mid-June and we’ve had some scorching days with intense sunshine and spiking temperatures.

It’s the kind of weather that wilts people, as well as many of our feathered friends, which would prefer to find shade when the mercury rises to the upper limits of the thermometer.

Not so for a few of our birds. Red-eyed vireos, Eastern wood-pewees and a handful of other birds sing even during the hottest hours of the day, albeit they’re often singing from deep shade.

An exception is the male indigo bunting, which can often be spotted singing from the top of a tall tree or shrub even under the brightest of summer sunshine.

Indigo Buntings thrive in the heat. While other birds go silent beneath the relentless summer sun, male Indigo Buntings perch on high, open branches or telephone wires. They belt out their lively songs to declare their presence to rival and establish territory.

The notes sound hopelessly jumbled upon first listen, but they eventually take shape into a recognizable pattern. These songbirds usually repeat their notes in pairs in a song that can be transcribed as “sweet-sweet, chew-chew, sweet-sweet.”

Heronworks/Pixabay • A male indigo bunting visits a feeder for a meal of bird seed.

Males, which do the singing, have an appearance to match their loud songs. They are simply stunning in brilliant blue plumage. The male indigo bunting is the only solid blue bird in the eastern United States.

Alas, it’s all an illusion — literally a trick of the light. The indigo bunting’s feathers are not really blue; the male’s brilliant azure plumage is caused by the process of diffraction of light around the structure of the bird’s feathers. This process scatters all but the blue light, and the resulting color shifts from black to blue to turquoise as the angle of reflected light changes.

In bright light, this bird can even look unnaturally vivid blue. In poor light, however, an indigo bunting male can appear black. Fortunately, indigo buntings have both a characteristic body shape and song, so even if the birds are not seen in their best light, they can still be recognized.

For such a bright blue bird, indigo buntings are not always easy to detect. Males like elevated perches, often among a cluster of leaves. Learn the song — that burst of jumbled, high-pitched notes, and use that knowledge to help pinpoint singing males. Once you zero in on the singing bird’s location, it’s fairly easy to focus binoculars and enjoy peeking at such a pretty bird.

Like many species of songbirds, the male is by far the most colorful. In this instance, the male is also responsible for the species’ name. Indigo is a blue dye that was once an important crop in the South. The drab female may boast some blue highlights in her plumage. Juvenile birds just out of the nest also resemble the female. Pay close attention to any indigo buntings you observe as summer progresses. Juvenile birds will look mostly brown with just a hint of blue in the wings and the tail. These will be the young buntings that were hatched in spring and early summer. They will often accompany their parents to feeders.

Photo by Bryan Stevens • The male indigo bunting is a resplendent bird.

The indigo bunting’s scientific name is Passerina cyanea, referring the color cyan. Cyan is a bright, deep, sky blue, leaning very slightly to the greenish side of blue on the color wheel. Cyan is the blue ink in 4-color process printing. Along with magenta, yellow and black, these four colors of ink can produce a wide gamut of colors that we see every day in full-color printing. The indigo bunting is a reasonably close match to this intense blue ink color. The species belongs to a genus of birds known as Passerina, which is included the family Cardinalidae.

Although they are often lumped into a group known as North American buntings, they are not closely related to such birds as snow bunting and lark bunting. The other members of the Passerina genus include lazuli bunting, varied bunting, painted bunting, rose-bellied bunting, orange-breasted bunting and blue grosbeak.

Photo by Bryan Stevens • Male indigo buntings look their best in spring and summer. By fall, they are molting feathers and look less splendid.

Worldwide, other birds known as buntings include such descriptively named species as slaty bunting, corn bunting, white-capped bunting, gray-necked bunting, cinereous bunting, lark-like bunting, cinnamon-breasted bunting, chestnut-eared bunting, little bunting, yellow-throated bunting, golden-breasted bunting, black-headed bunting, red-headed bunting and yellow bunting.

For me, the indigo bunting has always been a bird of the summer season. One of my earliest memories of being aware of birds relates to seeing this astonishing all-blue bird perched atop a blue spruce in my family’s front yard.

Indigo buntings linger into early October in the region, but later in the season these birds begin to molt feathers and take on a more shabby look. Enjoy them while they’re here and at their best under a bright summer sun.

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

Bullock’s oriole stands out among birds seen during 2006 Utah visit

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Photo by Dave Menke/USFWS • A Bullock’s oriole perches on a branch. This species is found in the western United States.

I’m celebrating 30 years of writing “Feathered Friends” by looking back at some older columns. This week I’ve combined columns first written in 2006 and 2016 into a new feature focused on orioles.

In May of 2006, I made my second trip to the Utah, also known as the “Beehive State.” I’d made my first visit in October of 2003. The contrast between the two visits could not have been more extreme. My 2003 visit took place when Salt Lake City and the surrounding area had been in the grip of an extensive drought. Mountainsides looked dull brown and gray and reservoirs had almost dried up. When I returned in the spring of 2006, green greeted me everywhere I looked. The drought had broken and Salt Lake City didn’t look quite so bleak.

I saw many species of blackbirds and their close kin, including Brewer’s blackbird, Western meadowlark, yellow-headed blackbird, red-winged blackbird, common grackle and Bullock’s oriole. Most of these birds were extremely abundant and surprisingly tame. I didn’t know it at the time, but birds in the western United States are generally tamer and more approachable than birds in the eastern half of the country. There are various factors to explain this difference in behavior, including the rugged terrain and the fact that many western areas have only been settled for a couple of centuries compared to nearly 500 years of settlement in the eastern United States.

Photo by Bryan Stevens • A Bullock’s oriole forages in shrubbery along a walking trail near the Jordan River in Salt Lake City, Utah.

The Bullock’s oriole proved one of the tamest of all the new birds that I saw on my trip. Trees and shrubs bordering walking and biking trails along the Jordan River popped with small flocks of these colorful, noisy orioles. As my visit took place in May, it’s quite possible these orioles comprised a “fallout” of migrants so occupied with feeding after a long flight that my presence didn’t rank high in their priorities.

Regardless, I found the Bullock’s orioles gregarious and sometimes comical as they chirped from willows and other shrubs close to the river. Close to home, I count myself lucky to see a single Baltimore oriole at a time. Even when I do succeed in sighting one, the Baltimore oriole is often high in the treetops and not easily observed. Such fleeting and infrequent observations of Baltimore orioles are a sharp contrast to seeing flocks of the equally colorful Bullock’s oriole in Utah.

The bird is named for William Bullock, an English traveler, collector of natural history specimens and a bit of a showman. In 1822 and 1827, he visited Mexico, which is perhaps where he first encountered the oriole named for him. He also visited the United States in 1827. He established some museums, including one he called Piccadilly Egyptian Hall, that featured some unusual artifacts. Among the collections was Napoleon’s carriage that had been captured at the Battle of Waterloo.

Photo by Jake Bonello/USFWS • A Bullock’s oriole’s bright coloration is broken up by foliage.

Bullock’s oriole and Baltimore oriole were, for a time, considered a single species. The American Ornithologists’ Union lumped the two birds together from 1973 to 1995 as a species known as the “Northern oriole.” It’s easy to see similarities. Both the Bullock’s oriole and the Baltimore oriole sport vibrant orange plumage accented by white and black in the case of Bullock’s oriole and black in the case of the Baltimore oriole.

Despite their bright plumage , they are related to blackbirds such as red-winged blackbird and common grackles. Icterids, or New World blackbirds, make up a family known as the icteridae that consists of small to medium-sized songbirds. In his book titled “Birds of Forest, Yard, and Thicket,” John Eastman notes that there are 26 species in the genus, eight of which nest in the United States. In the eastern United States, there are only two orioles — the Baltimore oriole and its smaller relative, the orchard oriole. The western half of the nation is home to a half dozen orioles, including Bullock’s oriole, Scott’s oriole, Audubon’s oriole, hooded oriole and Altamira oriole.

In Northeast Tennessee, tall trees are an essential part of the Baltimore oriole’s favored habitat. Baltimore orioles are well-known for their colorful appearance, but their fame also rests with a sack-like nest that Eastman describes as a “durable marvel of tight-woven plant fibers” in his informational book. The Bullock’s oriole is also known for building these impressive sack nests.

Orioles are present in the United States from April to October, generally retreating to the American tropics for the cold months of winter. There they may live on plantations that produce such much-coveted crops as bananas, coffee and cacao, which is the essential ingredient for chocolate.

A painting by John James Audubon depcits the intricate nest crafted by Baltimore orioles.

Those who are fortunate enough to have a Bullock’s oriole or a Baltimore oriole as a neighbor should know that it isn’t only the bright coloration and elaborate nest building that recommend these birds. They’re also some of the few birds willing to eat the hairy tent caterpillars that are often a blight on the landscape. Back in the late 1990s, I observed a male Baltimore oriole visiting a large caterpillar tent in the branches of a cherry tree. The bird methodically plucked the caterpillars from the silken tent, eating them one after the other. While many birds avoid some of the spiny and hairy caterpillars, these two orioles actively seek them out and do a great service of reducing the damage these hungry caterpillars can inflict on the environment. They will also apparently eat Gypsy moth caterpillars and fall webworms.

On a handful of occasions, Bullock’s orioles have strayed into the Volunteer State. Some documented recent vagrant Bullock’s oriole visits have occurred near Nashville and Chattanooga.

I will always count myself fortunate to have been in the right place at the right time to enjoy my “fallout” of Bullock’s oriole near the Jordan River in 2003 during my Utah trip. The moment remains one of my most memorable birding experiences.

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