Check out this cool bushtit nest. It is attached to some old teasel flower stalks from last year. I have only seen bushtits build nests on trees and shrubs. I am surprised how sturdy these flower stalks still are after enduring a rainy winter and spring. The common teasel is an invasive plant that is native to Europe and temperate Asia. It has swallowed up a sizable area out in the south meadow and is a tough plant to remove from an ecosystem once it has established itself, like what you see at Mt. Pisgah. Anyways, it was cool to see bushtits attaching a nest to old flower stalks. It got me thinking about whether or not there are native plants that could fulfill this role of having old flower stalks being used for building a bird nest on. I like that bushtits are creative and resourceful.
Western Wood-Pewee
For me, the whistling, buzzy pee-wee of the Western Wood-Pewee’s song signals that the warmth and blue skies of summer are here.
Besides establishing territory and attracting a mate, I imagine the song celebrates its miraculous journey and successful arrival at the arboretum. The Western Wood-Pewee is a medium to long-distance migrant that primarily winters in the north and west of South America and travels to North and Central America to breed.
It’s a little, gray bird with a peaked crown that gives its head a triangular shape. It is dapperly dressed in a vest that looks buttoned at the top and has two pale wing bars. The bill is mostly dark with yellow at the base of the lower mandible.
Look for it perched on exposed branches constantly turning its head as it looks for insects. When it spots an insect it will fly out, grab it, and return to the same perch or one nearby. If you listen closely, you can hear the pop of its bill as it snags the insect out of the air. When it lands it will usually flutter its wings slightly as if readying for the next flight. It will eat small insects in midair and bring back larger prey like dragonflies to eat at its perch. I also see them on gravel bars on the river darting around the rocks and gleaning insects.
The nest site is usually at the fork of a horizontal branch. The female builds a compact nest out of small plant fibers and camouflages the outside with lichen, mosses, etc. It is about 3 inches wide and 2.5 inches tall. It can be from near ground level up to 80 feet high! Out at the arboretum, I generally find them at around 20 to 40 feet. As the babies grow up and the nest gets crowded, I get nervous watching them especially if the tree is swaying in the wind.
This is a great bird to get to know. I feel it is very accessible to watch. It will often perch on a lower tree branch near the trail or on old plant stalks.
Nature is an inexhaustible source of wonder. I look forward to seeing you out there.
Resources
Peterson, Roger Tory, et al. Peterson Field Guide to Birds of Western North America. 4th ed, Houghton Mifflin Harcourt, 2010.
Western Wood-Pewee Identification, All About Birds, Cornell Lab of Ornithology. https://www.allaboutbirds.org/guide/Western_Wood-Pewee/id. Accessed 14 June 2023.
Ripe Osoberries
As I walked around the arboretum this week, I have been really surprised to see all of the ripe osoberries. Usually, I am lucky if I can find one that actually ripens enough to eat. When the cedar waxwings show back up at the arboretum, they will descend on these berries and gobble them up before they completely ripen. In years past, it was common to see 3 or 4 cedar waxwings in one osoberry shrub devouring the unripe berries. Also, I usually get lucky enough to see waxwings doing their courtship routine by passing a berry (see blog post: Osoberries Ripening, June 8, 2022), but I haven’t seen many waxwings down in the shrubs so far this year. Maybe they have been there when I haven’t been around. Robins will also eat their fair share too, and I have seen a few robins eating them. I suppose what I am getting at is that there seem to be fewer birds. Maybe there is a more inviting, nutritious food source around that they are eating at the moment. I am not sure. I also saw a chipmunk harvesting them. It was fun to see it pluck one and scurry over to a limb to eat the thin layer of fruit and the seed inside.
Head-scratching Behavior
Quite a few years ago someone gave me a binder they inherited labeled Bird Biology: Seminars from the Laboratory of Ornithology at Cornell University. It is a great resource on the life of birds and a fun read to geek out on. I wanted to share part of it so when you are at your next ornithological cocktail party, you will be able to feel more relaxed and get involved in some nerdy conversations about birds.
“Watch an American Robin on your lawn as it scratches its head. Note that it always passes its leg over a drooped wing, indirectly. All American Robins, as far as we know, scratch their heads in this way. Ovenbirds, on the other hand, always scratch their heads directly by passing the leg in front of the wing. Any behavior that a bird repeats in the same way is stereotyped; any behavior that is the same in all members of a species is species-specific. The indirect head-scratching behavior in the American Robin is stereotyped, species-specific, and probably instinctive.
Because birds no doubt inherit stereotyped, species-specific behaviors, such as the head-scratching behavior in the American Robin, and perform them without preliminary experience or learning, we call them instinctive, or innate. No American Robin learns to scratch its head indirectly; it just does it that way from the first scratch until it dies. Instinctive behavior then is a stereotyped pattern of behavior that the bird inherits. We call these instinctive behavior patterns fixed action patterns.”
Cheers!
Eggshells
In the book What It's Like to Be a Bird: From Flying to Nesting, Eating to Singing--What Birds Are Doing, and Why, David Allen Sibley writes: “If you find a broken eggshell on the ground, the shape of the pieces can give you some information about what happened. If an egg hatches normally, the chick chips away a ring around the widest part of the egg and the egg separates into two halves. The parents then carry the eggshells from the nest and scatter them some distance away. An eggshell cut straight across in this way is likely to be the result of successful hatching nearby. Eggshells in smaller pieces, fragmented or crushed, could be the result of an accident or predation. Given the opportunity, many species of birds and small mammals will eat the contents of an egg and leave the shell behind.”
To me, an eggshell seems like cramped quarters for a baby chick about to hatch out. I am surprised that they take the time and have the ability to chip away a ring around the widest part and cut the egg in half. Amazing!
Cowbird?
On May 21, I wrote about the Brewer’s Blackbird collecting insects by the river. I returned to the gravel bar earlier this week and saw them again collecting insects. This time they were flying over to the nearby willows to feed a begging bird that I could hear but couldn’t quite see. I watched them for a while and the baby bird stayed hidden at the base of willows in the shadows. Eventually, the insatiably hungry juvenile came out to meet the parent foraging nearby, and I got a better look. I thought… Wait a minute, is that a juvenile cowbird? I remembered from my earlier post that Brewer’s Blackbirds will have a clutch size of 3 - 7 eggs. So, should feeding only one bird lead me to be suspicious of cowbird parasitism?
The cowbird egg usually hatches out earlier than the host species. Afterward, they may roll the other eggs out of the nest. Cowbirds will often choose to parasitize smaller birds, so they have the advantage of competing for food with the other baby birds of the host family. They hatched out first, and they are bigger. From what I have read, they can literally starve out the other birds or literally crowd them out of the nest. I looked up juvenile Cowbirds and they look similar to juvenile Brewer’s Blackbirds. Hmm… What do you think? It got me reading and thinking about it more anyways.
Be sure to click on photo to get a better look.
Check out this introductory paragraph from The Cornell Lab of Ornithology Birds of the World: “The Brown-headed Cowbird, North America's best known brood parasite, lays its eggs in the nests of many different species. Originally these ‘Buffalo Birds’ were limited to short-grass plains, where they followed herds of North American Bison (Bison bison) and fed on the insects stirred up by their movement. The Brown-headed Cowbird has since dispersed widely as European settlement in North America opened forests and homogenized the environment into the agricultural and suburban landscapes of today. The expansion of the Brown headed Cowbird has exposed new species and naive populations to brood parasitism, and the pressure on such host populations can be substantial. During the breeding season, female Brown-headed Cowbirds wander widely, overlap the home ranges of other females, and may lay 40 eggs per season.”
Lazuli Bunting
Lazuli Buntings are small finch-like songbirds. Its length is 5.5 inches, which is a pretty small bird. It is smaller than a Western Bluebird (7 in.) and larger than a Lesser Goldfinch (4.5 in). The male is a dazzling blue with a warm orange breast, a white belly, and a prominent white shoulder patch. The female and immature are plain brown with a blue tinge to the wings and tail. They have two buffy wing bars and a pale tan breast. The male perches out in the open while it sings to attract a mate and establish territory. So it is a little easier to see it and capture a photo. The female is a little more challenging to see or photograph because she is usually in a shrub or on the ground.
Peterson describes its habitat as “open brush, grassy hillsides with scattered bushes, riparian shrubs, grassy patches in chaparral, weedy fields and ditches.” The Arboretum has lots of attractive habitats for it. I see them up the creek trail, around the south meadow, and throughout the east side where it is open and shrubby.
To locate this bird, listen for its song and call. Here is Peterson’s description of its voice: “Song a lively, ringing warble, often ending in a quick sputter. Call a sharp spit and a dry buzz.”
All About Birds had this interesting information to think about as you listen to its song: “Just like we each have our own voice, each male Lazuli Bunting sings a unique combination of notes. Yearling males generally arrive on the breeding grounds without a song of their own. Shortly after arriving, they create their own song by rearranging syllables and combining song fragments of several males. The song they put together is theirs for life.”
I love finding a good place to sit and watch this beautiful bird and listen to it sing.
Nature is an inexhaustible source of wonder. I look forward to seeing you out there.
Resources
Lazuli Bunting Overview, All About Birds, Cornell Lab of Ornithology. https://www.allaboutbirds.org/guide/Lazuli_Bunting/overview. Accessed 31 May 2023.
Peterson, Roger Tory, et al. Peterson Field Guide to Birds of Western North America. 4th ed, Houghton Mifflin Harcourt, 2010.
Oregon White Oak - New Acorns
Well… I remember reading that the male and female flowers are separate inflorescences. The male flowers are hanging catkins and the female flowers are single or in small clusters. I have photos of the male catkins, wanted to take a photo of the female flowers, and I forgot to do it this year. So I have to start creating a calendar of all the photos I want to take for next year so I don’t miss them again.
Anyways, these beautiful new acorns are forming, and I wanted to share them with you. I am on the hunt for acorn weevils so stay tuned for more about acorns.
Red-tailed Hawk Eaten?
Walking along the road out to the barn yesterday, I came across some flies buzzing around something on the ground. It was a pile of some guts that had been slightly flattened by one of the arboretum vehicles. I looked up to the limb above it and saw feathers scattered across it. As I begin to scan the ground below the limb, I saw a leg that had been torn off or broken off that had a big yellow foot and black claws. A feather was on the ground nearby. It was a new feather that was still growing out, which indicates that this might have been a juvenile bird.
What happened here? I looked at feathers online and the color of the feet of large birds of prey, and my best guess at the moment is that it is a red-tailed hawk. I don’t really imagine these birds being preyed upon, and they probably aren’t very often. I could see more new feathers on the limb, so this was probably a juvenile still in the nest or perched on a limb nearby. I thought about what bird lives in the arboretum and is big enough to kill a red-tailed hawk. I looked up the diet of a great horned owl on The Cornell Lab’s All About Birds: “They eat mostly mammals and birds—especially rabbits, hares, mice, and American Coots, but also many other species including voles, moles, shrews, rats, gophers, chipmunks, squirrels, woodchucks, marmots, prairie dogs, bats, skunks, house cats, porcupines, ducks, loons, mergansers, grebes, rails, owls, hawks, crows, ravens, doves, and starlings. They supplement their diet with reptiles, insects, fish, invertebrates, and sometimes carrion.” This is quite an impressive list, and as you can see, hawks are on the menu. All About Birds also had this to say: “Although they are usually nocturnal hunters, Great Horned Owls sometimes hunt in broad daylight. After spotting their prey from a perch, they pursue it on the wing over woodland edges, meadows, wetlands, open water, or other habitats.” The nighttime hunting hours are pretty short this time of year, so maybe an owl was out this morning.
Whatever did this, it certainly perked up my awareness. It had the power to tear the leg off! Yipes!
Western Yellow-bellied Racer
I was walking around to get a better view of a white-breasted nuthatch nest site when I came across this snake sunning itself in this small depression. I was pleased that it allowed me to take a couple of photos and check it out. I have had brief encounters with this snake before as it slid off into the grass, but haven’t really got a good look at one. As the name Racer suggests, this snake is able to slither away at 3.5 miles per hour, which is a pretty fast walking speed.
Contrary to what its Latin name Coluber constrictor mormon suggests, this snake does not kill its prey with constriction. It is a non-venomous snake that captures its prey in its mouth or pins it to the ground and then swallows it alive. Its diet consists of a variety of animals such as small mammals, insects, lizards, snakes, and frogs.
When alarmed, racers will try to imitate rattlesnakes by vibrating their tail and rattling leaves. I read that they can be quite aggressive if approached and they feel threatened or if you try to pick one up. They will bite, defecate, and discharge foul-smelling musk in an attempt to be released.
I didn’t see that it had a yellow belly but read that the color can range from off-white to yellow. I like its nice brown, earth-tone color with a pale, sky-blue wash on its side.
Brewer's Blackbird
Brewer’s blackbirds are collecting copious amounts of mayflies in the shallow water on a partially submerged gravel bar along the river. When they can no longer stuff them in their bills, they fly off across the river and return in mere moments to start gathering another mouthful. Their clutch size is from three to seven, so many begging birds can call out for a meal every time they return to the nest. I watched them for hours, hopping between stones plucking them from crevices or off the top of the water. They are also very adept at swooping up and snatching them out of the air.
The female is a beautiful shale-brown. Her overlapping feathers cascade down her body like deposited mineral-rich silt, which occasionally catches glints of a slightly metallic, greenish sheen on her back. The male is glossy black all over with a starry yellow eye eclipsed by a black pupil. Its body is cloaked in black with iridescent blues on its head turning to greens washing down the back of its body.
I like Peterson’s description of their vocals: “Song a harsh, wheezy, creaking ksh-eee. Call chack.” Sounds like the beginning of a mystery novel: The wind was a harsh, wheezy, creaking “ksh-eee” as it whipped against the weathered wooden boards of the house, straining the nervous, decrepit nails. The loose screen door was bouncing in and out of the jamb with a tiring “chack.” The windows had long been shuttered at the Brewer’s residence since that tragic day.
Warbling Vireo
I love this bird’s soft gaze, and its tranquil, gray body. A sentient being cut from the cloth of a quiet mist drifting through the willows in the cool dawn air. Its song is a warbling stream gently smoothing the surfaces of stones. I reach down into the stream and pick up one. Its fluid rind is soothing and washes over me. It reminds me to take my time and slow down. As I look up, this little bird pops out onto the branch of an osoberry and tugs at my spirit. I follow it to the bank of the river. I sit down, take off my shoes, and put my feet in the water. I splash water on my face and arms. I dig my toes down into the silty shore and squeeze it between my toes.
Nature is an inexhaustible source of wonder. I look forward to seeing you out there.
Pacific Sanicle
This plant grows everywhere in the arboretum. It is also known by the common Western Snakeroot. From what I read on the internet, apparently, this plant was used to help with snakebites. The Latin name for this plant is Sanicula crassicaulis. Sanicula comes from the Latin sanare which means to heal (Nature Collective). At the moment, I didn’t find any information on the medicinal qualities of this plant online.
It has yellow flowers (sometimes tinged purple) that are in small, compact, rounded clusters. These flowers are not showy and are probably passed over by most people. I watched a decent-sized patch of this plant the other day for a little while and the only insects I saw visiting it were weevils and one lady beetle. Actually, most of these plants had weevils on them. How does this plant fit into the life cycle of weevils? I expected to find more small insects visiting this flower considering how abundant it is. It is interesting that some plants like Pacific Sanicle have such small flowers that are mostly unnoticeable. Why have they evolved to be so small?
Resources
“Pacific Sanicle.” Nature Collective, https://naturecollective.org/plant-guide/details/pacific-sanicle/. Accessed 14 May 2023.
Mossy Meditations
Climbing out of a thicket of blackberry, this California ground squirrel sprawls out on a soft bed of moss to catch some rays of the morning sun. I see them sit in the low limbs of oak trees that are around 10 feet or so off the ground. Its a nice place to warm up in the sun and get a better view. They have to stay vigilant of the surroundings because red-tailed hawks are nesting nearby. The hawks are always circling overhead and ground squirrels are definitely on their menu. If I stay tuned in to the barking alarm call of ground squirrels, I will often see a red-tailed hawk cruising through the landscape.
Dandelion Seeds
I love seeing dandelion seeds spill from the seed head and being carried off in the wind.
The book Reader’s Digest North American Wildlife writes this about dandelions: “No weed is more successful than the dandelion. Its leaves exude an ethylene gas that discourages competition. A small fragment of its gluttonous taproot will grow into a new plant. Its parachute-borne fruits can stay aloft almost indefinitely as long as the relative humidity is less than 70 percent—which means that when the humidity rises (often before a life-giving rain), dandelion seeds come to earth.”
Rant
I am not sure why there has been a campaign over decades to vilify and eradicate dandelions. The flowers, leaves, and taproot are edible and nutritious. Insects visit the flowers for nectar and pollen. I regularly see birds such as goldfinches and juncos eating the seeds. I’m sure there are many insects and small mammals that eat the seeds as well. There is absolutely no reason to create and market poisons to kill such a beautiful and beneficial plant. Moreover, every child on earth delights in picking these fluffy seed heads and blowing the seeds into the air to make a wish.
Resources
Wernert, Susan J. Reader’s Digest North American Wildlife. Updated ed, Reader’s Digest Association, 2000.
Golden-crowned Sparrow
The Golden-crowned Sparrow is a fall and winter resident along the Pacific coast and commonly encountered at the arboretum. They migrate north in the spring to nest in Alaska and western Canada.
In the summer during breeding, they have bold markings with a black crown and a bright-yellow forehead that changes to a light gray stripe on top of the head. The immature Golden-crowned Sparrow and the adult winter plumage, the black is brown and the yellow is duller and more subdued.
As I write this post I realize that I am not aware of the song of this bird, mostly I imagine because it probably doesn’t sing very often in its nonbreeding territory. That said, it is spring, and I am hoping that maybe it will start to warm up its vocal cords before it takes off. Peterson describes their vocalizations as: “Song three to five high whistled notes of plaintive minor quality, coming down in scale, oh-dear-me. Sometimes a faint trill. Call a sharp tsew.” Click here to listen on the Audubon website. The recordings are at the bottom of the sidebar on the right side of the first page.
At Mt. Pisgah, I observe them foraging along the edges of paths or meadows where they can easily slip into thickets of shrubs or blackberries for protection. During winter and migration, their diet consists of many kinds of seeds, fruits, grains, buds, flowers, and plant sprouts. They also eat insects like ants, wasps, bees, moths, butterflies, beetles, crane flies, and termites. Interestingly, their diet in summer is not well known but is probably a variety of fruits, seeds, and insects.
All About Bird writes’ “This sparrow is one of the least known of our songbirds, particularly on its northern breeding grounds. It has been the subject of only a few laboratory and field studies, so most of what we know about it comes from scattered notes in scientific journals.” So if you are looking for a way to spend your summer, think about going camping and studying Golden-crowned Sparrows.
Nature is an inexhaustible source of wonder. I look forward to seeing you out there.
Resources
“Golden-Crowned Sparrow.” Audubon, https://www.audubon.org/field-guide/bird/golden-crowned-sparrow. Accessed 30 Apr. 2023.
Golden-Crowned Sparrow Overview, All About Birds, Cornell Lab of Ornithology. https://www.allaboutbirds.org/guide/Golden-crowned_Sparrow/overview. Accessed 30 Apr. 2023.
Peterson, Roger Tory, et al. Peterson Field Guide to Birds of Western North America. 4th ed, Houghton Mifflin Harcourt, 2010.
Black-capped Chickadee
Because small songbirds migrating through an unfamiliar area often associate with chickadee flocks, watching and listening for chickadee flocks during spring and fall can often alert birders to the presence of interesting migrants.
Bushtit Lining Nest
Nature is magical, and one of its most magnificent creatures is the bushtit. Their nest is a woven elegant satchel from earthly ravelings of yarns of mother earth. To line the nest, bushtits wander the landscape collecting tiny feathers—faint notes caught in the rustling music of the wind as it plays through hidden corridors. They are tucked inside their home to cradle the eggs and whisper nurturing songs that infuse them with gentleness and peace. Notes filled with levity will play in their hearts and carry their spirits when they take flight.
Dandelion Flower Bud
Before a dandelion opens to reveal its golden, astral luminance, it is encased in an elegant, green capsule resting on a collar of bracts bowing in reverence to the nurturing light soon to be unveiled.
Hound's Tongue & Hummingbird
While researching and creating a page in my nature journal for Pacific Hound’s Tongue, I read that this flower is one of the first to bloom in spring and a favorite among hummingbirds. Yesterday in the late afternoon, I was out at the arboretum watching this plant when my friend Patrick walked up. I told him what I just told you and at that moment a hummingbird came up to sip nectar from the flowers! I missed the photo opportunity so I decided to return the next day to try again. I showed up and sat by a small patch of these flowers in front of the visitor’s center. I had only been sitting there 15 minutes when an Anna’s Hummingbird showed up and captured these photos. I sat there for about an hour and half to two hours watching. During that time bumblebees, mason bees, and honeybees all came by looking for nectar. This is a great native plant to add to the landscape around where you live.
