A different kind of CREEPER.

As we close in on this spring’s migration season, Jenney and I are very excited about the return of the warblers.  The vivid colors that adorn most birds in the mating season is amazing to us!  How a female can be dressed similar to her mate, but not quite as flashy, is phenomenal!  And even more amazing still is that each species has a mating season attire,  and a more drab set replaces this each fall.

But then, if that’s not enough, some birds are made to blend in to their surroundings.

The brown creeper is the master of disguise.  It is so well concealed by its set of feathers, unless it moves, you would completely miss it.

The Brown Creeper searches the nooks and crannies of mature trees for the insects it eats.

It seems to us that nature just isn’t very easy to classify.  As soon as you try, something doesn’t fit.  We believe this is not only to keep us interested, it is also to make us think.

Black-crowned Night-Heron

The Night Heron is the most common of herons, appearing on every continent but Australasia and Antarctica.

A highly social bird, the night heron nests in large colonies.

Males and females incubate the eggs, and work together with brooding duties.

Night-Herons are most active at night,

 and the pair is monogamous.

Brown Pelican

Diving from heights of up to 65 feet in the air, the brown pelican crashes into the water.  The shock of the impact stuns the intended meal which the pelican scoops into its expandable neck pouch.  Capable of holding up to 2-1/2 gallons of sea water, the pelican sucks in the fish and expels the water.

The brown pelican came very  near to extinction in the late 1970’s due to the insecticide DDT.  Unlike other birds which develop a bare spot on their chest to incubate their eggs (brood patch), the brown pelican stands on its eggs…the warm underparts of its feet doing the incubation.  DDT caused the egg shells to be too thin and fragile to be incubated.

Today the brown pelican has made a full recovery.  Its numbers are stable.  We were lucky to get very close to one on Whitewater Bay in the Florida Everglades.

Carolina Wren – A Bundle of Sass!

One of the things we most enjoy about wrens is their sassy nature. They are inquisitive, busy, always curious.  Wrens love brush piles and areas choked with vines, tangles and bushes.

A shy bird, the Carolina wren is more often heard than seen, but we do find that pishing brings them in close to join in a fight.  (For more on pishing, see White-Eyed Vireo.)

An insect eater in proper season, the wren eats seeds during the winter, and is also  known to frequent suet feeders.

It is one of the few birds which pair-bond outside of nesting season, a bond which lasts a lifetime.

 

An Early Bird – Yellow-throated Warbler

As spring is finally almost here, we are excitedly awaiting one of the season’s first arriving warblers. The yellow-throated warbler winters in the Everglades, south Texas, and Mexico, but migrates north as early as March.

It prefers nesting in Spanish moss, but its range is expanding northward, in which case it nests high up in pines and sycamores (30 – 60 feet up – sometimes even up to 120 feet!).

We were lucky enough to spot this guy in January when we visited the Everglades.

Wood Stork

The only U.S. native stork, this extremely large bird times its breeding to the dry season (winter) in Florida.  During this season, the wood stork can more readily catch food for its young.  With its bill held open under water, the stork waits to feel contact from an unsuspecting fish.  Quickly clamping its bill closed, it catches its prey.

As the pools shrink during the dry season, bait-fish are more and more concentrated, making it easier to feed its growing young.

Timing is everything!

 

 

 

 

 

New Growth

This spring marks the 2^nd winter for our marsh.  When it was first completed in September of 2015, we excitedly began the process of trying to rid the surrounding area of as many honeysuckle plants as possible.  This is a daunting task, as the process is never really finished.  You can win battles, but the war will require soldiers that take up the cause long after we stop fighting.

Asian Honeysuckle is about the worst invasive plant on the planet!  The plant is the first to get its leaves in the spring, and the last to lose them in the fall.  It creates such dense shade that not even weeds can grow in the darkness below.  Honeysuckle produces prodigious quantities of red berries; and although they are not a good source of sustainable energy to the birds (rather like junk food), they are of such availability that birds eat them, spreading the seed to further propagate this unwanted invasive.

I remember walking through the woods when I was a kid.  You could see great distances.  There was a great variety of under-story trees and bushes in the forest, and no plant seemed more abundant than another.  Just 40 years later, you can hardly walk through a forest; Asian honeysuckle is about all you see.

Well, as I was saying, shortly after we finished the marsh in 2015, Jenney and I went to war against the honeysuckle.  Our goal was to eliminate this invasive, and get the native plants which once graced this area growing again.  After about 2 months of steady work we had managed to clear a decent sized area west of the marsh, and having investigated, and ordered the right native shrub seeds, we were excited to have them arrive in the mail one early December day.

But as we read the instructions for planting such seeds as viburnum, serviceberry and gray dogwood, we kept seeing the same thing: “cold stratify for 180 days”.  Ok, so they need to freeze for an extended period.  Hmmm…”Well, they’ll get about 90 days before it starts to warm up,” I said.  And after some discussion, we decided to sow the seeds in our cleared area.

We stayed out of the planted area all spring, summer and fall, not wanting to harm any of the possibly growing trees.  But when the leaves once again came off the honeysuckle plants this winter (for about 6 weeks) we endeavored to expand our honeysuckle-free zone.  One beautiful day in late February, we were out clearing and I chanced a brief excursion into our native project area.  I was hoping to see hundreds of young saplings ready to burst forth this spring, but alas, there were none.  Cold stratify for 180 days once again came to mind.

This spring, having been through the cold and harshness of a full winter, the seeds will sprout and grow!

In many ways, those seeds remind me of life.  Though we may wish for our trials to be short and life to be easy, it wasn’t until I went through some very harsh times that I truly began to grow.

 

Hermit Thrush

We happened upon this guy late last fall. We were hiking in Whitewater Memorial State Park, along Lakeside Trail, and wishing warblers were in season. I can’t tell you what caught Jeff’s eye, but he stopped suddenly, and this is what we found. This was great timing, as we are in their migration route.

Hermit thrushes sometimes forage using a “quivering” method – they use their feet to shake grasses, dislodging the insects they like to eat!

 

 

Foot Fetish

Such a simplistic and adaptable creation – the bird’s foot!

I think it is remarkable that birds’ feet are such amazing pieces of equipment.  As an engineer, I get fascinated by simplistic yet very clever solutions to how we accomplish things in our world today.  The simpler a solution, often, the more I am attracted to it (less that can go wrong, my father always said).

Today’s engineers are working feverishly to automate production processes using robotics whenever possible.  Not surprisingly, most robotic hands are designed to emulate a bird’s foot.

Capable of holding tightly and securely to the smallest of branches,

its tiny, sharp claws can dig into the surface of any sized branch,

grip at any angle,

or hold tightly to the largest of tree trunks.

Some designs are just so good they never need improving.

Black and white, or color?

Anyone who knows me knows I am fascinated by colors. Poor Jeff; he has to hear every day, “LOOK at those COLORS!” One of the most exciting things about warblers is that each one has a different color pattern.

But for some reason, contrary to what one would think, my very favorite warbler is the simple, elegant black and white warbler.

They are tree-crawlers, so you see them acting similarly to a nuthatch – over, under, around the tree trunk and branches, hunting for food. Black and white warblers are between 4.3 and 5.1 inches, so they are quite small (although larger than many other warblers). Between their size, color pattern and behavior, I think you have to be actually looking for them to see them. I saw my first one last year; I can only imagine how many times I overlooked these little jewels.

They are also one of the earlier arriving migrants in the spring, so as our days get longer and brighter, we are hoping to see these guys return SOON! (Actually, “early” means mid-April at best, and e-bird sightings locally seem to start the first week of May…but that doesn’t stop me from looking for them every time we’re outside!!) In the meantime, we look back at the images Jeff has caught, to tide us over.

C’mon, spring!