Willet, or won't it...

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…stand on one leg. Every yoga class that I have attended has always included the dreaded (for me) balance poses, which the willet seems able to maintain for hours. But why? No warrior or downward dog for the willet, just this, well, bird posture. Sometimes when one leg is drawn up so far as to disappear, I have thought this poor one-legged willet must have lost a leg to a predator or an accident until the missing leg emerges and joins its partner on the sand. But, there’s a reason for most everything in nature, why the one-legged stance?

As I am sure you have already guessed, it relates to the “rete mirabile” in the legs and feet of many birds, especially those with longer, unfeathered legs subject to heat loss to the environment. Rete mirabile, coined by the Roman physician and philosopher, Galen, means “wonderful net” in Latin and refers to physiologic arrangements in many creatures in which vessels carrying blood in opposing directions exchange something - gases (fish gills), ions (mammalian kidneys), or, in the case of willets, heat. Warm outgoing arterial blood runs very close to cooler returning venous blood. For the willet, this brings the temperature of the legs closer to the ambient external temperature reducing heat loss from the bird’s warmer body. And, pulling one leg up close to that warmer body further cuts the heat loss from the exposed legs in half. Somehow this has never worked to my advantage in yoga class maybe due to the heat lost through embarrassment.

Willets are among the largest of the North American sandpipers. The eastern version breeds in the summer in coastal areas from the Canadian maritimes to the southern tip of Florida and along the Gulf Coast to Mexico. In winter the most northern flocks join their non-migratory brethren south of Virginia or on the islands of the Caribbean. Western willets breed on in-land marshes and wetlands across the Great Plains then winter on both the west and east coasts. Willets tend not to socially distance, and their congregations are sometimes called “contradictions” or “binds” or “flings.” (Though I have come to believe all of the far-fetched names for groups of birds to be suspect products of idle minds.)

Willets are fairly nondescript birds. But, you can recognize them by their size, by the striking white stripe across their wings when they take flight, and by their distinctive “pill-will-willet” song.

Casting a critical eye at an idle willet warming his legs

Let's party!

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Male or female blue jay

Well, we can’t right now, but blue jays can. In fact, a group of blue jays is called a “party.” Or, maybe, it’s a different kind of party. Would blue jays caucus as democrats? Seven states have red cardinals as their state bird, but there are no blue (jay) states. (Somewhat fittingly in this vein, New Hampshire’s state bird is the purple finch.)

Whatever their political leanings, blue jays are social birds and like to hang out in groups even when they are courting. And once they have a mate, it’s a partner for life, which can be a long time. While most song birds live around 5 years, one banded blue jay in Newfoundland survived nearly 27 years! I wonder if the fact that they don’t migrate regularly or over long distances has an impact on their longevity.

Or, maybe it’s their intelligence. With ravens and crows, blue jays belong to the corvid (not to be confused with covid) family of birds, and they share the intelligence and problem solving abilities of their family members. They use objects as tools and will patiently wait out humans to get to scraps of food. Blue jays can also mimic the sounds of predators like hawks warning their brethren and other birds of the danger. Sometimes they will “cry wolf” making hawk sounds to scare other birds away from a food source. They also exhibit “anting” behavior in which they rub ants against their feathers to remove the ants’ formic acid protective shield. Formic acid protects the birds from fungi, bacteria, and mites, and its removal from the ants makes them much more tasty to the blue jays.

Do you remember the second blue bird blog? Like the eastern blue bird (and all blue-colored birds), blue jay feathers are not blue. If you grind up a blue bird feather, you will have brown dust. Red birds like cardinals have actual red pigment from the carotene in their diet in their feathers, but blue jays are blue because their feathers absorb all colors except blue. Blue is reflected “tricking” our eyes into seeing blue. Frankly, I still have trouble getting my head around this.

And speaking of appearances, male and female blue jays look alike. The males are a little larger and they behave differently during courtship, but otherwise they can’t be distinguished. With most species of birds, males and females are distinct - that’s called sexual dimorphism. Blue jays exhibit sexual monomorphism.

Blue jays aren’t everyone’s favorite backyard bird. They’re regarded by some as loud, raucous bullies around feeders, but I find them to be majestic, confident survivors. If you are in the “bad bird” camp have a look at my Bad Birds? blog or maybe check out Lesley the Bird Nerd’s video on reasons to like blue jays. Or maybe just relax and listen to Caspar Babypants sing Bad Blue Jay about a blue jay’s redemption.

A rush of cochineal*

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Male ruby-throated hummingbird at our feeder

OK…. hold your arms straight out to each side and flap them like wings for a few seconds. Now instead of flapping them, rotate them in a figure of eight. Now pin your elbows to your sides and rotate your forearms and hands in a figure of eight. Finally, do this 80 times a second. That’s how a hummingbird flies - and he or she can fly forwards, straight up or down, or hover in place. Hummingbirds are the only birds that can fly backwards and, even at times, upside down! Hummingbirds can actually rotate their wings in circles unlike all other birds. Of course, we humans only learned how to fly a little over a hundred years ago. Birds have been flying for more like 90 million years since they left their dinosaur ancestors behind, so there has been time to perfect and vary the technique.

In the 1980’s my parents began wintering in Green Valley, Arizona, south of Tucson to escape midwestern winters. Our family spent many April vacations visiting them enjoying the warmth, the sun, and the dramatic change in landscape from New England. East of Green Valley are the lovely Santa Rita Mountains where Madera Canyon is one of the prime stopovers for migrating hummingbirds of the western United States. In the spring it is deluged with hummingbirds - and birders. There are 16 species of hummingbird in North America with 15 of them found west of the Rocky Mountains and only one - the ruby-throated hummingbird found east of the Mississippi.

Hummingbirds can perch, but they can’t walk on their tiny legs

Most hummingbirds winter in Mexico and Central America. The Madera Canyon western birds fly overland to their northern breeding grounds. The tiny ruby-throat flies up to 900 miles non-stop over the Gulf of Mexico on its 2000 mile journey to our backyard. To do this, they increase their weight by 50%, all of it fat. (If you weigh about 3.5 grams (1/10 of an ounce), that’s a 1/20 of an ounce weight gain!) Hummingbirds have the highest metabolic rate of any animal on Earth with a heart rate of around 1200 beats per minute. If my energy output were the same as a hummingbird, I would have to consume and burn off 285 pounds of hamburger, 370 pounds of potatoes, or 130 pounds of bread - every day! But they are not all brawn and no brain. With a brain weight that is 4% of its body weight, the hummingbird has the largest brain size to body weight of all birds.

Female ruby-throated hummingbird stretching her wings

I’ve enjoyed the challenge of photographing these tiny birds if only to capture their “true colors,” which are almost invisible when they are zooming around. Unfortunately, they are a little scruffy right now because, like all birds, they are molting - shedding all of their feathers and recreating a new wardrobe for their upcoming trip to the tropics. Emily Dickinson had the following observations about hummingbirds presumably without a telephoto lens or even binoculars:

A Route of Evanescence,

With a revolving Wheel –

A Resonance of Emerald

A Rush of Cochineal –

And every Blossom on the Bush

Adjusts it’s tumbled Head –

The Mail from Tunis – probably,

An easy Morning’s Ride –

Emily Dickinson, "A Route of Evanescence"

*The cochineal is a scale insect in the suborder Sternorrhyncha from which the natural dye carmine is derived.

A Resonance of Emerald

Do bees have knees?

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Of course they do. They have six - one for each of their legs. Bees have a femur and a tibia in each leg just like us - and the joint in between is a knee - just like us. But this is a bird blog, not a bee blog, so what about birds? Take a look at this great blue heron. He seems to have knees, but they seem to be “on backwards” - right? If you said “right,” you’d be in good company, but you’d still be wrong. Even the venerable Scientific American magazine got this wrong in an article about turkey tendons. This great blue heron like most other birds and many mammals have knees that work just like ours, but in the case of birds, the knees are hidden up under the wing feathers close to their body. The “backwards” joint that you see in this photo is actually the ankle. The same is true of your dog or your cat or your pet giraffe, but not the bear at your bird feeder.

Waiting for lunch on the gulf coast…

Great blue herons are digitigrade animals meaning they walk on their toes (like dogs, cats, and giraffes). We humans, except perhaps the ballerinas among us, are plantigrade animals, walking on our whole foot (all 26 bones, 33 joints, and a hundred muscles, ligaments and tendons). But, before I begin complaining about my knees, let’s get back to the great blue heron.

Ahh, lunch is served.

The foregoing was actually a test of your patience and tenacity. Because the great blue herons have mastered these skills. You have only to watch one standing like the one above, waiting for a tasty morsel to swim by for lunch. In fact, as a further test of your patience, see if you can watch this video from beginning to end. Talk about mindfulness! Could you do that every day? Well, the human fishermen among you probably understand.

Get thee to a rookery!

Herons always prefer to hunt and dine alone. In fact, if you have a koi pond in your yard, a life-sized replica of a heron will repel real herons looking for solitary hunting. But when it comes to nesting and raising young, herons prefer company - sometimes a lot of company - in a group called a heronry or, in more general terms, a rookery, where dozens of birds often of different species nest together in a small area.

Great blue herons are the largest herons of North America with a height of over 4 feet and wingspan often over 6 feet. Herons are not as numerous as starlings or house sparrows, but they are certainly as widespread. East of the Rocky Mountains, they tend to migrate in winter towards Florida and the Caribbean, while in the far west they tend to remain throughout the year.

Their majesty on land and in flight should make the plantigrades and digitigrades and even the bees among us feel weak in the knees.

Heron Rises from the Dark, Summer Pond - Mary Oliver

So heavy
is the long-necked, long-bodied heron,
always it is a surprise
when her smoke-colored wings

open
and she turns
from the thick water,
from the black sticks

of the summer pond,
and slowly
rises into the air
and is gone.

Then, not for the first or the last time,
I take the deep breath
of happiness, and I think
how unlikely it is

that death is a hole in the ground,
how improbable
that ascension is not possible,
though everything seems so inert, so nailed

back into itself–
the muskrat and his lumpy lodge,
the turtle,
the fallen gate.

And especially it is wonderful
that the summers are long
and the ponds so dark and so many,
and therefore it isn’t a miracle

but the common thing,
this decision,
this trailing of the long legs in the water,
this opening up of the heavy body

into a new life: see how the sudden
gray-blue sheets of her wings
strive toward the wind; see how the clasp of nothing
takes her in.



The hawk comes.

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His wing

Scythes down another day, his motion

Is that of the honed steel-edge, we hear

The crashless fall of stalks of Time.

from Evening Hawk by Robert Penn Warren

Red-tailed Hawk

Watching a Red-tailed Hawk soar in circles over our backyard eyeing, no doubt, our chickens or, God forbid, our small dogs, I think of Harlow, my late father-in-law. Harlow always said that he would return as a hawk so that he could soar freely in the currents of air and continue his keen-eyed wonder at nature. And whenever we see a hawk, we naturally think of Harlow - and, with that, of course, his wish has been granted.

In fact hawks have for all time and by all people been considered messengers from the spirit world or the gods. They are also symbols of wisdom, vision, and leadership - traits that seem in short supply in some sectors of our national scene these days, but hopefully kindling among new leaders.

The hawks nesting near our house seem to be red-tailed hawks doing their summer breeding. In the fall, they and their brethren will rise up and fly thousands of miles to the south - as far as southern Brazil. Unlike many species, they will make this journey entirely over land - the “long way” as it were - avoiding any flight over salt water.

While solitary birds, migrating hawks along with other raptors can be seen “kettling” up into groups called, well, kettles, in which as many as a thousand birds will seem to soar, climb, swoop and dive as one. In fact, each bird is following its individually most efficient path through the currents and funnels of wind and air giving only the illusion of an amazing synchronous swim. With luck, maybe I can share some photos of a kettle of hawks in the fall.

Look! Look! he is climbing the last light

Who knows neither Time nor error, and under

Whose eye, unforgiving, the world, unforgiven, swings

Into shadow.

Good night, Harlow.

Broad-winged Hawk

Murmuring Mortimer - the plot to torment a king

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European starling in non-breeding plumage

“Nay, I’ll have a starling shall be taught to speak nothing but Mortimer, and give it him to keep his anger still in motion.” So imagines Hotspur in Shakespeare’s Henry IV Part I, Act I as he fantasizes a plot to torment the king with repetition of his enemy’s name and the only reference to starlings in all of Shakespeare’s work. But, it seems to have been enough for Eugene Schieffelin, an early pharmaceutical entrepreneur in New York City. Schieffelin was president of the American Acclimatization Society, a group dedicated to introducing European flora and fauna into the United States. He also had a personal passion for Shakespeare and, allegedly, a goal of bringing to America every bird mentioned in the bard’s work. So, in the early 1890’s, Schieffelin imported about 100 European starlings over two seasons and released them in Central Park - the sole ancestors of the 220 million starlings found throughout North America today.

Starlings cause $800 million a year in crop damage. In 1960, an Eastern Airlines flight out of Boston’s Logan Airport flew into a flock of 20,000 starlings and crashed killing 62 of the 72 people on board - still the worst bird strike induced airplane crash in aviation history. Should we designate the European starling a “bad bird?” (See my April 23, 2020 post “Bad Birds?”) Even the Audubon Society has debated the possibility of “hating starlings.”

Many of Schieffelin’s attempts with other birds failed, except, notably, the ubiquitous house sparrow. In 1852, Schieffelin released 16 European sparrows in his Brooklyn neighborhood spawning the 540 million house sparrows that we have today including the 5 million living under the solar panels on my roof. (Hamlet, Act V, Scene 2:  “There is a special providence in the fall of a sparrow. If it be now, 'tis not to come; if it be not to come, it will be now; if it be not now, yet it will come - the readiness is all” - shades of Baba Ram Dass teaching us to Be Here Now.) 

Speaking of “murmuring Mortimer,” starlings are known to congregate in enormous flocks called murmurations. These dramatic and almost creepy avian formations inspire memories of Alfred Hitchcock’s thriller, The Birds, in which multiple bird species attack humans in the sleepy northern California coastal town of Bodega Bay. You’ve got to have a look at this mesmerizing, short film of a real life murmuration.

Off with your head! Is every king a tyrannt?

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Eastern Kingbird after seeming to have beheaded this red-tailed hawk

The Eastern Kingbird has a reputation for the fearless defense of his personal kingdom with aggressive stunts no matter what the odds seem to be. Little wonder that his scientific name is Tyrannus Tyrannus - like a character straight out of Shakespeare (or today’s newspaper). The Kingbird even has a red or orange crown hidden beneath his black cap that is brandished when he’s really upset.

A member of the flycatcher family, the Kingbird eats mostly insects and occasionally berries. They have even been known to eat small frogs - swallowing them whole after beating them to death against a perch. While highly territorial against their own kind during summer breeding, in winter they will head for the Amazon river basin where they live peacefully in flocks eating mostly berries.

Eastern Kingbird at rest.

Unlike most passerines (songbirds), Kingbirds don’t have a very complex song - mostly a repeated series of high-pitched whistles and buzzes. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=51s1bh6BAeU And what they have seems to be innate rather than learned since their young can produce the sounds within two weeks of birth.

What an earful !!

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An earful of waxwings

Not even the slightest breeze, yet it’s not my imagination that the leaves in the flowering tree beside our pond are rustling. And not just a little, but all over the tree. Then I catch a glimpse of shiny yellow or some waxy red like the sealing wax on a love letter or a lemon yellow underbelly, and I know that for a few days we will be treated to an earful of cedar waxwings. Eyeful would be more apt, but, oddly, a flock of cedar waxwings is known as an earful. (Such a flock may also be a called a museum for some reason - maybe shades of Madame Tussaud). Earful as a collective name is also odd because cedar waxwings don’t have much of a song - mostly a very high pitched sound not unlike a dog whistle. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OMvJL_GXIlc These beautiful birds swallow berries whole off of the tree. Their winter diet of cedar berries together with the red pigment from the berries that reaches their wingtips account for their name. They don’t hang out in bars, but occasionally an earful of waxwings will land in a tree with overripe, fermented berries. While this can be seriously toxic for some, it mostly may lead to FUI - flying under the influence.

Honey, I'm home...

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Sadly, the pair of Eastern Bluebirds that moved into the house in the back corner of our yard in early spring have departed. For reasons known only to them, they simply disappeared about two weeks ago leaving a beautifully built nest in the house. Hoping for their return, I left the nest in place. Now, I am pleased to report, a couple of Tree Swallows have moved in. While I might have preferred bluebirds, I can’t complain about the 2000 insects that each adult Tree Swallow consumes each day PLUS the additional 6000 insects per day that they feed to their brood of nestlings. That adds up to nearly 200,000 insects per breeding season, though, trust me, I won’t be keeping track. And, they do most of their feeding within 40 feet of the ground, eating the black flies and mosquitoes that would otherwise be eating us.

Though they lack the romantic legend of the San Juan de Capistrano Cliff Swallows, Tree Swallows are beautiful birds both in repose and in flight. Like groomsmen at a wedding in their iridescent, blue jackets and buff-colored vests, they swoop and glide around our backyard from dawn until dusk. Apparently, they also bathe in flight, an activity that leaves me speechless! At times the air is filled with their cheerful, repetitive calls. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=R6Jpi3TEQXI

While we have only the pair of swallows in our backyard, there are more in the field beyond, and they all seem to play with one another in flight. Did you know that a collection of swallows is sometimes called a “flight” and sometimes a “gulp?” Makes me think of cold craft beer on a hot day! However, a group of Tree Swallows is known as a “stand” - just like a copse of their namesakes.

Growing up fast on Turkey Pond

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Wood duck mom and four ducklings

Talk about leaving the nest with a leap of faith. I recently spotted this female wood duck and her recently fledged ducklings - two are visible and 2 more are hiding behind her. They were swimming in the pond behind our house. Wood ducks are beautiful creatures - the males more flamboyantly so (look one up and see) and the females with more understated charm and beauty. I didn’t realize they nest in trees - that’s UP in trees. They are one of the few ducks with strong claws to grip the bark and branches around their tree house. But that’s not all. How brave are these young ducklings? Well, at one day of age, they each march to the edge of their nest and jump. Mind you, they are not flying yet, so they plummet as much as 50 feet. Often the nests are in trees over water, but some unfortunate nestlings land with a thump not a splash. Amazingly, without injury. Their mother then calls them to join her in the water but offers no assistance. Once in the water (remember, this is still on Day 1), they are able to swim and find food. Try to imagine the childhood memories of a wood duck - not exactly long, slow, and leisurely.

Fighting over the grape jelly...

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The catbird and the oriole vying for the jelly jar

Veteran backyard birders know that if you want to please a Baltimore Oriole, you better have grape jelly. It was news to me this spring when I was wondering why I see a huge variety of birds in my yard but rarely an oriole. Well, now I know that you need to have an orange colored feeder, you need to hang real oranges on it, and, that’s right, you gotta have grape jelly. I guess the peanut butter is optional. Anyway, it worked like a charm. I have also learned that you better have plenty of grape jelly because they go through a ton of it. However, today I discovered something that I bet not all veteran birders know. Grey Catbirds also love grape jelly. I witnessed a major “cat” fight between an oriole and a catbird - like two first graders fighting over a jelly sandwich.

Melospiza Melodia

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Melospiza melodia in full voice

Latin names for birds are not always memorable, at least for someone with a memory for names like mine. Melospiza Melodia seems so apt for the common Song Sparrow that even I might remember it - a name fitting enough for an Italian tenor. And, even I can now recognize it’s distinctive song that combines several opening chords with a flowing, somewhat variable chorus. Though much less forceful and much more high-pitched, the opening notes of some song sparrow songs have been likened to the familiar four notes at the beginning of Beethoven’s Fifth Symphony (Duh Duh Duh Dum). https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YnejB-fYuJk A grand comparison for such a little bird! TIL that birds’ beaks are important for thermoregulation - either for losing heat when it’s hot or absorbing solar heat when it’s cool. In this regard, song sparrow beak size variations have been studied as adaptations to climate change. Competing for the canary in the coal mine role, I guess.

Our mister bluebird is smitten...

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I finally caught a photo of the elusive Madame Bluebird. Her housekeeping has been evident by the building of a neat little nest inside the bird box. Her partner is expected to bring her materials, but, perhaps being a klutz like me, he’s not allowed near the construction itself. It needs to be well-built because it may need to accommodate two or even three broods this summer. Bluebirds have always been a symbol of happiness - so seeing them every day feels to me like a harbinger of better times. But, did you know that their feathers have no blue pigments? Nope, each feather has a layer of cells that absorb all wavelengths (colors) of light except for blue. Only the blue light is reflected, making them appear blue to human eyes. Speaking of eyes, bluebirds eat insects and caterpillars consuming 12% of their body weight every day - they can spot them in tall grass from over 50 yards away! They must chuckle when they see us human birders trooping around with binoculars.

The lonely suitor

The object of his affection

Bad birds?

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Cowbird - villain or fellow passenger

Can there be bad birds? Are there bad dogs? That depends on the habits of your dog, I guess. But, really, in nature are there “bad” behaviors or isn’t nearly everyone (except humans, and maybe, dogs) following a common set of rules? So I will leave dogs and humans out of this discussion, which is not to say they have a free pass. Brown-headed Cowbirds are handsome birds in my opinion. They are prevalent in many areas. They seem to mingle well with other bird groups. What’s not to like? Well, one of their defining characteristics is “brood parasite.” Parasite has never been a sought after characteristic among humans, and humans don’t tend to regard parasites in a positive light. So how should we regard the Brown-headed Cowbird? Cowbirds do not build nests. They appropriate the nests built by other birds, sometimes destroy their eggs, and lay their own eggs in that nest. Then….they expect the original nest owner to incubate, hatch, feed, and rear the new baby cowbirds! How is that in any way OK? I don’t know. But, I tend to believe that nature’s rules are not like those of human society and not subject to political debate, Twitter feeds, memes, or filibusters. Cowbirds live and compete in the realm of survival and natural selection without a greater edge than crows, eagles, chickadees or any other living thing except maybe humans. Be careful about calling them bad birds. Or, at least, judge thyself.

Earth Day 2020 connections

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Sunset on Turkey Pond in Concord NH

Duck. Not the bird in this case and not ducking the coronavirus, but Duck, North Carolina, where I took a break from my first year of medical school and fled to the Outer Banks to celebrate the first Earth Day. 50 years ago today. That was before most of us had heard of climate change, and existential threats were not so global as they now seem. That was before we had lost 1 out of every 4 birds on earth - not “just” species disappearing, but a huge decline in the total global bird population. We are in the middle of spring migrations when new arrivals turn up every day, but weather radar tells of a 14% decline in total bird migration. Of course with a pandemic threatening human survival, it may be hard for some to think about birds. And the pervasive health and economic challenges are impossible to ignore - thank you, thank you to those, mostly health care workers, at the front lines. But, what better time to understand the connectivity of things. Not the digital connections upon which we have all become too dependent or the supply chains of the global economy. I mean the connectedness of nature and the immutable laws that underlie it. And the stewardship demands that humans can either exercise or ignore. Let’s think of spending a little bit of our time appreciating the vulnerability of birds and its connection to our own vulnerability and that of every other living thing on the planet. And then doing some little thing to help….

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