Photo by Chris Bosak – Bobolink in New England field.
House wrens and American goldfinches have been my main source of avian entertainment this past week.
Both of these birds nest, on average, later than most other songbirds. While birds such as phoebes and robins get started in March or April, house wrens and goldfinches start in late spring/early summer. I hear the disjointed, but still rather cheerful, song of the house wren every time I walk out my door. The goldfinches are more quiet, but highly visible in their bright yellow plumage going back and forth to the nest site.
Goldfinches feed their babies a vegetarian/seed diet so the early insect hatch that prompts so many other songbirds to nest is of no practical to goldfinches. Rather, they must wait until flowers to bloom and go to seed before raising their young. Their primary diet consists of milkweed, thistle and other “weeds.”
Photo by Chris Bosak — Three young eastern phoebes getting ready to fledge.
As big a thrill as it is to have a bird visit your backyard feeder, it’s an even bigger thrill to have a bird visit a birdbath in your yard. Having a bird land on and eat the dried seeds of a flower in your garden tops both the feeder and bath sighting, in my opinion anyway.
However, a bird nesting in your yard beats them all. Whether the bird makes its own nest in a tree or bush, or if the bird uses a birdhouse, there’s nothing like the thrill of watching birds grow from egg to hatchling to fledgling.
The birds that nested in my yard this spring have all been very inconspicuous. I see tons of catbirds in my yard and several come around to scold me when I come out to use the grill or sit on the porch. A male cardinal usually joins the admonishment. But I haven’t found a single nest in the brush.
Photo by Chris Bosak
An American crow in Danbury, CT, winter 2019.
It’s like clockwork.
At 6:45 p.m. the crows glide in and land on the upper branches of the mostly dead, huge maple tree in the front yard.
It’s not a massive number of crows like you’d see in the winter at dusk; rather, it’s a small gathering. First two adults land, then two youngsters follow. They sound a few seemingly innocent caws, but their disagreeable reputation as egg-eaters precedes them.
The crows’ arrival puts the other birds in the neighborhood on alarm. Robins sound off from the surrounding trees but remain out of view. Cardinals, also unseen, use their high chip alert calls to keep in contact with each other. Orioles join in but keep their distance.
Blue jays and grackles are more aggressive in their attempts to drive the crows away from the neighborhood. The blue jays squawk and dive-bomb. More jays emerge from the trees and join the effort.
Photo by Chris Bosak, Young Barn Swallows beg for food as a parent returns to the nest with a morsel.
Here’s a follow-up to a recent column I did about helping birds in the summer. It seems that I missed a few important tips.
I received a text message from a friend last week after she found two baby birds on her deck. They had recently fallen out of a birdhouse she has hanging near the house. What to do with the babies? It’s a question I get fairly often in late spring and early summer.
If you come across baby birds that have fallen out of the nest, the best thing to do is put them back in the nest. That is assuming you know where the nest is, of course. In my friend’s case, she did know and she placed the baby birds back into the house. The mother returned shortly thereafter and all seems to be good.
That advice may surprise some people because the old adage was that you should never touch a baby bird because the mother will reject any baby that has been touched by a human. Birds do not have a great sense of smell (well, most birds anyway) so they will not abandon a baby that was touched. Besides, a mother or father bird has no way of getting the baby back into the next.
Photo by Chris Bosak
An eastern bluebird gets a drink from a birdbath in New England, February 2020.
I’ve been getting quite a few emails about bluebirds lately. I see that as a good sign about the rebounding eastern bluebird population.
Cornell Lab of Ornithology’s AllAboutBirds.com, my go-to website for information about North American birds, says the eastern bluebird is a species of “low concern.” The site reads, “Eastern Bluebird populations fell in the early twentieth century as aggressive introduced species such as European Starlings and House Sparrows made available nest holes increasingly difficult for bluebirds to hold on to. In the 1960s and 1970s, establishment of bluebird trails and other nest-box campaigns alleviated much of this competition, especially after people began using nest boxes designed to keep out the larger European Starling. Eastern Bluebird numbers have been recovering since.”
Photo by Chris Bosak
An indigo bunting perches in a tree in New England, July 2021.
I’m not going to try to emulate Dr. Seuss, but I think he would have drawn plenty of inspiration from a walk in the woods in New England in May.
His classic “Oh, the Thinks You Can Think!” comes to mind, but only altered to “Oh, the Colors You Can See.”
A recent walk made me think of this. The majority of the walk was along a wide dirt path with shrubby habitat on both sides. Beyond the thickets on one side was a large field and beyond the thickets on the other side were deep woods. It is perfect habitat for a bird walk.
The first bird I saw was a male eastern towhee. It was once called rufous-sided towhee because of the unique dark orange color of its sides that complement the otherwise white and black plumage of the bird. The bird’s red eyes are visible when it approaches among the shrubs closely enough. I did not see a female towhee on this particular day, but they are lighter brownish-orange where the male is black.
Photo by Chris Bosak — Louisana waterthrush in New England, May 2022.
If it looks like a duck, swims like a duck and quacks like a duck, then it probably is a duck.
That great old expression doesn’t work for thrushes because a lot of birds look like thrushes but aren’t thrushes at all. So you can’t say: If it looks like a thrush, then it probably is a thrush.
Members of the thrush family in New England include wood thrush, hermit thrush, veery, Swainson’s thrush and Bicknell’s thrush. They are medium-sized birds, brown overall and their buff-colored bellies and chests are decorated with brown spots. American robins and Eastern bluebirds are thrushes as well but have their own distinctive appearances.
Thrushes are perhaps best known for their songs. Wood and hermit thrushes have amazing flute-like songs that sound otherworldly and have inspired many a line in poetry and literature.
Where to begin? May is a firestorm of birding activity in New England.
I’ll recap a few of my recent highlights and then expand, where necessary or otherwise interesting, in subsequent columns.
A warbler by any other name: Many warblers actually have the name warbler in their name. Yellow warbler, chestnut-sided warbler, worm-eating warbler and so on. Many, however, don’t have warbler in their name. Common yellowthroat, American redstart to name a few.
A few warblers don’t have warbler in their name and look like they belong in the thrush family. The ovenbird and waterthrushes (northern and Louisiana) could easily pass for thrushes with their brown bodies and spotted chests. Heck, the waterthrushes even have thrush in their name. But they are all, indeed, warblers.
That warrants a column unto itself. I’ll dig into that in the coming weeks.
Dueling grosbeaks: I heard a rose-breasted grosbeak singing in a tree during the tail end of one of my recent walks. I paused enough to find its perch. As soon as I spotted the beautiful bird, another male rose-breasted grosbeak dive-bombed the original bird, and they started chasing each other through the woods. The action caught the eye of a third male grosbeak and that one joined in the chase as well. That was a first for me. Rose-breasted grosbeaks, with their white wing bars, are just as impressive-looking in flight as they are perched.
The warblers are back and delighting, confusing, and frustrating birdwatchers throughout New England.
Warblers are small, usually colorful, passerine (perching) birds that migrate into New England every spring. Many nest here while others continue north to nest in Canada. In the fall, they head to points south such as southern U.S., the Caribbean, Central America or South America. The odd warbler shows up on New England Christmas Bird Counts from time to time, but for the most part, they are gone before the snow starts to fly.
To me, the quintessential warbler is the yellow warbler. It is small, brightly colored, numerous throughout the region and sings its ubiquitous song (“sweet sweet I’m so sweet”) over and over from the brush. It is all yellow with some rusty streaking on its chest and belly.
Warblers come in all colors, however. Many are mostly yellow and many others have flashes of yellow in their plumage. Some are black and white, and some are mostly brownish. A few are mostly blue. It’s no wonder that the spring migration, highlighted by warblers, is the favorite time of year for most birdwatchers.
Photo by Chris Bosak
An American goldfinch perches on a wire in New England, March 2020.
I’ve been getting a lot of inquiries about goldfinches lately. Everything from how to attract them to why am I suddenly seeing more of them to why do some of them seem much duller than other ones.
To answer the question about how to attract them, you have to start with Nyjer seed. Nyjer seed, also sometimes called thistle, are the tiny seeds that are a fraction the size of a sunflower seed. Birds such as goldfinches, pine siskins, and indigo buntings love Nyjer seeds. It is hard to imagine there is a whole lot of meat inside the shells, but apparently, it is enough to satisfy the smaller birds.
Goldfinches also prefer tube feeders. If you get one with several ports there will be times when all of the perches will be occupied by goldfinches. So the best way to get goldfinches is to offer Nyjer seed in tube feeders.
But that is not the only way to attract goldfinches. Goldfinches will also eat sunflower seeds and visit hopper or platform feeders. They will also eat Nyjer seed from a mesh “sock.“
Goldfinches will also visit flowers such as sunflowers, coneflowers, and black-eyed Susans. But you have to wait until fall to see them eating those seeds. Goldfinches will also readily visit birdbaths. In fact, they are one of the most frequent visitors to my birdbath.
As to why some of them look different, that is a somewhat tricky question. The obvious answer is that females are duller and males are brighter. However, a goldfinch’s plumage is constantly changing and some males may be ahead of others in obtaining their breeding plumage.
Even males are drably colored in the winter and slowly gain their famous bright yellow feathers by the spring. This week, I have seen some goldfinches that are already fully decked out in their splendid yellow. Others are still splotchy with some bright and some dull plumage.
Well-known ornithologist David Sibley has a great article with photos, or more accurately drawings, of what a goldfinch’s plumage looks like each month throughout the year. The article can easily be found with an Internet search by entering “goldfinch monthly plumage” in the search field.
Females are duller in color year-round. Like other dimorphic birds (male and female have different appearances), females are more dully colored to offer protection from predators. The flashy males attract the attention of predators and cause a diversion away from the females on nests.
I have always had decent luck attracting and finding goldfinches. There are certain birds I just can’t seem to find, but goldfinches, thankfully, have never been one of those problematic species.
Goldfinches are also nomadic. If you have goldfinches throughout the day, it is likely that you are seeing more than one group of goldfinches. Perhaps that explains why some people are seeing more of them lately. The goldfinches have only recently discovered the feeding station.
Goldfinches are a favorite bird of many people, and with good reason. They are striking with their bright yellow plumage, they are common backyard inhabitants, and they are year-round New England residents, not fair-weathered friends. What’s not to like?
Birds of New England.com 