Category Archives: For the Birds column

For the Birds: Dragonfly fun facts

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Photo by Chris Bosak Meadowhawk dragonflies mate in Selleck's/Dunlap Wood in summer 2014.

I’m a big “fun facts” guy. Thankfully, the internet is filled with these interesting tidbits of information. 

You could find amusing information on just about anything you can think of: politics, art, sports, human biology, libraries, history. You name it, it’s out there on the web.

The animal world, of course, is no exception. Fun facts abound on the internet about earthworms, cicadas, robins, moose, musk ox, and countless other fascinating members of the animal kingdom.

I wrote recently about a few hot-weather walks I took through New England meadows. I focused that column primarily on butterflies, but I want to turn the attention to another common sighting I had on those walks: dragonflies.

These large insects have fascinated people for as long as people have been fascinated by things. Dragonflies can arouse amazement, fear or curiosity in humans. For me, it’s a combination of amazement and curiosity. I used to fear them when I was a kid due to a lack of understanding about them. They may be intimidating-looking, but they are as harmless as they come in the insect world — at least the ones we have in New England. (See, I snuck in a fun fact without even setting it up.)

OK, now for the set up: Dragonflies arouse curiosity in people for many reasons, such as their menacing appearance, aerial acrobatics, and ability to eat copious amounts of mosquitoes. Here are some other facts about dragonflies that you may or may not have known previously.

Dragonflies have two eyes, but each compound eye is made up of up to 30,000 ommatidium, or facets. The eyes make up most of a dragonfly’s head.

Dragonflies can fly in any direction and can hover for long periods of time. They can also fly upwards of 30 miles per hour.

That flying ability makes dragonflies excellent hunters, eating large amounts of small flying insects, but they can also be the hunted. I’ve seen birds such as green herons and purple martins snatch dragonflies out of the air.

Dragonflies are insects and therefore have six legs, a head, thorax and abdomen. They also have four wings, and the fore wings and hind wings are controlled separately, hence their awesome aerial abilities.

Dragonflies can be monomorphic (male and female look alike), dimorphic (male and female look different) or polymorphic (much variety even among males and females.) The most common colors for dragonflies in New England are blue and green, but there are also red, amber and white dragonflies here.

There are only a handful of dragonfly families that occur in New England (such as skimmers and darners), but there are about 200 species among those families in our region. The largest dragonfly in New England is the green darner, which is more than three inches long.

Dragonflies live all over the world, although most live in warm climates.

Eggs are laid in or near water and larva live for about a year in the water. After emerging, dragonflies live for only a few months as adults, if they are not eaten by something else sooner than that.

A group of dragonflies is called a swarm. They are multi-generational migrants, meaning the ones that fly south are not the same ones that return north.

Dragonflies make for interesting photo subjects. They often return to the same perch over and over, making it easier on photographers. 

What’s your story about dragonflies? Let me know at the email address below.

For the Birds: Another hot summer’s day walk

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Photo by Chris Bosak Eastern tiger swallowtail, Brookfield, CT, summer 2019.

Birds were scarce on the walks, as they usually are on hot summer afternoons. In what has become somewhat of an annual event for me, I picked a blisteringly hot and soakingly humid summer afternoon and went to a New England meadow to see what critters were flying, jumping and crawling about.

Butterflies were the main attraction, as they usually are, followed closely by dragonflies. Monarchs were the dominant butterfly species, but eastern tiger swallowtails were in abundance as well. There were also high numbers of black swallowtails, skippers, buckeyes, sulfurs and other delicate winged beauties.

It was nice to see so many monarchs, of course, as this iconic species is in serious decline and in recent memory was thought to perhaps be going extinct. From what I have read, the 2019 population is well above the previous year, which is terrific news. It is not time to let down our guard, however. Populations of animal species can vary widely from year to year and we want to make sure we keep doing all we can to help monarchs survive.

The meadow in which I walked is teeming with milkweed. That, of course, is the main food source for monarch caterpillars, but also a favorite nectar stop for adult monarchs and other butterfly species. I would say at least 80 percent of the butterflies I saw feeding during my walks were sipping from milkweed flowers.

Yes, the butterfly season is definitely in full swing. It will remain that way for the next several weeks before tapering off as we head into fall. I will return frequently to this and other meadows to see the butterflies and other critters getting ready for the colder months.

As I mentioned, the bird activity on these walks was rather slow, but not nonexistent. I did notice a rather large flock of bobolinks, a mixed flock of males, females and youngsters, flying around, which was nice to see.

I also saw a few immature bluebirds with their dull plumage and spotted chests. Goldfinches were a frequent sighting, and without a doubt, the most numerous bird I saw. Besides that, a song sparrow or two and the odd hawk flyover were about it for bird activity.

These sweltering strolls into the meadows each summer have become one of my favorite annual traditions. I’m certainly not saying butterfly photography is easy, but they are certainly more cooperative than most birds. Plus, the colors you get on the photos from the butterflies and flowers are always inspiring.

Many more photos of the walk are available on the website www.birdsofnewengland.com. Feel free to check it out and also remember to send me your most recent sightings, be it birds, butterflies, or whatever else you have seen in the natural world.

For the Birds: Sandpiper in the puddle

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Here’s the latest For the Birds column …

Photo by Chris Bosak
A least sandpiper seen in New England.

This moment existed only because of the heavy rains we experienced last week. The body of water was small, shallow, algae-ridden and not at all something to behold.

OK, it was a puddle. No more, no less … your typical run-of-the-mill puddle.

Until a least sandpiper showed up and transformed the puddle into an exotic waterscape. The small shorebird was migrating south earlier this week and saw the puddle as the perfect place to rest and perhaps find an easy meal.

It had flown in from somewhere up north and was on its way to points south. But for a few hours anyway, home was a puddle in New England.

The bird paid little attention to me as I watched and photographed it for several minutes. Migrating birds can be like that. They are intensely focused on fueling and resting for their long journey.

The funny thing about the sighting was the location of the puddle. It exists on and off — depending on the weather — at a dirt parking area that Continue reading →

For the Birds classic: Monarchs and milkweed

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Here’s an old summer For the Birds column originally published in 2008, reprinted just because …

Photo by Chris Bosak
A monarch caterpillar eats a milkweed leaf.

Keep at something long enough and eventually you will succeed.

I learned several years ago that monarch butterflies lay their eggs exclusively on milkweed. Since that time I’ve inspected every milkweed patch I’ve come across in my wanderings in search of monarch caterpillars. That’s a lot of inspecting considering the proliferation of milkweed. It grows in wild places, it grows in gardens, it grows through cracks in the cement.

In fact, a largely overgrown and overlooked stretch of pavement near The Hour’s parking lot is filled with milkweed. One day I noticed a maintenance worker about to weed-whack the entire patch to the ground. I asked the president of The Hour to intercede and he graciously allowed the patch to grow wild, despite its unsightliness (to an untrained eye, anyway.) For the rest of that summer the ugly, often ignored patch of weeds was dubbed “The Chris Bosak Monarch Refuge.” A makeshift sign made by co-workers marked it as so.

The sign is long gone, but the milkweed remains. Every day I drive by the weeds and never once have I seen a monarch caterpillar. In fact, never had I found a monarch caterpillar on any milkweed, no matter the location. I was zero-for-six million in terms of finding a monarch caterpillar. Not a very good average.

Before I go on, let me explain my desire to find a monarch caterpillar. Simply put, they’re cool looking. They’re large, colorful, exquisitely decorated.

Finally, as if you haven’t guessed already, I found one. I wasn’t necessarily looking for it, which is to say I wasn’t inspecting the plant, but I did look at the milkweed as it has become a habit over the years. These days I just look at milkweed without even thinking about it.

Turns out there was no careful inspection necessary to find this caterpillar. I just looked Continue reading →

For the Birds: Unexpected, welcome discovery

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Photo by Chris Bosak
A gray catbird with food perches on a branch in New England, summer 2019.

I heard what I was pretty sure was a scarlet tanager high in one of my oak trees. The thick foliage makes it nearly impossible to find anything up there. Even a brilliantly bright red bird like a scarlet tanager could easily be hidden from view.

I looked with my naked eye for several minutes, hoping to spot some motion to give away the bird’s location and identity. To my frustration, I couldn’t find a thing, even though I knew right where the song was coming from.

So, I figured I’d try scanning the area with my binoculars with the hopes of catching a glimpse of some bright red among the dark green leaves. Picking out a bird among thickly leafed-out treetops is usually a lesson in futility and humility.

But not this time.

No, I didn’t find a scarlet tanager. I did, however, find the active nest of an eastern wood-pewee. Somehow, my binoculars trained themselves right on the spot. The small, cupped nest is built in the Y of a dead branch sticking out among the impenetrable foliage, about 40 feet high.

I watched the mother pewee for a few minutes before she flew off into the woods. I noticed a bright orange object in the nest. I assumed it was a mushroom of some sort because the dead branch is covered in a white fungus. With my binoculars, however, I discovered it was the mouth of a baby bird waiting to be fed.

Sure enough, about two minutes later the mother bird returned and a few other orange “mushrooms” appeared.

It was the first time I had ever found an active eastern wood-pewee nest Continue reading →

For the Birds: Giving birds a hand

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Fishing line tangled around a branch.

Last week I wrote about an adventure my son Will and I had freeing an eastern kingbird from fishing line. Will was fishing with some friends when he noticed a bird struggling frantically and dangling underneath a branch.

He ran to get me and we worked together to free the bird. There was still a lot of energy in the bird’s struggle, so I am guessing it wasn’t tangled for too terribly long. Otherwise, its struggling would have been less frequent and less energetic. Or even worse, it could easily have died if it had been there long enough without being noticed.

Unfortunately, death is an all-too-frequent result for birds that either become tangled, hooked or snagged by discarded fishing line. I recall years ago coming across the pathetic scene of a belted kingfisher dangling lifelessly above a small stream. Abandoned fishing line had snared the bird and no one found it until it was too late.

I also recall a few years ago seeing a red-throated loon with fishing line around its bill and head in Long Island Sound. This bird, however, was still alive and I even saw it catch a fish, so perhaps this bird’s situation had a better outcome. I had no way of catching the loon; I could only watch — hopelessly — from the shore.

Birds have a tough row to hoe to begin with in nature without having to deal with so many man-made obstacles. Windows, wind turbines, cell towers, cats, cars, and pesticides pose significant obstacles to birds worldwide. Loss of habitat, of course, is perhaps the most serious challenge we throw at birds. Add discarded fishing line to the mix and it’s yet another hindrance we add to decrease a bird’s odds of survival.

There are measures we can take to lessen this bird mortality. Decals on windows, keeping cats indoors, using only natural pesticides, and picking up discarded fishing line can all go a long way toward helping birds survive longer and increase their populations.

So, the next time you are out walking along a lake, river, or pond, and you see fishing line dangling from a nearby branch, grab it if it is in reach and discard of it properly. Whether it is your fishing line or not, go ahead and remove it and potentially save a bird from a horrible, slow death.

Freeing a kingbird from the death grip of fishing line

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Photo by Will Bosak
Kingbird rescue, Danbury, CT, 2019.

It started with a bird pooping on my forehead and finished with me tipping over the canoe in a mucky, heavily vegetated part of the lake. The adventure was well worth it, however, as we successfully untangled and freed an eastern kingbird from the death grip of abandoned snagged fishing line.

Photo by Will Bosak
Kingbird rescue, Danbury, CT, 2019.

I was sitting in my home office writing away about something or another when I saw out the window my 12-year-old son sprinting up the road and turning onto the driveway. He was fishing with two of his friends at the nearby fishing hole so I briefly panicked that someone had gotten hurt; perhaps a barbed hook embedded in a thumb or something like that. 

I opened the window and yelled down: “What’s wrong Will?”

“There’s a bird stuck on fishing line dangling from a tree,” he said. “Come help it. It’s freaking out. I feel so bad for it.”

I rushed to the car and drove to the spot, even though it’s literally only a few hundred yards away. Nagging tendonitis in my foot has prevented me from making that walk — or any other walk for that matter — for weeks now. 

“I think if we go through the woods we can get to it,” Will said as he pointed out the bird.

I recognized the bird as an eastern kingbird. The white band at the tip of its tail gave it away. 

“I don’t think so, Will. All that vegetation is growing from the water so we’ll never reach it from land. We can probably get it with the canoe.”

I hobbled back to the car as quickly as possible and fetched the canoe. I used only one strap around the middle of the canoe to fasten it to the car since I was going such a short distance.

Back at the fishing hole, Will hustled to help me get the canoe off the car and to the shore. 

“I’ll sit up front, you sit in the back and paddle us to the bird,” I told Will.

“I’ll take photos, too, dad. Where’s your phone?”

Will got us into the weeds and immediately the frantic bird crapped right on my forehead above my left eye. I didn’t even notice it, but Will let out a huge laugh to let me know.

“Guys! The bird pooped on my dad’s head!” he called excitedly to his friends.

I didn’t care about it at the moment. I just wanted to help the bird, which was now even more frantic with us closing in on it. 

I grabbed some sturdy stems and pulled us into the vegetation even more to prevent us from drifting as I was soon to have a knife and, hopefully, a bird in my hands. We stopped right below the bird. I stood up carefully and extended for the bird. It was just out of reach.

“Give me the paddle, Will.”

I used the paddle to pull down the branch a few inches. I grabbed it and pulled the branch, bird, and tangled mess of fishing line toward me. Wow, that’s a lot of fishing line, I thought to myself. With my free hand I used the knife of my trusty Leatherman to cut the line above the bird’s wing. I closed the knife, tossed it on the floor of the canoe, and sat down with the highly agitated kingbird in my hand. It bit at my hand and made me thankful that it wasn’t a great blue heron. 

A length of fishing line immediately came free but there was still line wrapped tightly around the wing. I held the bird and pulled gently on the end of the line. Will used the knife to cut the line as close to the wing as possible. 

I dug in a little more to make sure there wasn’t a hook stuck in the wing. The kingbird obliged by extended its wing to expose the wound. Thankfully, there was no hook and the remaining piece of fishing line that had held the bird captive fell to the floor of the canoe. The wound did not look serious and I breathed a sigh of relief that a hook was not involved.

Satisfied that the bird was free from all fishing line I opened my hand to see if it was able to fly. In about half a second the kingbird burst out of my hands and disappeared into the woods. 

The kingbird was lucky. Lucky that Will went fishing that afternoon and was able to spot it. Lucky that we had a canoe handy to access the water. Lucky that it was tangled relatively close to the water instead of higher up and out of reach. Lucky it was only tangled and not hooked. 

I looked around and noticed that the trees in the area were riddled with abandoned lines, bobbers, hooks, sinkers, and lures. Will steered me to them and I pulled down the ones that were in reach. I pulled down the tangle that had snared the kingbird and noticed the bird’s nest was in a branch about a foot above the twisted line.

Thankfully we were only a few feet from shore when I got a little too confident in my reaching and swamped the canoe.  Swamped is a good term because we tipped over in thick, slimy aquatic vegetation. My legs felt for the bottom of the lake but only dug themselves deeper into a spaghetti bowl of slippery stems, roots and goodness knows what else. 

Will, thankfully, had the wherewithal to immediately take my phone out of his pocket and toss it onto the shore. The phone was fine and Will scored points with his father for acting so quickly despite being dumped into a mucky mess. 

We lumbered onto shore — me very gingerly on the uneven terrain — and dragged the half-full canoe onto land. Our legs were blacked by bits of partially decomposed leaves that fell into the water over the last several years. 

Once on land we had little laugh and rejoiced as two kingbirds flew and chattered among the trees just off the shore.

For the Birds: Phoebe and cowbird eggs

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Here is the latest For the Birds column …

Photo by Chris Bosak An Eastern Phoebe visits a bird bath in Danbury, Conn., March 2016.
Photo by Chris Bosak
An Eastern Phoebe visits a bird bath in Danbury, Conn., March 2016.

During the first spring at my house three years ago, I noticed a bird going back and forth under my neighbor’s lofted porch.

Closer inspection confirmed my suspicion that an eastern phoebe had a nest there. The mud-and-moss nest was built on an old row boat oar that hadn’t been used or moved in many years.

OK, a flat surface under a protected area, I thought as I plotted to create my own phoebe nest habitat for subsequent springs. I rummaged through the basement and found a rectangular piece of wood, approximately 14 inches by 18 inches. I nailed the wood to some of the 2x8s beneath my own porch. Even if the phoebes don’t use it, surely a robin would, I thought.

First spring, nothing. Second spring, nothing. Third spring, nothing. Three years and not even a stick placed on the platform.

But wait.

Not so fast on the third spring. April and May yielded nothing, but in early June I walked past the platform and noticed a small mud-and-moss nest on the wood. It wasn’t built on the main part of the platform, but rather an excess corner of the wood that jutted beyond one of the 2x8s. My dad would have called the excess “slop” because of its shoddy craftsmanship. But, hey, I wasn’t shooting for perfection, just good enough so a bird could build a nest. Besides, the slop turned out to be a fortunate “mistake.”

As of this writing, the nest holds five eggs. It is likely a second or third brood for this phoebe as they are one of the first birds to arrive in spring — usually by the middle of March.

But the news isn’t all good. Only four of the eggs are white phoebe eggs. A darker, mottled egg of a brown-headed cowbird is also in the nest.

Brown-headed cowbirds are brood parasites and lay their eggs in the nests of other birds, leaving the parental duties to the host bird. Phoebes are a common victim, as are other small birds such as warblers and sparrows. Brown-headed cowbird eggs typically hatch earlier than the other eggs and the baby cowbird grows at a faster rate. This makes the host bird work overtime to raise the cowbird, often at the expense of the other young birds.

Cowbirds do this because of their notorious nomadic nature.

So, just remove the cowbird egg, right? Not necessarily. The female cowbird monitors the nest and may destroy the nest altogether if the cowbird egg is disturbed — either by the host bird or human intervention.

An article I found on audubon.org brings up other legal and ethical questions. It used to be common practice to vilify cowbirds and everything they stood for. The no-good, lazy birds are destroying other birds and should be destroyed, was a common line of thinking — and still is for many people, I’m sure.

The Audubon article, written in 2018 by Amy Lewis, states that people shouldn’t interfere with nests that have cowbirds eggs. Firstly, it is illegal as per the Migratory Bird Treaty Act as cowbirds are native to the U.S. Though, technically, it is illegal to pick up a blue jay feather found on the ground, but not many people I know would hesitate to grab the feather.

The article, quoting several sources, also states that it is best to let nature take its course. Human feelings and morals should not interfere with something that has been going on in nature for hundreds of years.

It’s funny how research and science can change public opinion over time. Ten years ago I couldn’t imagine writing a bird column saying to leave cowbird eggs alone. I’m still somewhat on the fence about the whole thing as I imagine the phoebe under my porch working her tail off to raise a cowbird with possible grave consequences for her own babies.

But I will not interfere. I will watch the nest daily and see what happens. The first phoebe egg was laid on Tuesday, June 11. Another phoebe egg and the cowbird egg appeared on June 12. The phoebe laid another egg on Thursday and another on Friday. Photos of the eggs and nest may be found at www.birdsofnewengland.com.

That’s where we stand as of now. I’ll keep you posted.

Update: As of Friday, June 21, the nest remains with four phoebe eggs and one cowbird egg.

For the Birds: Gray jay is out; Canada jay is in

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Photo by Chris Bosak A gray jay perches on the roof of a car in Pittsburg, N.H., November 2018.
Photo by Chris Bosak A gray jay perches on the roof of a car in Pittsburg, N.H., November 2018.

Well, I did it again. Apparently I’ve been using the wrong name for a bird for the past year or so.

Recall a few weeks ago when I wrote about the common gallinule that had been seen near the Dillant-Hopkins Airport. Many people, myself included, initially referred to the bird as a common moorhen, the name previously used for the bird. In 2011, the American Ornithologists’ Union changed the name to common gallinule after splitting the species from a similar bird in Europe and Asia.

I’m not as far behind on this latest name change. In May 2018, just about a year ago, the union changed the name of the gray jay to the Canada jay. The handsome, bold bird of the north was historically called the Canada jay anyway, so it was really a change back to an old name.

I wrote a column back in November about a trip to Pittsburg, during Continue reading →

Classic For the Birds: Paddling freshwater

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I’m heading to New Hampshire for a few days of camping. It’s been a while since I’ve paddled any lake, pond, or river in the Granite State and I’m looking forward to seeing what wildlife will be around. Of course, I’ll let you know when I return. In the meantime, here’s a For the Birds column from 2004 about this very subject …

Photo by Chris Bosak A Great Blue Heron stands on a piling along the Norwalk River on Tuesday, Oct. 14, 2014.

A great blue heron lifted its skinny four-foot frame out of the water and used its six-foot wing span to carry it to another spot on the lazy river. It was spotted again around the next corner.
A wood duck skulked into the vegetation and disappeared without a trace. Once a wood duck vanishes into the sea of huge green leaves, you can forget about seeing it again.

A muskrat braved a crossing at a swelled portion of the river, using its tail as a rudder. Marsh wrens proudly belted out their peculiar, almost comical, song.

Meanwhile, there were many constant companions. Red-winged blackbirds boisterously claimed various plots of the river’s edge as their own, dragonflies zigged and Continue reading →