More owl banding...

The little owl goes headfirst into a cardboard tube to be weighd.

I had trouble posting Karen's pictures of Theo's Saw-whet Owl banding adventure with Jared Clarke. I guess I have ignored this blog too long and forgotten what to do! Here are some more I wanted to include.

Jared and Theo are equipped with flashlights on their foreheads. Because the owls are active at night, the mist nets are only used in the dark!

Banding Northern Saw-Whet Owls

Theo with a Saw-whet Owl. All photos by Karen Madsen

Guest Blog by Theo Kolkman, 11

Size compared to ball point pen.

Jared put the band on the owl's leg with special pliers.

Peeking out end of cardboard weighing tube.

We arrived at Jared’s (farm near Edenwold, SK) in the afternoon, and set up the nets for the owls at 6:30. The nets were all wrapped up thick, connected to the poles, and Jared spread them out to make them invisible and ready to catch owls. We then setup the “game caller” (a speaker that looks like a flashlight, and plays bird calls downloaded onto it) and put the Saw-whet call on. Their call sounds like a high-pitched, repeated whistling call, and they are called Saw-whet because their call sounds like the teeth on a saw being sharpened on a whetstone.

We went inside to wait for the birds, and about every hour we went outside to check the nets if there was any owls caught in it. The first time we went out, a Ruffed Grouse got caught in it, but was able to get out because it was too big. Jared found one of its feathers, and gave it to me when we got inside. It was small and curled, and had another smaller soft feather under it.

We continued to go out about every hour, and had no luck until 11:00. When we went out that time, we found one little Saw-whet Owl, tangled up in the net! Jared untangled the owl, and put it in a little bag made for holding that size of owls. I carried the bag back to his house, and we set the bag on his table for banding owls.

He got his chart ready, and all of his other instruments, and wrote all of the information he had about the owl before he opened the bag, like what net it was caught in, and at what time. When he finished that all, he took out the owl. It was very small, and he held it by holding its two legs. The Saw-whet was very quiet, and calm. First he checked to see if it had a band already, and it didn’t. Then he got it a band and put it on pliers that you squeeze and the band goes on the owl’s leg. He twisted the band so it stayed on, and wouldn’t fall off. Every band number is unique, and there isn’t another band in North America that has that number.

Then he measured its wing, its tail feathers, and its beak. Then he showed us that the Saw-whet feathers aren’t all over the body, only in rows. He blew where there isn’t feathers, and we could see its skin, and Jared showed us its fat it stores so it can fly and migrate long distances. He showed us how they tell how old the owls are, by the colors of the feathers, and they know that they get new feathers every year, but don’t molt every feather, so they know how old they were by the feather generations.

He told us that the facial disk helps the owl hear better, like a person cupping their ears. He also showed us its ear, and we could see the back of its eyeball! Then to weigh it, he put it in a little cardboard tube head first on a scale. It looked really cool when he showed us its head through the other end. Did you know that an owl’s head always faces the same direction, for when it’s hunting? He moved its body all over the place, and its head stayed facing the same direction.

After he wrote all of his information down, he let me hold the owl. It felt cool holding it, and I held its wing out. After we put it back in the bag, we couldn’t take any photos, because we’d blind the owl. We waited until we had to check the nets again, and let the owl out. We had to turn our lights off, and then Jared opened up the bag and the owl flew out. When we were going to check the nets again, Jared saw a weasel in the bush, and I saw its eyes reflecting my light. When we checked the nets, there were no owls, so Jared wrapped them up thick, like a rope so the birds could see it, and no birds would run into it.

Jared at net. Note hole made by large bird.

Bicycle helmet bird

White-crowned Sparrow.  Photo by Karl Madsen

White-crowned Sparrow? White-throated Sparrow?

When we lived in BC, we were treated every spring to a flotilla of White-crowned Sparrows passing through the Valley. Since we moved to Naicam, we have had White-throated Sparrows stop by our feeder on their way North. This spring, however, we were treated to both species at the same time scrounging for breakfast in our front yard.

White-crowned Sparrow - if  you're a long-time reader
of my blog, you will have seen this photo before - Dec. 29/10.

It was May 6th that I resumed my kitchen watch after getting out of the hospital and in my bird diary, I noted Purple Finches, Harris Sparrows, White-throated Sparrows and also a Robin in the birch tree. On May 7, I added Pine Siskins, Brewer's Blackbirds, Juncoes, Song Sparrows and yikes, White-crowned Sparrows. White-crowned? I looked again. No, White-throated. But wait, yes, White-crowned as well.

I was excited to see both species side by side to compare them. The White-crowned have puffier heads that the White-throated. This really does make them look like they are wearing bicycle helmets - that's Karl's nickname for them.
The White-throated by a distinctive brilliant white bib under their beak and bright yellow lores - that's the short eyebrow. Their centre white stripe is much narrower than the middle stripe on the crown of the White-crowned! And the WC's beak is pinkier than the WT's.

So now when you see a sparrow with white and black sripes on his head, you will now who he is!

Bluebirds and blue eggs

The other day when I wrote that hearing a chorus of frogs transported me back to my Rutan childhood, it triggered a flood of memories of my earliest "bird" experiences - like the time I discovered blue eggs do not belong to bluebirds.

By observation at Grandma Johnson's and Aunty Tina's I had learned that brown hens lay brown eggs and white hens white eggs. It was logical (to me) to assume, therefore, when we discovered a nest with blue eggs that it must belong to a bluebird. The nest was on one of the beams supporting the bridge north of the elevator. Of course it wasn't really a bridge but a loading platform adjacent to the tracks of the spur line that served the elevator. It had been used by farmers to unload things like coal from a box car spotted there - I vaguely remember this - but by the late '40s, early '50s it was seldom used. But it made a great place to play. It was cool and damp under the bridge even on the hottest summer day and smelled of decay and rot and other delicious cave-like aromas.

Finding the nest with the eggs was a wonderful discovery, almost like coming upon a pirate's treasure. I had once found half an egg shell of that fabulous summer sky color. It was simply lying on the ground, far from a tree, no nest it could have fallen from, and I saved it in my box of secret treasures that included feathers and sparkly stones.

The eggs were still warm when we touched them. Although we hadn't seen her leave, we must have frightened the mother bird from its nest with our noisy entry.

"Bluebird eggs," I announced with authority to my siblings. I was a bossy, know-it-all child. "And we have to get out of here so the mother bluebird can come back. Bluebird of Happiness, you know. And that means if anything happens to those eggs, you won't be happy."

And I shooed the kids out. Bluebird of Happiness? I'd heard that line in a song. As soon as the others were involved in a different game, I snuck back to the bridge and crept silently under to spy on the nest. When my eyes became accustomed to the gloom, I could see a bird on the nest. A bird with a dark head and a beady eye studying me. Not a bluebird. A robin! A robin all black and grey and rusty orange with no hint whatsoever of sky blue!

Dummy, I chided myself. After all, crows eggs weren't black, were they?

I never did confess my error to my siblings.

Morning chorus

I'm hobbling around with a cane these days so most of my bird watching is limited to what I see from the kitchen window or from the front deck and my, it is amazing how much avian activity there is here at the north edge of Naicam.

Up close at the hummingbird feeder suspended from a plant hanger at the edge of the deck, two male Ruby Throats are having a nasty duel - one chasing the other to the birch at the east side of the deck. I can hear a clicking and a clattering of leaves and then one returns to nervously sip nectar. There are four spigots so why must they fight over it? Half a dozen or more Pine Siskins and Goldfinches happily share the niger towers.

Then a Collared Dove is peacefully surveying the morning from the top of the light standard across the street, occasionally emitting its cuk-cooing call when suddenly a robin dive bombs and chases it away, claiming to top spot for its own. The robins are nesting in the spruce in our front yard - they must be on their second batch.

A Yellow Warbler is announcing to the world how sweet life its from somewhere at the top of the birch. I can't see it from where I'm standing but its "sweet-sweet-I'm-so-sweet" song makes my heart happy, too.

Overhead, a Killdeer passes, plaintively calling its name and Tree Swallows and Barn Swallows are performing their aerial ballet catching breakfast on the fly. In the evening the sky is full of Purple Martins but they seem to search for breakfast in a different part of town.

The Rail Trail runs just behind the homes across the street and on the east side of that is a big slough. Through a break in the trees, we can see a portion of the slough from our kitchen window. When Kristin was here from Ontario, she said we have a "lake view." Now over the slough a Common Snipe is diving through the air creating its eerie, haunting wooo-wooo-wooo sound that seems to come from all directions at once.

Closer a Clay Colored Sparrow is buzzing its giant insect sound and then
suddenly all bird sounds around me stop. A Merlin silently streaks by. Don't stop here for breakfast, I pray. And because the birds are quiet I can hear a chorus of frogs serenading from the direction of the Rail Trail. Ah, the sound of frogs - takes me back to my childhood at Rutan!

Young owl at campground

All fluff, no feathers, a young Great Horned Owl takes a serious view of his visitors.
 Photo by Marg Kirk

While we were delighting in the antics of the baby robins in our yard, out friends over at Painted Rock Campground just east of Saskatoon, had a much more impressive baby to watch.

A pair of Great Horned Owls had chosen to set up housekeeping at site 17 in the campground, an evergreen tree very close to the Kirk's house in what my brother Dale described as a pretty sad looking nest. These owls do not build their own nest  but rather lay claim to an abandoned crow or hawk nest - no wonder it's a shabby looking nest. To make sure they have squatter's rights to the nest, they get down to business a month or so ahead of other raptors, just in case a returning hawk might want his old address back.

Incubation period is about 35 days and hatching is in order of laying. Sometimes the last chick to hatch is out of luck if his bigger siblings shove him out of the way when lunch is being served, and ultimately he could end up eaten by his larger nest mates. The male delivers food to the female during incubation and brooding, but as the chicks grow and become more demanding, Momma has to go hunting, too, to keep up with their appetites. Marg (Dale's mother-in-law) says one of the campground residents who works nights, has spotted the owls swooping low over the pasture when he returns home at 4 a.m. Great Horned Owls are nocturnal and do their hunting at night, thus avoiding competition with daytime hunters like hawks.

Young owls, like the one pictured here, frequently move out of the nest on to nearby branches before they can fly. The fledging period takes about three months but even after they try their wings, the parents will continue delivering food for a few more weeks. Marg has photos of this little guy stretched out snoozing on the branch. He has to nap during the day so he's ready to eat when the pizza's delivered at night!

Tennessee Warbler

Tennessee Warbler fuels up at the oriole feeder on our deck. Margaret Madsen photo

If there were an award given to the most enthusiastic bird singer, the Tennessee Warbler must surely be in the running. He exuberantly whistles three notes followed by three higher pitched notes and ending with a long l-o-n-g staccato trill. I have to smile when I watch him sing because as he nears the end of his song, his v-notched tail vibrates with the effort of forcing the last air from his lungs to finish his trill.

John, on the other hand, is not so enamoured of this little singer because he has decided that the green ash outside our bedroom is the perfect place to launch into song and with our bedroom window open, his early morning caroling is enough to waken the soundest sleeper.

This is among the most drab of the warblers. He has an olive back, gray head, thin white eyebrow and white breast during breeding season. The female is duller with a more yellowy wash overall, perfect camouflage to blend in with the color of sunshine on leaves. In the fall, the male looks more like the female.

It was a thrill for me to see the first Tennessee Warbler of the spring stop to sip at the oriole feeder. It was a one-day only occurrence - he must have found a regular diet elsewhere in Naicam.

Purple Finch, yes! Grackle, boo and hiss!

Bright Purple Finches with sombre Juncoes and House Sparrows - 18 April 2011. Margaret Madsen photo

I don't greet every returning bird with the dance of joy. When I stepped outside yesterday morning, I was accosted with the loud gr-a-a--ck, gra-a-ack greeting from another of the birds on my black list - the Common Grackle. It was perched high in the birch tree, surveying the crowd of Dark-eyed Juncoes and sparrows congregated for breakfast. The noise it makes is almost as irritating as fingernails on a blackboard. It's one of the swaggering bullies of the bird world; when it decided to fly down to the feeder tray, all the smaller birds scurried out of its way.

Common Grackle at tray feeder. M.Madsen photo

We were unfortunate enough to have a pair nest in the spruce tree the last few summers and going outside to do a bit of weeding or check the flower beds was enough to bring on the loudest, angry harangue you'd want to hear. They've been known to snack on baby birds or eggs, but I think the most irritating thing about them is that they ruin so many fine evergreens by insisting on being king of the castle perched on the top leader of the tree, even newly planted little trees just starting out. They are relatively big birds and break off the top leader. In several places where we lived, they sorely tried my patience by damaging my attempts to establish evergreens in our yard.

The grackle appears black except when the light is right you see its iridescent purplish-blue head and purple and bronze on its body. It's the long, keel-shaped tail and the pale yellow eye that let you know you're seeing a grackle - and its long bill which it sticks in the air as it stomps about. When it's flying, it looks like is has twisted its tail sideways. Or as Alan Smith says in Saskatchewan Birds, its tail trails behind like a hatchet blade!

(Note: I had this ready to post April 20 but decided to join John and Roxy for their morning walk. Just outside the gate, I slipped on what was the last icy patch of spring and ended up with a broken hip and surgery.)

Song Sparrow sings spring

Dark-eyed Junco and Song Sparrow under the feeder. Margaret Madsen photo

Among the Dark-eyed Juncoes scratching under our feeders the other morning we spotted a friendly new face - the Song Sparrow! Welcome back! When you hear the happy lilting song of this cheerful little bird, you know spring has arrived - although this year you wonder if this really actually is spring because the snow keeps reappearing and it is still so darned cold!

Distinctive facial markings and centre spot on breast
identify Song Sparrow. M. Madsen photo.

The juncoes are just passing through but the Song Sparrow is probably here for the summer season. Male juncoes are dark slate grey and females a brownish grey overall, except for their lower parts - both look like they squatted in white paint. When they take flight, their white outer tail feathers are most obvious.

Unlike the junco that is instantly identifiable, one has to look twice at a Song Sparrow because it first looks like another "LBJ" - little brown job. But then you notice the heavy brown streaks on the light breast, the centre breast spot, the white throat, the dark "whisker" and "mustache" and the brown line through the eye, the white "eyebrow" and the dark crown with a pale line splitting it in half. As you can tell from the first photo, it is about the same size as the junco - and those wretched House Sparrows. This is our Saskatchewan version of the Song Sparrow. There are apparently about 30 different races of varying sizes and colorations.

Collared doves move to Naicam

Eurasian Collared Doves in our Naicam yard. Photo by Margaret Madsen 

Last week John and I were enjoying our morning coffee and the StarPhoenix at the kitchen table when he suddenly asked, "Hear that dove?"

I raced (well, actually lumbered) to the front step to hear better. Cuc coooo coo. Cuc cooo coo. I'd heard that before in Delisle - Eurasian Collared Doves. Unfortunately, we had to head off to Melfort that morning so we couldn't go searching for the birds. When we came back, we drove up and down a few back alleys checking for sight or sound but nothing. Next morning (April 9) I was again working on the crossword puzzle at the kitchen table, when I glanced up to notice a pair of collared doves pecking around in spilled seeds beneath the feeder, joining the crowd of Dark-eyed Juncoes, American Tree Sparrows and House Sparrows seeking breakfast. Since then, they have been back every morning checking out the diner. Because our kitchen window faces east, there is glare on the glass but this morning I managed to get a photo that's not too bad.

I contacted Dr. Stuart Houston and he said, yes, Naicam is a new town for the doves. Since their introduction to the Bahamas in 1974, they have slowly but surely been making their way up and across the continent.  One wonders about a species of bird that takes less that 40 years to colonize this much of the continent - will it one day be an unwelcome pest like the House Sparrow?

In 2003, I spotted the first of the species to reach Delisle - the Saskatoon area. The first pair took to hanging out in the back alley adjacent to the seniors' lodge and in short order, the doves' early morning cooing roused the ire of the residents who wanted to sleep late. John and I could hear their calls from at least a block away while inside our house with the windows closed.

*   *   *

And that reminds me of story about Buzzy. Remember Buzzy, the mayor of Hungry Hollow and the world's greatest jokester? According to the Moccasin Telegraph, Buzzy is in the dog house again. It seems our hero considers magpies to be varmints and hates them with a passion. Grace had the kitchen window open to let in some spring air but unfortunately it also let in the raucous noise of a magpie stomping around in their front yard.

Finally, Buzzy had enough. He was going to get that bird. He marched to the porch, loaded his gun, marched back to the kitchen, aimed through the window, fired - and shot through the glass. He hadn't noticed Grace had closed the window.

Magpie high rise...

Two-storey magpie nest. Clistine Fisher photo

Spring has finally reached Naicam. The crows are back and water in running in the streets - and into our basement! And this morning for the first time, the juncoes were back under the feeders. What a welcome sight! Also for the first time since we moved to Naicam, we had a squirrel in the yard dining under the feeders and on the tray feeder.

Recently I had an interesting email from my friend Clistine: "I told you about the magpies building a nest in the trees beside our driveway. Much to my surprise they didn't stop with the nest at the lower part but continued to construct what I called a second storey... Do you know if this is unusual? I have seen large nest but not quite like this one..."

Yikes, Clistine, you're right. That is a really tall nest. Apparently the actual cup shaped nest is near the bottom of that pile of sticks and the rest is all protective covering. Alan Smith in Saskatchewan Birds (published by Lone Pine) describes the magpie as an "exceptional architect" whose huge elaborate constructions last for years in the trees and may become nest sites for birds who don't build their own like merlins and owls. The structure of sticks is held together with mud and the domed compartment conceals eggs and young from predators and harsh weather.

Your magpies have probably included more than one secret entrance hole in that towering nest. I guess it takes a thief to know a thief - magpies prey on songbird eggs and nestlings.

... And the Chipping Sparrow

Chipping Sparrow   Photo courtesy Wikipedia

Because in my last posting I talked about American Tree Sparrows, this time I want to show you their look-alike cousins - Chipping Sparrows. And no, I haven't seen any Chipping Sparrows back yet, but the crows are flapping about town and we saw a Red-tailed Hawk swoop over the highway to Humboldt yesterday. The snow is finally starting to melt so maybe there is hope that spring will eventually come!

As you can see, the two species of sparrow share a common rusty orange cap, tweedy brown and black back and light underparts. What is missing on the Chipping Sparrow is the black tie-tack pinned in the centre of the Tree Sparrow's Chest. The "chipping" has a black line through its eye, accented by the white "eyebrow" above, more dramatic eye makeup than that of the "tree" with the rusty eye line.

 Speaking about the bright cap on the Chipping Sparrow reminds me of when my granddaughter Megan, then 10 and also living in Delisle, phoned me  to ask the name of the little brown bird with red on top of its head and a black line through his eye.

Red? Red head? Maybe a Purple finch, I suggested. She sounded uncertain, but since the bird had a nest low down in their neighbor's tree holding four light blue eggs with brownish spots, she wanted to know what it was. I suggested she come take a look through my guide books and she arrived a few minutes later on her bike. I pointed out the Purple Finch.

"That's not purple, Grandma. That's red," she said. "And that's not the red I mean. Like  a robin's breast, but brighter"

Ahh! Robin Red-breast of British poetry was confusing my granddaughter! While English Robin's indeed have a red breast, our American Robins have a rusty orange breast, and yet how often to we say our robin's are also red-breasted. It took Megan just a few moments to find the Chipping Sparrow in the guide book. There is something immensely satisfying about sharing my passion for birds with my grandchildren.

Last summer when I was sitting outside with my coffee I observed  pair of Chipping Sparrows making frequent trips from our yard to a cedar in an oak barrel planter at the neighbor's across the street. After seeing the same performance over several days, I suggested to Evvie that maybe they had a nest in her bush. We investigated and sure enough, their were four pin-feathered babies with mouths agape. The parents kept up their routine of coming to the smorg in our yard and delivering lunch across the street for another week or so and then one day I saw the four young ones lined up side by side on the edge of eaves trough above the cedar and knew they were finally about to go shopping for dinner on their own,

First sparrow back...

American Tree Sparrow Photo courtesy Wikipedia

I was delighted March 24 to look up from my lunchtime bowl of soup to see a bright rusty-headed sparrow in with the usual mob of House Sparrows under the feeders. My first thought was Chipping Sparrow at the sight of the red-brown cap (what the guide books call "rufous") but something wasn't quite right. No black line through the eye accented with a white eyebrow. Instead a gray face with a rufous line behind the eye. And then - aha - a black spot in the middle of the chest, the "stick pin" that screamed American Tree Sparrow.

It was so exciting to see our first migrant of the spring - they are the first of the sparrows to make the trek north. Well, what is supposed to be spring. It is still minus 20 when we got up this morning and if any snow has melted, it's not significant. But if the American Tree Sparrows are passing through on their way to their breeding grounds in the Arctic, then indeed there is hope others must be on their way as well and spring will come.

This is the first time we have noticed a tree sparrow at our feeders here in Naicam. I had not seen any since we left Delisle. I see from my"notebooks" that  it was April 2, 2004 that I saw my first American Tree Sparrows. A small flock of them were in and under the caragana windbreak at the north east corner of the field that became Delisle Golf Course. The snow was all gone that year and it was a lovely spring day when I was out walking Normie, our Schnauzer.

Jim Hay, in his article in Birds of the Saskatoon Area says that while "they show up in yards, they are more commonly found in trees along roadsides and in parks..." Their peak period of spring migration is from the last week in March to the end of April... the peak fall period is 25 September to 25 October.  "Like an enthusiastic party-goer, the Americn Tree Sparrow is the first to arrive and among the last to leave!" Hay writes.

So far only one tree sparrow has shown up in our yard - he was here again this morning. Maybe there is more of them over along the Rail Trail, keeping out of town? And the juncoes can't be far behind, can they?

Shorebird stubble bird

Long-billed Curlews. Courtesy Wikipedia

We were on one of our "Sunday drives" (April 26, 2000) when we came upon half a dozen most unusual birds to find strutting about in a stubble field dining on grasshoppers - Long-billed Curlews. It was the first time we had seen these duck-sized birds with spectacularly long, down curved bills. They are in fact the largest member of the Sandpiper family.

The female's bill is noticeably longer than the male's - up to eight inches - and with these chopsticks, they can pick up grasshoppers in the stubble or grass while still keeping an eye out for danger!  One of the nicknames given to them is "sickle bird," probably because they march along through the field or pasture, sweeping their bill side to side, like an old time farmer reaping  his crop.

We had a good look at them that day as they went about looking for breakfast. They are mottled brown and black on the back with buff underparts and a plain head. (The Whimbrel, which also has a long, down-curved bill has stripes on top of its head.) When something startled them they rose up shrieking "cur-lee, cur-lee," flashing cinnamon under their wings. When they settled back in the stubble, they just seemed to disappear, so good is their camouflage.

Like the Upland Sandpiper, they have suffered loss of habitat through agriculture. They nest on the ground and so their eggs at risk from badgers, weasels, magpies and crows and, if they think all's safe in a pasture, they are still in danger of being trod on by cattle. Their chicks take a long five weeks before they can fly so add hawks and heat to that list of dangers.

Incidentally, they have another nickname - the "candlestick bird" and not because they bear any resemblance to candlesticks. Years ago, during migration they congregated in large numbers at Candlestick Point in San Francisco. And yes, sports fans, that's where Candlestick Park Stadium inherited its name.

Sandpiper on a wire

Upland Sandpiper. Photo courtesy Wikipedia

Since moving back to Saskatchewan, John and I have twice been startled to find long-legged shore birds in the most unlikely places - balancing on a power line and dining in a stubble field! Both sightings occurred when we were out for a "Sunday drive."

On a warm sunny summer afternoon (Aug. 5/01) we set out to have a look at the Blackstrap recreation area south of Saskatoon. On a grid road near Dundurn, we were amazed to see what looked like a dove on stilts - perched on the power line. John had to back up so we could get a better look. What would a long-legged shore bird be doing there?

Upraised wings - Upland Sandpiper. Wikipedia photo

I had to get out of the truck for  better look with the binoculars - it was on John's "side." As soon as I stepped out of the truck, the bird lifted its wings directly over its back, balanced there, poised for flight. I stood perfectly still and it slowly lowered its wings. I recognized the upraised wing pose from books and knew I was seeing an upland Sandpiper.

The small head in proportion to the body is what gave us the impression of a dove and its round, dark eyes seemed enormous. The Peterson guide book aptly described them as "shoe button eyes." It had a thin neck, short bill, and was light underneath with a mottled brown tweed back and longish barred tail and yellow legs.

Upland Sandpipers were once one of the commonest birds on the prairie, according to Stuart Houston in Birds of the Saskatoon Area, but were hunted excessively late in the 19th Century and then when European settlers arrived, their nesting habitat was destroyed with the introduction of grain farming. They face many natural hazards, including a difficult migration of 8,000 miles to South America where they are still hunted and served as a restaurant delicacy.

Next time I'll tell you about the shorebirds we saw wading in the stubble.

From Coast to Coast...

We saw a Black Oystercatcher on the West Coast.... Photo courtesy Wikipedia

What - will this winter never end? While waiting for spring and birds to return to the Prairies, I've been transcribing my notebooks to my computer and when this gets too tedious, I graze randomly through bird books or birding sites on the internet.

When I came upon this picture of the American Black Oystercatcher, I was instantly transported to the West Coast. A few years ago, while visiting our friends Kel and Norma at Gibson's on the Sunshine Coast, we went for a drive to Sechelt and on the way, stopped at a number of birding sites. On the rocks at the water's edge, we saw this all-dark largish wading bird with a fantastic orange-red, heavy, slightly flattened bill, and its peculiar yellow eye ringed with red. I recognized it instantly as an Oystercatcher because in all my bird guide books it appears on the same page as my favorite wading bird, the elegant American Avocet.

Atlantic Puffin  on the East Coast...
Photo courtesy Wikipedia

It has to have a thick tough bill because it uses it to pry open mollusk shells and to probe in the sand for crabs and worms. Since the entire world population of Black Oystercatchers is estimated at less than 10,000, I was delighted to see it.

And speaking of unusual bills, take a look at the Atlantic Puffin. When John started planning a Maritime vacation to connect with his relatives and friends and retrace his family roots, I begged for a chance to track down an Atlantic Puffin. Now why would a prairie born and bred gal be interested in a puffin? The cover of Peterson Field Guides' Western Birds edition has a Tufted Puffin on the cover and these cartoon-like birds have always fascinated me.

We visited his relatives first and I polled all of them about puffins. Not one had ever seen a puffin. My darling husband, however, did find a way for me to see puffins. We drove to the Eastern side of Cape Breton and and took a boat tour to what was called the Bird Islands out in the Atlantic. There, near the tops of rocky cliffs, we came upon a colony of Atlantic Puffins nesting with Razorbills, Black Guillemots, Kittiwakes and other gulls.

I had expected Puffins to be big birds. In photos, they look like they must be the size of Penguins. Nope. They are about the size of a robin but fatter - 10-11 inches long. They look like mini-torpedoes when they are flying. Their orange bills and orange legs are conspicuous. The black eye-liner markings around their eyes gives them a comic cartoon appearance.

They nest in burrows on the rocky cliffs. The only time they are on land is during nesting season. The rest of the time they are way out in the ocean - their powerful wings are adapted for swimming and they use their feet for rudders. They even mate at sea.

When they come ashore to nest, the male digs out the burrow or cleans out an existing one. The female lays only one egg and both parents take turns incubating it. When the egg hatches in 40 or so days, they share the feeding responsibilities. Adaptations of their big beaks help them carry up to a dozen little fish at a time. Their tongue holds the fish against the spines in their palate.

Pair of Atlantic Puffins. Photo from Wikipedia

When we were there, we were told that the parents force feed the youngster at the end of the nesting tunnel, making the baby grow fatter and fatter until he is too fat to get out through the tunnel. The parents then abandon him/her and fly back out to sea. By the time the baby has lost enough weight to fit through the tunnel, he is old enough and strong enough to fledge on his own, and takes his solitary flight to freedom.

Wikipedia says that contrary to popular belief, the chick is not abandoned by its parents. So who do you believe? I found the abandoned baby story somehow very touching and the most extreme case of tough love!

And a bit more trivia for you. The Puffin is a member of the Auk family. And did you know it is the provincial bird of Newfoundland and Labrador?

Evolution of a birdwatcher

My darling John was not always the happy birdwatcher he is today. In fact, not long ago he was definitely the Reluctant Birdwatcher. I was in the habit, as we drove along the highway, of muttering the names of ducks we saw in the slough or hawks on power poles or birds flitting by. He retaliated by muttering the brand names of tractors or combines in the fields or even of cars we met.

Then came the infamous black-and-white ditchbird incident. April 15, 2003 (according to my memo book glove compartment records) we were en route to visit Karl and Yvonne with our older grandchildren (Cameron, Megan and Ian) along. The kids were helping me watch for birds and were on the outlook for other wildlife. I recorded sighting a herd of Pronghorn antelope west of Tessier, SK, and then another between Oyen and Youngstown in eastern Alberta.

Somewhere on the road between those two antelope sightings, John mumbled, "Black and white ditchbird."

"What did you say?" I asked.

"Did you see that black and white ditchbird?"

"What do you mean - ditchbird? You mean a magpie? A magpie is black and white."

"No, no. It's taller than a magpie. Tall and skinny. It's a ditchbird. Just keep watching. There's quite a few along here."

By this time, the kids were intrigued and anxious to catch a glimpse of Grandpa's fabulous bird. As the miles zipped by, they kept up their watch and I flipped through the field guide. What tall black and white bird could be possibly be talking about?

"There's one just ahead," he called suddenly.

"Where?" we all cried.

"Grandpa, do you mean that black and white post in the ditch?" one of the kids asked.

"That's it," John said. "A black and white ditchbird."

The kids laughed and I whacked John with the bird book. Ditchbird, indeed.

And what's worse, I wrote it down in my memo book! And so in transcribing my records to the computer program Karen set up for me, I found there isn't  slot to enter "ditchbird."

This reminds me of an old woman we met in Wetaskawin years ago when Karl was a baby. When we were moving to the town between Edmonton and Red Deer, John's mom wrote from New Brunswick asking us to look up an old school friend of hers she hadn't seen for decades. At 80+, the old gal was still an avid hockey fan - this was the era before colored TV and when there were only eight teams in the NHL. She showed us the school scribbler in which she kept detailed records about every team and for every player there were columns headed G, A, P and F. That was Goals, Assists, Penalties and the last one, F? That was Fights.

She kept her records because it added another dimension of fun to her TV game watching and that's why I keep my bird records. It's just fun. Maybe I need an "F" column on my computer to transcribe the ditzy things like John's ditchbird and Fay's eagle.

Kill-dee, kill-dee, killdeer

Hey, the sun is a plus on this cold March day! Margaret Madsen photo

I ended my last blog mentioning Killdeers in March in the Okanagan. This was rather depressing since the mercury again dipped down to minus 30 overnight here in Naicam and the possibility of seeing Killdeer here anytime soon is very remote! So once again, this photo taken yesterday has nothing to do with what I plan to ramble on about today - i.e. Killdeer.

I love hearing chickadees calling their name, but believe me, I am ready to hear Killdeer doing the same. I'm sure it will come come as no surprise when I tell you that that the scientific name for Killdeer is  Charadrius vociferus. How appropriate because this very vocal bird calls constantly as it dips and swoops over the fields.

The Killdeer is probably the best known of all "broken wing" birds for feigning injury in order to draw predators away from its nest. The first time I saw a Killdeer pretending to be injured is now more than 60+ years ago when I was a young child, but it still is vivid in my mind. "Ooh, poor bird" was my reaction and I ran after it, trying to catch it. When it would pause, seemingly to rest from its struggle to escape me, I would pounce and it would leap out of the way and stagger on calling pathetically, dragging its wing, luring me further and further from its nest. When it suddenly leapt into the air wing, miraculously healed, I felt duped and vowed next time to look for the nest and not be fooled.

Actually, it was many, many years later that I did see a Killdeer's nest. Our daughter Karen was exercising her horse in the riding ring when, on making her first diagonal across the ring, she said that a Killdeer suddenly materialized from the sand and challenged her horse. The bird puffed itself up and ran at the horse with threatening determination. From her seat in the saddle, she spotted the nest and called to us to come see.

The nest was simply a small, shallow depression in the sand, neatly tiled with tiny pebbles. Four sand colored eggs mottled with brown rested on the pebbles. They were so well camouflaged that we could have walked by dozens of times without seeing the nest or its contents. Karl pounded in four wooden stakes to mark its location and warn riders and tractors dragging harrows to avoid the spot.

The bird books say incubation is 24 to 28 days and all the eggs hatch within hours of one another. Apparently the babies being peeping inside the shells several hours before they hatch and they listen to the sounds their parents make. Both mom and dad take turns sitting on the nest.

When the young hatched in the riding ring, they were fuzzy ping pong balls of sand-colored fluff on toothpick legs. When they ran from spot to spot, they really looked like balls rolling. But the instant a parent gave the alarm cry, they would freeze and shut their bright dark eyes and magically, they would disappear. It was uncanny how well camouflaged they were.

Winter in March

Cold, wind, snow - in March - yuck! Margaret Madsen photo

There's something wrong with this picture. March is more wintery than January this year. I remember saying, in balmy January, "If this is winter, we can't complain." In the middle of this stormy day, even the skittery sparrows don't care if I am at the window with my camera. They are cold and hungry and just want to eat.

While John was out filling the feeders, the little Downy Woodpecker arrived for breakfast, landing as usual in the birch tree.  I was watching from the kitchen window,  dishtowel in hand instead of camera, as the woodpecker stretched and bobbed his head left and right, checking out the strange creature invading his usual feeding space. John is accustomed to having the chickadees chatter at him, urging him to hurry and get on with the job, but the woodpecker's whistling whinny was a new voice, giving him heck. The little bird dropped down branch by branch, keeping up his his scolding chatter. The red patch on the back of his head seemed to flare larger as he ordered John away from the feeder. The moment John rehung the feeder and turned away, the bossy little bird  bounced down and was clinging to the wire frame, hammering at the suet.

While it is too cold to actually go outside birding, I am amusing myself at the computer transcribing data from the little notebooks I keep in the car, in the kitchen and with my binoculars to record bird sightings. When I have all the information - species, date, location, habitat, number, comments, etc. - fed into my computer, I should be able to sort the lists several ways. If I want to know what birds I have seen in March in past years, for example, I will sort by that.

Unfortunately, I just picked up a notebook from 1998, the last spring we lived in the Okanagan, and on March 10, there was a pair of killdeer in our small north paddock. Oh dear. I wonder how long until I see the killdeer here at the edge of town?

Trayful of sparrows.  Margaret Madsen photo

Baby it's cold...

Sunrise over frozen slough east of Naicam. John Madsen photo

According to the TV weatherman, March 1 this year was the coldest beginning of the month since the record for cold was set in 1916! Hearing statistics like that certainly doesn't make me feel any warmer! The official first day of spring may be less than three weeks away, but the grim forecast says we will sit in this deep freeze at least until then! 

Looking out my kitchen window today, I see that Monday's blizzard and yesterday's wind have reshaped the landscape. John took this photo out the window this morning when the temperature was minus 34 and the windchill minus 42.

To console myself, I'm sharing another picture with you of the same wrought iron hook, here holding something much warmer - orange and black oriole sitting on an orange on a black hook.

Orioles love oranges! Margaret Madsen photo

Now isn't that better?

Why do you suppose orioles are attracted to the color orange? We have an oriole nectar feeder that is orange plastic and the very day we hung it on the front deck, an oriole visited.

Have you noticed that Ruby-throated Hummingbirds are attracted to the color red (matching their flashy bib)? And Hummingbird feeders have red, not orange, on them. Is this merely coincidence? The hummingbirds did drink from the oriole feeder and I've seen them grazing happily in my orange nasturtiums so who knows? I once read that insects, necessary for pollination, are attracted to the color yellow which might explain why so many flowers have yellow centres where the pollen and nectar are located.

The discussion of birds and color does open the question of a bird's vision. We all know that birds have much sharper vision than humans. I doubt that even the bionic man could see a mouse a mile away but raptors can. And did you know that mouse urine shows up in ultraviolet light and that certain raptors can see the ultraviolet dribble trails left by mice, and when they see a concentration of urine trails, they know where to watch for mouse activity.

Birds that are active during the day have two to five times as many color receptors (cones)  as humans. They also have oil droplets in their cones which apparently sharpens color reception and reduces glare. Nocturnal birds have more rods than cones for night vision. (Again my "trivia" comes from The Sibley Guide to Bird Life and Behavior put out by the National Audubon Society.)

I highly recommend The Sibley Guide for trivia lovers as well as bird enthusiasts. You can open any page and find fascinating trivia in the captions to Sibley's fantastic drawings. For example, page 323, illustration of mourning dove feeding young in nest. "For the first 10 days or so after columbid young hatch, the parents feed them 'crop milk,' a substance that is secreted by the wall of the crop."

Fascinating! When it's too cold to go out, there's nothing like a book for company and it looks like for the next few weeks, Sibley and I will be close friends!

Winter tidbits

Downy Woodpecker in birch tree. Margaret Madsen photo.

Our world was bathed in an amber glow when the sun came up this morning about 7:50, but the only thing warm was the color. The mercury is stuck at the bottom of the thermometer, the wind is gusty and the wind chill scary.

The male Downy Woodpecker has set up a regular time to visit us. He's here every day between 11 and 12 and always arrives the same way. He lands first in the birch tree and carefully surveys the feeders, stretching up to get a better view. He elongates himself to about twice his height and looks so long and skinny, almost the same length as a Hairy Woodpecker. When he decides everything looks safe, he exhales back to his regular height, his body plumps out again and then he dips in for the suet.

When he was doing his inspection yesterday, the sunlight caught the red patch on the back of his head and for a moment, it glowed with jewel-like brilliance, the color of garnets. Isn't it amazing how, in the right light, certain feathers burst into dazzling flashes of color?

Even the much aligned magpie, another tough, resilient winter bird, can display breath-taking beauty. Don't we all cherish those moments when the sunlight catches the black and white bird at just the right angle and suddenly it is transformed into iridescent purple and green?

"Chickadees are cold weather machines" is the headline of an article in the spring issue of Nature Views, published by Nature Saskatchewan. Black-capped Chickadees lower their body temperatures at night to conserve energy. This nightly hypothermia is the chickadee's most remarkable tool for survival, according the American biologist Susan M. Smith who has studied them for years. In the article, she explains that this tough little bird with its dense winter coat also carefully hides food items and finds special cavities to roost in at night.

The article doesn't say anything about the chickadee's good nature. Don't you think they are the most happy-go-lucky cheerful birds in the winter landscape? Wish I was as cheerful with the forecast that this cold weather will drag on!

Swan song

Tundra Swans near Naicam, April 17, 2010. John Madsen photo

February is definitely a cruel month. The last few days have been bitterly cold with the mercury shriveled to the bottom of the thermometer while a week earlier we were teased by temperatures above freezing for enough days to make us think it was winter's swan song.

Speaking of swans, last spring John and I came upon a flock of over 100 Tundra Swans on a slough just northeast of Naicam. It was the largest number we had seen at one time, although I understand the largest flock recorded was 20,000 at Goose Lake near Tessier in 1973, according to Alan R. Smith in the Atlas of Saskatchewan Birds. That must have been spectacular.

When I say these swans are on a slough, I am exaggerating. It's the flooded corner of a field. When we went back a couple of months later, the crop was up and flourishing and it was hard to believe that swans had ever gathered there. About five years ago, a rapid spring thaw created mini-lakes on either side of the Anaheim access road off Highway 5 where a flock of about 30 stayed to forage for several days. After the water dried up, it was the same amazement. The water must have been less that a foot deep and yet the swans liked it!

All the flooded potholes across the prairies must be the fast-food outlets for these magnificent birds making their way from the eastern coast of the USA to north of the Arctic Circle. I keep a notebook in the glove compartment to record birds sighted on outings, and looking back I see that en route to BC on April 14, we saw swans west of Humboldt, at Laura west of Delisle, at Sibbald just inside the Alberta boarder, west of Hannah and west of Beiseker and the next morning, at Lac Des Arcs near the Banff park entrance. Number of birds at each of these sightings ranged from five or six to 20 or 30, nowhere near the size of the flock we saw last year.

The swans were all strung out in a long line on the far side of the "slough". We sat in the car with the windows down, watching and listening to the birds chattering. A pair of Lesser Scaups feeding nearby looked impossibly tiny. Then we heard a delicate whistling and three swans came in for a landing near us. The whistling sound is made by their wings, not their voices, and gives them the name by which they were once known, Whistling Swans.

When the fly overhead, it's their cooing calls that makes you look up to see the long undulating ribbon of birds. They have all white plumage with black legs, feet and bills, and usually a yellow spot in front of the eye. The plumage of the sexes is the same.

Not cross - but crossed

White-winged Crossbill at Prince Albert feeder. Linda Clavelle photo

My sister Linda discovered this little guy at her feeder the other morning just north of Prince Albert. Her first reaction was that she was looking at a Pine Grosbeak, but then she noticed the short, stubby tail. What confused her, she said, was that she couldn't see that the bill was actually crossed. Spotting the feature that give the bird its name is never as easy as the field guides make it seem. Even in this great photo that Linda took through her dining room window, the crossed bill is not readily apparent even though the photo is enlarged almost to the point of pixilating.

There are two crossbills which occasionally show up at our feeders in winter: the
Red Crossbill which has no white on its wings and the White-winged Crossbill which is more pink than red in color and has white showing on its wings. The Red has a much larger bill and eats seeds from pines while the White-winged's smaller, finer bill is perfect for extracting seeds from tamaracks and spruce cones.

Both incidentally are members of the finch family and they are the only birds in the world with truly crossed bills, according to The Sibley Guide to Bird Life & Behavior. The Purple Finch and House Finch are other related "red" birds in this area and appear to be much smaller than the White-winged. The difference in over-all length is not much. A House Finch averages about 5.75 inches; Purple Finch, 6 inches; and White-Winged 6.5 inches. The stocky body and stubby tail, however, give the impression that the White-winged much bigger than the other two.

Hairy or Downy?

Downy Woodpecker at our Naicam feeder, Feb. 12, 2011. Margaret Madsen photo

We have no trouble telling Hairy and Downy Woodpeckers apart when they visit our feeders. The Downy guys at about 6 inches (15-18 cms) fit on our small barn feeder with the suet holders at the ends, but the poor gangly Hairy Woodpeckers (9 inches) have an awful time clinging to the feeder to attack the suet. You can see that even this Downy has to skew  his tail to the side to brace himself at the feeder.

Both species have almost identical black and white markings and the males both have bright red spots at the back of their heads. It's hard to see the red on the male pictured here. When you see one or the other by itself out in the woods, it's difficult to tell through your binoculars whether you're looking at a Hairy or a Downy. If both species show up at the same time on the same tree, there's no guesswork because you can see the relative difference in size. This has actually happened for me twice in my life - once years ago in BC when we lived on a wooded acreage and once when we lived in Delisle and went on an outing with Saskatoon Nature Society to Blackstrap Provincial Park.

There is another way to tell them apart. Check the bill. The Downy has a short bill while the Hairy's bill is as long as his head. Both bills are strong, straight and chisel shaped so they don't get jammed in the wood when they are excavating Both also have the nasal "whisker" feathers to screen sawdust when they're working.

Both have two toes pointing forward and two back to help them cling to trees and strong, stiff central tail feathers to help prop them up.

When you hear the rat-a-tat-tat sound of a woodpecker beating on wood, it's doing one of three things: excavating a nest, foraging for food or "drumming." They "drum" to attract a mate or to announce their territory and incidentally, both males and females drum. They choose the most resonant "drum" available whether it's a dead tree or a power pole or a metal chimney or the siding on your house!

And here's piece of trivia for you. While all woodpeckers have long, sticky, barbed tongues, the female Downy's tongue is much longer than the male's - she probes and he pecks. And so where do these long tongues go when they retract? Into a channel that curves around the back of the skull and up over the eyes. Is that too much information?

About feeders and chickadees

Chickadee perched on Karl's feeder. Karl Madsen/Yvonne Koenig photo

In a recent blog I got talking about Evening Grosbeaks and forgot to tell you about Karl's feeders. This is just one of a number scattered about their yard and each is more interesting than the last. All are made from recycled materials or scraps of wood from other projects and each is embellished with his trademark bent rusty nail.

As I said the other day, this is the feeder just outside their kitchen window right against the narrow deck along the side of the house. Their unique home is notched into the side of a steep hill. My favorite place to spend time is in a chair on this deck where I have choice of a close up view of visitors to the feeder, a mid-range view of activity in the Ponderosa pines or spruce across the driveway and a more distant view of activity on the valley floor - pheasants and killdeer, for example. The whitish space on the lower left of the photo is the neighbor's roof and beyond that (not visible) the railway track and road and then the pasture at the valley bottom.

On the wooden fence enclosing the courtyard outside their dining room, Karl has set  up special feeders that attract hordes of California Quail with the distinctive black comma jutting from their foreheads. They seem to prefer walking or running to flying and have their little trails all over the property.

I've seen two sparrows at this feeder that don't come to ours in Naicam - the White-crowned and the Golden-crowned. Our daughter-in-law calls the White-crowned the "bicycle helmet birds" for indeed their striped black and white heads do make them look like they are wearing bicycle helmets!

The chickadee perched on top of the feeder here is the Black-capped which is our usual visitor, too. A more occasional visitor at the Okanagan feeders is the Mountain Chickadee which has a white eyebrow separating its black cap from the black eyeline that looks like a mask.

The chickadee visiting Kristin and Peter's feeder when they lived in Kentucky was the Carolina Chickadee which looks very much like our Black-capped but lacks the white stripes on the wing. It also sounded different to my ear - as if it had a southern accent. It said chick-dah-dah-y'all.

I've seen the brown-capped Boreal Chickadees at Emma Lake and at my brother Alvin's near Olds, AB. So far I have not seen them here in Naicam.

Swallow tales

Mixed flock of Purple Martins and Swallows on anentena in Naicam last fall. Margaret Madsen photo

There are two kinds of people in the world: those who build up and those who tear down.

A number of years ago when we were in Holland, we met our son-in-law Tony's uncle, Bernard, a Catholic monk or brother. The monastery where he lived was in a beautiful park area that included an operating farm which also served as a retreat/summer camp for young people. Brother Bernard was in charge of the little herd of dairy cattle. While showing us around the farm, he paused to add water to a small puddle beside the barn. By keeping the mud damp, he was assisting a pair of Barn Swallows building their nest. These avian engineering architects use mud to affix their adobe-like nests to perpendicular surfaces. St. Francis of Assisi would have definitely approved of Brother Bernard.

Then there was the unfortunate pair of swallows who chose to build their nest above the bedroom window of the old couple who lived one door down across the street. From my favorite perch on our front steps, I had watched for several days as the energetic little birds flitted back and forth from a mud puddle at the intersection toting tiny beaksful of mortar to glue to their nest.

My heart was in my throat when the cleaning lady who comes regularly to help the old couple decided to wash the outside windows. I saw her hesitate about the nest over the window, then ignore it and go on with washing glass. I called my thanks to her and she just laughed and shrugged. "Well, they worked so hard and and it's not hurting anything there," she said.

Shortly after, the old couple's daughter and son-in-law came from out of province for a visit and to help with some yard work. First thing they did was knock down the nest and wash the remnants of mud from the siding.

Like I said, some people build up and some knock down.

Okay, okay, before you get your shirt in a knot, I can understand that Barn Swallows nesting over your bedroom window might get a bit messy, especially if there is a wind blowing houseward while there's bathroom business underway from the lip of the nest.

Almost every summer after we built the new barn in BC, Barn Swallows chose to set up housekeeping on the first rafter inside the west door. We always left the west doors at least partially open in the summer to allow whatever cooling breeze might be coming up from the lake. The swallows certainly didn't bother us, although for those weeks after the chicks hatched and until they left the nest, one had to be sure not to walk directly under the nest but to detour around the pile of droppings that accumulated on the floor beneath it. A surprise deposit in one's hair was not pleasant.

More Pine Grosbeaks

Juvenile Pine Grosbeak. Photo by Linda Clavelle

My sister Linda contributed today's photos of a rusty-colored juvenile Pine Grosbeak at the feeder outside her dining room window in the pines just north of Prince Albert. Isn't it amazing how a bit of bright color on a bird can be such a treat for our color-hungry winter eyes?

At our feeders this winter, our regular visitors are Black-capped chickadees, House Sparrows and Common Redpolls. This morning, there were several Hoary Redpolls hopping around under the feeder, too. The Hoary guys have white rumps/lower backs, fewer streaks on the sides and are lighter looking overall as though they were coated with hoar frost. We seem to have far more Common Redpolls than the frosty kind.

Redpolls, incidentally, are closely related to Pine Grosbeaks and Crossbills.

Another bird with a red badge of courage at our winter feeder occasionally is the Hairy Woodpecker. The male has a red spot on the back of his head that seems to blink like a traffic signal. The female is just black and white. I get a kick out of watching a Hairy try to get at sunflower seeds in the tower feeder, clinging to a roost post on one side while stretching around to hammer at seeds in an opening on the adjacent side.

My friend Clistine called me the other day to tell me about magpie doing the same thing at their feeder. She said it had to flail its wings wildly to keep its balance. She said this reminded her of me saying that I thought magpies were the inspiration was garden whirligigs with their wooden wings that rotate like propellors.