A Pile of Intrigue

This past fall we had several northern flickers migrate to or through our backyard. While flickers are year-round residents here, we usually see an influx in the fall. Seeing multiple flickers land in the yard and start probing for insects is one of the joys of fall.

eBird map of yellow-shafted northern flicker for June and July (http://ebird.com/map)

eBird map of yellow-shafted northern flicker for October through December (http://ebird.com/map)

We also have a lot of hawks moving through in the fall and occasionally they will take a bird in the yard. One day we found this pile of feathers in the lawn, a sure sign someone, probably a Cooper's hawk, had taken a flicker and started removing the feathers. While sad that there is one less flicker around, this is the circle of life and it allows another bird to continue living.

 

It is quite interesting to see what must be the belly feathers with the dark spots on the ends and how loose and fluffy they are compared to the more commonly found flight feathers.

And speaking of flight feathers. There were several of those here too. What we found really interesting was that not all of them had the yellow-shaft that the local yellow-shafted race (https://www.allaboutbirds.org/guide/Northern_Flicker/id). There is a red-shafted race common in the western US but those have all red. In the field guides they will show intergrades where the two races mate but those tend to be orangeish in color. So what causes the mix and red and yellow?

A mix of red-shafted and yellow-shafted feathers from the same bird 

Some internet searching led us to an article by David Sibley in Bird Watching magazine where he talks about the various color forms of northern flickers. This mix of colors apparently stems from the birds eating non-native Asian honeysuckle berries while growing in the feathers that are red. The birds can process most carotenoids to make yellow (for the yellow-shafted) but they are unable to properly process something in the honeysuckle so it always produces red. 

Quite an interesting tidbit about these fascinating birds and another example of how non-native species can bring new chemicals and conditions into an ecosystem that the local populations aren't able to properly handle. At least this time, it seems to have a pretty neutral impact.

Note: it is illegal in the US to collect wild bird feathers. The above feathers were only brought together for the photographs.

Christmas Bird Count

 Again this year my wife and I led a sector count for our local Christmas Bird Count organized by the National Audubon Society. We have been doing the count for about a decade now and most of that time in the same sector. The stops are familiar but every year we adjust the order based on the weather to try and maximize the species and individuals encountered. Some years it is really warm and we visit the wooded areas first to get the song birds as they wake up. Other years we head to the Bay front to get early morning movements out to the feeding areas and return to the woodlands later once the birds have had a chance to warm up. And a couple of times we have been really limited by heavy fog keeping our viewing range down and the birds grounded.

This year the weather was about average; warm enough to be comfortable walking but cool enough that returning to the car or coffee shop were quite welcomed. We also had a newish birder join us for her first Christmas count. She is a fellow Master Naturalist so we knew each other.

The day felt kind of hit or miss with a few stops being very productive and several feeling slow. But that might be the way it normally is and we only remember the highlights and not the slow stops. All told we ended up recording 59 species and 3861 individuals. There isn't a lot of variation in habitat in the sector so that's a good number. In the past several years we have been in the mid-50s for species count.

Some of the highlights include a couple of boat-tailed grackles flying overhead at our second stop. We usually have to wait and hope for them in the grocery store parking lot when we break for lunch. Good to see them early and in "real" habitat. That stop also had an osprey soaring overhead. They are infrequent in winter but our sector is probably the most likely spot for a December spotting around here. 

There is one spot on the beach overlooking the Chesapeake Bay that the gulls like to hang out at. There are several break walls along the beach and just one of those coves hold about 95% of the gulls on the beach. Not sure why the like that one and not the others, but it's been consistent for as long as we have been coming here in winter. This is where we see lesser black-backed gulls on some counts. We found  at least 5 in with 750 ring-billed gulls and a few of other gull species. Wouldn't be surprised if there were a few more but everyone was moving around. 

Lesser Black-backed Gull with a lot of Ring-billed Gulls

In the past, the lessers have shown bright yellow legs that make it easy to identify (the slightly lighter dark back is sometimes hard to be confident with in the glary light). But several of these looked pink to dirty yellow. Some investigation in Sibley's after returning home confirmed they are still lessers and juveniles. Good to learn something new.

At the same stop we saw around 800 red-breasted mergansers fly by in a couple of very large groups. There were also a large group of double crested cormorants sitting and feeding on the water. We sometimes se large numbers moving out the James River to the Bay but this is a first that I remember seeing them all sitting on the water so close to shore.  This was definitely one of the good stops this year.

The next stop included some open fields where we found some very pretty eastern meadowlarks showing off with great views of them facing us. I hadn't carried along my camera and by the time I got it, they were moving parallel to us so not a photogenic. But any bit of bright yellow in winter is a good find.

Eastern Meadowlarks

We also saw nine great blue herons all standing in a row on an island in the small marshy bay (called Mill Creek for some reason as it doesn't seem to flow in from anywhere and I can't imagine there being enough flow to run any sort of mill).

We didn't see much at the far end of the sea wall looking over the bay but did pick up a few surf scoters and horned grebes that we didn't see anywhere else.

After lunch we stopped by a small park on Mill Creek that generally has a lot of pelicans, gulls, and cormorants sitting on an old pier and buffleheads swimming in the water. Although the walk to the pier is about 40 ft, it took us 15 minutes to get there from the car. We were mesmerized by an American kestrel putting on a show for us right overhead.

It was hovering/hunting for a while right in front of us and then decided to perch on this telephone pole for a couple of minutes. After a rest, it took off and was hovering along side us. It dropped down a couple of times but never dove to the ground and caught anything. Eventually it flew off and we continued on to the old pier to see the expected birds. But quite the show for us.

Finally, we had prioritized a marina we always visit towards the end of the day. It is often getting dark or we are exhausted by the time we get here. It offers not a lot of new and unusual species but it has better and more varied habitat than the more urban park and built-up beach that we usually do first and only provides rock pigeons, gulls, and starlings. And it was a good move as we saw 19 species there. This included a pair of belted kingfishers hunting from the boat masts and a row of 11 killdeer all sitting on a private dock across the creek. Just sitting there. Another unexpected sight for the day. 

We did stop and count the 75 pigeons and 200 ring-billed gulls at the beach. Surprisingly, no starlings. But don't worry, we saw plenty earlier in the day. But it felt much better doing that after the nice experience at the marina. 

Once again we had a fun and productive day on the count and provided more useful data on the changing bird populations and distributions. For example, the lesser black-back gulls were quite the amazing find the first year we found them. Now, only a handful of years later, they are almost expected. 

.