Participate in the North American Migration Count!

For many birders, the hobby of birding is at its best in the springtime.  While you head out into the field, the observer of the changing landscape with all its fresh, different sights, there will be transient birds migrating through, new residents staking out territory, early breeders busy at their nests, and winter visitors moving on north.  This is clearly one of the best times to survey the vast numbers of bird life on this continent and make a useful contribution to science.  This is the idea behind the North American Migration Count—which is held on the second Saturday of May.  Although this date falls later than the peak of spring migration for the Southeast, there should still be plenty of migrating birds moving through.  Migration counts may be conducted by teams of birders or individuals, but each count area must be confined to a single county.  All wild birds within the count area may be included in the tally, and the counting procedure is very simple and straightforward—like that of the Christmas Bird Count.

I was a teenager when I first participated in the North American Migration Count.  The Oktibbeha Audubon Society asked me to survey a route in the southeastern part of the county.  My dad and I headed out on our route at about 9:30 a.m., hitting the Bluff Lake levee first to tally any herons, egrets or songbirds that crossed over into Oktibbeha County.  The morning was warm and muggy but full of birds.  Very quickly we picked up Acadian Flycatcher, Common Yellowthroat, Yellow-throated Warbler, Great Crested Flycatcher, Eastern Kingbird, Prothonotary Warbler, White-eyed Vireo, Indigo Bunting and many other species in the woods, including a Ruby-throated Hummingbird feeding from Trumpet Creeper blossoms.  We heard a Fish Crow and also counted many egrets flying overhead, a couple of Wood Ducks, and one Great Blue Heron, which surprisingly, would turn out to be our only one all day.  Just as we were leaving the area, I glimpsed a group of three large birds flying high overhead—White Ibises.

Prothonotary Warbler

We drove a little down the road, looking and listening for some of the forest species such as Red-eyed and Yellow-throated Vireo, Pileated Woodpecker, Eastern Wood-Pewee and Yellow-billed Cuckoo.  By now our list was around 40 species.  There were good numbers of singing Yellow Warblers, and I could make out two Northern Parulas trilling close by.  As we got out to walk a trail that cut through the woods, there was a harsh chittering overhead, which alerted us to about two dozen Chimney Swifts circling.  These were probably natural-nesting swifts, choosing a hollow tree over a manmade chimney.

The woods were mostly deciduous, with tall pines mixed in here and there.  There were also many deep puddles of muddy water from a recent rainfall.  Pine Warblers, chickadees, titmice, towhees, and vireos noisily proclaimed their territories in the dense woods, seeming almost indignant at us traipsing through their home.  I accidentally flushed a Cooper’s Hawk from its roost.  It flew away, disturbing the singing birds for a few minutes.  I heard White-breasted Nuthatches in the distance and saw a pair of Summer Tanagers in the trees.  Bird songs were not all that we heard:  Gray Treefrogs were also making their presence known in the forest with low-pitched croaks.

Cooper's Hawk

I had just commented to my dad on the odd absence of Kentucky Warblers, when one in a thicket burst emphatically into song.  A Hooded Warbler added its short, eight-syllable whistle to the other sounds of the forest, while wrens and skinks scuttled through the thickets and leaf litter, the wrens putting in a word now and then, unlike the lizards!  There was a creek by this trail where we were likely to find Louisiana Waterthrushes, and in the trees near it, American Redstarts.  Unfortunately, neither species showed up for us, and eventually we moved on, making a mental note to come back to the trail later. 

We went up Oktoc Road for more counting.  The habitat here was mostly thickets, fields and pastures, with scattered trees, which meant a whole new group of species for us.  Bluebirds and kingbirds perched on the wires; grackles and blackbirds foraged in the pastures.  We were able to add Red-headed Woodpeckers and many more Cattle Egrets to the tally.  Eastern Meadowlarks, Orchard Orioles, Barn Swallows and Purple Martins also put in appearances.  Overhead, there were vultures, Red-tailed Hawks and a Green Heron that flew from a small pond.  A little farther down the road, I heard a loud ringing song coming from a thicket—a Swainson’s Warbler.  I listened to the recording on my audio field guide back in the car; no doubt about it:  the song was a Swainson’s Warbler’s.  Since this is a fairly scarce bird, I wrote down the location, including the mailbox number, and we headed on.

We came to a place down the road where mixed forest grew on one side and young trees and shrubs were just coming up on the other.  Almost immediately our ears picked up Northern Bobwhite, Yellow-breasted Chat and one Prairie Warbler.  A few more Kentucky Warblers and Indigo Buntings sang loudly, and I spotted another Summer Tanager pair.  Then I noticed something lower down in an oak tree.  I investigated with binoculars and found myself looking at a beautiful male Scarlet Tanager, just sitting on a limb in a little shaft of sunlight, his jet-black wings and tail contrasting with the bright-red of his body.  What a treat!

Scarlet Tanager

We still had to head through Starkville, so after tallying, we drove on.  While in town, we saw plenty of House Sparrows and European Starlings and two Eurasian Collared Doves.  Our next stop was a sewage lagoon where we supposed to locate a few ducks and shorebirds.  As we began walking around the pond, we flushed bunches of Red-winged Blackbirds and saw Northern Rough-winged Swallows overhead, but the edge of the pond, choked with weeds, just didn’t look promising for sandpipers.  Farther up, however, we noticed the drastic difference in the habitat.  There were obvious mud flats with shorebirds feeding.  Three Solitary and one Spotted Sandpiper dotted the bank with several Killdeer, too.  We saw two Blue-winged Teal, a pair of Canada Geese with four large fuzzy young, and thirteen Wood Ducks—two adults and eleven ducklings. 

The count list was pretty big so far, but I did notice that we were missing a few birds.  We managed to find some Blue Grosbeaks by retracing our route and only counting species that were new to us, not ones we’d counted already.  We managed to hear a flock of Cedar Waxwings this way, and then went to search again for the redstarts and waterthrushes.

The woods were a lot quieter now; it was about 4:00 p.m. and I doubted that we’d see the elusive species we were looking for.  Although we didn’t pick up any new birds while we were there, we did see other wildlife.  Butterflies fed on the flowers, Ichneumon wasps flew up from the grass, and a Southern Leopard Frog was in one of the puddles.  My dad was pleased to observe a Toad Bug that I located near another pool of water.  We watched it as it hopped about, its coloration blending in amazingly well with the gritty mud of its habitat.

Back in the car, we counted up the species we had found during the day:  seventy-six, and hundreds of individuals all over.  It had been a great count.  We were both exhausted but filled with a sense of accomplishment and exciting memories of that spring day. 

Even if your schedule doesn't permit you to count every bird that you see for an entire day, it’s still worthwhile to spend some time marveling at the diversity of species during this fascinating season!

Birdsong

This was published on the blog in 2019.  It seems relevant again!

Singing Indigo Bunting

As any serious birder knows, the more commonly used term that denotes our hobby—birdwatching—is terribly misleading.  A newcomer or an outsider usually assumes that because the pursuit is called “bird-watching”, then they should always be able to see birds, and see them well.  Binoculars, naturally, are often thought of as instruments serving to endow bird-watchers with a nearly super-human ability to see the birds that fly their merry ways, unseen to the casual observer.

Nothing could be further from the truth.  The fact is, “bird-watching” could just as easily be called “bird-listening.”  According to bird-watching experts, most birders (a term I prefer to bird-watchers—but due more to its brevity than its accuracy) identify at least 80 percent of the birds they find by sound, not sight.  Admittedly, we birders could probably actually see a fair chunk of this 80 percent if we made the effort to look, but in a lot of cases, these birds call and sing from the middle of dense woods, marshes, briar thickets—places we’d rather not go.  Of course, if the bird making sounds in this uninviting terrain is one that is new or especially exciting to us, we’re more than happy to make the effort to actually see it, even if it means braving poison ivy, saw-edged marsh grasses, skin-ripping greenbriar, ticks, mosquitoes, and venomous snakes; or maneuvering more mundane obstacles such as fallen trees, creeks, holes, gnats, etc.  And, succeeding in the face of all these impediments—finally seeing the rare bird—wins the hardworking birder a valuable excuse to brag at the next bird club meeting.

But I digress.  Another great truth of birding: binoculars are excellent tools, and without them birding as we know it would be next to impossible.  However, they will not give you any extraordinary abilities in locating birds; the most they can do is magnify what you’re seeing, so that the amazing beauty and variety of birds are more apparent.  As to locating birds, the only way to improve this skill is with practice.  Even with years of field experience, though, there are some birds that will manage to elude you, or at least elude your eyes.

I’m certainly not immune to the caprices of bird behavior.  The times that I’ve been outmaneuvered by birds are too numerous to name.  Sometimes it is an individual bird on one particular day; other times an entire species seemingly conspires against my earnest efforts to see it.  For example, I have yet to observe The Chuck-will’s-widow and Whip-poor-will—both secretive night birds with calls proclaiming their names—up close and through binoculars.  I have seen a live Chuck-wills-widow in the wild—it flew up from the road in front of the family car one night.  I saw just enough of its brown wings and white-bordered tail to positively identify it.  These birds’ secrecy is part of their mystique, though, so I’m perfectly happy to just listen to their rhythmic, intriguing nighttime songs, and if I happen to see one in full view someday, so much the better.

Other nocturnal birds like owls also prove elusive.  However, since owls are generally large and hunt from relatively prominent places—not impenetrable thickets like the haunts of the Chuck-wills-widow and Whip-poor-will—they are usually a little easier to observe.  Where I live in Macon, there are Great Horned Owls that live and hunt around the pastures and backyard pecan orchards.  I have seen them on a number of occasions, but more often I hear their resonant hoots, especially on moonlit nights in late winter when the trees are bare.  It’s a very comforting sound, and it foretells the owls’ courtship and eventual nesting, since these charismatic hunters breed and raise young very early in the year.

Sometimes vocal but difficult-to-see birds can be very frustrating.  The arrival of spring brings lots of migrating songbirds, many of which choose to proclaim their territories through song from the tops of the very tallest trees.  Then, it is literally a pain in the neck to try to see these birds, craning your head back as you look through your binoculars, trying to focus on the five-inch long warbler flitting forty feet above you as it sings its squeaky melody.  Of course, it could be worse; a lot of warbler songs are too high-pitched for some people to hear—the songs of Blackpoll, Bay-breasted, Black-throated Green, and Blackburnian Warblers, for example.  Even John James Audubon, one of the founders of American ornithology, is said to have had difficulty hearing the songs of a number of birds, especially wood-warblers.  On the other hand, several warbler species have very loud songs and are relatively easy to see; go into a swampy woodland, and you may see and hear a vivid yellow Prothonotary Warbler making its shrill tweet tweet tweet tweet song in the deep, gloomy shade of the cypress trees.  I promise you, it’s an amazing experience.

One of my favorite warblers, interestingly, is one that I haven’t actually seen more than a few times.  Not that that’s anything unusual: Swainson’s Warblers are notoriously tricky to see.  One of these sightings was of a bird flying away after I attempted to creep on it while it sang in a thicket.  More recently, this year I heard a Swainson’s Warbler in an overgrown wood during a spring migration survey.  After tallying it, I decided to walk through the dense undergrowth in hopes of spotting it.  Sure enough, as soon as I deduced what direction it was in, the bird moved to another spot and began its loud, ringing song again.  Despite the frustration it sometimes provokes in me, this incredibly secretive behavior coupled with the interesting song is one of the reasons I find the Swainson’s Warbler so fascinating, and I always enjoy encounters with them, visual or otherwise.

Probably you can think of at least a few birds whose sounds are particularly meaningful to you in some way.  Maybe they evoke fond memories; or are associated with certain seasons or times of day; or perhaps are simply beautiful, amusing, awe-inspiring…the list goes on.  The robin’s hurried morning warblings, the mockingbird’s nighttime virtuoso recital, the softly lilting tur-a-lee of the bluebird, the energetic drummings of woodpeckers, the shrill scream of a Red-tailed Hawk, the echoing honks of migrating geese—these and countless other calls not only hold special significance to birders, but are familiar sounds in our day-to-day relationship with the natural world.  Even something as seemingly mundane as a crow’s guttural caw caw can bring a lot of interesting feelings to an observer.

Seeing birds is always a pleasure, but sometimes it helps to just stop and listen to them as they go about their lives.  This can be difficult; it’s hard to resist the impulse to search for a bird that you can hear but not see (after all, this is bird-watching), but even hearing birds fills you in on interesting aspects of their ecology, enables you to identify them, and just makes birding more fun and meaningful.  Another thing to keep in mind: although you can see the birds that are right in front of your eyes during birding jaunts, their songs are all around you.

Yet Another Leap Year!

Lately, I have been thinking about Anurans—frogs and toads.  There are a little under 100 species in the U.S., but that’s not so many that enthusiastic amateur naturalists can’t become familiar with the most common ones in their locales in a short time.  For comparison, there are several hundred species of birds in the U.S., many of which have different plumages for different ages, sexes, and seasons, as well as multiple calls and songs for different purposes.  That’s not to say that frogs and toads show no intraspecies variation.  However, the degree of variation is less overwhelming, and, again, it’s easier to learn to identify 10-30 or so species—about the number that you could reasonably expect to find in any given region of the country, I think—than it is to learn upwards of 200 species of birds that occur regularly in the state where you live.  

How do you begin learning about frogs and toads?  Well, these days, there are several useful online resources that can help you.  I happen to like the U.S. Geological Survey page, which allows you to see the species lists for all of the eastern states (unfortunately, western states haven’t been added yet) and listen to recordings.  The Association of Zoos and Aquariums is another great site, and contains links for FrogWatch USA as well as information about amphibian conservation.  If you are interested in learning even more about amphibian identification, search the databases of Macaulay Library and AmphibiaWeb.  There are also plenty of good field guides that help with visual and/or aural identification.  When I was a child, I enjoyed listening to the cassette tape that, along with a short booklet, comprised A Field Guide to Mississippi Frog Songs.  This explains why I knew several frog sounds long before I became interested in birds.  

No matter what sources you use, though, keep in mind that there is no substitute for hearing frogs and toads in their natural habitats.  If you’re frogwatching in a particularly good location, you will probably hear several frog species calling at once, so you will need to pay close attention to the differences.  Loud, overlapping choruses of frogs and toads can sometimes make it difficult to concentrate!  During the breeding seasons, singing male frogs are working hard to attract females, so they need to be as loud and persistent as possible.  Right now, in late February and early March, the main species calling in the southeastern U.S. is the spring peeper.  In January and February, spring peepers are often outnumbered by chorus frogs, which, as I’ve mentioned before, have a metallic sound to their song.  In a few weeks, I will expect to hear toads, and, by late March, gray treefrogs, green treefrogs, squirrel treefrogs, and others will have entered their breeding period.

To help get you started learning about frogs and toads during this leap year, here are some of the short articles I’ve written about Anurans in Mississippi:

http://astheraincrowflies.blogspot.com/2017/02/winter-chorus-frogs.html

http://astheraincrowflies.blogspot.com/2017/06/summer-treefrogs-and-cricket-frogs.html

http://astheraincrowflies.blogspot.com/2019/07/summer-true-frogs-true-toads-and-more.html

http://astheraincrowflies.blogspot.com/2019/10/its-easy-bein-green-if-youre-treefrog.html

Happy frogwatching!

Wintry Coastal Woods

Beaches, bays, and marshes come to mind most readily when I think about coastal environments.  But the Gulf Coast also boasts a variety of wooded landscapes that provide crucial habitat for many animals and serve as buffers against storms.  In the photo below, a Great Egret fishes along a wooded coastal creek in late December.  One consequence of the moist, warm regional climate is that many woodlands tend to stay green and blooming well into the winter.

Great Egret (Ardea alba)

I love the diversity of these coastal forests.  The canopy trees may be hardwoods like black gum, water oak, or live oak; pine species; or a mixture of both.  Several of these trees, like the water oak, can be found across much of the southeastern U.S., while others, such as the southern live oak, are highly representative of coastal ecosystems.

Slash pine (Pinus elliottii) is a common, fire-resistant tree in coastal woodlands.  Note also its broad patches of bark.

Water oaks (Quercus nigra) typically have smaller leaves, but these saplings were growing in to the understory, and therefore needed more leaf surface area to capture sunlight.

This is a typically enormous live oak (Quercus virginiana).  These trees grow rapidly in the first few decades of life.

The understory trees and shrubs of coastal woods are particularly interesting, since they tend to bear obvious adaptations to the ever-changing environment.  For example, there are a number of species that are evergreen and have waxy leaves: features that help to prevent desiccation and protect against the fires that were once natural, expected occurrences on the coast.  In more recent decades, prescribed burning has aided in forest recovery.

Swamp bay and wax myrtle are two of these common evergreen coastal trees (or shrubs, depending on their growth pattern).  Both species produce provide cover for animals during the winter, and their flowers and fruits can attract many birds and other wildlife.  The wax myrtle’s leaves are smoother and have wavier margins than those of the swamp bay.

Swamp bay (Persea palustris)

Wax myrtle (Morella cerifera)

A little farther inland, mountain laurel is often a surprisingly common understory plant.  It usually grows in montane forests in the northerly portions of its range, but it may be found in low-lying areas in the coastal region.  Like the swamp bay and the wax myrtle, it has thick, waxy, evergreen leaves.  While birds and insects may enjoy feeding from its flowers, it is highly toxic to most other animals.

Mountain laurel (Kalmia latifolia)

Of course, not all understory plants of the Gulf Coast have a typical tree-like growth form.  The dramatically spiky, waving fronds of the saw palmetto give panache to the forest floor.  Like other palm species, saw palmettos stay green all year.  Their berries provide food for a multitude of wildlife species.

Saw palmetto (Serenoa repens)

 

What of the non-shrub understory plants of these coastal woods?  Well, switch cane is one of the most noticeable.  This is especially true during the winter, when many of the herbaceous—or non-woody—plants have died back, and only the toughest of them, the graminoids—a group that includes grasses and sedges—are left to provide groundcover.  Canes and bamboos actually belong to the grass family, which isn’t surprising when you consider their shape and growth habits.  Being a native bamboo, switch cane commonly grows in low-lying, swampy habitats.  In other words, don’t necessarily expect to find it in urban areas!  Of course, if it does happen to be growing there, leave it be.  Native plants deserve a chance to thrive.  

Switch cane (Arundinaria tecta)

As always, there are countless other plant species that you may find in these coastal woods.  Winter along the coast doesn’t always look the way that you might expect, and there is always a lot of greenery in the woods.  As the season gradually shifts into early spring, however, watch for changes—particularly the proliferation of herbaceous plants along the ground and the blossoming of some of the trees and shrubs in the other forest layers.  It’s always nice to have an excuse to duck into a comparatively cool, shady woodland after a long walk at the beach on a sunny spring day!