Wanderers

 

A Carolina Chickadee, where it belongs - Ocean County, NJ. I heard a Carolina-type song in Warren County today - usually solid "Black-capped" country.

The birds are coming to me lately.

I haven't had a chance to do much birding around my property this summer, but now I keep seeing "good" species while poking around in the yard, going about my business. Post-breeding wanderers, I assume.

A blue-gray gnatcatcher feeding fledglings in the rose-of-sharon and on my garden fence (they move easily through 1-inch chicken wire holes, incidentally). A family of great-crested flycatchers making sallies out over the yard. A blue-winged warbler gleaning for caterpillars between an indifferent resident pair of bluebirds. 

But today was the best one. A Carolina chickadee singing from the old apple tree. That is, at least a chickadee was singing a Carolina-type song. Here in Warren County, NJ (Mansfield Twp), we are a good 30 miles or so from the boundary between northern Black-capped and southern Carolina chickadees. Complicating things is the fact that they hybridize, and that they can learn the "wrong" song near the hybridization zone. But, I grew up in Hunterdon County, 30 minutes to the south, and I've never heard a Carolina song there. So this was an interesting treat either way...even if it could be an evil omen of a changing climate?

Bird sex

Bird sex must rank high on the list of strange animal reproductive positions (although see this video of slug sex and the series by Isabella Rossallini). It is simultaneously awkward and graceful. This weekend, a pair of not-modest tree swallows that live near my doorstep in Warren Co., NJ provided a good illustration of this.

1) First the male lands and plants his feet on the female's back.

2) Then, he grabs a mouthful of her head feathers for balance!

3) Then, he puts his wings up and performs an impossible twist of his tail to line up cloacas. 

This whole process lasts about 1-2 seconds, according to my camera's time stamp. The pair was observed mating several times over the course of a few days. It seemed to happen in the morning and evening more (too hot mid-day?), in short "frenzies" with the male going in for several tries each time. This timing coincided with their recent take-over of a birdhouse after some house sparrows vacated for unknown reasons. I could be wrong, but I think mating only occurs during egg-laying, as there has to be a relatively recent mating to produce a fertilized egg each day. I supposed that's why she always indulged the male, though she didn't always seem into it...

"That was awkward."

As an aside, this is the first time I've realized that male and female tree swallows are quite different looking, the female being much less shiny.

Notes from a frozen river # 2

Slushy ice in the still-not-completely-frozen Musconetcong River, this despite single-digit nighttime temperatures. Tonight is supposed to be minus 8! I watched a deer wade across it (apparently comfortable) yesterday.

Fox tracks and pee at a rose-bush that doubles as a scent post.
 

A mouse highway between two rose-bush clumps.
 

 

Barberry berries are still around. Something must eat these because it spreads all over. But they can't be very tasty if they are still around at this date.

A crew-cut of spice bush sprouts, munched down by deer. This (plus all the thorny invasives dominating the shrub layer) is a sure sign of over-abundant deer. 

This hermit thrush was hopping around the cliff-side and eating multi-flora rose hips. It was a good bird morning. Also seen: winter wren, yellow-bellied sapsucker, field sparrow, pileated woodpecker, brown creeper.

Chickadees and cherries

Wild black cherry trees are in full fruit these days, and the birds are all over them. I found a good one a few days ago in Lanoka Harbor, NJ. Good in this case = low to the ground, and absolutely loaded with ripe fruit. The "low to the ground" part facilitated nice views of the birds perusing the fruit clusters, and the "loaded" part made the birds crazed enough with food lust that they paid little attention to me. Orioles, titmice, and house finches all picked at the cherries, and a gnatcatcher hopped about, maybe in search of cherry-eating insects. A juvenile chipping sparrow, a female cardinal, and a few robins also made appearances.

But the star of the show (both in numbers and in style) was a flock of about 10 carolina chickadees. Their strange eating style was as follows: pick off a cherry, grasp it between the toes, peck at it for a second, drop it, and move on to the next. I thought maybe they were eating the pit, at first...similar to how sparrows often eat just the seeds of rose hips, spitting out the fruit.

Chickadee, pecking.

But when I downloaded my photos, I found a surprise: a little grub-like creature. My guess is that they were extracting fly larvae, and then spitting out the "useless" fruit and pit which would clog up their guts with empty calories. The amazing thing was how fast they would accomplish this process: pick, peck, drop, repeat.

Chickadee in mid-grub-extraction. Notice the squirt of juice!

As with many great discoveries, I have no proof but a grainy image. It was getting dark, and I didn't have time go cherry-dissecting to find grubs. I did, however, find time to eat a few myself.

Exhibit A. Grainy close-up of a grub-like object in the chickadee's beak.