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Learn your boreal birds – boreal chickadee
Posted on March 21st, 2010 2 comments Add a comment >>
Now I’m sure many readers are familiar with our year-round Adirondack resident black-capped chickadee. They’re the clever acrobats of the woods who seem to eat birdfeeders clean all winter long. But if you venture off the beaten pathways a bit and find a remote red spruce, tamarack, and balsam fir forest you might come upon black-caps’ close cousin the boreal chickadee.
Chances are you will hear a boreal chickadee before you see it. The songs are similar to black-caps but more nasal and scratchy in quality. I hear “sicka-day-day” instead of the lighter chicka-dee-dee of black caps.
So once you’ve honed in on the call notes you now have to find the bird. …and the trick to finding boreal chickadees is to look deep into the conifer trees, specifically near the trunk of the tree. For some reason boreals spend a lot of their foraging time near the trunk. Are there more insects found there? Are they better protected from predators deeper in the boughs of the trees? Heck if I know! But about 8 times out of ten you’ll find them there.
So this one tip should help you focus your search when you come upon an active group of chickadees in a conifer forest. Certainly look at all the chickadees but then go further and look at those birds found on the inner branches of trees.
Where the black-capped shows black color on its head and throat, you will find that’s been replaced with a chestnut-brown color for the boreal cap, and a softer gray nape, or back of the head.
Most striking to me are the soft, brown or peach-colored flanks on the sides of boreals. To me that stands out as a field mark that is very different from black caps.
As its name tells us, this year-round resident bird is a true boreal species seeking the dense confier forests throughout the Adirondacks. Likewise, this is a bird high on the lists of many birdwatchers seeking a view of it through their binoculars or camera!
One of my favorite spots to look for boreal chickadees is along the snowmobile and mountain bike trails at Bloomingdale Bog where I access the trails from County Rt 55 near the hamlet of Bloomingdale, NY.
Good birding!
Photo credit: Boreal Chickadee – Wikipedia
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This just in…
Posted on March 15th, 2010 Add a comment >>
Dotting most of the eastern states including Canada and Mexico are gatherings of birdwatchers that sit (or stand, or lean) for hours a day looking up towards the deep blue skies overhead. They’ll carefully scan the horizon in search of tiny, flying black dots that move across the sky in a northerly direction…hawks are in migration.
The excitement builds just about this time every year as we all wait in anticipation for the coming of the hawks to our Adirondack woods, and fields. We birders are getting goosebumps from the latest reports of hawkwatchers in Texas and Mexico. They have just reported their first sighting of a migrating broad-winged hawk…break out the champagne!
What’s the big deal?? Well first we need to look at the travels of hawks to see just how remarkable the journey of the broad-winged hawk really is.
Most hawks we encounter during the summer months in the Adirondacks are not that remarkable in their migration length. Most red-tailed hawks go to the southeast US and some wintering hawks come down from southern Ontario or Quebec.
The broad-wings start their immense northward journey down in the tropical regions of Central America and northern South America where they spent the winter… OK, maybe the peregrine falcon has the longest flight at 7,000 miles from S. America to the Canadian Tundra, but falcons don’t migrate in the awe-inspiring numbers like the broad wings are often seen doing.
So as our colleagues count the hawks coming up into Mexico they like to send out word that the “broadies” are en route. And as we North Country birders get wind of this we rejoice in knowing that spring is not too far away!
There are several hawk watching sites in NY but the one that gets the most attention for having big numbers of broadies fly by is Derby Hill Hawk Watch site…located in, of all places, Mexico, NY! Here you can find “counters” carefully counting each hawk as it flies by. These hawk counts can give scientists a better idea of hawk populations, and migratory movements, as well as providing valuable education to the public.
Broad-winged hawks are fairly prolific nesters in the Adirondacks. Sometime in mid to late May keep an eye out for nests being built in sugar maples, black cherry, yellow birch or sometimes white pines. Then from a distance, admire their daily workings and life history.
You’ll soon hear the corks popping as we get word of the first spring arrival broad-winged hawk in New York!
Illustration: Broad-winged hawk-wikipedia
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The word of the day is…..
Posted on March 11th, 2010 1 comment - Add a comment >>
Zugenruhe-German (pronounced…tsooken-ruha).
In the biological world this word is defined as the “restlessness” that animals feel prior to, or during migratory times. Many scientists have explored this biological phenomenon in birds specifically. By experimentally altering(increasing) the length of daylight upon a bird, scientist see a noticeable change in behavior. Birds begin eating much more, fattening up, and exhibit more movement(or restlessness) than normal.
I bring this word to our attention because bird activity is on the rise now in the Adirondacks and will be over the next 3 months.
Migrating birds are arriving as we speak! On a recent drive through St Lawrence County farm country I saw thousands of Canada Geese in flight, Red-winged Blackbirds & Common Grackles cavorting in the treetops , Killdeer calling from fields, and general merriment in the avian world.
Our first arrivals are usually those birds that don’t travel all that far, on a continent-wide scale that is. Many of the birds we see arriving now have traveled from the Mid-Atlantic region of the US. But soon enough others will join in. It should also be noted that many birds are just “passing through” our area while on their longer flights into Canada. Bon Voyage!
There is a feeling of zugunruhe currently being felt in the humid, tropical regions of Central and South America…by the birds of course! Once a good stiff south breeze picks up in the jungles, the birds destined for the Adirondacks take advantage of it and take to the airways, thus beginning their northward journey’s. Stay tuned for more migratory updates as the season progresses.
On another front…we hear that the latestNY winter Bald Eagle count has revealed some pretty cool numbers. And to think that not too long ago this bird was once facing near extinction in the east. Hurray for all the biologists who care!
In the very near future I’ll be posting a wonderful weather map that will show you big-blobsof-migrating-birds flying over the US under star-filled skies.
What birds are YOU seeing? What signs of animal “zugunruhe” are you seeing? As a birdwatcher I think I’m getting that zugunruhe feeling….
Photo credit: Canada Goose-Wikipedia
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