The Zen Birdfeeder

Chickadee NestWatch 2014 - Report #3

In my third report I have good news and bad news. I'll get the bad news out of the way: I lost the brood of five chickadees nesting in my back box, presumably due to the loss of the female adult. I wrote about that loss in my post The Loss of a Brood.

 

Now on to the happy news! On June 14, the box that had six eggs that hatched on May 26 fledged all six chickadees!  Here they are at age day nine.

And here they are just ten days later at 8:30am on the morning they left the nest.  I knew they were close to fledging, so I slipped my phone into the box to take this precious picture without opening the box. They fledged 1-1/2 hour later and I was able to see 3 of them leave the nest. They were in the nest 19 days, a day longer than average, but the expected fledge day was the second of two miserably rainy days. It was good to see them wait until a beautiful sunny day to leave the nestbox.

 

My remaining box is moving along nicely with six more chickadees that hatched on June 6. Here they are on day 4.

 

And here they are just eight days later.

 

This was my last look through the top of the box when the nestlings were 16 days old. They're probably within 2 days of leaving the nest here!

 

Mom and dad chickadee have been feeding them a high protein diet of caterpillars from nature and live mealworms that we provide. When we put the mealworms out in the window feeders, we whistle a couple feebee calls and usually within minutes, the adults start taking advantage of our easy food source. 

I estimate the nestlings will leave the nest on Tuesday June 24. Here's hoping I get to witness at least part of their entry into this world!!

Great Discoveries

Some of the birds on my "life list" are pretty great birds.  Like a Kirtland's Warbler I saw in Ohio. Or the Olive Sparrow I saw in Texas. But I have to admit that if it hadn't been for the outstanding birders I happened to be with at the time, I probably would not have seen these birds, let alone identify them.

So it's always quite satisfying when you find and identify a new bird, an uncommon bird, or hard to find bird all on your own.  We had this experience while vacationing in south Jersey this May.

Clapper Rail
(phonescoped)

The first bird we sighted and identified was a Clapper Rail while on the wildlife drive at Forsythe National Wildlife Refuge.  I always considered rails very hard to find and observe, being secretive and skulky, as well as very well camouflaged. Lucky for us, the Clapper Rail is relatively big (nearly 15" tall) and often emerges from the marsh at low tide to forage in the relative open along the edge of the marsh.

 

Rails can be very difficult to find when amongst the marsh grass.
Do you see him?

When he was up in the grasses, he was very hard to see. But he also spent a lot of time in the mud flats, allowing us many good looks at this chicken-like bird.  After finding the first one, we got better at looking for them in the marsh, and by the end of the 8-mile drive, we had observed three clapper rail individuals.

Clapper Rail
(phonescoped)

 

The other great bird we found and identified was seen swimming on an impoundment at Matt's Landing in the Heislerville Wildlife Management Area.  While using the spotting scope to check out the shorebirds, we noticed a different-looking medium-sized bird with a rufous neck, white chin, and dark back. It was quite a bit more active than the other birds, swimming around somewhat erratically while other shorebirds waded nearby. There was no mistaking it as a Red-necked Phalarope.

Red-necked Phalarope (top)
(Phonescoped)
 

As I learned later, they forage by spinning in circles, creating water movement that circulates food up towards them. Once we became aware of the phalarope's rather bright markings (compared to other shorebirds) and their active habits, it became quite easy to find it repeatedly. We even got to point it out to a few of the more experienced birders who had heard that a phalarope was seen in the area.

We still needed someone else to point out a White-rumped Sandpiper to us, but we did leave New Jersey happy with the special finds we were able to locate and identify on our own.  Shorebirds are tough, and we'll take our successes one or two at a time!

 

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Scoring Another Flagged Shorebird

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The Loss of a Brood

During a NestWatch check last week, I sadly discovered that I had lost a brood of Black-capped Chickadees. The nest was intact and undisturbed, and it contained one unhatched egg and four dead naked and blind hatchlings. I'm assuming it was due to the loss of the mother bird.

The last I definitely saw the female bird was June 4 when she was incubating the eggs and departed during a nest check. She stayed in the area, letting me know her displeasure. The five eggs most likely started hatching around June 6th.

As I think back, I did see some unusual behavior at the nest about 3-4 days before I found the failed nest. A chickadee, which could have been the male, came to the window feeder to gather some mealworms. He brought them to the opening of the nestbox, looked in, then flew to a nearby perch. He returned to the nest hole with the mealworm, looked in, and again flew off to a perch. He did this five times (I thought the behavior was odd and actually counted it out loud every time he visited but did not enter).

I wonder if the female had already perished at that point and the male continued to gather food and look for her in the nest.  At that time the four hatchlings could still have been alive, but needed their mother to brood their naked little bodies. They probably died of exposure since they had no way to maintain their body heat without a mother to provide warmth.

The six naked and blind chickadees in another nestbox and six feathered and nearly ready to go chickadees in a third box couldn't lift my spirits after finding the dead nestlings. I couldn't stop thinking about the mama either, and her surviving mate. Any number of things could've happened to the female. But it proves how hard it is out there for a chickadee, especially one putting her all into raising a brood of tiny helpless babies.

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Chickadee NestWatch 2014 - Report #2

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Chickadee NestWatch Report #1 (2012)

Newest Yard Birds #95 and 96

Last winter, I was moaning and groaning about having no new yard bird so far in 2013. All that complaining did me no good and I ended the year empty handed.  And this year, at the start of spring migration, I was out there again, writing about searching the trees for #95 as spring warblers made their way north.

So it was on Mother's Day morning, as I was sitting on the deck in my Adirondack chair enjoying the endless stream of chickadees and jays and woodpeckers at my feeders, that my next new yard bird passed overhead. Good thing I count overhead birds since my habitat is not exactly right for that Osprey!

Not the exact Osprey I saw, but one just like it!

 

Then later that same day, sitting on the deck after a day at work, my second new yard bird of the day and year flew overhead as well!  This time it was a pair of Mallards, heading in a northeast direction, perhaps toward the bit of wetland less than 1/5 mile from my house.

A pair of Mallards like this male flew over my house to become yardbird #96

They both gave me only a brief look, not even long enough to grab my camera, but long and good enough to identify and log as new yard bird #95 and 96. Now, onward and upward (skyward?) towards 100 yard birds!

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Scoring Another Flagged Shorebird

I don't live near the shore and only get there about once a year. And then when I get there, I have to admit that I'm not very good at identifying many of the birds I find there.  So I really consider myself lucky to have twice sighted a flagged shorebird.

 

Flagged Red Knot, North Carolina May 2011

My first flagged bird was a Red Knot we saw in North Carolina in May 2011.  I entered the resighting on bandedbirds.org and found out this knot had originally been flagged and banded in Brazil (date unknown). It was first resighted on Delaware Bay in May 2008 with additional resightings there in May 2009.  My resighting 2 years later was the only sighting outside the Delaware Bay Area. Nine days after I saw it, it was resighted again in Mispillion Harbor, Delaware. Unfortunately, it has not been resighted again or since. Check out my post Red Knot: 65,000 Miles and Counting for more on my sighting.

 

Ruddy Turnstone 2KE
(click on picture to enlarge for better view of flag)
Phonescoped image

My most recent flagged bird was a Ruddy Turnstone we saw at East Point Lighthouse along the Jersey side of Delaware Bay. It was foraging near high tide with other turnstones, a few Red Knots, a few Short-billed Dowitchers, many Dunlin, as well as some other shorebirds I couldn't identify.

I didn't see the flag while observing the flock, but noticed it as I went through photographs later. The turnstone had a lime green flag meaning it was banded in the U.S. The letters 2KE were clearly readable. He also had a metal band on his lower right leg.

With that information entered into the Banded Birds site, I found out that this turnstone was originally banded on May 17, 2012 in New Jersey and was resighted 3 more times that May on the Jersey side of the bay.  He returned and was resighted 5 times in 2013.  My resighting on May 19 was the first of this year.

It's really exciting to see a flagged bird but more importantly, I consider it an honor to contribute to the work that researchers are doing by reporting my resightings. It's so cool to think that I may help make a difference!

 

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Chickadee NestWatch 2014 - Report #2

When I last wrote about my chickadee nest boxes, I had three active nests coddling 17 precious eggs.  Two NestWatch checks later, I have 11 eggs still being brooded by attentive moms as well as 6 little naked and blind nestlings.

The six nestlings hatched on May 26 after 13 days of incubation.  When I checked in around 6pm on hatch day, 5 eggs had hatched.  The other egg probably hatched later that day or the next.

Hatch Day May 26th
 

Six naked and blind nestlings on May 29th, age 3 days!!

I use an automotive mirror to give me a nice look into the box. What concerns me about this nest is that the nesting material lining the bottom of the cup is gone and the little nestlings are laying directly on the bottom of the box. The good thing is that it is a smooth material and not a rough hewn wood.

The nestlings will be brooded by mom almost constantly for the next few days to keep their little featherless bodies warm. They'll be fed an insect diet provided by both mom and dad. Chickadees in my boxes usually stay in the nest for 18 days so it'll be the 2nd week in June before they leave the nest.

Mom chickadees on my other nests are incubating away. All my nest boxes are mounted on Advanced Pole System poles with baffles so the risk of losing an egg or nestling to squirrels or chipmunks is practically nil.  Protecting my nestboxes with baffles has helped me have excellent success with my baby chickadees. 

Stay tuned for my next NestWatch report. They'll probably be hatching in less than a week.

 

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Chickadee NestWatch 2013 - Report #1