Foraging Birds

The past few days, in little snippets of time, I have been watching some migrating songbirds find and eat their foods. Watching birds forage for their sustenance is my favorite bird watching activity. I take more notes on the behaviors of "food-finding" than probably for anything else in bird watching. And I keep a list of the foods various kinds of birds choose.

For instance, this past Saturday (3 Oct. 2009) at Bisset Park in Radford, I heard a Rose-breasted Grosbeak calling from a Water Oak. It took me over five minutes to finally see this bird, an adult male. It was cracking open acorns and eating the kernels. I haven't seen this species eating acorns before. There were Gray Squirrels and Blue Jays going for acorns in this tree also. One squirrel eased towards the grosbeak, and the the grosbeak flew to another limb. It grabbed another acorn in its bill and cracked it open, part of the hull falling down near me.

Sunday the 4th I observed an immature male Rose-breasted Grosbeak perched in a weed patch about two feet above ground, near some shrubby willows and alders...this location about a mile "parkway south" of Smart View. I observed it while it munched on the seeds of Giant Ragweed, and some other plant that I have not keyed out yet.

Later on the 4th, I sat down near three Palm Warblers foraging in the yard at my parents' house. The three warblers pecked, gleaned, chased, jumped, fluttered and other actions to catch tiny insects, most of which I would just simply call gnats, but I'm not sure what the species were. One caught a moth that was about the same size as the warbler's head. It flew up to a limb of a forsythia to pound, flog and "tenderize" the moth. All this activity attracted the other warblers and also a nearby Eastern Phoebe. The warbler flew to a better hideaway to finish its meal. Another Palm Warbler spent two or three minutes foraging on tiny insects on some marigold flowers, and under the leaves of tomato plants. It was strange to see a Palm Warbler perched on top of a green tomato, but while it rested there, flicking its tail, it pecked some small critter from the tomato and ate it.

March Migrants

Double-crested Cormorant. Photo by Bob Abraham

Recent sightings of migrating birds in the New River Valley include Double-crested Cormorants and Bonaparte's Gulls, both common spring migrants in this part of Virginia. Early to mid April is the best time to see Bonaparte's Gulls, while mid March through mid May is great for seeing sometimes large numbers of cormorants. My favorite place to observe them is at Riverview Park in Radford.

Most of the "Bonies" seen right now are dressed in basic or winter plumage, but in a couple of weeks many of them should be decked out in their breeding season plumage.

Winter plumaged Bonaparte's Gull feasting on an earthworm. Photo by Bob Abraham

A Towhee in the Snow

Along the Riverway Trail in Radford a few mornings ago, I observed a towhee kicking a thin slush off some berries on the ground. I watched it eat a few of them, each one wrinkly and reddish and pecked up from some ratty leaves mixed in the snow. The berries had fallen from a Morrow's Bush-Honeysuckle.

The towhee would look at the ground and keep on kicking in the leaves. I saw it peck at a snail shell. The shell crunched into several pieces, and the towhee ate these like a starved, caged sparrow.

A couple of minutes later, a grayish cat slouched in from nowhere. The towhee fluttered to the top of a nearby hawthorn, chewinking, and making other slurred chip notes. After a moment or so, the towhee flew away past a short and wobbly stretch of rusty fence wire. I could hear it chewinking near the riverbank. The cat then began to ease away in the opposite direction towards some weeds and a ditch.

I then walked down the trail a while to my car and went home. I hope in a few days to write more about towhees.

Notes:

• 1. Photo of this male Eastern Towhee is by Stan Bentley. He gave me permission to use it in this blog entry. The red berries in the picture are the fruits of Flowering Dogwood, one of the highest energy berries available for birds in the fall.
• 2. I wrote this entry in my journal several days ago when there was actually a little snow on the ground (a rather rare event the past couple of winters here in Radford). I had to get outside and play in the snow of course, traipsing to see what I could see. The towhee was silent and busy, and hungry, and easy to observe, until the cat showed up...then the towhee was quite vociferous for a few moments, and then invisible, but still complaining about the cat.
• 3. As I mentioned in a blog entry last year, I grew up calling the towhee by the name of "joreen". Stan tells me that he grew up using the very similar name, "jorink" or "jarink". I have heard a couple of other people in the NRV use this name for towhees.
• 4. I enjoy listening to towhees singing, and counter-singing during their declarations of territory in the spring. I have also learned that towhees will occasionally include the notes of other bird songs in their vocalizations, particularly the first note or two of a song. I have heard them imitating and including a song note or two from cardinals, the chip notes of both downy and hairy woodpeckers, and alarm chuck notes from robins, to mention a few.

Rocky Knob Migration, 24 August 2008

I watched for migrating hawks yesterday at Rocky Knob. One female American Kestrel flew south just above the trees at 11:55 EST. Other than that I saw no migrating raptors. There were a few local Black & Turkey Vultures, and three local Red-tailed Hawks.

Some other birds were heading south, too. These included several Barn Swallows and Chimney Swifts, three Ruby-throated Hummingbirds, one Black-throated Green Warbler and two Scarlet Tanagers.

Other migrants were two Cloudless Sulphurs, one Red Admiral, one Common Buckeye, one Monarch plus three species of dragonfly (28 Common Green Darners, mostly adult males, plus at least three tenerals; one Wandering Glider; five Black Saddlebags).

The most unusual sighting for the day was a plane piloted wildly over Panther Knob. The plane flew a few loopity-loops, a few complete rolls, and a couple of times sallied upside down, then headed east and northeast right-side-up, eventually beyond my view.

The whole area looks way too dry. I don't know how the ongoing drought will affect migration of dragonflies since many of the species heading southward past Rocky Knob are pond dwellers as nymphs.

The thistles in the field mostly look rather stunted except those nearest a shady area on the west side of the field. I saw zero honeybees, but at least two species of bumblebees were nectaring on the blossoms. Tiger Swallowtails, and Great Spangled Fritillaries were also nectaring on the thistle flowers. I found no species of grass skippers there; usually there are Sachems and Peck's Skippers.

One of the more common insects of the day was a species of "June Bug" scarab beetle ambling over the area. There were also a few Dog Day Cicadas.

Rocky Knob Migration Watch

The term "migration" is often applied to the periodical or irregular movements of all animals; but it may be questioned whether there are any regular migrants but birds and fishes.

---A.R. Wallace, 1876.

By mid to late August at Rocky Knob some of us gather to witness whatever seems to be migrating. This menagerie of creatures includes hawks, waterfowl, cormorants, nighthawks, swifts, hummingbirds, swallows, Red-headed Woodpeckers and a host of passerines, most heading to the southwest of our location. Some of these birds travel unbelievable distances. Some are considered mere short distance migrants.

We also gather to see dragonflies and butterflies "migrating" to the south. Except for perhaps some monarch butterflies, the migration of these insects is inter-generational, i.e. the individuals we see in late summer and fall journeying southward are not the same ones we might find the following spring.

I hope some folks reading this short blurb will stop by and visit and see for yourself how marvelous the migration can be. Anyway, you're invited. We'll watch sometimes, and we'll hear dog day cicadas (what I grew up calling "Jar Flies") and katydids chorusing in the woods by the cow pasture.

BTW, our watch is at milepost 168 on the Blue Ridge Parkway, on the border of Patrick & Floyd Counties.

Local Names for Birds, Part Two

I begin Part Two with a list of a few more local names for birds:

• Bull Bat, Common Nighthawk
• August Bat, Common Nighthawk
• Bee Martin, Eastern Kingbird
• Till & Teal & Teal-Mouse, Tufted Titmouse
• Jenny Wren, Carolina Wren, or maybe some other wren, (Bewick's Wren?)
  
• Thresh, Brown Thrasher
• Leaf Bird, Cape May Warbler (maybe other warblers, and vireos?)
• Pewee Bird, Common Yellowthroat
  
• Joreen, Eastern Towhee

I believe Bull Bat is used over the entire region by many speakers. Variants I have heard include August Bat, because as the speaker told me: "that's when they fly." I heard one speaker born in Giles County refer to the Common Nighthawk as Fall Bat, for the same reason.

When I was a kid I knew of several folks who would find a prominent place of nighthawk migration flight, and these men would aim their shot guns, sometimes rifles, and see how many they could kill. I don't know if any of these folks really believed these birds were bats, but that was the justification they used--sort of ridding the world of vermin I guess. Or maybe it was just an amusement for them. Right now I don't know of anyone who goes out hunting Bull Bats, so I guess that is a wee bit of progress. Of course, sad to say, the migration flights are nothing in number like they were fifty years ago, or even 25 years ago, when I could still see several thousand in an evening before sundown.

As for Bee Martin for Eastern Kingbird, I knew a couple of people who said that name, pointing out one perched on a bean pole. Sure enough it had a wasp in its bill.

I assume Till or Teal or Teal-Mouse is a dialect variant of Titmouse. The pronunciation is with a really long "eee" and some speakers say it with a glide that slides it into two syllables: "tee--eel". I know I have come home to my young time and place when I hear that name. Either that or a time warp is happening again.

I don't really know which wren people referred to when they said Jenny Wren but the only wren around was Carolina Wren. I believe the name came over from England, and there of course it must have referred to "THE wren" (aka, the Winter Wren, here). I'm just guessing, mind you.

Thresh is just a local variant on thrash, or thrasher.

I know a couple of people in Montgomery County, VA right along the New River who called the warbler we were watching a "leaf bird". It was pecking aphids very systematically from under the leaves of maples. The leaves were loaded with aphids, and the Cape May Warblers were chowing. They would just perch on twigs and peck and peck---this made for easy eating. One of the men said "this is what we've always called 'em" when I asked him about the name "leaf bird."
Actually this foraging strategy is quite typical of Cape May Warblers. It's a great way to glean food and store up energy for the long haul to the tropics, and the Cape Mays have already been traveling a long while before they get to our area in September.

The Pewee Bird is the one that started me bird watching at age five. My father showed me its nest. It took me several years to figure out what this yellow-breasted bird was. It also had a black mask. I eventually learned the book name---Common Yellowthroat. I sometimes tell kids this story, and I sometimes tell these kids that because it has a mask it is a bandit bird. I hope they know I'm joking.

The Joreen is a local name for the Towhee in Franklin County. I figure like "towhee" or "chewink" it is an echoic name for the towhee's call notes. I saw three Joreens in the catbriers in Radford this past Saturday, and they all said Joreen not Chewink. I guess the Eastern Towhee is my favorite bird, but ask me another day and I'll mutter something else is.

In a couple of weeks, I'll write a little about local names for insects.

Local Names for Birds, Part One

One day back in June 1984, my Uncle Dallas guided me through some of the farm lands where he was born near Woolwine in Patrick County, Virginia. I was participating in the Virginia Breeding Bird Atlas.

We both heard a Pileated Woodpecker cackling among some tulip poplars up ridge from us. He said, "that's an Indian Hen." My father had always used the name Wood Hen.

My Uncle and I searched some bottom land soggy places for a little while. He said he had seen baby snipe here many years earlier. I knew which species he was referring to....American Woodcock. It is also the species of much local lore and speculation in Franklin County and Patrick County, the most famous I guess...the snipe hunt.

A snipe hunt is a prank to fool a person who knows nothing about snipe or woodcock. As folks have described it to me:

you take the person out into the woods
you give 'em a sack to catch the snipe
you tell the person that you will drive the snipe to 'em
you go home and enjoy a coffee lace or other beverage
the person never gets a snipe in the bag
the person is left "holding the bag"

I know somebody that played that trick on his fiancee. She married the guy anyway. They're still married, now almost 60 years.

Below is a short list of a few species with field guide common name and the local vernacular. There are a couple of sad notions in my head as I write this blog: (1) the saddest: most of the folks who have shared these names are now quite elderly, or have died in recent years, taking these local names and much more with them so to speak, and (2) people who still use the local names, often apologize for using them, saying something like "I don't know what the book name is" or "I only know this name, not the book name."

My Uncle Dallas told me also that he could tell where folks were from just by their accent. Yeah, we can still do that. But what he meant was simply this: He knew a certain person was from Meadows of Dan by their Meadows of Dan accent, since he was from Woolwine...and the number of miles ain't very far between the two places. Transport, radio, TV etc has definitely reduced the number of our accents...but I digress, here's a first short list:

These are all local names I have heard people use in the New River Valley or in Franklin, or Patrick Counties.

Local name, Common name in field guides:

• Keel, Bufflehead
• Mud Duck, Pied-billed Grebe
• Blue Crane, Great Blue Heron
• Shytepoke, Green Heron
• Snipe, American Woodcock
• Yellow Hammer, Northern Flicker
• Indian Hen, Pileated Woodpecker
• Wood Hen, Pileated Woodpecker
• Baldpate, American Wigeon

The name Baldpate of course is in some of the older bird field guides, so one hunter may have been repeating a book name.

I'll post a few more local bird names with another entry soon, and then one about local names for insects.

Clyde Kessler