The-Pond-That-Never-Freezes Eagle Nest Continued Plus Do Hormonal African Grey Parrot Females Go Berserk Too? And What Is That on the Cabinet?

 Where we left off when Blogger stopped functioning last night....I was walking the 3/4 mile field toward the woods  where the Eagle's Nest is situated.  I reach the edge of the woods and am able to see the nest in more detail 
 on the other side of the river.   And Mom has her eye on me.  No surprise there.

See what  I mean?  I'm assuming that there has been a hatch but the hawklets are still too short to be seen.   I decide to change positions as I'm standing in a marshy area.

I walk through the underbrush and when I get the camera up again.  MY, MY, MY!  Mom is shifting twigs to obscure my view.

Long time readers will remember  when we were watching the Red-tailed Hawk Nest  located in an oak in the middle of a field adjacent to County M a few miles out of Milton, WI . 

During the first observation of the male sitting the nest he too began to move nest twigs from other parts of the nest to obscure my view of he and the nest.  The eagle is doing the same.

I've never seen an urban hawk, even in a tree nest, do this sort of thing.  I suspect human habituation may be the reason.  It would seem strange that this is only a rural Wisconsin raptor move.

And she keeps at it.

 

Another glare.

And then she's back to the renovations.

And she keeps at it.

She pokes at another stick. And then stares.

                       I move and then she moves.

Then suddenly she looks up and keeps looking.  I don't see anything but then her eyesight is about a zillion times better than mine.  Okay, okay, not a zillion but from 8 to 10 times better than mine.  In which case it might as well be a zillion as she see's it, whatever "it" is, and I don't.

Dad coming with dinner?  Possibly.  Time to leave them in peace.  I start the trek back.

When I get about half way across the field I turn back and take a picture or two just in case something is happening that I can't see with the naked eye.

And indeed there was.  See the blob, the thickening of the branch that is just right of center on the nest?  That's Mom.

Dreadful detail I know, but look carefully.  Mom is standing on the edge of the nest leaning over.  Is she feeding an eaglet?  

I've always wondered what the survival strategy was involved with the white head and tail of an adult eagle.  It was an epiphany when I first looked at an eagle on the nest.  The head and tail are white, because at a distance the white head and tail blend into the sky masking the "bird" silhouette.  

 Look carefully at the spot the tail should be.  Got it?  You can see the line where the tail ends and the sky begins.

And who might that be?   The nest tree's clump is down right.

I'd say that was Dad doing a fly by and checking in.

Next up, as promised.  I'd wondered what female African Grey Parrots were like when Spring came round.  Did they turn into the Bride of Frankenstein? 

Well long time blog contributor and correspondent Robin of Illinois happened to have a friend, Linda of Delavan, Illinois who also happened to have two female African Greys. 

Do they dive bomb their mistress?

First off from Robin, "Linda says that ordinarily she will give her two female AGs cardboard boxes to chew on and shred, but not this time of year as they try to use them for nesting."

Very smart.  Rule number one, try to keep your birds from intensifying the problem with activities that exacerbate more hormonal secretions.

(Now if  I could just remove all shelves from the house.) 

So do females go mad like males do?

Linda of Delavan IL responded-

:

"Not to the extent of dive bombing me.  They will lay eggs if given a box and newspaper.  Gonzo likes to sit in the crook of my arm and let me pet her all over while she “clucks” very softly.  This only happens in the springtime.  Other times she’ll only let me scratch her head.  "

Clucks defined as: "Little noises into the crook of my arm.  If you’re not listening for them, you’ll miss it."

Thank you so much for the information Linda!

WOW!  The girls get more affectionate and some make cute little noises while you scratch them all over.  

Doesn't sound bad at all.  In fact it sounds wonderful.  Sigh.

Linda, just so you know, I'm extremely jealous of your girls!

Though I have to admit, Silver has not dive bombed me all day and I haven't caught him in a laundry room cupboard  either.  Perhaps his burrow through towels after excavating the drawer from the rear was traumatic enough to cool his jets a little?  Unlikely.  Therefore I hope, as hormonal surges tend to be arcs, he is on the down swing.  

Please let it be so!

Speaking of laundry room cupboards, long time reader Linda Maslin also sent me an email-

Love reading about the exploits of Quicksilver, but could you explain exactly what the bird is in your laundry room on one of the handles of the cabinet?  It’s right above your laundry sink – looks like a mourning dove.  I can’t tell if it’s a magnet, a photo or a stuffed bird or something else!

Regards,

Linda Maslin

I wondered if someone would ask about that.

You hit the nail on the head L.M.  Yes she
is a Mourning Dove.  She has a clip on her stomach so she can perch on things.  There are also two more on the opposite wall...

I realize it's rather odd, but there, as always with me, lies a tale.  Several years ago I was in a sporting goods store looking for a hard to find bulb for one of my camping lanterns.

While browsing I was horrified that Mourning Dove decoys were being made and used by hunters.  Yes, I'm adverse to hunting but the hunting of Mourning Doves is utterly beyond my comprehension.  It makes me crazy.

l. Back in the day, Mourning Doves were called the Farmer's Friend because they love eating weed seeds.  Therefore beyond all the reasons we have not to hunt them they are helpful to humans when it comes to farming.

2. Besides how many would you have to kill to make a sandwich for goodness sake?

3. And third, Mourning Dove breeding season is variable, therefore the hunting season can overlap breeding season and cause chicks to starve on the nest.

Basically it is a blood boiler for me.  So I bought the five decoys they had left so no hunters could buy them.  They decorate the laundry room and when I go camping they decorate my tent.

And I'm happy to say that not once have they attracted any other doves to come and  investigate for which I am very glad.  Not that I wouldn't like to see doves but you catch my drift.

We do what we can.

D.B.

HAPPY NEW YEAR FROM DOORSTEP DOVE, FRIEND!, and Pale Male Too

 Photo courtesy of www.palemale.com
Happy New Year from Pale Male, who has once started his renovations on the 927 Fifth Avenue nest for the upcoming season!
Happy New Year from Doorstep Dove...

Friend...

And the rest of the extended family!

At 2:08 this afternoon I looked out and saw Mourning Doves.  

A rare sight for the past couple of months.  And the two foraging in the feeding floor looked very like Doorstep and Friend.  I bobbed my head and Doorstep bobbed hers.   I was delighted and  flooded with relief.  

They were back!

They'd made it through the Wisconsin Mourning Dove hunting season, which ran from September 1st through November 9th this year, yet again!

The Wisconsin DNR website pertaining to Mourning Dove hunting season reports that the breeding population of Wisconsin Mourning Doves migrates out of Wisconsin as a flat fact.

Well most winters previous to the Dove hunting season that was started in Wisconsin a few winters ago, Doorstep and Friend were at the feeder on a daily basis.

Remember Doorstep got her name from snuggling up to the patio door during winter snow storms.

The DNR also says a fledgling Mourning Dove can do without her parent's care at less than a week off the nest.  This is patently untrue.

Do these state employees ever watch these birds in any detail?  Or are they just fabricating facts that are convenient? 

After Mourning Dove hunting season was implemented in Wisconsin they have often disappeared for months during the Fall and Winter.  Which is rather horrifying as one doesn't know if they've been shot or not while waiting out their absence.    

Below is a little of what the Humane Society of the United States has to say about Mourning Dove Hunting, and more states join the macabre slaughter every year, 41 states and counting, of more than 20 million Mourning Doves--

 "Mourning doves are the traditional bird of peace and a beloved backyard songbird. But some people use mourning doves as live targets, sometimes calling them "cheap skeet." Hunters kill more doves each year—more than 20 million—than any other animal in the country.

Doves are not overpopulated, and hunting them doesn't feed anyone or help manage wildlife. Mourning doves—called the "farmer's friend" because they eat weed seeds—pose no threat to crops, homes or anything of value to people.
Many hunters don't bother to retrieve the dead or wounded birds.
American kestrels, sharp-shinned hawks, and other federally protected birds look like doves and can be shot by mistake.
Mourning doves nest during the fall hunting season, and hunting can orphan chicks, who starve in the nest without their parents' care."
http://www.humanesociety.org/news/

Where Doorstep Dove, Friend and their extended family go, I don't know.  But I hope they keep going there.

And my wish for the New Year is that 
all the other Mourning Doves could find a safe place to go as well.

Shooting a Mourning Dove, a long lived bird who is our emblem of peace and nicknamed the "farmers friend" for their penchant for eating weed seeds, isn't  "sport" it is savagery.

Donegal Browne

Pale Male and Zena's Fledgling Assisted by Lincoln Karim, Doorstep Dove and Friends New Youngsters, Plus Isolde and Norman's Fledglings in Morningside Park

                    Photo by Jeffrey Johnson
Jeffrey Johnson, a contributor to the blog whom I met at the Wild New York City Symposium has a piece on author and original Pale Male watcher Marie Winn's Website about Lincoln and one of the Fifth Avenue fledglings.

http://mariewinnnaturenews.blogspot.com/

 
Doorstep Dove and Friend as I reported earlier have fledged three youngsters in this clutch.  Not extremely rare for Mourning Doves to lay three eggs but two eggs per clutch is the far more common number.

Here are photos of the two more mature fledglings.  The third who came off the nest slightly less mature is spending more time hiding in cover then flying except when she absolutely has to.  The other two tend to perch in sight, so we'll wait for a photo of number 3.

When I accidentally  flushed two of  Doorstep's Trio out of the garden, One took off toward the old TV antenna.

Two lifted off from the garden and came down on the short log wall that borders the yard's boundary from the park, about 12 feet away from me.  She looked at me and I at her.  She then bobbed her head at me and I bobbed back. We went back and forth  much as her mother had originally done as a first year bird though she was older as it was winter and she snuggled up to my patio door when it was cold.

  How old is Doorstep now?  I do believe we've been bobbing at each other for six years now.   

Perhaps this little dove will continue the tradition.

Photo by Rob Schmunk

And what about Isolde and Stormin' Norman's fledglings up at the Cathedral Church of St. John the Divine? 

 Needless to say, young Red-tails aren't the least bit popular with their bird neighbors, ever.  In  fact bird's scolding is a common way for watchers to find raptor fledglings but somehow the bird neighbors in Morningside Park have always seemed the loudest and most raucous when it comes to giving young Red-tails a piece of their mind   Check out Rob Schmunk's blog--

Even Paranoids Have Enemies

 

Happy Hawking

Donegal Browne

Multi-fledgling Day and a Catbird Besides

There was a tail flick in the corner of my eye.  It's a Grey Catbird, Dumetella carolinensis, standing on the Big Nest.  Ordinarily a bit shy in the yard,  this species only makes very rare appearances.  Then flick, he's gone again.

 I scan for him, and who should be in the middle of the nest blending into the wood, but a fledgling pair of Mourning Doves.  Could they be Doorstep Dove and Friend's first batch of the season?

  Flick! Then Catbird is back. (Check out his chestnut red underwear.) Ahhhh, he's here for the clementine!  He grabs it and FLICK, he's gone again. 

 The young doves don't seem to be in much of a rush.  Left stretches. Right is alert.   Waiting for the next arrival of regurgitated food from a parent?

She's currently a bit gawky.  She has a little trouble turning on the "perch".  Check out her fledgling plumage.  Young dove has more camouflaged.  There are more dark spots and highly contrasting light edges to the posterior feathers than adults.

Into the fray comes two Grackle fledglings.  A foraging Robin strides between the Grackle parent and his progeny.  The fledglings veer off and follow the Robin.  Grackle parent turns around and sees his young striding off with someone else.  Robin looks around, sees he's being shadowed by strangers and walks faster.  

Apparently these young grackles will follow anybody and they begin to scramble faster after Robin.  Grackle intersects the Robin/Fledgling trajectory and jumps at Robin.  Confused Robin taking the better course of valor, takes to his wings. 

Having computer problems--More to come!

Blakeman on the Unusual Tail Markings of Pale Male's Mate Zena and It Must Be Spring as Everyone Is Back For at Least a Cameo Apperance

                                                               Crop of original photo (see next post down) courtesy of palemale.com

 Ohio Red-tailed Hawk maven John Blakeman on the possible reasons that the tail of Pale Male's mate Zena has unusual markings and is missing some of the "normal" ones--

 

Donna,

 

The horizontal stripe on Zena's tail feather is known as a "hunger trace." It can occur for two reasons. Most often, especially in eyasses (seen in immature hawks, before they have molted to adult plumage in their second summers), hunger traces are from actual hunger, periods of time when the eyass failed to eat enough food to fully grow emerging feathers while on the nest.

 

Feathers are pure protein. An eyass going a day or longer without food will have hunger traces in all developing feathers. Most eyasses have minor, insignificant hunger traces in just the smaller parts of the feathers, not the quills. These are insignificant.

 

But a strong hunger trace that creates a weakness in the shaft of the feather is ominous. The feather is weak and can later break off. The hawk cannot recover from this and will not be able to fly. It will starve.

 

The second cause---perhaps---is a fright response to lightning in thunderstorms. You can imagine, perhaps, the sounds, heat, and light when a lightning bolt strikes a nearby tree. Hunger traces are clearly caused by hunger, but perhaps also by lightning-induced fright.

 

Zena's hunger trace has not caused any problems, as the entire tail feather remains intact and fully functional.

 

In haggards (adults), hunger traces occur only on the feathers developing at the time the trace occurs, which, then, is only in a few flight feathers. A two-day strong rain and storm period could keep the bird from eating. Or, a lightning strike in a roost-tree in August might cause the trace.

 

The lack of a dark band near the end of some of the feathers is a not uncommon plumage variance. The band, across all the tail feathers, is called the sub-terminal band. But a small percentage of red-tail simply have only portions of it, or it's absent altogether. It's absence creates no problems.

 

--John Blakeman

 

Many thanks John, I had no idea what might have caused the aberrations in Zena's tail!

It's that time of year again when the feeding area becomes quite crowded with returning residents and visitors on their way through-and everyone is keeping an eye on everyone else.  Thirteen-lined Ground Squirrel fresh from her burrow meets the beady eyed gaze of a male Dark-eyed Junco. 

Doorstep accompanied by friend both keep an eye on the newly returned female Dark-eyed Junco.  Three female Juncos held out for most of the winter until fed up with the rude behavior of the males of their species during the few bouts of snow, took off for an all girl trip further south.

Note that the feathers on Doorstep Dove's back still remain half raised and have ever since her interaction with the Cooper's Hawk.  Possible nerve damage?  Whatever the case it doesn't seem to have diminished her capabilities one whit.

 Pyewacket the cat, alert at the door, meets the stare of a male House Finch.  Neither gave an inch.

 The Grackle, accompanied by the ground feeding and ever vigilant House Sparrows, having been thwarted by the weight bar on the mixed seed feeder avails herself of the hordes of seed she spilled on the ground as she pumped the bar up and down with her repeated attempts to fool it.

 I looked out the the door and who should be staring back while perpendicular to the goodie stump with the use of her handy rigid woodpecker tail feathers but a Northern Yellow Shafted Flicker.

Here's a look at the splash of red on her head.

 

Note the glimpse of yellow on the rear edge of her feathers.

And when it comes to staring the Common Grackle's yellow, and I admit even at human size, scary eyes take the top prize for potent looks.

Donegal Browne

Culprit the Cooper's Hawk, Mourning Doves-Doorstep and Friend

I looked out the window and realized there was an odd lump in the Maple tree. A lump that might well explain why there hadn't been a single bird at the feeders all day. I changed windows.

Indeed... the likely culprit. Flash! She was gone. Typical of my having seen mostly tail feathers lately. That is until a few seconds later when I looked out the patio door.

Well, well, Culprit the Cooper's Hawk is sitting on the bird bath. She'd looked straight at me earlier, I know. Could Culprit be slightly human habituated? That would be new.

Notice how her far left tail feather and also the far right are shorter then their neighbors. And the second in slightly shorter than its neighbor towards center and the feathers progress towards the center. (Except where it is slightly separated.) That's a field mark for a Cooper's as the gradation makes the rounded tail when spread that is typical of the species.

She decides to have a drink.


She's dying for one of the many sparrows inhabiting the Sparrow Pile to make a break for it.

She tenses.

Then suddenly flap jumps to another edge.

Still no sparrow is startled enough to leave their twig refuge.

She looks down fixedly.

Back to the sparrows. Still no joy.

Back down. You'd think there was something unusual down there.

Back to the sparrow pile.

It almost appears as if something is moving down there that I can't see.

See what I mean?

Now what? Is she possibly standing on the bath to warm her feet?

Whoa! She gives me a challenging look.

Does a wing flap spin...

...lands and settles...

...and gives me the back of her head no less. I don't appear to be much of a threat in her mind, do I?

Back down to the water.

Another drink.

Pause to check the neighbor's bird feeder.

Drink.

Me.

Out waiting sparrows must be very thirsty work.

She tenses.

Then back to scanning.

The branches of the maple...

The park....

And Culprit is gone!

Well not really gone as there isn't a flight by anyone for a seed meal until dusk.

And then just as the sun was going down, I looked out and saw something I hadn't seen for awhile and as Culprit has been haunting the feeders I'd begun to worry. The Mourning Dove pair, Doorstep and Friend were sitting warming themselves on the bath before roosting, watching the sunset together as they have on many a winter's evening for years.

Donegal Browne

P.S. Remember yesterday I pointed out the Cornell Lab's, All About Birds, site had said that a Ring-necked Duck had a chestnut neck ring in one paragraph and in another that it was purple?

I checked today and they've corrected it. :)