THE 'HOLE' TRUTH REVEALED

Red-bellied Woodpecker - in Millie Page's back yard
Photo - courtesy,Sharon Milligan

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There is a tendency, in our throwaway society, to hold the hole in disfavor. Even after long and faithful service in the cause of comfort or convenience, the sock, the shoe and the bucket go the way of all trash.

Few of us remember that socks used to be darned, and a hole in a shoe was only a temporary setback to be met with the thickest piece of cardboard one could find. We'd replace the cardboard on rainy days, and do our own shoe repair with glue-on rubber soles that flapped all the way to school. As long as it held together, holes notwithstanding, the old shoe had value.

Trees are like that. A tree with a hole in it is an important piece of real estate, marketable to a wide variety of birds and other wildlife. Should the tree be leafless, and to all appearances, dead and useless, its market value even increases to birds looking for domicile.

Unfortunately, a tree with a hole in it sooner or later suffers the same fate as old socks and buckets. Somehow it is an affront to suburbia to leave undisturbed a dead and unsightly totem of holes and gnarls; and so it goes, unceremoniously. Only then do we discover a handful of baby Screech Owls left homeless, or the eggs of the Red-headed Woodpecker, she who lends such splash to the neighborhood.

The rush to remove dead trees is not just a backyard phenomenon. For a long time, land-use managers conscripted old trees for ignoble ends, and indiscriminate land-clearing practices give little heed to the wildlife dislocation that ensues. Hole-nesting birds have become a major concern to wildlife experts because housing is in short supply.

Trees have two kinds of holes that supply the housing needs of birds. There are the natural cavities which see long life and a great variety of tenants, and there are holes deliberately excavated by woodpeckers and also used in successive years by opportunistic birds who lack the tools to excavate their own holes.

Woodpeckers are uniquely endowed to chisel a hole in a tree. Not only are their bills sharp and pointed for ease in rat-a-tat-tatting, but their skulls are thick enough to absorb the punishment without serious impairment of their senses.

Woodpeckers come equipped with their own scaffolding: Strong feet and claws (two forward and two backward) for clinging, and stiff spiny tails for propping and balance. Virtually all of our woodpeckers use a new hole each year. This seeming overindulgence in new housing each year is not without benefit to another group of birds who make minor renovations, add a few leaves, bits of string, a tuft of fur, and call it home for the duration of the nesting season.

Recycling of old nesting cavities is one of the ways birds cope with shortages. What last year was home for a family of Pileated Woodpeckers could be this year's Screech Owl nest. That flicker hole next year may be reclaimed by a Tufted Titmouse, the year after, by a chickadee.

Competition is keen and better understood when one ponders the inevitable fact that birds cannot become parents until they have made or otherwise acquired, a place to lay eggs.

Among the birds that tend to nest in natural cavities but are not above exerting squatter's rights on woodpecker holes are the Wood Duck, American Kestrel, Great Crested Flycatcher, Brown-headed Nuthatch, Carolina Wren and, to the woe of almost all native cavity nesting species, the European Starling and the House Sparrow.

Purple Martins, famed for their mosquito control, and amply rewarded with man-made condos, were at one time confined to nesting in cavities, hollows in cliffs and old woodpecker holes. American Indians set the current trend in martin housing by hanging gourds, or calabashes, in their villages. Even now, those, in some of the more remote sections of our coastal counties, I find martins far from human habitation and suspect that the old instincts still exit.

That most famous of cavity nesters, the Eastern Bluebird, showed signs of succumbing to the housing pinch before man laid out the first of the many bluebird trails which today are fostering healthy bluebird populations in rural areas.

Prothonotary Warblers, of the brilliant hue and ascending song, are the only cavity-nesting warlbers in the eastern U.S., and while preferring an upturned tree in a quiet swamp, may look upon the abandoned home of a Downy Woodpecker as the ultimate in cozy living.

Any number of rodents and mammals make use of old woodpecker holes, and just recently I came upon a pair of American Kestrels in great distress as they found that their staked-out old Pileated Woodpecker hole had been occupied by a swarm of bees.

While substitute housing, such as gourds and bird-houses may please the few, such as martins and bluebirds, there always will be birds for which an ancient skeleton of a once verdant tree means the difference between dynamic populations or none at all. We should try to remember that.

This article was published in May 1982

PAINTED BUNTING BEYOND WORDS

Photo courtesy Brian Johnston
This article was published in May 1977

My approach to the subject of the Painted bunting has been slow … it started at eight this morning and has been losing momentum ever since … each time I think of a catchy phrase or an apt description for this “non pareil” among birds, it has a ring of familiarity … like it has all been said before, in better words by better writers.

If you have seen the male Painted Bunting, you can, of course, understand my feelings of inadequacy. Many a birdwatcher has been reduced to oohs and aahs while reaching for eloquence… for such is his effect upon us.

With master strokes of color wizardry, an uninhibited Dame Nature endowed our little Painted Bunting with singular appeal. No other bird in North America goes about in such a flamboyant combination of paint-pot colors!

From his head and nape of blue, to his wings of green, to his tail and undersides of red, he precisely demonstrates why one picture is worth a thousand words … and one sprightly, wild bird would likewise put all pictures to shame!

Your field guide will give you only a hint of his audacious plumage. Blue is not blue at all when measured against the satiny violet blue head … the green can be found only during early April when spring leaves burst upon the scene, and his red fairly sizzles. Little wonder that upon seeing this “non pareil” for the first time, you may doubt what your eyes have seen.

The almost universal reaction to the first look is to write it all down. Then there is the need to share the experience. This bird can totally disrupt a well-planned day! It is not so surprising that before the enactment of laws to protect the migratory bird, these perfect examples of Nature’s handiwork were trapped and caged and transported around the world to enliven far-flung aviaries.

These buntings appear on the Coast after the first week in April, in company with their near relatives, the beautiful Indigo Buntings. If their need for food is great, they will find your feeding station, but you will more often find them feeding in small flocks in abandoned fields and along weedy roadsides.

Were she not to be compared with her illustrious male counter-part, the female bunting, dressed in sunny springtime green, (a plumage which is unique to the female bunting) might well elicit the admiration which is due her!

Southern Coastal areas, from the Carolinas to Texas, are favored by the Painted Bunting. Here, low growths of hedgerows, bushes and tangled vines offer them ideal nesting sites. As one goes away from the coast, they occur less frequently.

Like other brightly colored birds, these buntings can be difficult to locate among rustling leaves, sparkling sunlight and dancing shadows.  But when the male sings it is quite another matter. From a conspicuous perch, he pours forth his ardor in a variety of songs … emphatic efforts with changes in pitch,  reminding me of a Burt Bacharach ditty. He puts in a long day, from sun-up to sundown … it’s always a good rule to follow the song to the bird … both song and singer will then be well imprinted in your mind.

Our male Painted Bunting is a scrappy little fellow .. he will hold his own at the feeding station even when threatened by that “bird of peace”, the Mourning Dove.

When the females arrive later in April, the competition for mates is rather violent. In the heat of combat, considerable bodily injury occurs, and many a battle does not cease until a male lies dead and the plucky victor is quite the worse for wear, perhaps losing an eye or every feather atop his head!

As a domestic, the male bunting, like other brightly colored males, rates fair to poor. His function is to draw attention away from the nest by singing long and loud from center stage. The female, having constructed the nest and incubated the eggs must feed the young until after they have fledged, while working furiously to ready another nest in time for her second brood.

Only then does our charming Casanova assume some responsibility, feeding and caring for the first brood. If he has been polygamous, there is little time for self-indulgence, for he will stay busy and out of trouble for weeks!

Any attempt to depict the male bunting would be totally inadequate, but these southern specialties will be with us until fall. My wish is that you might become acquainted with this “non-pareil”, who is truly a bird without equal, along some quiet roadside.

USE THIS SEASON TO LEARN BIRD SONGS

   

Young male Orchard Oriole

Photo courtesy Sharon Milligan

   Once all the northbound migrants leave town (the last of them by mid-June), there seems to be a void in a birder's life. It doesn't have to be that way. Here are some suggestions to get you through until the unofficial beginning of fall migration in mid-August, when we make our annual search for the Olive-sided Flycatcher. Learn bird songs. There is no better time than the nesting season to get a musical education. Granted, the nesting season is well under way, but the remainder of May and first couple of weeks in June are ideal times to study bird songs and calls without the distraction of a passing migrant.

   During this season, the possibilities presented by the bird one is hearing are far less confusing than they would be in April or early May, when every bird gets on stage. The premise here is that a singing bird is a permanent or summer resident. The premise here is that every adult male bird which is defending a territory or nest will sing at least once during any given three-minute period.

   Did you know that you can hear a bird's song from a quarter mile away? If you get to be good at listening, you will recognize that song above the noise of lawnmowers or the din of traffic. In the interest of tranquility, not to mention good study habits, the places to learn songs are those that are nearly traffic-free. That means country roads, woodland walks, bottom lands, even canoe trips.

   One hears very little singing after 9:30 or 10 a.m., when the heat of the day causes birds, not to mention us mere mortals, to shut down. So if you really are into the learning game, you will want to be "on site" and ready to start learning about a half hour before sunrise, or at least be there when the big golden orb peeks out of the east.

   Pick a spot. Pine woods, for example. There are a surprising number of birds that nest in the pine woods, provided they are not pine plantations. Any pure habitat lacks the proper mix to attract a variety of birds. One of my favorite places is DeSoto National Forest, where there are many dirt roads. I like Seymour Road in Jackson County. It is off Larue Road not far from the junction of Larue Road and Old Biloxi Highway, otherwise known as Daisy Vestry Road. Any dirt road that leads off the major thoroughfares will do.

   What might you hear? Or see? Perhaps an owl, if you are early. If you are early, perhaps a Chuck-will's-widow or a Common Nighthawk. Mourning Dove. Mississippi Kite. Broad-winged Hawk. Red-shouldered Hawk. Red-tailed Hawk. American Kestrel Chimney Swift. Almost any woodpecker, but listen especially for Red-cockaded. Eastern Wood Pewee. Great Crested Flycatcher. Eastern Kingbird. Purple Martin. Blue Jay. American Crow. Carolina Chickadee. Tufted Titmouse.

   Also Brown-headed Nuthatch. Carolina Wren. Blue-gray Gnatcatcher. Eastern Bluebird. Northern Mockingbird. Brown Thrasher. Loggerhead Shrike. White-eyed Vireo. Red-eyed Vireo. Yellow-throated Vireo. Pine Warbler. Prairie Warbler. Common Yellowthroat. Hooded Warbler. Yellow-breasted Chat. Summer Tanager. Northern Cardinal. Blue Grosbeak. Indigo Bunting. Bachman's Sparrow. Red-winged Blackbird. Brown-headed Cowbird. Orchard Oriole.

   Try to track down every song or call you don't recognize to the bird who is making it. There is nothing like actually watching a bird vocalize to fix the song or call the bird in your mind. The possibilities are pretty much limited to the birds above. But that's about 50 species, many of which you already would know by sound: crows, jays, chickadees, titmice, cardinals, etc.

   If you take that same idea to riparian woodlands, such as Logtown, Spence's Woods, or Pascagoula River Wildlife Management Area, for example, you will find many of the same species listed above. But certain species might be present in riparian woodlands that you wouldn't be likely to find in pine woods: Barred Owl. Ruby-throated Hummingbird. Acadian Flycatcher. Wood Thrush. Northern Parula. Yellow-throated Warbler. American Redstart. Prothonotary Warbler. Swainson's Warbler. Kentucky Warbler.

   Besides the birds one would expect to hear, there are any number of very visible birds that are not noted for songs but are likely to fly over as you are listening to a little guy: herons (notably the night-herons), ibises, ducks (Wood Duck), kites, hawks, woodpeckers, swallows.

   But in the time a birder does his homework in what amounts to two habitats --- pine woods and riparian woodlands --- he or she would have seen and/or heard all of the birds that nest away from the immediate coastal area of sand, water and marshes.

   It takes more than one lesson to learn bird songs. The fact is, unless one is exceptionally gifted, it could take several trips into particular habitat to get things down pat. And, come successive nesting seasons, there's a review process. "I know that song. I've heard it before --- oh, yes, I remember now --- the spiral sort of wind-up songs, coming from very high, that's got to be a Yellow-throated Warbler." And once recognizing the song, narrow down the search area and find that bird.

   You can do it. By all means obtain a cassette or CD of bird songs. (Editor’s note – nowadays (2016) songs can be heard on phone Apps – a good one is IBIRD PRO).  Select the species from the above lists and listen to them. Listen to them again. Do not crowd your mind with songs that you don't expect to hear.

   Suppose you followed my advice and went to the pine woods. You amazed yourself. You found almost everything that was supposed to be there. But you missed a Yellow-breasted Chat, or a Prairie Warbler. Both songs are very distinctive, but the chat is highly variable and the Prairie Warbler can be quite faint. If you dial them up on a recording, you probably will say to yourself that, yes, you did hear them. And next time you will know exactly what to listen for and where to look.

 Editor's note: Judith Toups first "aired" this bird-song advice in May of 1999. It is repeated here for the edification of all birders.

BLACKPOLL WARBLER WORTH HOURS SPENT BACKYARD BIRD-WATCHING

MALE BLACKPOLL WARBLER -PHOTO COURTESY SHARON MILLIGAN

This photo was taken last week (2016) on Dauphin Island.  Quite a few blackpoll
sightings have been made this spring, so do keep a watch out. Our group was struck by
the brightly colored (yellow) feet - present in both sexes.

One of the best reasons for continuing the backyard bird-watch well into May is the Blackpoll Warbler, a rather slow-moving gleaner, the male of which, while sporting the same colors as the Black and White Warbler, is easily distinguished by its black crown and white cheeks. A handsome fellow – somewhat understated.

The female blackpoll is even less distinctive, but she can be identified with attention to a field guide, and by the company she keeps. She has no need for beauty as we perceive it, for her duties include the incubation of eggs and the brooding of young, and the more inconspicuously she tends to those responsibilities, the more successful a mother she will be.

Just when the excitement of spring migration appears to be running out of steam, the search for blackpolls (and a few other late starters) can hold interest for a while longer. To my dismay, I have yet to see my (this written in 1987) spring blackpoll, although others have had the pleasure. My search is being intensified, and my anxiety grows.

The blackpoll is an abundant warbler over its breeding range, but it occurs here only as a transient, and there are some springs when very few are seen – it takes a low pressure system over the Gulf to precipitate blackpolls in appreciable numbers.

Records show that it may be seen here up to May 29, although late April to mid-May are optimum times. The blackpoll is known as a late migrant – it winters from northern South America southward to Brazil, and when most north-bound migrants have left their wintering grounds, many blackpolls are still resisting the pull toward home, in no great hurry to arrive in the northern spruce forests from Alaska to Labrador, before spring warms the earth and generates a supply of insects.

With most transient species, we have two chances – one in spring and another in fall. Not so with the blackpoll, whose fall migration is southeasterly across the upper United States and south along the Atlantic seaboard, putting it out of the reach of Mississippi fall birders.

Besides being scarce in most years, the blackpoll deserves its celebrity for other reasons – it stimulates the imagination and the sense of wonder and adventure that are common to birders.

It appears that no Blackpoll Warbler makes a migration that is less that 2,500 miles; most fly more than 5,000 miles between wintering grounds to nesting grounds, hence they are among the champions of long distance migration.

The presence of any blackpoll here in spring attests to an achievement, which, if duly contemplated, should humble all of us. Consider – when this wisp arrives on our Coast, it already has made at least one fall journey to South America, two 500 mile flights over open water and survived the innate hazards of just being a bird for at least 10 months.

I fully expect to meet “my” blackpoll some time this week. When I do, I certainly won’t give it short shrift. Neither should you.

This article was published in May, 1987