by Gene Walz
The fair-weather birders who stayed home missed a surprisingly fruitful morning. Shakespeare was right: fair can be foul and foul can be fair.
Eight Things
I’ve Seen with My Own Two Eyes
1) Yellow Warblers Nesting
Kids not only say the darnedest things, they also collect the darnedest things. My grandson, Torsten, for instance, collects Scooby Doo comics, and, in fact, anything to do with that TV cartoon show. Me? When I was a kid, I collected bubblegum cards—baseball and football cards, automobile cards, airplane cards, even something called “Look and See” cards, whatever. (My parents threw a Campbell’s soup box full of bubblegum cards into the trash when they were down-sizing.) And for a short time, when I was maybe eight, nine, or ten, I collected birds’ nests.
Left to my own devices when I was a kid (I had very few “devices”—i.e. no TV, wrist watch, or computer), I was free to roam the undeveloped fields and woods around my house. I discovered many things, including dozens of bird nests. Once they were abandoned and I realized they would not be used a second time, I started collecting them. My mother, sensibly, made me store them in the garage.
Two of my father’s bachelor brothers, my uncles Ed and John, loved a good cigar. (Perhaps that’s why they were single.) Between the two of them, they went through two boxes of White Owl cigars every month. They gave me the empty boxes; I don’t remember why. I used those boxes, painted or wall-papered, to store my collection of bird nests—a robin’s nest, a Red-eyed Vireo’s, a Red-winged Blackbird’s, a Goldfinch’s, a House Wren’s, and many more whose memory time has erased. I completely forgot about them when we moved.
My cigar boxes were too small for my favourite nest—that of a Yellow Warbler.
You’d think a Yellow Warbler’s nest would easily fit into a cigar box. Their nests are usually only about four or five inches in diameter and maybe three inches tall. But this one was special. It was not one nest but four. Exploring a field with grasses up to my chest, I found the original nest in the fork of a spindly tree about two feet off the ground. Surreptitiously, or so I thought, I checked it every day. By the fourth day of my discovery, there were five eggs in the nest.
Then a cowbird showed up and laid an egg on top of the warblers’ five. Cowbirds are parasitic nesters. They don’t build or tend their own nests; the female lays her eggs in the nest of another bird, relying on the mothering instincts of the adoptive parent to raise the young cowbirds. Some birds are smart enough to recognize an interloper’s eggs and do something about it.
Almost immediately, the warblers I was watching started to build a second nest on top of the first, abandoning their own eggs and covering the parasitic cowbird’s. Before they could lay their second clutch of eggs, the cowbird beat them to it. They immediately built a third nest, and even a fourth before they gave up. I collected the nest later that summer and stored it in a shoebox.
Watching that warbler-cowbird battle provided a lesson in the cowbird’s avian freeloading and sneakiness contrasted with the Yellow Warblers’ persistence and ultimate resignation; their interactions taught me that birds aren’t just nature’s ornaments. They have fascinating adaptive behaviours.
It wasn’t until years later that I realized I might have been implicated in the scheme. My daily presence at the warbler nest might have alerted the cowbird to its location. That more important lesson was late in coming. I’ve reminded my grandson of that lesson. Sometimes good intentions lead to bad consequences—and not just in birding.
2) Crombec Parenting
On safari with a group led by my friend Bwana Bob Taylor in Kenya and Tanzania in 2005, we usually had the early afternoon to ourselves. We would venture out in our safari vehicles in the early morning in search of birds and animals and then again later in the afternoon. During the heat of mid-day most birds and animals lay low. But there were exceptions, so I kept my binoculars handy at all times. I never knew what would turn up.
As I dozed comfortably in the shade after a huge lunch at Sweetwaters Serena Camp in Kenya, I became aware of a persistent squawking somewhere nearby. A raspy kew, kew, kewk. It took me a while to track it down.
On a branch high in an acacia tree was a rufous bird, about the size of an American Robin and the colour of a Brown Thrasher. It had a streaky throat and a large coral-red bill. The bird just stood on the branch making noise. I had a good, long look at it. Two or three slow checks through my field guide combined with return looks at the obligingly stationary bird finally gave me an ID; it was a juvenile Diederik Cuckoo. I’d never seen an adult before, so this was a good find: a lifer.
As I stared at the bird, a much smaller bird popped up beside it. About three and a half inches long, it was half the size of the cuckoo. Its arrival quieted the cuckoo. Then the reason for the squawking became apparent. It was begging to be fed. A morsel was exchanged, and the smaller bird flew off—before I could get a good look at its markings.
It returned in less than a minute with an insect in its beak. A plain brown bird with almost no tail. Rufous underparts and a rufous face. A quick check of the field guide indicated it was a Red-faced Crombec, a kind of small, African warbler. Another lifer.
With little else to do, I watched this exchange for over an hour. I didn’t count, but there must have been at least fifty feedings. The cuckoo chick was noisily insistent and never satisfied. The crombec was working its tail off (so to speak) to feed its adoptive “off-spring.”
Cowbirds aren’t the only parasite nesters, laying their eggs in another bird’s nest and relying on the nest builders to raise their young—cuckoos do it too. Likely the cuckoo chick crowded the crombec chicks out of the nest and dominated the crombec parents.
Cuckoo adults are bullies by proxy. They let their kids do the dirty work.
3) Ospreys Learning
On our first trip to Nova Scotia, my wife and I learned a valuable lesson. Well, many lessons, but I’ll stick to just one or two.
I was a graduate student at the time and she was a waitress, and together we had no money and little spare time. On the spur of the moment, we tossed a bunch of clothes and a few supplies into her old Toyota and lit out for Nova Scotia from Amherst, Massachusetts. We had no tent and no money for motels or even campsites, so we took an old parachute of hers for cover. (She was a skydiver with over one hundred jumps. Even after a few lessons, I could never work up the nerve to actually jump out of an airborne plane.)
We figured we’d sleep out somewhere under the stars, and, if it rained, we’d stretch her parachute between a couple of trees and use that as our “tent.” As it got dark, we’d look for a lonesome, unpaved road somewhere and hope nobody would hassle us.
We found a perfect isolated spot in northern Cape Breton on our third night. We ate peanut butter and jelly sandwiches and watched the brilliant deep sky until we were too tired to count the shooting stars. It was clear when we crawled into our sleeping bags but in the middle of the night, hour unknown, it started to rain; we quickly secured the parachute between the car door and a tree and ducked under it, but not before it started to pour. A monsoon. We got soaked to the skin and ended up huddled together in her tiny car, shivering. Lesson learned: Nova Scotia is a maritime province! It’s not as dry as the postcards. Oh, and parachutes are not very water repellent.
We spent the next day, cloud-free and hot, drying out. We spread everything out in the sun on bushes and tree branches and relaxed on that gently sloping hill next to a lake in northern Cape Breton until even the sleeping bags were dry.
As we lay there, we soon spotted an osprey. As large as an eagle but thinner, with a hooked beak, a crook in the elbows of its wings, and brown and white feathers, it was unmistakable. For a brief while it hovered at eye level about fifty metres away and fifteen metres above the water. Then, tucking its beak downward and folding its wings back, it plummeted like a rock towards the lake. At the last second
, it pivoted its talons downward and struck the water. What a spectacular dive! And a successful one. After a couple of seconds, it slowly rose out of the lake, shaking the water off its wings, and flew away with a large fish wriggling in its talons.
A second bird came on the scene almost immediately, before we could really get over the excitement of the first display. It circled a bit, hovered, and then attempted the same maneuver. It, however, came up empty. Perhaps an unanticipated gust of wind blew it slightly off course. Perhaps it hadn’t learned the delicate art of subtly adjusting its wings and/or tail to correct the descent. It tried again. Halfway down it aborted the dive, swooping up to scan the water again. It rose up to its original height and coasted along for a couple of minutes, finally dropping three times in small increments to get a better look. Its plunge was short but for some reason unsuccessful. Seemingly frustrated, it flew off in the same direction as its predecessor.
Several long minutes later, another osprey followed. Too enthusiastic, it hit the water and plunged too deeply. It was a hard struggle to break free of the grip of the lake. The osprey flapped and flailed. When it finally wrenched itself out of the water, it too flew away with no lunch.
As we whiled away the hours, it became apparent that we were watching a family (or two) of ospreys fishing. Probably six of them, two adults, male and female, and four juveniles. This must have been a great lake for they came back regularly, scanning, hovering, dropping tentatively or assuredly, swooping back up, and plunging with more failures than successes. Sometimes, whether they met with success or not, they seemed to rest on the water’s surface. Then they’d extend their wings and lift off.
One of the adult ospreys adjusted a fish in its talons when it managed a successful catch. It was like a high-wire juggling act. We held our breath to see if the fish, still alive, would wriggle free. The osprey somehow got the fish pointing forward. No juveniles were anywhere in sight. Too bad. They could have learned a simple lesson in prey aerodynamics and osprey “dexterity.” We wondered how this skill was passed along.
Watching the ospreys learn was a pleasant way to pass the time. Some fishing attempts were too tentative. Some were too enthusiastic. Some just errant. A couple of times the ospreys dropped the fish that they’d managed to snag. We sat there amused for hours.
Many years later, when I was teaching my daughters how to ride two-wheeled bikes without training wheels and then drive a car, I remembered the ospreys. So far as we could tell, osprey parents are not like twenty-first century human parents, so-called helicopter parents. Osprey adults can hover as they search for fish but they don’t hover next to their kids providing show-and-tell lessons. Spotting fish, diving fast and sure, calculating the speed of the target fish and its depth below the water’s surface, judging distances, and mastering the art of talon-eye coordination: these are all learned skills. The youngsters had no manuals, and, so far as I could tell, no helping “hand” or nervous advice from the parents. No adult guidance about when and how to hit the water, how to grab and retain a wriggling fish. The ospreys learn at the school of hard knocks. Amazing!
With their casual avian attitude toward parenting, osprey adults are obviously not models for us humans to follow. (But, let’s be honest, there are times when we all wish that we were ospreys!) I helped my daughters learn the intricacies of modern life, even enjoyed dealing with their bruised knees and battered egos. I expect I’ll offer my fair share of advice, where needed, to my grandsons. I hope I’ll get to show them how ospreys fish and learn to fish. Kids need to see the world in all of its splendor.
4) Eagles Fishing
On a sunny Sunday evening in Englishtown, Nova Scotia in 2011, my wife and I stopped at a community centre for their monthly supper. All the codcakes, mashed potatoes, corn on the cob, salad, and home-made bread we could eat plus home-made apple pie à la mode and coffee. For just ten bucks! As we were gorging ourselves and talking to the locals (mostly old folks eager to provide us with the town’s history and gossip), two dozen or so Harley-Davidson motorcycles roared up and parked right outside the front door. Maybe thirty tough-looking, leather-clad bikers and biker chicks assembled by the door, cased the place, and walked in. There was a collective gulp from the old folks. The room turned eerily quiet.
It was 7:15. We had been the last people allowed in at 7:05. The place was closed. No more food left. I’m sure we were all thinking the same thing: I wish Jesus were here and could pull off his loaves and fishes miracle one more time!
But the bikers did not tear up the place. They left quietly. We took our time cleaning up the food on our plates, allowing the bikers to re-mount their hogs and get away. We did not go back for seconds on the pie.
We were still stuffed the next morning. Worried about seasickness (neither one of us had been out to sea on a pelagic birding tour before), we debated whether or not we should take a boat trip out into the ocean to see some puffins. We popped a couple of Rolaids each and checked the weather. A perfect day for puffin watching: blue sky, calm waters, tangy, salty sea air.
The bird boat was a re-fitted fishing vessel with a crew of two. Six people (no bikers) joined us for the us for the two-hour round trip, a half hour out, a half hour back, and an hour circling Bird Island. Ten minutes from the dock, the first mate (and captain’s wife) appeared on the prow with a bucket of chum. Since we were heading out to see puffins, auks, razorbacks, and kittiwakes, I thought she was going to use the chum to lure the puffins closer to us and the six other camera-toting tourists on board.
Suddenly, the woman gave a piercing wolf-whistle. Two mature Bald Eagles flew out of the nearby forest and alit on bare tree branches along the shore. The woman told everyone to get their cameras ready. Then she flung a huge fish high into the air; too big for puffins, I thought. The fish landed in the water with a distinct plop about ten feet from the boat. “Focus your cameras on the fish,” she ordered and gave another whistle. One of the eagles lifted off its branch, zoomed across the water, extended its long legs, and deftly snatched the fish out of the water as cameras clicked. She tossed another dead fish into the water, whistled twice, and the second eagle repeated the scene. “Everybody happy?” she asked. People checked their cameras, cell phones, and iPads. Someone grumbled. So she gave another whistle and a third and fourth eagle appeared and got in on the act.
And that, my ornithological friends, is why so many perfectly focussed photos of acrobatic eagles catching fish are available. Pavlovian raptors! Who knew?
It was only when we got to the island that we realized the full ramifications of this Pavlovian performance. When the Nova Scotia government closed many of the open dumpsites in the province, the eagles that dined there turned their attention to the bird islands. They were now dining on puffins, auks, razorbacks, and kittiwakes or their eggs. In fact, kittiwakes were no longer found on the island we visited. Eagles had stolen their eggs or killed their young. They were like Hell’s Angels coming to a small town to terrorize the residents—unlike the quieter bikers who’d scared us all at the community centre. The tour boat had at least found a way to lure four eagles away from feasting on easy-to-catch seabirds. And groups of tourists got perfect pictures of eagles grabbing fish to show to their friends. Win, win.
5) Eagles Hunting
One lazy afternoon I spotted two mature Bald Eagles perched in the tall cottonwood trees on the west side of the Red River at the edge of Kings Park in Winnipeg. Below them, about a dozen Mallards floated nervously. Suddenly, one of the eagles swooped down at them. The ducks all quickly dove underwater. The eagle missed and returned to its perch. But as the ducks resurfaced, the other eagle swooped down at them. Although it hardly seemed like enough time to catch their breath, the ducks dove again. The second eagle missed. It too returned to its perch and the ducks popped up again. But they refused to fly away. I guess they feared they’d be easier targets on the wing.
So the eagles repeated their double-te
aming forays. One would swoop down. The ducks would dive. The ducks would resurface. And the second eagle would go at them. This was repeated maybe ten times over the next several minutes. It was quite an amusing show.
Were the eagles simply inept at this kind of double-whammy hunting? (What is a “whammy,” by the way, before it is doubled?) Was one eagle, already sated, simply teaching another the tricks of the trade? Or were they playing an elaborate game? Can birds have fun?
I’ve seen a pair of eagles cavort in the sky, locking talons and tumbling through the air as if they were avian thrill-seekers or members of a Cirque du Soleil troupe. Is this fun? Or are they just following basic naturalistic urges? How much play is there in raptor foreplay? Is there pleasure in this mating game? Interesting questions, eh?
If the double-teaming eagles were just having fun, just playing at hunting, it was a particularly sadistic kind of game. Perhaps this kind of behaviour is what Ben Franklin observed when he proposed the turkey instead of the eagle as the American national symbol. Eagles, he thought, had “bad moral character.”
6) Geese Whiffling
My friend Charlie Rattigan’s parents, Lee and Big Charlie, used to organize a Goosewatch every spring. At dawn on an April Sunday, in a ritual almost as formal as a Catholic Mass, about a dozen of their friends would assemble a convoy and head to Montezuma Swamp, a stopover for migrating birds in central New York State. It was the Rattigan’s way of celebrating the return of spring.
By 8:00 am or so, we would all be parked at the edge of a grove of Cottonwood trees and have arranged several barbecues around the picnic tables there. Snow banks still filled the shadows, and the air was usually nippy, but that just added to the festive occasion.