OF NESTS, HERONS AND COWBIRDS

There is a lot of life around here this spring!  We are usually gone for these weeks and we and miss it, but this year we feel like we are right in the middle of everything!  

FOUR great-blue herons flew overhead this morning as I was walking the dog.
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Yesterday afternoon on our walk, I had just crossed the brook on Moore Road and there was this VERY CLOSE, and VERY LOUD, shrieking "GRAAACK", right over my shoulder!  I am not particularly jumpy, but I jumped at this!  My first thought was, "Fisher in the tree?"  But it was a great-blue heron chasing a red-tailed hawk!!!  I wonder if there are nests back in those wetlands and the hawk was after the heron nestlings!  Gotta check it out. 
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The house wrens are very busy moving more twigs into the nest box.  I was puzzled because it also seemed that there was a fledgling around, asking for food (smaller than the adults, some fuzzy down-like feathers, inside of mouth still a bit red).  I did some research and read that house wrens frequently have more than one clutch and sometimes while dad house wren is feeding the fledglings, mom runs off with another male!  Then dad finds another mate and they refurbish the nest.  I guess this could be the scenario... they haven't confided in me.

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 AND, on Sunday we spotted a grey catbird nest in the Rhododendron bush right under our window - perfect viewing place!  Very hidden - can you find the nest in the bush below??

(It is right smack in the middle of the bush, 

just below and left of the yellow leaf.)

Monday morning we spotted one, gorgeous blue egg!  

Tuesday morning, I checked as soon as it was light enough so that I could see into the nest and there were two eggs, but one was blueish-white with brown spots!  A brown-headed cowbird egg.  We have seen a lot of cowbird activity around here this fall.

I checked again around 6:30 and there was another blue egg - you can see that it is still damp from just being laid!  The nest is very deep and it is hard to see any eggs that are close to the edge - I believe the other blue one is just out of sight, perhaps behind that leaf.

Grey Cat-bird egg (left) and Brown-headed Cowbird egg

The catbirds are among the birds who can tell when there is an egg that isn't their own and by later in the morning, the cowbird egg was no longer visible.   Most likely mama catbird rolled it out of the nest.  We couldn't find it on the ground, but on the other hand, the way the ticks are this year, we were NOT interested in crawling around under the bush! 

This morning (Wednesday), by 7:30 there were three blue eggs and no sign of the cowbird egg.  

For those of you who don't know, brown-headed cowbirds always drop their eggs in other bird's nests (possibly up to 30 from one female in a season).  The cowbird usually hatches before the host bird's eggs and is often bigger than the host bird nestlings, so it claims more food.  Often the host bird's nestlings don't thrive. 

But this mama catbird is quite happy on her nest!

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Our robins are getting ready to fledge - should be this weekend!

 Otherwise, not much going on around here... 

RECENT SIGHTINGS

Well...  There are signs of spring, if you don't look at the snow!  (We still have about 7 inches in our back yard, and that faces south!)  The pond has a lot of free water in it and our migrants have been around.  Recently (last two weeks or so), I have seen on the pond:

• Hooded Mergansers
• Common Mergansers
• American Black Ducks
• Mallards
• A Ring-necked Duck 
• Two Northern Pintails (they are so dashing this time of year!)
• Canada Geese 
• Great Blue Heron (Carol reported seeing two sitting together on their landing - I've never seen two together, except in nest cams!

Common Mergansers didn't like me so close...

Out of the water, new arrivals:

• Song Sparrow
• Common Grackle
• Many House Finch
• Red-winged Blackbird (heard on Moore)
• Plus all the usual winter birds we have had in the yard
• Bluebirds are still here, as are the Juncos, Tree Sparrows and White-throated Sparrows
• Goldfinch are definitely turning yellow! 
• Beautiful Red-tail flew over, and I saw one in the tree right near where the Red-tail was killed on Moore a month or so ago.

Mammels:

• Chipmunks are out and about
• Fox visited 
• No sign of the deer recently, nor the coyote or fisher or otter

I think a lot of the migrating water birds were put off by the pond refreezing.  Also, the snow depth is less, so they can get around more easily and don't need to venture up close to a house.

The picture below was taken on March 13 in that snow storm - it was a BEAUTIFUL day for a walk and noone else was around, so Blake had his first off-leash walk!   The next day, I tried it again 'cuz he was so good about hanging around, but he took off after a (large) puppy and was way too aggressive - back on the leash...

Foot Bridge over Hop Brook, heading into the Hop Brook Conservation Land

CORNELL HAWK CAM

Red-tailed Hawk eyass, one day old

I have been watching the Cornell University Hawk Cam as the little hawks are hatched and grow (the nestling is called an "eyas").  These are a pair of hawks that Cornell has been watching in the nest for several years.  The female is called Big Red and the male is Ezra and yes, you can learn to tell them apart!!!  They had three eggs this year and two have hatched, the first on Monday night and the second early Tuesday morning (I started watching at just the right moment and got to see the second one hatch!!!). 
The black blob in the upper right corner is a starling that is about to be their lunch.  The above photo shows the two eyass at one day old, with the unhatched egg. 
These are iPhone screen shots of the Cornell hawk cam images. Click on the images for a larger pix.

The eyass are now two days old and much stronger and larger than yesterday!
The egg has pipped (the bird inside has started making a hole in it and will hatch soon)

RTH eyass, two days old with mom

 Here they are today, two days old, with mom (Big Red).  Mom has a snake she is feeding them.

To see the hawk cam, click this link:

http://cams.allaboutbirds.org/channel/16/Red-tailed_Hawks/?utm_source=Cornell+Lab+eNews&utm_campaign=562fb46458-Bird+Cams+eNews-FallVisitors-10.19.2012&utm_medium=email
Before you start chatting on the chat line, be sure to read the section called, "Hawk Nest FAQ" (just below the video window) and the Chat Guidelines.  In the FAQ section, you can find out how to tell the adults apart, and learn a lot about the hawk pair, their offspring, the project and the cam.

I found I could spend a lot of time watching and although semi-retired, I don't have that much time, so I click on the 2nd cam view button, which gives a small window, and I put that window in the upper corner of the desktop.  Out of the corner of my eye, I can see if anything exciting happens.

There are other cams, as well.  I've been glancing at the Osprey cam occasionally (they had one egg as of yesterday) and the Great Blue Herons, who have four eggs.  The action is at the Hawk cam at the moment, though!!  

For more info on the hawks (and all birds!), go to Cornell's free site, 
http://www.allaboutbirds.org/guide/red-tailed_hawk/id
 
Cornell Lab of Ornithology is one of the major places for bird study and they also have a more scholarly site, with deeper info, but that costs to join - Birds of North America
http://bna.birds.cornell.edu/bna/

I want to leave you with one last picture of the eyass.  Apparently they play fight and it helps them get stronger.  This is yesterday.  The one on the right is "attacking" the other.

Day old RTH eyass play fighting

Check it out!

NORTHERN GOSHAWK? (probably not) (well, maybe)

Lots of activity at our feeder, including what we think may have been a juvenile Northern Goshawk!  I saw this bird earlier, but assumed it to be a very large Coopers Hawk.  Sunday, we watched it as it sat on the ground for about 20 minutes (judging by the pile of feathers, it was digesting lunch).  This bird is just too big to be a Coopers, even a female.  Given the size, the prominent light colored eyebrow, the uneven banding on its tail and the speckled back (you can't see the back in this picture), we (Linda, Carol & I) started thinking it might be a Goshawk.  After sitting for a long time, it flew to a branch near the window.  (SEE BELOW FOR UPDATES)

Juvenile Northern Goshawk ?

I queried the Mass Audubon "Ask the Wildlife Expert", and got back an answer from Marj Rines.  She doubts that it is a Goshawk because the Goshawk has heavier barring on the breast and not so much white down below.  She also says that the tail bars are more uneven on the Goshawk.  She knows her stuff, so she is probably right. (Feb 6)

OK, now we are back to thinking that maybe it IS a goshawk!  Today (Feb 8), Linda & I had a really good, long, closeup view of the resident Cooper's Hawk (pretty much in the same place as the juvenile) and it was much smaller and much more slender.  Hope we will see the juvenile again sometime soon!

Whatever it is, it was fun to watch!!

We have also seen house finch and purple finch, white-throated sparrows and American tree sparrows and a red-breasted nuthatch, as well as our regulars.  The bluebirds are on the feeder as I type -- 2 males and 2 females at the moment.  A great blue heron flew down the pond early this morning; it was probably going fishing down by the fall where the water is open.  Wonder where it is roosting?

BRRR....

It's a frosty, chilly morning - wonderfully seasonal. This morning when I was out with the dog (about 5:15), the sky was totally clear and the stars bright.  Venus was in the east and Jupiter so big in the west that it looked the size of several of the other stars.  The ground crunched frozen under my feet, and the Rhodies were curled and pendant.  The thermometer agreed that it was chilly - 25 degrees.  

More ice on the pond this morning; there has been some ice for the past few days, but today it covers most of the lower end of the pond (the big part where the dam is) and has reached up here to the middle section (the water flows faster up stream).  I've always wanted to play icebreaker and launch my canoe into the icing water, but alas, my shoulder says I should not; it will have to wait for another fall.  

Meanwhile the cove in front of our house and Carol & Joe's house is mostly clear of ice.  Saturday, the Great Blue Heron hung out there almost all day.  We watched it seeking lunch.  I've never managed to see a GBH catch and swallow so clearly before.  We watched it eat 4 fish. The bird would tilt its head with one eye facing the water (so that it could see more clearly out of its eye without the beak in the way?) and suddenly strike!  This one was good! We only saw it miss once in the time we watched.  After eating a bit, it sat on the shore at our landing.  Further from shore, there was a whole flotilla of black duck in the cove, upending to get plant material and a king fisher flew by chittering.  Five hooded mergansers, 2 males and 3 females were diving; they seemed to be having good fishing as well!  Good to know that the fish are thriving; I read that one of the issues when a pond it covered with the water chestnuts, is that the chestnuts choke the pond, both using too much of the oxygen and also creating mats of vegetation that are hard to swim through.  Hopefully we will be able to keep on top of the water chestnuts from now on!

So do the muskrats swim across the pond when there is ice forming on it?  Gotta watch!
Stay warm, all; and instead of complaining about the cold, bundle up and get out in it and watch nature.

Icing Begins on the Pond