Wood Thrush Notes: Bluebirds Part One: Putting Your Mind at Ease, Nesting

Bluebirds Part one:


In the past week, we have noticed a significant uptick in Eastern Bluebird activity, both at our boxes, and in questions from customers at the shop. This week, let’s take a deep dive into one of our most popular birds… The Eastern Bluebird.

Putting Your Mind at Ease

Before we begin this deep dive, I would like to attempt to put some of your mind’s at ease. There are numerous misconceptions about Eastern Bluebirds, with many online sources making them out to be delicate birds that must have extremely specific requirements to breed and survive. This is simply not true. As we all tell folks daily during spring and early summer, if Bluebirds were as picky as they’re made out to be, they would have gone extinct well before the arrival of people and the invention of nest boxes. On the contrary, Eastern Bluebirds are hardy, adaptable birds that can be found from Nicaragua to Canada. Speaking of adaptability, we have even seen them build a nest in a cinderblock! As an experiment, we set up a box that was too damaged to sell, behind the store in the shopping center’s service alley. It is mounted on a fence right next to the trash and recycling dumpster, facing due northwest, where we and the Sam’s Place employees park. According to “bluebird literature,” we should have no success in this location. Flying in the face of this, however, we have had multiple successful nestings in this box in the two years we have had it up, and we have already had bluebirds investigating it again this year.


Male Eastern Bluebird

Photo Credit: Eli Haislip

Nesting

While bluebirds will utilize nesting boxes during cold winter nights, they will begin seriously investigating them, sitting on the roof and going in and out as early as February. At the earliest, nest building can begin in March. As of typing this, John has even had a completed nest built in one of his boxes at his home in Cheatham County! However, for most of us, bluebirds will begin nesting in mid April. However, just because you don’t get a nesting during this time frame doesn’t mean that you have missed the boat. Bluebirds will nest up to three times in a season, all the way into August so there is plenty of time to attract a pair!

Bluebirds in Fall Investigating a Box

Photo Credit: Eli Haislip

This brings us to my next point. Bluebirds are not the only birds that will use a “bluebird” box. Any cavity nesting species will utilize a bluebird box. This list includes Chickadees, Titmice, Tree Swallows, and House Sparrows. (There are others, such as Downy Woodpeckers and even Great-crested Flycatchers, but these are less common.) With the exception of the House Sparrow, which I will cover in a later blog, we encourage folks to let these birds use your boxes. While we understand that you want to see Bluebirds, these are native species to Tennessee too, and they can offer an excellent opportunity to learn about some of the other species that call our yards and gardens home. Most of these birds will only nest once, and typically earlier in the season which means you still have months to attract bluebirds after the other bird’s young have fledged!

Tufted Titmouse Using a Bluebird Box

Photo Credit: Eli Haislip

The first nest can sometimes take several weeks to build, with subsequent nests taking as little as a day or two to construct. Depending on what is available to them, bluebirds commonly use fine grasses or pine straw. Bluebirds lay three to six light blue, sometimes white, eggs. One egg is laid per day until completion, and then incubation begins. Incubation takes 12-14 days. After the eggs hatch, the young birds will grow rapidly, going from small, helpless, featherless birds with their eyes closed to fully developed bluebirds that are ready to leave the nest. This second phase takes 14-16 days. After the young have left the nest, they will not return and the birds will have no further use of the nest. We then strongly recommend that you remove the old nest material to reduce the risks of insect infestations or disease.




Wood Thrush Notes: Bird Songs vs Bird Calls

With the beginning of spring just a few weeks away, some of you may have noticed birds beginning to sing. During the warmer days of the past few weeks, I have heard Tufted Titmice and Carolina Chickadees beginning to sing. You may be thinking to yourself, I hear those bird sounds YEAR ROUND, what is he talking about? Today, that is going to be our topic of discussion.

Song vs. Call

Did you know that there is actually a difference between bird “songs” and bird “calls?” Bird songs can be quite elaborate and vary greatly between different species. Some species, such as Mockingbirds, Blue Jays, and European Starlings are able to learn and mimic the calls of other birds. For arguably one of the most impressive bird songs, let’s look to our namesake, the Wood Thrush. It may seem like an odd choice to name our shop after a bird that many people have never seen or even heard of, (and the reason that we get monthly calls from people asking if we can refinish their dining room sets) but if you ever are fortunate enough to HEAR their song, it would make a lot more sense. For those of you who have never heard one singing, I will link to it here. Thanks to its Y-shaped syrinx, or voice box, a careful internal balancing act with its airways, and millennia of evolution, it is actually capable of harmonizing with itself. That’s right; our namesake can sing a simultaneous duet, with itself!

To put it simply, birds (usually males) use song as a means of attracting a mate and establishing/defending their territory. Bird calls, while melodically more simple, can often have more meanings. They typically fall into four categories: Contact, flight, alarm, and begging.

Contact calls are made by birds as a way of keeping in communication with one another while foraging for food. Generally speaking, these are fairly short, simple, and not designed to carry far. However, if a bird gets separated, it may produce a louder, more urgent call to broadcast its position to others.

Flight calls serve a similar purpose. If you have ever seen flock of Canada Geese, Sandhill Cranes, Robins, or Common Grackles flying overheard, you have likely noticed that they can be quite noisy. This is flight calling in action. This serves to help a group maintain contact with one another whilst airborne.

Birds also have alarm calls to help alert one another to threats, such as birds of prey, snakes, or cats. Certain birds, such as Chickadees will use different calls for different threats. According to the National Audubon Society, for aerial dangers they will utter a sharp, quick seet. If the bird of prey is perched and deemed to be less of an immediate threat, they will call out chick-a-dee with added dee’s on the end to indicate greater urgency.

Lastly, we have the begging calls. These simplistic calls are a far cry from the complex songs of the adult males or even the interesting meanings of mature bird’s alarm calls. These are simply the young birds trying to attract the attention of their parents


Wood Thrush Notes: A Mystery at the Feeder

A Mystery at the Feeder

Waking to find the ground covered in snow, I was not in the least bit surprised to see that the birds had discovered my new and improved feeding station. I put my feeders out the night before, having brought them in for a number of weeks after having a raccoon destroy my suet feeder. With the amount of time that had passed (a week to ten days is generally enough when employing this method) and the chance for snow in the forecast, I decided the time was right to put my feeders back out.

That morning, I was treated to a flurry of activity. Dark-eyed juncos, Northern Cardinals, and White-throated Sparrows dotted the ground beneath the feeder while Carolina Chickadees, Tufted Titmice, White-breasted Nuthatch, and Carolina Wrens busied themselves on my suet and tube feeders. I even got a quick glimpse of an immature Yellow-rumped Warbler on my suet feeder, a diminutive winter visitor to Tennessee that weighs less than half an ounce (0.41oz, or roughly the weight of two quarters) to be specific. I made a mental note of how much seed was in my tube feeder (a Woodlink Mega Seed Tube Feeder, $95) before donning my heavy coat and snow boots and making the drive into work.

In the evening after I returned home, I was able to see that something was amiss. There was barely any seed gone from my feeder! After a full snow day, I expected far more to be gone, perhaps as much as a quarter or even half of the seed. To see the feeder practically untouched was surprising. My initial thought was that I had a mockingbird guarding the feeding station, as it is quite common this time of year, especially during snow and we have had many customers reporting this over the last month. If you have been experiencing this, we recently did a blog covering how to address this that I will link to here.

 I didn’t have to wait long to find out who the culprit was the next morning. While laying in bed staring out at my feeder, I noticed a small flash of brown and yellow drive away a Tufted Titmouse that had landed for a sunflower seed. It was the Yellow-rumped Warbler! These winter residents to Middle Tennessee generally arrive in the fall, and then stay into the early spring before moving on to their breeding grounds to the north and west. While the specimen that has been guarding my feeding station is a relatively unassuming immature bird, males in their breeding plumage can be quite striking. There are actually a couple of variations; the Audubon’s and the Myrtle, which I will link to here.

While surprising (and a little amusing) to see such a small bird chasing off other birds that are larger than itself, it serves as a good reminder that our backyard birds ARE wild animals. While we might observe this behavior and think of it as being “mean” or a “bully,” for wild animals, protecting their food supply during periods of scarcity can be a matter of survival. It is why Mockingbirds do it, it is why hummingbirds do it, and it is why even tiny Yellow-rumped Warblers do it. They are not “bully birds,” they are just doing whatever it takes to survive.



Happy Valentine's Day from the Wood Thrush Shop!

Happy Valentine’s Day from your favorite birding shop! This week, let’s have some fun and learn about the different courting and pairing habits of a few of our feathered friends.

Birds that Pair for Life

Did you know that there are many examples in the bird world of species that will mate for life? For an interesting list of 8 species, as well as more information, I will link to the National Audubon Society article here. For our purposes today, however, we will just focus on a couple of the species you likely have or can encounter in Middle Tennessee. For example, did you know that the Bald Eagle, the avian symbol of our country, mates for life? Reaching sexual maturity typically between 4 and 5 years of age, and with a lifespan of 20-30 years in the wild, pairing for life is no small feat!

Bald Eagle

Photo Credit: Eli Haislip

Another species that is more likely to be seen in our area year round is the very common Black Vulture. During the breeding season, they engage in aerial courtship displays consisting of the male diving at the female and then flying close together… Not exactly our idea of romantic, but it works well enough for them that they form strong enough bonds that they will spend the entire year together, not just limiting their time with one another to the breeding season.

Lastly, the Pileated Woodpecker is also monogamous, with one pair occupying and defending a territory throughout the year. While with many species, the female does most of the nest building work, that isn’t the case with these large woodpeckers! The male does the bulk of the work, with the female beginning to contribute as the cavity nears completion. Despite their large size, Pileated Woodpeckers are fairly elusive and are generally uncommon visitors to feeders.

Pileated Woodpecker

Photo Credit: Eli Haislip

Interesting Courtship Rituals

Humans are far from the only species that will show off dance moves in the pursuit of attracting a mate! Check out this video taken in John’s backyard of a pair of Pileated Woodpeckers engaging in a courtship display.

While this pair of Pileated Woodpeckers are a long way from beating the likes of Fred Astaire or Shirley Temple, they put on quite the entertaining show for us to observe and enjoy. As we get into spring, specifically April and May, keep an eye out for this behavior if you find yourself out in the forest. You never know what you might see!



Wood Thrush Notes: Presentations, Bluebirds Exploring Boxes, Sandhill Crane Migration

Presentations by the Wood Thrush Shop

Did you know that you can book us for presentations? Over the coming months, if you are a member of a garden club, church group or any other kind of club/group that would be interested in a presentation on backyard birding, let us know! We can tailor our presentation to match your group’s interests. Are your members new to bird feeding in the area and would benefit from a crash course? We can do that. Do they have questions about attracting bluebirds, hummingbirds, or goldfinches? We can do that too! We can even come out and give a detailed presentation on one of the most frequently asked questions at the store, “How can I become squirrel-proof?”

While we do not charge for guest speaking, if you were so inclined as to offer an honorarium, the proceeds would go to West Meade’s Harmony Wildlife Rehabilitation. If this seems like something you or someone you know would be interested in, please don’t hesitate to reach out!

Beginnings of Bluebird Activity

It’s that time of year again, and we are beginning to hear the first reports of bluebirds beginning to seriously investigate boxes. While it is too soon to expect bluebirds to begin nesting, it is never too early to make sure that your boxes are prepared for the start of the breeding season. If you have not already done so, we highly recommend cleaning out any old nesting material. Old nesting material can potentially harbor insects, such as ants, that can feed on the young after they hatch. Cleaning boxes is usually a fairly straight forward procedure, and is typically as simple as emptying out the old material. As we get closer to nesting season, we will cover bluebirds and bluebird boxes in greater depth, but for now, keep an eye on your boxes and you may witness some early interest!

Bluebirds Investigating a Box

Photo Credit: Eli Haislip

Sandhill Crane Migration

Recently while working in the yard, John heard an unmistakable sound that caused him to turn his eyes to the skies. As he watched, a flock of Sandhill Cranes flew overhead. A winter visitor to parts of Tennessee, like the Hiwassee National Wildlife Refuge, Sandhill Cranes often begin their migration to their breeding grounds in Canada and Alaska as early as late January or early February. Learning to recognize their distinctive trumpeting call will make spotting them easier. Most of the time, I will hear them before they come in to view overhead, sometimes extremely high in altitude. Their unmistakable call is thanks to an exceptionally long trachea that coils into their sternum. This added length helps them achieve their unique trumpeting tone that I will link to here. As we progress through February, seeing large v-shaped formations of them flying overhead will become more and more common.