Visit to the Sharp-tailed Grouse blind

(Transcript of today's For the Birds program)

This week I went to the Sharp-tailed Grouse blind south of Solon Springs managed by the Friends of the Bird Sanctuary organization. It’s been four years since I’ve been there—I had to miss during the three years I was in Ithaca—and it was splendid seeing these exuberant birds with their testosterone-fueled displays again. There were over 25, more than I’d ever seen there before.

It’s still early enough in the spring season this year that the landscape appeared fairly barren—new green growth wasn’t yet evident, so the dominant color of the landscape was brown, making the orange and purplish-pink air sacs of the grouse stand out brilliantly. But those sacs are often deflated—the things that stand out in the brown grassland are the birds’ big white undertail coverts, standing out like oversized diamonds. Even during twilight we could see as many as nine of these big white fluffy flags at once.

I arrived later than I wanted this time, getting there at 5:30. I park on the road and walked the half mile or so to the blind, joyfully listening to the pitter patter of their dancing feet, with that weird lawnmower-like sound, and the sounds of the various gabbling calls they were making. I crept in slowly and quietly, but my shape was unmistakable in the twilight, and suddenly the birds flushed in a thundering roar. I felt bad about disturbing them, but got settled into the blind knowing they’d be back.

Sharp-tails are large, tasty birds without a lot of defenses. They must be eternally vigilant or become dinner for predators. I was judged to be a stealthy stalker who suddenly vanished from sight into the blind. Birds at ground level can’t see ground predators at any distance, and so the grouse couldn’t trust their eyes to be certain that I was really gone. But they have other ways of knowing where predators might be. Vesper Sparrows, each with a small territory throughout the entire lekking area, make excellent sentinels for prairie grouse—each one shuts up when disturbed, and only resumes singing when the coast is clear. These little sparrows perch atop weeds or shrubs, giving each one a broader view than the grouse get from their more limited vantage points on the ground. Sure enough, one by one the little sentinels resumed singing, and when Vesper Sparrows were singing from all directions around the display area, the grouse returned.

At 6:23, a Northern Harrier flew over the display area, and again the grouse flushed and disappeared in a thundering roar. Aerial predators are far easier for them to keep track of, and once the harrier moved on, the grouse instantly returned.

One of the grouse appeared to be lame, unable to properly stomp his feet in the enthusiastic dance that sets female grouse’s hearts aflutter. He still faced off against other males, still inflated his neck and eyebrow air sacs, and still lifted his white, fluffy tail, but this year would probably not win the hearts of any females, who consider only the most perfect, capable males as potential fathers for their children. That means most males never get to mate. They don’t seem to mind—it seems like the display and dance gives them all a lot of satisfaction whether or not they actually win the competition. Grouse seldom survive long with an injury, but I’m glad that whatever hurt this one, it still managed to partake in this spring ritual. I don’t know if heaven exists for Sharp-tailed Grouse, but if it does, I bet it’s a perfect and eternal lekking ground on a sunny April morning, filled with the exuberant sights and sounds of dancing grouse and their helpful little Vesper Sparrow buddies. Really, that could be heaven for a lot of us.

For your listening pleasure: Greater Prairie-Chickens

In 2005 I went to Crookston, Minnesota to a blind managed by The Nature Conservancy to view Northern Prairie-Chickens.



Greater Prairie-Chickens: 1 minute 57 seconds A lot of funky calls as well as their booming sound.


Greater Prairie-Chickens: 34 seconds Calls and booming


Greater Prairie-Chickens 1:43 Lots of alarm calls before the birds flush. (The people in the blind next to me were making noise and left before we were supposed to.)

Greater Prairie-Chickens 2:49 Booming and calling.

For your listening pleasure: Sharp-tailed Grouse

In 2005, I got some really nice recordings of Sharp-tailed Grouse displaying in Solon Springs, Wisconsin, at the lekking area managed by Friends of the Bird Sanctuary. I posted some of my recordings:

Sharp-tailed Grouse: about one minute First you hear their calls, and then they start dancing.

Sharp-tailed Grouse: 26 seconds Lots of dancing, but short.

Sharp-tailed Grouse: 5 minutes 48 seconds You can hear a distant train as well as over five minutes of unadulterated Sharp-tailed Grouse displays.

Bird hike to Wisconsin Point

Here's the list of our Earth Day hike from eBird:

Location: Wisconsin Point--First parking lot
Observation date: 4/24/11
Notes: It was surprisingly quiet for a gorgeous day this time of year. Not that many ducks and hardly any sparrows or warblers and no thrushes that we detected.
Number of species: 34


Canada Goose - Branta canadensis 10
American Wigeon - Anas americana 4
Mallard - Anas platyrhynchos 8
Green-winged Teal - Anas crecca 6
Ring-necked Duck - Aythya collaris 4
Greater Scaup - Aythya marila 20
Bufflehead - Bucephala albeola 2
Common Goldeneye - Bucephala clangula 8
Common Merganser - Mergus merganser 6
Red-breasted Merganser - Mergus serrator 8
Common Loon - Gavia immer 1
Double-crested Cormorant - Phalacrocorax auritus 8
American White Pelican - Pelecanus erythrorhynchos 12
Turkey Vulture - Cathartes aura 4
Osprey - Pandion haliaetus 1
Bald Eagle - Haliaeetus leucocephalus 6
Sharp-shinned Hawk - Accipiter striatus 2
Ring-billed Gull - Larus delawarensis 100
Herring Gull - Larus argentatus 200
Yellow-bellied Sapsucker - Sphyrapicus varius 1
Downy Woodpecker - Picoides pubescens 1
Hairy Woodpecker - Picoides villosus 1
Northern Flicker (Yellow-shafted) - Colaptes auratus [auratus Group] 25
American Crow - Corvus brachyrhynchos 4
Tree Swallow - Tachycineta bicolor 2
Black-capped Chickadee - Poecile atricapillus 10
American Robin - Turdus migratorius 6
Bohemian Waxwing - Bombycilla garrulus 2
Yellow-rumped Warbler (Myrtle) - Dendroica coronata coronata 6
Song Sparrow - Melospiza melodia 8
Dark-eyed Junco - Junco hyemalis 2
Red-winged Blackbird - Agelaius phoeniceus 20
Common Grackle - Quiscalus quiscula 6
Brown-headed Cowbird - Molothrus ater 1

Fox Sparrow

(Today's radio program: listen here.)
Every day for about a week, I’ve been getting emails from people asking me to identify an unfamiliar bird that looks like a huge sparrow but doesn’t seem to be a Red-winged Blackbird. Nowadays, most of these requests don’t end with a description—they actually contain a digital photograph, making my job much easier, and this time everyone supplied photos. And in every case, the bird they were asking about was a Fox Sparrow.

I get dozens to hundreds of Fox Sparrows in my backyard every April. Some of my most vivid memories of April blizzards are of the Fox Sparrows filling my yard with song after the wind dies down. Fox Sparrows are shy birds, staying in or close to thick ground cover, and are usually among the first birds to fly away on our approach or if we rustle a curtain while gawking at them out the window. At that point, some are misidentified as Hermit Thrushes because the two species share a very distinctive rusty tail, especially conspicuous as they fly away. But if you have any look at all, you’ll notice the streaked back on the sparrow, different from the soft grayish brown back of the thrush.

There are four distinctive races of Fox Sparrows. The ones we think of as Eastern Fox Sparrows nest in the northern boreal zone up at Hudson Bay and in Labrador all the way across northern Canada into northern Alaska. These are the prettiest, combining rich rusty with soft gray plumage, and a pure white underside heavily streaked with a large central spot. One western race breeds throughout the Pacific coastal region from Alaska down to southern California, another breeds in the Rocky Mountains from Canada into Montana and Idaho, and another mostly in the Sierra Nevadas. They migrate through the Midwest every spring. As I noted, they visit my yard every year, but this year’s weather has brought an exceptional number to even feeding stations that don’t specifically cater to sparrows, so a large number of people are noticing them for the first time.

Fox Sparrows are huge compared to most of their relatives, especially the juncos that arrive at the same time in late March or April. Many sparrows scratch the ground to expose seeds and insects—Fox Sparrows do this with exceptional vigor. They seem sociable on migration, and often we can see four or five within our binoculars at the same time, but they seem to keep their backs to one another as much as possible. When I’ve been watching and observed two who suddenly end up facing each other, they often break into a squabble, with one chasing the other away.

Much as I love watching Fox Sparrows, I even more love hearing them sing. William Brewster felt the way I do. He wrote in 1883, “To my ear the prominent characteristic of its voice is richness. It expresses careless joy and exultant masculine vigor, rather than delicate shades of sentiment, and . . . is such a fervent, sensuous, and withal perfectly rounded carol that it affects the ear much as sweetmeats do the palate, and for the moment renders all other bird music dull and uninteresting by comparison.” It’s not particularly loud and certainly not irritating, but does carry well, even through many closed windows, so when Fox Sparrows are singing, I’m always at least a little aware of their presence. I spent a day in my backyard shooting photos of them from inside a wonderful camouflaged portable blind that my friend Bruce Pomeroy gave me. I have some really nice closeups on my flickr page—just go to http://www.flickr.com/lauraerickson/

I spent a little time recording my Fox Sparrows today. Listen to a couple of them here.

A real first!

American Woodcock, a photo by Laura Erickson on Flickr.

For the first time in my life, I called in several woodcocks tonight! Really! And I wasn't trying to disturb them.

I was walking down my mother-in-law's driveway a little bit after sunset. It was too light for woodcock to start calling—or so I thought. But I was telling my dog Photon how we were going to hear them again tonight (we do this every year) and reminded her what they sound like. "Beep.....Beep.....Beep." And suddenly one started peenting maybe six feet away, and then another, and another. One flew right past my face, and then another did. Holy crap! I quieted right down. I mean really—woodcock respond to my saying "beep"? Who knew?!

Coming this fall!

Yep. Artwork by BETSY BOWEN!!!

Soon Sharing the Wonder of Birds with Kids and For the Birds: An Uncommon Guide will be available through Google eBooks and Amazon Kindle!

Photography Ethics

(transcript of today's "For the Birds")
This weekend I posted several photos of a Northern Hawk Owl that I’d photographed in the Sax-Zim Bog. Suddenly I started being bombarded with emails from a photographer who was upset with my photos. He said that someone has been feeding the owl and its mate pet store mice—a practice I publicly disapprove of. Some photographers bait owls in order to get close-ups and flight shots, but I don’t think the ends justify the means. Baiting owls can raise their expectations that people they encounter are going to feed them. This is especially dangerous with Great Gray Owls and Boreal Owls, who may then spend more time at roadsides looking for people when automobile collisions are one of the main causes of death for them. Attracting them to people isn’t such a critical issue in the case of Northern Hawk Owls, who tend to be curious about us no matter what. They have long been known to follow large mammals around hoping to grab food from them, as Gray Jays do.

But in the case of all owls, including Northern Hawk Owls, baiting also involves the issue of releasing non-native mammals into the natural environment if the mouse escapes, and the issue of salmonella poisoning if the mouse doesn’t escape. The Centers for Disease Control lists cases of Minnesotans getting sick from salmonella from handling mice from Minnesota pet shops. It’s simply not right to risk an owl’s life this way for a photo op. The issue of animal cruelty regarding the mouse is also an issue. Mice are natural prey for owls, but pet store mice have been raised in warmth and security. Tossing one out in the snow to be torn apart by an owl seems a doubly cruel end. In a country with so little compassion for our fellow humans, it’s not hard to understand that photographers may not feel compassion for rodents, but that brings them one step closer to not caring if the owl itself is killed by salmonella or a car, due to baiting.
Without baiting them, we can get plenty of close-range photos of Northern Hawk Owls, including flight shots, as long as we are patient. That’s a small price to pay to show our respect for an owl’s genuine wildness, to protect it from potentially tainted food, and to interfere with its activities as little as possible.

I like to think my stand on baiting is clear and inflexible, but I’ve violated it myself twice, though not for photography. During the huge Great Gray Owl invasion in 2004, an emaciated Great Gray Owl visited my backyard, and I thawed out and offered it one of the frozen mice I keep onhand for my education owl Archimedes. These mice come from a reputable supplier, so I was certain it was disease free, but I did risk teaching the owl to trust humans, consciously deciding in this case to err on the side of compassion. Later that same year, when I was caring for an emaciated Boreal Owl until it could get to the Raptor Center, one of my more experienced friends suggested that I give it live mice, because he’d found that Boreal Owls don’t often take thawed ones. I tried my darnedest to get him to take one of Archimedes’ dead mice, but finally had to try a live one. He ate it, but I’ve had too many gerbils as treasured pets to be able to deal with that on any kind of a regular basis. That little owl was the last predacious bird I ever rehabbed.

Each of us grapples with ethical issues every day. In the final analysis, we know when we have found the right path for ourselves when we trust our choice without worrying about what others think. An ethical code should be set high, a standard to aspire to, something that gives us pride when we do live up to it. When we’re trying desperately to justify our own ethical shortcuts, doing things that we’re uncomfortable admitting, or pressing someone else to lower their ethical standard to our level, it’s a pretty clear indication that we don’t believe in our own heart that what we’re doing is right. Birds lead lives of direct simplicity. In capturing their images, we should never risk harming them. In the final analysis, it’s just that simple.

Winter and Spring duking it out

Northern Hawk Owl, a photo by Laura Erickson on Flickr.

I spent Robert Frost's birthday (March 26) at the Sax-Zim Bog, on an MOU field trip led by Erik Bruhnke. It was cold and windy, so we needed every stitch of winter wear we had, but what a fabulous day! Harriers courting, eagles kettling and at least one at a big nest, lots of gorgeous Rough-legged Hawks, a Great Gray Owl hooting, hilarious Red Squirrel activity, and more! A splendid day, whether we saw it as Winter's Last Stand or Spring Finally Arrives.