Articles for the Month of July 2015

Jul 15 2015

Hummingbirds “trapped” in garages and other structures

Author: DakotaBirder • Discussion: 20 Comments
Ruby-throated Hummingbird at honeysuckle

Hummingbirds are easily attracted to brightly colored objects. To them, a dangling red object in your garage may represent flower and food! Hummingbirds can easily get “trapped” inside a structure like a garage, and its imperative to help them find their way back outside before they become exhausted.

A beautiful South Dakota summer evening, and thus I was out doing yard work last night.  As I typically do when I’m outside, I had the garage doors open, even as I worked in the backyard.  After cleaning up some branches from a tree I’d trimmed, I came in the back door of the garage and immediately saw a hummingbird hovering in the garage, near the door.  As I approached he (a male Ruby-throated Hummingbird) was a little confused as to the way out, but fortunately he did manage to find the door and head out.

The timing of this was interesting, in that just yesterday I came across this story of a hummingbird “trapped” in a fire station, with the firemen rescuing it and feeding it sugar before sending it on its way.  Unfortunately it’s not that rare to have a hummingbird trapped in a garage or other structure.

A couple of years ago, I again was working outside, returned to the garage, and saw a hummingbird flying around.  Our garage roof is rather high, perhaps 15 feet to the ceiling.  However, the doors themselves are the standard 7-8 feet high.  Hummingbirds seem to have difficulty with structures such as this.  They become attracted to something in the garage and come in the open door, but their first instinct to get out seems to be to head upwards.  Once they do so and get above the height of the garage opening themselves, they seem to get “stuck”, and aren’t able to understand the way back out through the garage door.

In the incident two years ago, it was very disheartening to watch the hummingbird (again, a male Ruby-throated Hummingbird) quickly wear itself out as it flew madly around the garage, trying to find a way out.  All my efforts to “shoo” it out through an opening failed, as did efforts to lure it to a lower height with a hummingbird feeder and flowers.  “Out” for it seemingly meant “up”, and it soon became so tired that it perched on a wire going to my garage door opener, refusing to move. It was my wife who saved the day.  She got a very long feather duster with a long extendable handle, and moved the feathery end up towards the hummingbird.  The exhausted hummingbird was so tired it didn’t want to fly, but it did eventually cling to the feather duster.  Very slowly and carefully, my wife lowered the feather duster and moved outside through the garage door.  The hummingbird was still so tired it didn’t want to move, but after resting for perhaps 10 minutes on the feather duster, it finally did fly off…hopefully to find a nectar source to feed on.

Having a hummingbird trapped in your garage or other building definitely isn’t a rarity!  It can be disheartening and frustrating to try to make the hummingbird understand where “outside” is.  One thing you can do to prevent a “trapped” hummingbird is to remove any attractant within a open structure.  Do you have a cord that dangles down from your garage door opener, a manual release?  Chances are the end of that cord has a red ball or other such component.  My garage door openers both had red plastic balls on the end, and to a hungry hummingbird, such a dangling device potentially means “flower” and “nectar”.  I removed the red balls from my garage door openers and replaced them with large plain weights in the hopes of lowering the chances of hummingbirds flying into the garage.

You’re not alone if you have a hummingbird “trapped”in your garage!  If it happens to you, don’t wait for the bird to find its own way out, do everything you can to “assist” the bird in finding the way outside.  It doesn’t take long for a trapped hummingbird to burn through its energy supply and become exhausted, and without help, a trapped hummingbird can easily (and quickly) perish.

Jul 14 2015

A new favorite – Bananquits

Author: DakotaBirder • Discussion: No Comments
Bananaquit - Coereba flaveola

A Bananaquit amongst the pink flowers of what was seemingly their favorite nectar source at the time we were on St. John’s.

Ah, work.  Such a silly thing, getting in the way of birding, of life in general.  I’ve been on a work trip (conference in Portland, Oregon), and thus no birding (or posts) for a week or so.  Back home now, and finally getting back to processing bird photos from our vacation in the Virgin Islands.

I had grand plans on how to attract birds at our rented beach house while on St. John’s Island, but admit those plans didn’t pan out!  Not in the least.  I had brought a hummingbird feeder with me, and had visions of the two resident hummingbird species (Antillean Crested Hummingbird, Green-throated Carib) dancing around the feeder while we relaxed on the deck overlooking the ocean. Both species of hummingbirds were certainly there, as both were easily observable from the beach house as they fed on nectar from the flowering trees and shrubs. As for the feeder?  Not once did I see a hummingbird even look at it, much less stop to feed.

Another reason for bringing the feeder was to attract another species I’ve certainly read about, but never seen…a Bananaquit.  According to what I read before departing on vacation, Bananaquits were supposedly easily attracted to sources of nectar and sugar. However, just like the hummingbirds, the Bananaquits showed absolutely no interest in the week we were there.

Bananaquit - Coereba flaveola

The method of feeding for a Bananaquit. I had heard they were nectar “robbers”, often piercing blooms at their base to retrieve nectar. Given the repetitive visits to the same blooms, however, they didn’t appear to be destructive to the bloom when feeding in the manner shown in the photo.

Fortunately they’re a pretty easy species to observe, and they were almost always present in the flowering trees and shrubs around our beach house.  The U.S. Virgin Islands have been going through quite a drought, and the vegetation in much of the island was brown.  There was one species of tree that had barely any leaves, but did have quite a few big, tubular pink blossoms.  There were a pair of these trees by the beach house deck, and the Bananaquits certainly loved feeding on nectar from the pink blooms.

People tend to quickly lose interest in the “ordinary”.  Bananaquits in the U.S. Virgin Islands are one of the “ordinary” species that are so frequently seen that the locals likely think very little of them, much like most people are with Robins around here.  But for a non-local, I had a blast watching the Bananaquits.  That unique curved bill, the bright colors, the aggressive behavior in defending their patch of nectar flowers…it certainly was a highlight for the birding on St. John’s.

Jul 03 2015

A few more Virgin Islands birds

Author: DakotaBirder • Discussion: No Comments
Mangrove Cuckoo - Coccyzus minor

A Mangrove Cuckoo, one of several I saw and photographed. Nearly every one I came across on St. John’s was NOT in the mangroves, but was in the dry forest scrub that covers much of the island.

I’m just not in a photo processing mood.  Unfortunately, that’s not an uncommon situation.  It’s a bad combination to ALWAYS be in a photo SHOOTING mood, but to rarely be in a photo processing mood.  The result?  A huge backlog of unprocessed photos.  I typically make a directory on my computer where I put a day’s worth of photos, then delete that directory when they’re all processed and the good ones are on my website. Unfortunately right now I have many such directories worth of unprocessed photos!

That even includes a folder of “Virgin Islands birds” I made, from our recent vacation.  I have a number of “new” species” for me that I don’t have on my website, but I haven’t gotten around to processing the photos yet. Here are a few more new species I did this morning.  The highlight of this group for me is the Mangrove Cuckoo.  They’re around in the U.S. itself, with a few lurking in mangrove swamps of southern Florida. I find cuckoos in general to be SO incredibly difficult to try to see. I knew they were on St. John’s Island, the island where we spent our vacation, but I wasn’t really expecting much beyond maybe a brief glimpse, or just hearing them but not seeing them.

Gray Kingbird - Tyrannus dominicensis

A photo of a Gray Kingbird observing his domain from a natural perch. These guys were everywhere, but the problem was trying to get a photo of one that wasn’t hanging out on an electric line.

Fortunately the Mangrove Cuckoos on St. John’s were the most visible cuckoo population I’ve seen!  The first one I heard on the trip was in deed in the heart of a mangrove swamp, but their real stronghold on the island is in the dry scrubby forest that dominates much of the landscape.  They may be a well-named species in much of their range, but they were definitely more common in dry scrub on St. John’s than they were in the Mangrove swamps.  I was able to get wonderful views of a number of different cuckoos, and it seemed on nearly every drive across the island, at some point one would fly across the road.

Another highly visible species on the island were Gray Kingbirds.  If there was any kind of relatively decent-sized patch of open land on the island, you could almost guarantee there would be a Gray Kingbird or two looking out over the landscape from a high perch.  The most common sight was of a Gray Kingbird sitting on a telephone/electric wire, but towards the end of the trip I was able to get some really nice photos of Gray Kingbirds hanging out on natural vegetation.

Zenaida Dove - Zenaida aurita

Zenaida Doves were extremely common on the island. GIven their similarity to our own very common Mourning Doves, I almost forgot to try to grab a few photos before we left!

The third “new” species I processed today was the Zenaida Dove.  This one generally falls into the category of “missed opportunity” from a photographic standpoint!  They were extremely common on the island, basically the ecological equivalent of the ubiquitous Mourning Doves we have around here in the summer.  They were most common in around settlements, but were found in nearly every habitat on the island.  Because they were such a common sight, I kept passing on very easy photo opportunities, waiting instead for a chance at the more “exotic” hummingbird or other species.  Before I knew it, the trip was almost over and I had no Zenaida Dove photos!  I managed a few rather boring photos of Zenaida Doves walking across an open lot, but I definitely felt like I missed many chances to get some nicer photos of the species.

3 species processed…and now I’m no longer in the mood to process photos today!  The rest of the Virgin Islands photos will have to wait!

Jul 02 2015

The Colbert Report – I’ve officially “made it”

Author: DakotaBirder • Discussion: No Comments
Colbert Report - Baird's Sparrow photo

I’ve made the big time! My Baird’s Sparrow photo being shown during an episode of the Colbert Report.

As someone recently made me aware of, before shutting down as Stephen Colbert left the show, the Colbert Report used one of my photos on their show!  OK, it was just in a very tangential sense, with no direct mention of the photographer or anything, but still…cool to see something of yours pop up unexpectedly on a show like the Colbert Report!

The context was typical Colbert satirizing negative impacts of oil production in North Dakota on the habitat and wildlife.  I had done work looking at the impacts of land use change and climate on bird populations in the U.S., and once the paper was published, it got some play in the press, including, evidently, on CBS This Morning.  The Colbert Report used a clip from the CBS This Morning show that included my photo of a Baird’s Sparrow.

I often run across my photos at conferences and the like, as people just grab bird photos from the web when doing scientific presentations.  I also run across them on occasion elsewhere, but it is still cool to see it on a venue like the Colbert Report.

Jul 01 2015

Man vs. Bird – Cherry Battle Royale, 2015

Author: DakotaBirder • Discussion: No Comments

We’ve built our house 8 years ago.  While my wife did most of the heavy lifting in terms of planning the inside, I was excited to have a completely blank canvas on which to landscape.  Of course, I had birds on my mind while I landscaped, putting a focus on plants that provided a nice mix of cover and food.

It wasn’t ALL just about the birds, however.  My wife likes roses…hence, I had to have roses somewhere.  For me, I was looking forward to having a garden, as well as having some fruit trees.  I planted a number of serviceberry (Juneberry) shrubs, and while I knew they were edible, the primary reason I planted them was to attract fruit-eating birds.  Cherries, however, are for me!  Cherry pie is, as I’m sure you know, the most perfect food ever created.  I bought 4 cherry trees, 2 dwarf sour (pie) cherries, and 2 full-size Montmorency cherries (the main sour pie cherry).

The trees were quite small when I bought them, and for the first 3 or 4 years, there were only a few cherries.  As they started to get big enough for the expectation of perhaps SOME kind of cherry harvest, we had a big windstorm take down one of the full-size cherries.  Down to 1 Montmorency, and 2 dwarf cherry trees!  About 4 years ago, the trees were still relatively small, but I was able to gather a very modest harvest.  By VERY modest, I mean enough to make 1 cherry pie, and about 2 jars of jam.  That year, given the relatively small number of cherries, the birds probably ate more cherries than I was able to harvest.  Still, it was a success!  Real cherries from my yard!  I anticipated greater harvests as the trees matured!

The last few years have resulted in no cherry pie.  No cherry jam.  No cherry cobbler.  In other words…no cherries, or at least not enough to bother picking.  The problem? We live in South Dakota!  We are always subject to some late, hard freeze or frost. In 2 years, we had extremely warm March weather and the cherries bloomed very early.  That was followed by colder weather that presumably killed the blooms.  Another year it was just a very late, hard freeze that likely did the blooms in.  What would 2015 bring?

We had a rather ho-hum winter, not all that cold, not all that late, and not all that much snow.  Spring and early summer have been fantastic, with plenty of warm, sunny days, periodic rainfall, and most importantly…no very late, killing frost.  The result of the favorable weather? Ever since about mid- to late-May, you could tell that a massive harvest was possible!  All three cherry trees were just LOADED with blooms, followed by growing and ripening fruit that was so abundant, some of the branches were weighed down and almost touching the ground.

Sour Cherry - Jam

Cherries as far as the eye can see! A couple days harvest shown here, made into jam, another harvest made into pie filling, more in the freezer…a bumper crop in 2015 for both man and birds!

As the first of the cherries started to approach ripeness, the first of the American Robins showed up to start munching.  Then a Gray Catbird. Then several of each species.  Occasionally a small flock of Cedar Waxwings would stop by for a cherry desert. NOOOOOOOOOooooooooooo!!! My first ever bumper crop of cherries…was it going to be all for naught?  Man vs. bird…who was going to win!?!?!!?

Well, thankfully for this bird loving man, BOTH bird and man won!  While the Robins and Catbirds are certainly getting their share, there are more cherries than 5x as many birds could eat.  I’ve picked gallon after gallon of delicious pie cherries, often picking side by side with Robins and Catbirds casually munching away mere feet from where I was picking.

Given South Dakota’s weather, I certainly don’t expect this kind of a harvest to occur every year, but it’s been a perfect harvest in 2015 for both man and beast!

%d bloggers like this: