Articles

Eurasian Tree Sparrows!! In my Yard!!!

Eurasian Tree Sparrows!  In my freakin’ yard!!  News at 11:00!  More later!!

EDIT: The story…I WAS going to go work in the office today, but woke up in the middle of the night with a massive headache. I thought I’d take it easy and work at home today.  About 10:45 this morning, I looked out the sunroom window. I saw a bird in the back of the yard that looked…odd. I grabbed the binoculars, and as I started to focus on it, the bird flew…right towards me, landing in the crabapple standing 10 feet from the window.  Immediately you could see it was something different…it was NOT a House Sparrow!  It was a Eurasian Tree Sparrow!

I gawked for a few seconds, and then grabbed my camera that fortunately was only a few feet away. As I started snapping photos, ANOTHER Eurasian Tree Sparrow popped up in the same tree!  One seemed to be following the other. At first, I thought they were both male birds, but only because I assumed they had a sexual dimorphism similar to House Sparrows.  Only later did I find that no, both males and females are similar in appearance.  Given the way the two birds moved together, with one always following the other, my best guess is that they were a male and female.

They stayed in the tree for perhaps 1 1/2 minutes, during which I took as many photos as I could.  During the rest of the day, there were only two other, brief sightings in my yard (one bird each time).

Why is this a big deal? They DO look somewhat similar to our everyday House Sparrow. However, Eurasian Tree Sparrows have a unique history. A  small number were released near St. Louis, Missouri in 1870 by a landowner who wanted to replicate the bird life of his native Europe. IN the 148 years since then, Eurasian Tree Sparrows haven’t expanded their range much beyond their original release location. They have still almost exclusively been found in far western Illinois, far eastern Missouri, and far southeastern Iowa.  In recent years, stray sightings have occurred outside this range, including areas as close as Minnesota.

But until the last 2 weeks, no live Eurasian Tree Sparrow had ever been seen in South Dakota.  A couple of weeks ago, the Small family in Vermillion saw an individual bird…the first live Eurasian Tree Sparrows ever seen in the state (a deceased bird was once found)!! The two birds in my yard today thus represent only the 2nd time the species has been seen in the state.

Pretty cool!! Here’s hoping the two are a mating pair, and that they stick around my yard for the summer.

Eurasian Tree Sparrow - Passer montanus

Eurasian Tree Sparrow – Passer montanus

Eurasian Tree Sparrow - Passer montanus

End of the Kiskadee

Great Kiskadee - Pitangus sulphuratus

Great Kiskadee sitting on a roosting box the landowners built.  Alas, even such heroic efforts weren’t enough to save this tropical bird from a South Dakota winter.

Not exactly surprising, given its normal habitat, but the Great Kiskadee that was found hanging around a farmstead near Volga, South Dakota since at least August, was found dead yesterday.  The landowners first noticed one, and maybe up to three, in August.  They weren’t aware of how rare a find it was, so it wasn’t until November that the birding community found out.  One Great Kiskadee was once found in central Kansas.  A few have been found in Oklahoma.  But South Dakota? In winter?

The bird hung on into the new year, which is by itself a minor miracle for a bird of the tropics.  We’ve had a very snowy winter so far, but the Kiskadee survived thanks to the heroic efforts of the landowners who fed it mealworms, minnows, catfood, suet, and anything else it would eat.  In the end though…it’s damned hard to expect a tropical bird to survive a South Dakota winter.  It hasn’t been THAT cold, but no matter whether the bird had food to eat, there are basic physiological tolerances that were no doubt exceeded.

Bummer…I do feel bad for the family who tried to keep it alive.  They were very proud of “their” bird and did a nice job keeping it alive as long as they did.  People from all across the region got the chance to see this incredibly rare tropical visitor, right in the heart of a northern Plains winter.

A very lost Great Kiskadee in the great white north

Great Kiskadee - Pitangus sulphuratus

A quite lost Great Kiskadee, casually hanging out on a post on a sunny day in “warm” South Dakota.

A couple of weeks ago, the South Dakota Ornithologists Union (SDOU) had their fall meeting in Brookings, South Dakota.  As the meetings were going on, the folks in attendance became aware of an incredibly unusual sighting in the area.  A landowner near Volga had reported seeing at least two Great Kiskadees in her yard, stating that they had been hanging around since at least August.  Great Kiskadees normally are found in Latin America, as they are warm weather birds with a range that just reaches into the United States in far southern Texas. In the U.S., there have been a handful of sightings outside of Texas.  Of these, there have been several in Oklahoma, a handful in Louisiana, and one or two in Kansas and New Mexico.  The one found in central Kansas was incredibly unusual in its own right, occurring hundreds of miles away from the next closest sighting.  Hence, a Great Kiskadee?  In South Dakota?  In November?  The SDOU attendees were understandably skeptical.  The skepticism vanished when a conclusive photo was provided, and most people attending the meeting got a very exciting treat, making the short trip to the farmstead where the bird (birds?) was seen.

I was out of town on travel at the time.  When I got back, I told myself that maybe if the bird were still hanging around, I’d head north to try and see it (and photograph it).  A couple of weeks passed, and I managed to make excuses not to go.  In other words, I was being lazy!! Honestly, I rarely have any luck chasing single birds like this.  However, today, serendipity struck.  I was walking in the hall at work this morning, and passed my friend Pat, who is also a birder.  He had seen the Great Kiskadee, and we started talking about it.  He noted they were still seeing the bird relatively recently, and it got my mind wandering, in the way that a mind sometimes WILL wander on a Wednesday at work.  After several days of gloom and snow, the sun was finally out.  What was better, sitting in a windowless office, or going out searching for a mega-rarity?

In no time I grabbed my coat, headed home to grab my camera equipment, and then started north towards the area where the bird(s) was being seen.  There are two farmsteads adjacent to each other, and the Great Kiskadees had been seen at both.  Having been told the south farmstead had an extensive feeder setup, that’s where I headed.  With a big snowstorm ending just the day before, I thought surely the bird would be hanging out by the feeders.  I called the landowner and asked permission, and ended up walking around her land for an hour, and hanging around her feeders for another hour.  No luck…no bird.

Great Kiskadee - Pitangus sulphuratus

Snow. That’s a Great Kiskadee, sitting in a pine tree covered with snow. I would bet there haven’t ever been too many similar photos taken.

Par for the course, when I chase a lone bird!  I got back in my car, sent a quick note to the South Dakota “listserver”, informing birders that I had tried, unsuccessfully, to re-locate the Kiskadee.  Perhaps the snowstorm was too much for a tropical bird, I thought.

That’s when our digital, instant-communication world saved the day.  “KC” replied almost immediately to my email to the listserver, telling me that he had seen the bird just this morning.  I spent nearly all my time at the southern farmstead, but he said the bird was now hanging out almost exclusively at the northern farmstead.  I was only 5 miles away when I noticed his message, so I turned around and headed back, this time going to the “right” farmstead.

It only took 2 minutes of looking before I saw the bird.  The landowners had set up special feeders just to try and help the wayward Kiskadee, with suet and mealworms provided for it.  Within 2 minutes of walking around, a lone Great Kiskadee came flying into the feeders, along with some of his new buddies, 3 Blue Jays.  What a gorgeous bird!  A bright splash of yellow isn’t exactly a common sight for a birder in South Dakota when there’s a foot of snow on the ground!  The recent snow doesn’t seem to have hurt the Kiskadee.  He seemed fat, happy, and was feeding very well.  I ended up watching and photographing him for about 45 minutes as he flew back-and-forth between the feeders and the surrounding trees.  He wasn’t shy, either, ALWAYS a very welcome development for a bird photographer.

When I awoke today I was expecting the same old grind at work!  Thanks to bumping into Pat in the hall, and thanks to my own TRUE talent at finding excuses to get away from work, a normal work day turned into a truly once-in-a-lifetime birding day!  A Great Kiskadee in the snow and cold of South Dakota in December!

Great Kiskadee - Pitangus sulphuratus

%d bloggers like this: