LOOK FOR: Yellow-Bellied Sapsuckers

Photo credit: Beth Fishkind

As we get all excited about the sap running, so do other critters. Perhaps first among them is the yellow-bellied sapsucker, who winters in the south. Around now, the sapsuckers start migrating north, following this rich food source as each successive latitude warms up enough to start the flow.

Sapsuckers make a series of round holes in a tree's bark, usually lined up in efficient little rows. They then lap up the sap that comes out -- sometimes returning to holes over and over as the sap continues to ooze.

In addition to their their distinctive holes, sapsuckers are a distinctive-looking bird. Like other woodpeckers, they've got mottled black and whitish feathers on their back and wings. Both males and females have a red spot on the top of their head; males also have a red throat. The belly has just a hint of yellow that you won't be able to detect without exactly the right light -- the picture above may be the yellowest I've ever seen.

Photo credit: New Jersey Birds

The yellow-bellied sapsucker is considered a "keystone" species by some ecologists because many other birds rely on them. It's a hard time of year to find food, and other species -- including kinglets, warblers, phoebes, and even hummingbirds -- will follow behind the sapsuckers to lap up sap or insects.

But sapsuckers don't subsist entirely on sugar -- good thing, because the sap doesn't flow all year.  The sapsucker may also make rectangular holes that allow them to get to the tree's phloem, which they eat. And, like other woodpeckers, they eat a lot of insects. Even when the sap is running, many insects either get uncovered by drilling into the tree, or are themselves attracted to the sap.

But no other woodpecker in our area makes such systematic holes in the trees. If you see a tidy little row, it was probably a sapsucker.

Photo credit: we'moon in the woods

In the wild: You can find sapsuckers throughout the open woods of our region. If you see some holes actively oozing sap, hang out quietly for a little while and see who comes by.

In your yard: Don't worry, sapsuckers generally do not cause serious damage to trees -- the wounds they make are pretty shallow. Sapsuckers come to the large oak tree in our backyard all the time, and it's going strong.

We read of one photographer who attracted sapsuckers to his yard by drilling holes in an upright log and filling them with corn syrup. Cheating? You decide. It must have been quite a sugar rush for the birds!

Have you seen sapsuckers lately? Let us know.


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Great Backyard Bird Count

The Great Backyard Bird Count is an annual event that enlists people to take a massive snapshot of where birds are in North America over the course of four days in February. In 2009, participants reported on a mind-boggling 11.5 million birds (check out the results for Washington, DC here). Scientists could never gather such a broad data set in such a short time without enlisting help from the general public.

It all works because they make it really easy to help. As little as 15 minutes of bird counting qualifies you to report your observations to the GBBC. You can literally observe in your backyard -- or you can go to a park and count birds there. And, perhaps most importantly, you don't have to be an expert to participate. Here's what you do:

1. Look for birds for at least 15 minutes on February 13-16.
   
   
2. Keep track of the species of birds that you see, and for each species, the largest number that you see together simultaneously. (You might find it helpful to use a checklist of the possible birds in our area. And if you see a bird that you can't identify, and you don't have a field guide, the Cornell Lab of Ornithology has a fantastic online guide.)
   
   
3. Enter the information on the GBBC website. (Note that if you observe on more than one day, or in more than one place, you should enter the info separately. You'll also be asked to report the times that you were looking, the type of habitat, and some other basic information -- see this form.)

Once everyone has entered their results, the information is available online for researchers to get a sense of how bird populations are faring in general, how they react to specific weather patterns or larger climate changes, and how their migration patterns vary from year to year. These first-pass observations from the GBBC are usually followed up with more in-depth study, but the GBBC can help tell folks where to look.

Let's make sure there's plenty in the database on the Washington DC region -- go count some birds!

Photo credit: That nuthatch is by Christine Haines, via the GBBC.

LOOK FOR: Juncos, Here For Our Warm Winter

As we look forward to spring with great anticipation, it's good to remember the junco -- who thinks our winters are balmy. Juncos generally breed further north, coming down to the DC area from about October through mid-March to enjoy our milder weather. Based on reports of the bird from Virginia, early taxonomists gave it the Latin name Junco hyemalis, or winter junco. We have to wonder what Canadians think of that.

Actually, Junco hyemalis is more often referred to as the Dark-eyed Junco, perhaps as a nod to our friends in the north. In addition to their dark eyes, juncos have a white belly and a light-colored pinkish beak that stand out against their otherwise slate-grey body.  They've also got white in their outer tailfeathers, which you may notice especially when they're in flight. That white gives the junco some camouflage in the snow. They may not need it so much here, but their winter range includes places as cold as the Dakotas -- which still beats spending the winter in northern Saskatchewan.

Wherever they are, juncos generally hang out on the ground -- they even nest on the ground most of the time (though not until they get to their summer homes). Their plumage is well designed for this habitat and often makes them hard to see. So, it can be helpful to keep an ear out for their songs and calls. They make several different trills and chipping noises. Examples of both are here and here.

In the wild: Look on especially on forest floors as you're hiking, but in the winter juncos can also be in fields and roadsides as they forage for food. Keep an eye out for them hopping around and pecking in the leaf litter, or flying into the underbrush to get away from you.

In your yard: About three quarters of a junco's diet comes from seeds. That makes it a good chance that you'll see them at a birdfeeder -- or, even more likely, foraging among the seeds that have spilled onto the ground. Without a birdfeeder, we've seen them foraging on the ground in our yard in the leaf litter, but not very frequently.

Any other tips for spotting juncos? Have you seen any recently? Let us know!

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LOOK FOR: Wild Turkeys

It's almost Thanksgiving, and everybody's thinking of turkey. But long before Thanksgiving existed, turkeys were here in North America.

Turkeys are among the largest birds in our area, with a wingspan over 4 feet and weighing up to 24 pounds. The stereotypical Thanksgiving pose -- tailfeathers fanned out, feathers fluffed up -- is a display that males put on to attract mates, but also when they feel threatened. Not so surprising, then, that this is our picture of turkeys at Thanksgiving time.

As another display tactic, male turkeys have featherless heads that can be bright blue during mating season, complemented by bright red  throat, wattles (the floppy part under the beak), snoods (a flap that dangles over the beak), and caruncles (other red growths around the neck and head. Males also have a curious tuft of hairs coming out of the middle of their chests called a beard. If he puts on a successful show, each male typically maintains a harem of several females. Meanwhile, the females can get away with being smaller and less colorful -- in fact, they need to be, as they're the ones that tend the nests.


By the early 1900's, turkey populations in North America had been decimated by hunting. But wildlife managment programs have made a concerted effort to bring the bird back through habitat protection and re-introduction of birds where they had disappeared. For example, the Maryland Department of Natural Resources estimates that the wild turkey population in Maryland has rebounded from about 2,000 turkeys in two or three counties in 1973, to over 30,000 birds in 2008, with wild turkeys in every Maryland county.

In the wild: Turkeys are found throughout Maryland and Virginia in a variety of habitats. In the summer, they seek out areas with berries, grasses, and insects, including both woods and meadows.  In the fall and winter, they may increase the time they spend in the woods as they seek out acorns. Many of the times that we have seen wild turkeys have been along rivers; they tend to nest within a few hundred yards of water.

In your yard: Wild turkeys have been known to stray into more urban and suburban areas occasionally, but in general, they're very wary of people. (We have to wonder, though, whether domesticated turkeys will get in on the urban poultry phenomenon at some point.)

More info: 
An excellent report from the Maryland DNR: The Wild Turkey in Maryland
Sounds of Wild Turkeys from the National Wild Turkey Foundation

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LOOK FOR: White Throated Sparrows, Back for the Winter

A few weeks ago, we started seeing white throated sparrows in our yard again. These little birds breed in Canada during the summer, then head south to spend the winter anywhere from Pennsylvania south to Florida, and west to Missouri and Texas.

White throated sparrows often hop around on the ground and forage in the leaf litter, where most of their plumage serves as good camouflage. But their head markings stand out, and lend the bird its scientific name, Zonotrichia albicollis: stripe-headed white-throat. These birds do indeed have white throats, often with a thin, dark border. The stripes on top of the head come in two color variations: either black and white or brown and tan. But perhaps most distinctive is the little patch of yellow just above and in front of the eye (a "lore"). This yellow patch stands out to me so much that this, and not the white throat, is usually how I recognize these birds for who they are.

Some people say the song of the white-throated sparrow sounds like they're saying "Oh sweet Canada, Canada, Canada." I find that helps me remember what bird I'm hearing more than the other mnemonic often used for their song: "Poor Sam Peabody, Peabody, Peabody." Anybody could say that (though I'm not sure why Sam Peabody is so deserving of pity). No, these little guys are clearly longing for their summer home. Have a listen:

In the wild: like many birds, white-throated sparrows like the edges of woods, and suburban backyards. In the winter they eat seeds from grasses and ragweed to grape, rose, and dogwood.

In your yard: White throated sparrows will come to feeders, especially for millet and black oil sunflower seeds, but they prefer to eat the seed scattered on the ground. You can make an area extra-inviting by providing cover (like a brush pile or thicket) and water in a birdbath, pond, or fountain.

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LOOK FOR: Cedar Waxwings

Cedar waxwings are gorgeous birds. Most of their plumage is muted brownish-grey. This doesn't sound so interesting, I know, but they're so silky-looking that their latin name, Bombycilla, comes from the Greek for silk, bombux. To add a little intrigue, their slight crest and black face mask can give them a Donnie Brasco-meets-Batman look. And then, if you can get close enough, you'll see a striking yellow bar on the bottom of their tail, and (on most birds) a few bright red dots of wax on the wings.

Cedar waxwings rely on small fruits and berries for over 80 percent of their diet, though they supplement their spring and summer diet with insects when fruits are scarce. They travel in flocks, and a flock will often completely devour the berries of a tree before moving on to their next spot.

In fact, these birds have quite a reputation for gluttony. Audubon once noted that waxwings “gorge themselves to such excess as sometimes to be unable to fly...I have seen some which, although wounded and confined to a cage, have eaten of apples until suffocation deprived them of life.” Perhaps it's not surprising, then, that their courtship rituals revolve around food: the male brings a berry or an insect to a female, and they pass it back and forth several times before the female finally eats it.

We usually hear cedar waxwings before we see them. Their calls are a soft, high-pitched whistle; in a flock, the noise can be fairly continuous. This video from YouTube has a good example:

In the wild: Cedar waxwings like forest edges. Their numbers are actually increasing, possibly because suburban landscapes offer lots of edge-like habitat. Keep an ear out for their whistling, and an eye out for large flocks of birds eating tree fruits.

In your yard: The best way to attract cedar waxwings is to plant native trees and shrubs that bear small fruits, including dogwood, serviceberry, cedar, hawthorn, cherry, winterberry, holly, mulberry, chokecherry, and hackberry. Research has found that more than half of cedar waxwing nests are in either maple or cedar trees.

More info:
Cornell Lab of Ornithology: Cedar Waxwing
Waxwing Lyrical: Flying with Icarus and Daedelus
Smithsonian Migratory Bird Center

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LOOK FOR: Goldfinches

Goldfinches are one of the most brightly colored common birds in the DC area. If you saw one in a tropical area, you might be transfixed...but here, it's just a goldfinch. Well, stop and let yourself be transfixed anyway. They're lovely birds.

It's the male goldfinch that's a showy yellow-and-black bird. The female is the same size and shape, but is much duller-colored. You'll often see them together in pairs (they're monogamous) or groups. During the winter, the males will molt and take on the duller colors of the female. They'll grow brighter feathers again in the spring in time for mating season, which is the real purpose of all that color, after all.

Unlike most birds, goldfinches rely almost entirely on seeds; they don't seek out insects for food at all. In fact, you could call them "thistle birds" -- the first part of the Latin name Carduelis tristis comes from Carduus, a genus of thistle found in Europe and Asia. (The species name, tristis, comes from the Latin for "sad," which makes no sense to me - anyone?)

Around August, the goldfinches start to regularly come to our yard to eat the seeds of our summer flowers. Among the flowers we offer, they seem to be particularly attracted to anise hyssop, purple coneflower, oxeye sunflower, and black-eyed susan. In the spring it also brings in the goldfinches when we let the kale and cilantro go to seed in the vegetable garden. Other flowers reported as attractive include milkweed, asters, and sunflowers. They'll also feed on grasses and the seeds of trees, including alder, birch, western red cedar, and elm.

Besides looking for the distinctive yellow markings, you can learn to listen for the song of the goldfinch. This video has a good example:

In the wild: Look for meadows on edges of woods. Goldfinches will feed on the seeds of the sun-loving flowers in the meadow (where you'll be able to see them better), but nest in the trees and shrubs.

In your yard: You can purchase birdfeeders specially designed for goldfinches, and fill them with thistle or nyjer seed. Squirrels seem less interested in these tiny seeds than in a typical birdseed mix, but be careful -- those plants may start growing where you don't want them from spilled seed. Goldfinches will also eat sunflower seeds out of a more typical birdseed. Or, just plant yourself a goldfinch garden with some of the native flowers listed above.

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LOOK FOR: Cardinal Flowers (and Hummingbirds)

I used to love cardinal flower just because it's a gorgeous flower. It took a few years before I realized that if you sit quietly for long enough by a large patch, a hummingbird will come by. And that takes it to another level.

Lobelia cardinalis has brilliant, deep red flowers. In his book Wildflowers: A Guide to Growing and Propagating Native Flowers of North America, William Cullina describes them like this:

It is as if the flowers catch sunlight inside some sort of secret crystal matrix and let it bounce around for a while until it has been stripped of all but the deepest, purest red imaginable. Then and only then is the light released to burn crimson into our corneas.I will never forget the first time I found one in the wild, just a single plant growing in a low area behind my house. I stood there stunned for about five minutes trying to fathom how such a magical thing had come there.

Chances are, if he stood longer than five minutes, Cullina saw other magical things. The flowers don't have much of a smell. But that brilliant red is mightily attractive not just to humans, but to hummingbirds and butterflies -- especially, I've noticed, to eastern black swallowtail butterflies. If you find a patch, sit a while and see who comes by. Nothing is ever foolproof, but almost every time I have tried it, I have seen one or the other within twenty minutes. Just last week, a hummingbird started coming regularly last week to the patch of cardinal flowers in our yard, for the third year in a row.

Cardinal flowers bloom in a long spike at the top of a stem that can grow up to 4 feet tall. The flowers are worth a close look: they're quite unusual. Plants in the genus Lobelia all have similar asymmetrical tubular flowers, with the tube slit along the upper side. The flower's five anthers are united around the style, forming a silvery-lavender point that itself almost glows against the red of the flowers.

In the wild:Cardinal flower loves wet areas; you'll see it growing along streams or ponds. It's not the most common flower, but if you keep an eye out in these areas you should be able to find some.

In your yard: Cardinal flower is a perfect choice for a rain garden that catches water off your roof or any other wet spot in your yard. It can also be planted in normal, non-wet garden soil, especially with more shade -- it won't thrive during a drought, and it may not form as abundant a patch as it would with water, but it should do just fine. It's fairly easy to start from seed -- but be careful, the seeds are tiny!

Do you know a good cardinal flower patch? Any questions or observations? Leave a comment.

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Bookshelf: Bird ID

You would think not much could change in the world of identifying birds. The birds themselves don't change. But I still have my mother's copy of Peterson's Field Guide (2nd edition), complete with her parent's phone number on the inside front cover and notes from her college ornithology class in the margins. And I will tell you, we've come a long way from the days of those mostly black-and-white plates.

In this post, we'll review three current field guides to birds in our area. As a case study, we'll use a bird that was an occasional visitor to our condo's flower boxes in Dupont Circle: the house finch.

Peterson Field Guides: Birds of Eastern and Central North America (probably about 600 birds, 450 pages): This guide covers the birds you might expect to see in the US and Canada from the east coast all the way west to Texas and North Dakota. The shot to the right is from Matt's copy, which is a 4th edition; the 5th edition fixes one of our pet peeves about the book by adding small maps to each entry to show each bird's range. This makes it much easier to quickly exclude the birds whose range doesn't even come close to the DC area when trying to make an ID. The text is minimal, but provides basic descriptions of distinguishing visual characteristics, song, and habitat. The strength of Peterson's is that it typically shows at least 4 species on a single page; this allows for side-by-side comparison of similar species. In most cases the illustrations are clear. However, for several years, we had trouble applying the distinctions between the illustrations of the house finch (top right corner) and the purple finch (below it) to the birds we saw in front of us, and had an ongoing debate over which bird we were seeing.

The Sibley Field Guide to Birds of Eastern North America (650 birds, 432 pages): Sibley's covers about the same range as Peterson's, but makes several nice additions to the Peterson model. They still manage to fit about four birds to each two page spread, but by making the illustrations smaller, there is room for more information. Each description starts off with where you are likely to find each bird, which goes a long way toward settling our purple finch ("uncommon in woody and brushy areas") vs. house finch ("common and widespread in suburbs") dispute. The written descriptions of visual characteristics are associated with arrows to the relevant part of each illustration; this is much easier to follow than Peterson's method of stringing them together in a paragraph. Another nice bonus is a short section at the beginning of each group of birds (e.g. wading birds, raptors) with general information and comparing the genera or species within the group. Unfortunately, these sections don't really stand out as breaks; it's easy to skip over them as you're flipping through the guide.

Smithsonian Handbooks: Birds of the Mid-Atlantic (328 birds, 400 pages): This guide focuses on a smaller geographic range (VA/WV through NY/NJ), and thus has room for a full page per bird. The benefit of this approach is much richer information about each bird, including notes on behavior, breeding, nesting, flight patterns, and what they're attracted to in bird feeders. The downside is that you lose the ability to compare birds side-by-side: you have to turn a page between our purple finch and house finch (we pasted them together here). The book tries to make up for this by including a small inset on each page about similar birds, but it's not as easy to use. This guide uses photographs instead of illustrations, which is helpful in the case of our finches. If the pictures are accurate, it's clear we never saw a purple finch at our flower boxes. In general, the photos are a mixed bag: some more difficult-to-photograph birds are a little blurry or in odd poses. And the photo of the great egret, a pure white bird, looks largely grey from a shadow. Failing to at least Photoshop that shot seems like a major oversight. One other drawback in this guide is that unlike the other two books, there's no label like "hawks" or "ducks" in the upper corners of the pages to help you flip to the right general area as you narrow down your search for a bird.

Bottom line: I think it might be time for us to move beyond Peterson's. Sibley's gained another edge last week when it was the only book of these three that clearly identified a juvenile starling (which is grey, instead of black like the adults). It had a clear picture and also an apt description of it "waddling," which was a clincher for my confidence that I had made the right ID. But I keep going back to the Smithsonian book, as well, for the longer descriptions.

Do you have a favorite field guide? What do you like about it? Click below to leave a comment.

LOOK FOR: Baltimore Orioles

If you live in the DC area, you've seen a Baltimore Oriole. They're on all the sports paraphernalia. But have you ever actually seen one?

The Orioles logo is, surprisingly, a fairly good estimate of what you're looking for: a bright orange breast and shoulders, with black head, back, wings, and tail. The males are generally a brighter orange than the females.

Orioles migrate to Florida, the Caribbean, and Central America for the winter -- we saw one in Guatemala one February. They come back to this area to breed every spring. And right now, they're building their nests. And the nests are remarkable: rather than resting on top of a branch like most birds' nests, orioles' nests are a long sack that hangs down from the branch.

Orioles often hang out in treetops, which can make them hard to spot. This time of year, you might find them drinking nectar from a tuliptree, or nesting in a sycamore. Because they're so high up, though, the easiest way to spot them is to listen for their distinctive song, then try to find the singer with a pair of binoculars.

Try listening to this recording of the song several times before you head out this weekend, and see if it helps you find one. You may realize they've been in your neighborhood all along.

In your yard: Some people say leaving out fruit will attract orioles, but I've never gotten it to work -- the squirrels run off with it first. What did attract a pair of orioles right down to ground level in our yard several times this week was nesting materials: we left out a pile of old flower stalks broken into pieces, and various birds have been coming to the pile for weeks.

In the wild: Orioles like forest edges more than dense forest. We've seen them in sycamores along Rock Creek and along the Potomac. For a bird's eye view, try stopping for a look if you're crossing one of the high bridges (e.g. Calvert St.) across Rock Creek, or try the bluffs at Scott's Run.

More info:

Cornell Lab of Ornithology

Smithsonian Migratory Bird Center