Those of you who follow the Twin Cities Naturalist page on Facebook may have already seen the video below I shared it there yesterday. If you are not already following on Facebook you can follow this link and click on "like."
This video was taken by Jessie Garza out in Washington state. It has been shared over 1,000 times so far as it is truly amazing. Great Blue Herons are opportunistic feeders and will take food where they can get it. Be sure to watch the whole video!
Captured this short video on April 6th of one of the first visits to the nest by the Eastern Phoebes. Looks like they will reuse last year's nest. We'll be monitoring the nest via video all spring and I'll update people on nesting progress. Stay tuned.
This video has been making the rounds online. It is from a BBC show about Peregrine Falcons and includes some excellent footage of the birds hunting. Here in Minnesota, many of the falcons have returned to their roosting sites a few weeks back. The success of the Peregrine Falcon is a wonderful conservation story and an example of how humans can work to save, not extinguish species.
Many regular readers will know that we have a motion activated camera on a dead deer out at work. We've seen crows, bald eagles, raccoons, and coyotes each eating their share. When we looked at last night's photos though, we found a wonderful surprise. A Great Horned Owl!
The owl hung around for quite a while (on and off over the course of 5 hours!) so there were lots of photos. I compiled them into a short video.
Here are a few stills. This one is one of my favorites. The owl is really working hard to get a meal.
The shot below is actually then last of the video. Why is it the last one? Look carefully and you can see the owl finally flying away.
It pays to look a little closer though. I enlarged the section with the owl and you can see it is flying off with the deer's leg!
We've heard Great Horned Owls at work but very rarely see them. The deer is situated in some pretty good Great Horned Owl habitat though. Great Horned Owls are a species of the forest edge and the deer is about 10 feet from the edge of the forest.
Special thanks to naturalist Paul Smithson who's been checking on the camera's lately!
In this video, Dick Olenschlager from the Science Museum of Minnesota prepares a study skin for the collection at the Lee & Rose Warner Nature Center. Dick has made over 20,000 bird study skins in his life and probably prepared an equal number of mammals. Study skins are valuable scientific and teaching tools.
Study skins are different than taxidermy in that it is quicker and the animal is prepared to collect and preserve scientific data rather than make a lifelike replica of the animal. This Scarlet Tanager is in a plumage most people never see. In the summer, the bird is an incredible red that makes Northern Cardinals look shabby. This bird died in the fall and has molted nearly all of the red feathers. It will be a valuable teaching tool to show molting and discuss how male birds use color to attract mates.
The video I posted a year ago that featured a slow motion view of the flight of a Eurasian Eagle Owl continues to get lots of views so I thought people would enjoy watching another slow motion video I came across recently. This is a slow motion flight video of a Barn Owl.
Barn owls are incredible even compared to other owls. Like other owls, their facial disc functions as a giant sound collector. This allows them to hear very faint noises. Their actual ears (located just behind the eyes) are not at the same height as one another. Just as having one ear on each side of our head has allows humans to have a good sense for whether sound is coming from the left or right, the unequal placement of the ears on the Barn Owl allows it to also determine if sounds are coming from above or below with great accuracy. Experiments have shows that Barn Owls can catch mice in absolute darkness by using only their hearing. This is an incredible feat.
Just like the last video, people will probably wonder how on earth someone captured the images below. This is clearly a captive owl. As it flies over the camera, look closely at the legs and you can see the jesses or ankle bracelets used to tether the bird when it is not flying.
Here's the first footage from the motion activated camera being on video mode. No coyotes but a Bald Eagle and crow did show up for a snack. When we went to set up the camera there was also a downy woodpecker eating fat off the deer. This isn't the best video, kind of a butt shot. The camera only records for 10 seconds and then waits one minute before taking another video. There was no second video so the eagle must not have stayed long.
Some of you have been following along with my videos of a pair of albino squirrels that were born at work. I have yet to get the two of them on camera at the same time but who knows. Maybe some day. Imagine the excitement for albino squirrel afficianatos (and shut-ins in general.)
Well hold you hats squirrel lovers. This video's coming at you. Put on your 3D glasses. (note: Video is not actually in 3D)
What we have here is some fresh video of an unusual white-footed gray squirrel Sciurus carolinensis. The feet of a gray squirrel are usually gray like the rest of the body so it is curious that this one has such white feet. I did a less than exhaustive google search and could find no record of any white-footed gray squirrels. This is either stunningly rare or of all the billions of people on the internet I am the only person to care about a squirrel with white feet. Interestingly, I believe this squirrel was born in the same litter as the albino squirrels. Albinism is systemic however so the two abnormalities should, in theory, not be related. The white feet are either a natural color variation taken to the extreme or perhaps some sort of underlying leucism.
So many people liked the albino squirrel video from last week I decided I needed a better video. The last one was shot on a point and shoot camera on video mode so it wasn't the best. Here's a new video with my actual video camera. The squirrel was at the Lee & Rose Warner Nature Center in Minnesota. The site is for school groups and is not open to the public. I discovered shortly after posting the first video that there are actually two albino squirrels from the same litter and on occasion they both hang out together at the feeders. I was only able to get one on film.
This little guy was clearly born this year as you can tell by his sub-adult size. Eastern Gray Squirrels Sciurus carolinensis, take 8 to 9 months to reach full size. This one has a few siblings around at the feeders as well. We get albino squirrels showing up every few years so the gene must be passing around in our gray squirrel population at work. I shot a quick video with a small camera. Sorry, not the best quality as my good video camera wasn't on hand. It will be fun to watch it grow up. We do have owls around and, at least until the snow comes, this one will be an easy target. Albino squirrels certainly have an adaptive advantage in the winter given their white coats. It makes me wonder if white squirrels are more common at higher latitudes or altitudes given the positive evolutionary pressure brought on by increased chance of survival in winter. I couldn't find any research on this. I did discover that melanistic or black squirrels are more common as you move north.
This individual is a true albino and not a leucistic squirrel. This means that the pigment is missing from the eyes as well and I have read this could reduce the squirrels visual abilities in bright light. In winter, the reflected sun on the snow is very bright so that could negatively affect survival rates. Interesting any way you look at it.
It was windy today in Minnesota. If you don't believe me, ask the woman at my work who's back window exploded when a thirty foot tall black cherry fell on her car. Like I said, windy.
When I came home I could hear this chirping noise out my window. It sounded familiar but strangely constant. This bird was close to the window, not moving and chirping like mad. I looked out the window with my son and quickly spotted a little ball of feathers in the yard. It could only be one species. I grabbed my binoculars and sure enough, it was a baby American Goldfinch.
American Goldfinch are the last birds to nest in the state of Minnesota each summer. Heck, it isn't even summer anymore and there are still goldfinches in nests. This has to do with their nesting habits. American Goldfinches build their nests out of thistle seed plumes. The thistle doesn't bloom until the end of the summer so they have to wait it out.
For the past few weeks, song birds have been pouring out of Minnesota. The warblers are all but gone and there have been reports of the first Juncos in the Twin Cities. I practically expect snow any moment once the Juncos arrive.
My suspicion is that this bird was force fledged a bit early by the strong winds today. This brings up a question I get all the time in my line of work. What should I do with a baby bird I found? Leave it alone! Birds have done fine for millions of years without well meaning humans trying to assist them. The parents will hear the bird calling and bring it food. This is how it works. Sure, there's a chance another animal might eat the little bird. Sitting in the middle of the yard like this is also announcing a free meal to any passing hawk. Look though, migrating hawks are hungry too. This is the circle of life.
I'll have my thistle feeder out all winter. Maybe this little guy (or gal) will hang out in my yard this winter and enjoy my stale seeds.
It did stick around long enough for me to dig out the video camera. Enjoy.
Eastern Phoebes take 18 days to fledge from their nest so I was excited today at the prospect of catching the event on our nest cam at work. The eggs hatched on June 27 so today was the 18th day. Time to fledge from the nest. The birds were still there in the morning so I started recording the live feed. I checked back half and hour later and they were gone. It looks like one bird was thinking about leaving and then fell out. It quickly flew back but bumped another bird out. Once that bird left everyone followed. It was over in a matter of seconds. Kind of fun to watch. This was the third nest attempt this year by this pair of phoebes. The first nest had all the eggs destroyed by cowbirds. The second attempt was a nest full of cowbird eggs and then finally on the third try the cowbirds left them alone and they successfully raised five new phoebes.
The fox sparrows showing up this week got me thinking about these fascinating birds again. Did you know that there is a lot of disagreement over this chunky sparrow? Is it one kind of bird or many different closely related species? The AOU currently recognizes 18 sub species.
Minnesota's own Robert M. Zink at the Bell Museum of Natural History has taken a very close look at these migrants that show up each spring. He wrote the page turner, The Geography of Mitochondrial DNA Variation, Population Structure, Hybridization, and Species Limits in the Fox Sparrow (Passerella iliaca). If you subscribe to JSTOR or happen to have issue Volume 48 issue 1 of the Journal Evolution from 1994 sitting around then you too can read all about subtle differences in the DNA of Fox Sparrows from around the country. More recently he published The recent Evolutionary History of the Fox Sparrows which was published in the AUK in 2003. Wonderfully, you can download this as a pdf for free from the Field Museum. I learned that according to analysis of DNA, Spizella arborea or the American Tree Sparrow is the closest relative of the fox sparrow. Makes sense. Back to the fox sparrows...
I look forward to seeing Fox Sparrows each spring and I love their foraging behavior of scratching at the ground with little backwards jumps. I took this quick and dirty video of the first fox sparrow to show up under the feeders at work.
As I hinted at before, there's some disagreement it seems about which species of bird is in the video above. "Officially," meaning according to the AOU, there is only one kind of Fox Sparrow. The scientific name is Passerella iliaca. There are four generally accepted sub-species however. Now depending on whether you are a splitter or a lumper this will either excite you or make you say, "Here we go again."
The four major sub-species of Fox Sparrow are:
• The Red Fox Sparrow (P. i. iliaca ) Generally central and east coast. This is the brightest red thus the name. • Slate-colored Fox Sparrow (P. i. schistacea) Found in the Rocky Mountains. It has a tiny bill with a gray head and mantle, brown wings, brown breast streaks, and a russet tail. • Sooty Fox Sparrow (P. i. unalaschcensis) Found on the west coast. It is generally browner than the Red Fox Sparrow. • Thick-billed Fox Sparrow (P. i. megarhyncha) Found in the Sierra Nevadas. It has a particularly thick bill, thus the name.
So clearly what we have here in Minnesota is a Red Fox Sparrow right? Well, kind of. Research such as that done by Zink reveals that the "Red Fox Sparrow" is actually made up of even smaller groups. There are actually two distinct groups, the Eastern Fox Sparrow (Passerella iliaca iliaca) and the Yukon Fox Sparrow (Passerella iliaca zaboria). What's the difference? The Yukon has a browner malar stripe and a grayer head. That's in general. It can be very hard to distinguish them in the field. Range is probably the best way for the general observer to tell them apart.
So, which do we have in Minnesota? We're close to the divide but in general it seems the birds in Minnesota and to the west are Yukon Fox Sparrows while birds in Wisconsin all the way to the east coast are Eastern Fox Sparrows.
If you're a life lister, be sure to note fox sparrows you see in other parts of the country. They may some day be split into separate species.
The photos show a Golden Eagle attacking a white-tailed deer. They are quite impressive and it seems crazy that an eagle would try to take down a deer. Does the deer need to worry? Maybe.
The first thing that came to mind though when I saw the photos was this video from a few years back. A Golden Eagle picks a mountain goat off the side of a mountain and eats it. By all means watch the entire thing but the most amazing part starts at about 4:55. The eagle actually flies while carrying a goat. Amazing. The video is from Europe.
Sunday night was Crowmageddon at Loring Park in downtown Minneapolis. Let me explain. Every month birders in the Twin Cities get together for Birds and Beers. It is a social event to bring birders together and it is hosted by Birdchick. We usually meet at Merlin's Rest but this month decided to have it at Joe's Garage on the edge of Loring Park so we could watch the crows come in to roost for the night.
We arrived at 4:00 for drinks and food. There was an amazing turnout with more people than have ever come before. We had 52 people attend. Birds and beers took over the entire upstairs and part of the downstairs of the restaurant. As the sun started to set we saw groups of two to 10 birds heading away from the park. We were worried the bulk of the roost was going to be just west of our location. As the sun began to set though, more and more of the crows stayed in the park. Soon, they came in wave after wave in groups ranging from 30 birds to hundreds. There was no way to judge the total number of birds. They were still coming in when I left around 8:30. It think it is fair to say the number was easily in the tens of thousands. I shot some quick and dirty video to show what it was like. The shooting conditions were tough as the sun had already set once they really started to come in. The video only gives you a feel for a tiny fraction of the number of birds there. The crows are small, click the full screen button on the video to get the best effect.
Now that the post title has your attention let's talk woodpeckers. This male Pileated Woodpecker came to the feeders at lunch on last week. The sunshine has been beautiful and welcome. This same bird has been hitting the suet feeders pretty much every day in this cold weather. In my experience, the pileated woodpecker is the shiest of all the woodpeckers we have in Minnesota. I can stand at the window and watch downy, hairy and red-bellied woodpeckers as they feed and they don't seem to care about my presence. I've even seen Downy Woodpeckers eat out of people's hands. Pileated Woodpeckers, however, seem to fly away at the slightest detection of movement. I find this surprising as they are such a large bird. My natural instinct is to assume that larger birds need not be flighty as their size offers some protection in terms of predators. It could be though that larger animals present a larger more easily seen target. Little birds can blend in so well and hide that perhaps they need not be as flighty.
This research suggest that at least in fish, the larger the animal the larger the Flight Initiation Distance. That's the technical term for how close you can get to an animal before it get's the heck out of Dodge. While I couldn't find anything on Pileated Woodpeckers I did find this interesting paper about downy woodpeckers. Vigilance and foraging substrate: anti-predatory considerations in a non-standard environment. This paper talks about the size of trees they use and behavior. It talks about how woodpeckers will continually peek around a tree to keep an eye on their surroundings. Pileated Woodpeckers do this in a seriously overly dramatic paranoid fashion.
When approached by humans, virtually all species flee, but we lack an understanding of the factors that influence flight response among species. Understanding this variation may allow us to understand how ‘fear’ structures communities, as well as to predict which species are likely to coexist with humans. I used flight initiation distance (FID) as a comparative metric of wariness and examined the relative importance of life history and natural history traits in explaining variation in FID in 150 species of birds. In a series of comparative analyses, I used independent contrasts to control for phylogenetic similarity and regressed continuous life history traits against flight initiation distance. Body size had a large and significant effect in explaining variation in flightiness: larger species initiated flight at greater distances than smaller species. After controlling for variation explained by body size, there was a nonsignificant positive relation between the age of first reproduction and FID. There were no relations between FID and clutch size, number of days spent feeding young, longevity, or habitat density. I used concentrated changes tests to look for evidence of coevolution between flightiness and dichotomous traits. Flightiness evolved multiple times and some clades were flightier than others. Flightiness was more likely to evolve in omnivorous/carnivorous species and in cooperatively breeding species. These results suggest that body size and age of first reproduction are important in explaining variation in disturbance tolerance in birds, and that species that capture live prey and those that are highly social are relatively wary. The results suggest a novel mechanism of how anthropogenic disturbance may contribute to extinction.
Did you catch the key sentence there? "Body size had a large and significant effect in explaining variation in flightiness: larger species initiated flight at greater distances than smaller species." Great, so the reason Pileated Woodpeckers are flightier than other woodpeckers is that they are bigger. Now then, why! Why is there a correlation between body size in birds and flightiness. Also why is it the exact opposite of what we see in fish?
Hat tip to Christie Lynn of Observations of a Nerd for this one. This is an ad for Science World in Vancouver. They have a whole series of them and they are real attention grabbers. I work for the Science Museum of Minnesota and I wish we had such fun ads simply designed to get people in the door.
