November at Heinz NWR

Last Friday was another delightful late Fall day, which once again challenged my prejudice that November is the Blah-Month. Lots of waterfowl, and even a few small things-with-wings ...

Clouded Sulphur

Autumn Meadowhawk

Green-winged Teal

Green-winged Teal

Heinz NWR - Philadelphia Airport in background

Carolina Wren

Carolina Wren

Question Mark

Gadwall

Tufted Titmouse

Carolina Chickadee

Good Birding!

Backyard Birding

The backyard has been very busy in the last couple of weeks. This is just a sample, beginning with the four pair of Evening Grosbeaks and three pair of Rose-breasted Grosbeaks ...

Evening Grosbeak (male)

Evening Grosbeak (male)

Evening Grosbeak (male) with Brown-headed Cowbird (male)

Rose-breasted Grosbeak (male)

Rose-breasted Grosbeak (male)

Rose-breasted Grosbeak (male) and Evening Grosbeak (male)

If the Blue Jay was a rare bird, we would fall over ourselves in admiration of its beauty, but they are common, noisy, and perceived as bullies - though in actuality, no worse than any of the other birds at the feeders who will chase off other birds to get their favored seeds. I love the jays - raucous rogues that they are ...

Blue Jay

Year round birds accustomed to our presence and almost pets, are the Tufted Titmouse and Black-capped Chickadee. This one came to the rock five feet from where I was sitting to grab a hunk of suet that had fallen from the eave feeder ...

Tufted Titmouse

Black-capped Chickadee

The Red-bellied Woodpecker has been in the neighborhood for about seven years. Unlike the Downy and Hairy which wait for me to put out the suet in the morning, the Red-bellies are still wary and shy, but eagerly come to the suet and feeders and always provide stunning entertainment ...

Red-bellied Woodpecker (male)

Red-bellied Woodpecker (male)

GOOD BIRDING !!!

Bombay Hook NWR

Yesterday was only the fifth sunny day in the Philadelphia area during February. We took full advantage and went early morning to Bombay Hook NWR near Smyrna, Delaware. The refuge during winter in a prime location for observing wintering waterfowl, and there were abundant numbers in attendance.

But the highlight of this preview-of-Spring day was two songbirds.

In fresh Spring plumage, Tufted Titmice were enthusiastically singing. Actually, their singing was vocal dueling. The ladies were nearby watching, listening, and assessing.

Tufted Titmouse

The second songbird highlight was the Yellow-rumped Warbler. They were not yet singing, but they showed clear signs that song fests are not far off - they were well along in their molt to breeding plumage, as this individual will testify. His yellow cap and sides are much more brilliant than in winter plumage, but the black and white of his body is not quite as crisp as it will be when he makes his way north.

Yellow-rumped Warbler

Among the waterfowl, I was especially pleased at the number of Tundra Swans. I counted upwards of 80 in the various pools. I usually see them along the mid-Atlantic coast during winter, but rarely in the numbers I saw yesterday.

Tundra Swans (Shovelers in foreground)

All of the usual puddle ducks, and a few diving ducks, were present, and the drakes were brilliant in fresh breeding plumage.

Northern Shovelers

Northern Shovelers

Northern Pintails

Ring-necked Duck

Can you identify these dabblers?

 And finally ... this first year Great Blue Heron has yet to achieve the resplendent plumage of a breeding adult, but he/she survived its first winter.

Great Blue Heron

Great Blue Heron

The day ended with 40+ species. Not too bad for late winter birding.

Youngsters

It is that delightful time of the year when birds are nesting, fledging, feeding, and finding their way. Here's a sample, first from the backyard, and beginning with a handsome portrait of a young male Rose-breasted Grosbeak ...

Rose-breasted Grosbeak (juvenile male)

Lots of feeding is going on - Evening Grosbeak and Tufted Titmouse are just two of many. And many more still hoping for a free handout, such as the fledgling Red-winged Blackbird, who was ignored despite its persistent complaints ...

Evening Grosbeak

Tufted Titmouse

Red-winged Blackbird

This young Northern Cardinal has just about gotten the problem of food figured out ...

Northern Cardinal

 Elsewhere around the area, young Hooded Mergansers were in the Wilson Wetlands in Putney ...

Hooded Mergansers

... and in the upper elevations of Somerset, many songbirds were busy feeding fledglings, but unfortunately did not come within camera range.

Barely within camera range, and probably caring less about the birds and the bees (at least for the next few months) was this Black Bear in the wet grasses of a large beaver pond ...

Black Bear

Good Birding!!

Tufted Titmouse - Small Bird with a Crest

Tufted Titmouse

In the last couple of weeks, entertainment duties in my backyard venue have been taken over by my favorite bird, the Tufted Titmouse. A troupe of these tiny, crested, gray birds gather around the feeders, coming in from all directions, grabbing a seed, and taking off in all directions.

There is at least one family, with at least six members - it is hard to count because they are always on the move. When an adult flies to the maple, or into the thicket of the lilac, there are two or three youngsters waiting, chirping away, fluttering their wings, and demanding food. A friend once described young Blue Jays begging for food by saying, “Boy, I’d hate to be their parents. They are a bunch of demanding kids.” The titmouse youngsters are no less insistent or demanding, although a third the size of th
e Blue Jays. They make a terrific racket as their parents retrieve food. The racket ratchets up as the food comes near, is interrupted only for the microsecond needed to gulp it down, and then resumes unabated


The common presence of the Tufted Titmouse in Vermont is a recent occurrence. When Forbush, the Massachusetts ornithologist wrote “Birds of Massachusetts,” he included the Tufted Titmouse, but had no field experience with the bird to draw from. Instead, he quoted the work of a southern ornithologist on its nesting practices. The Tufted Titmouse was a southern species, its range reaching north only to southern Pennsylvania and New Jersey.

 Tufted Titmouse in winter

Since 1927 when Forbush published his work on New England birds, the Tufted Titmouse has been extending its range northward. Vermont Christmas Bird Counts in the 1970s recorded fewer than ten birds until late in the decade when the numbers began climbing significantly. The first Vermont nesting record was in 1976. When the first Vermont Breeding Bird Atlas field surveys were conducted from1977 to 1981, the Tufted Titmouse was recorded in only nine survey blocks. Each confirmed breeding was recorded in the Atlas: nest building in Peru in June; adults feeding young in Stowe in June; recently fledged young in Brattleboro in July, and so on, for the eight confirmed breeding records.

The second Vermont Breeding Bird atlas (2003-2007) documented the dramatic expansion of the Tufted Titmouse in the state. It was recorded in 104 priority blocks. It was scarce only in the northeast of the state.

The Tufted Titmouse is a member of the family “Paridae,” a group of small birds which are often described as treetop acrobats because of the way they flit about and clamber over twigs and branches in search of insects. Titmice are close relatives of chickadees. For most of their taxonomic life, titmice and chickadees have belonged to the same Genus: “Parus.” About five years ago, the taxonomic gurus decided that titmice and chickadees were not quite so closely related, and assigned them to new genera: “Poecile” for chickadees, and “Baeolophus” for titmice.

Tufted Titmouse - small bird with a crest

On the other side of the Atlantic pond, the relatives of these birds are known collectively as “tits,” and include some birds which look remarkably similar to our Black-capped Chickadee, such as the Willow Tit or the Marsh Tit. The Crested Tit has a striking pattern to its head and crest; only the crest (as well as size and shape) brings to mind our plain, gray Tufted Titmouse.

“Titmouse” derives from Old Icelandic “titr” meaning something small; “mouse” is a corruption of “mase” from the Anglo-Saxon for a kind of bird. The plural form, “titmice,” has been influenced by the unrelated word, “mouse.” Hence, the Tufted Titmouse is a small bird with a tuft, or crest. And its relatives in the Old World are “Tits,” or small - the “mase” or “mouse” having been dropped. If you ever hear a British birder rave about all the great tits he saw, he is not being crudely sexist; he is talking about our chickadees and titmice.

A young Tufted Titmouse watches
a parent getting food from a suet feeder

The Tufted Titmouse’s range expansion is  probably the result of a complex combination of habitat change, environmental alteration, and climate warming. I worry about that in general, but I am delighted that it is a year round resident in my neighborhood. It will brighten even a winter day. Most birds wait until winter is on the wane before beginning their courtship singing. Not the titmouse. On a sunny day after a major snowstorm, you may hear his “peer, peer, peer” piercing through the crisp atmosphere, a sound of promise and a promise of life.

The titmouse prefers deciduous woods, especially those of swamps and river bottoms, but has adapted to residential woods, village shade trees, and city parks. One summary description of the titmouse goes like this: “active, vivacious, flits about foliage of trees, often hangs head downward while inspecting twigs, leaves, or clings to trunk or branches, searching in bark crevices for insect food, wanders about in winter in small flocks; tame ... intelligent, quick to learn.” (Terres)

The Tufted Titmouse is a cavity nester, using an old woodpecker hole, natural cavity, or occasionally a nest box. Pairs stay together all year. The male feeds the female during courtship and while she is incubating her 5-6 eggs (or sometimes 3-9 eggs). When the eggs hatch, the female stays with the young most of the time, while the male brings food. He often has a “helper,” one of their offspring from a previous nesting. Families tend to stay together through the Fall and Winter, often joining flocks of other small birds, such as chickadees, nuthatches, and Downy Woodpeckers.

Young Tufted Titmouse with raised crest, a sign of alertness.
The parent’s crest (right) is down, perhaps out of parental weariness

The young titmice in my backyard in late August are probably a second brood. At first, I tried to sort out the family relationships, tried to deduce whether I had one or more families. I gave up; I could not even figure out how many titmice there were, they moved about so fast. What with parents, helpers from a previous year or an earlier brood, and a half dozen ( plus or minus),  juveniles, there was more chaos and confusion than I could make order out of. A half dozen resources, consulted after the titmice headed for their nighttime roost, helped me understand some of what was going on. Mostly, I just enjoyed the show.

And ... by watching, I learn. Chickadees have now joined the backyard activity, occasionally announcing themselves with their familiar “chick-a-dee-dee-dee” or even an abbreviated “dee, dee, dee.” I looked more closely when I heard a “chee, chee, chee, chee.”  A titmouse seemed to be saying to its youngsters, “Hey, gimme a break. I’m getting it as fast as I can.” He repeated himself and another joined him at the feeder and grabbed a seed. So maybe he was calling for help.

In late summer and early fall, sitting out back with feet up and a cold tonic at hand, is almost guaranteed to produce some Good Birding!

Ah Spring!

Snow still lingers behind the barn and redpolls have made the occasional visit to the feeders in the last few days ...

Common Redpoll

... but otherwise, all signs point to the arrival of Spring. The Chipping Sparrows are doing vocal battle in the morning, and the "peter, peter, peter" of the Tufted Titmouse proclaims his jealous watch over his territory ...

Tufted Titmouse: "What are you doing of my property?"

In the garden, crocus draw in the honey bees ...

No one needed to "plan" a birders' walk at Herrick's Cove this morning; it just happened as we  welcome the vanguard of the season's migrants and anxiously await the next wave. Among those recent arrivals today were the Yellow-rumped Warblers in splendid breeding attire and Ruby-crowned Kinglets flashing their crown ...

Yellow-rumped Warbler

Ruby-crowned Kinglet

In many wetlands, the geese are well beyond the courtship stage, as this incubating goose attests, her nest perched atop a beaver lodge in Putney's Wilson Wetlands.

Canada Goose

Good birding!