Once you are interested in birds, nature can come alive in all its moods. To get you started, here are four "moods", one for each season. On a rainy day, settle down with one and read it a few times to soak it up. If you learn to enjoy birds this way, you will soon find many more moods of nature.
Winter is the season for survival. In the Valley, survival is defined as finding sufficient food to keep warm. Few birds take on the additional stress of raising young until spring is well in hand. But, some owls nest in March. It seems that the survival of a young owl is so dependent upon the hunting skills it has developed by its first winter that an extra month's experience is worth the risks of being born in cold weather.
- - - - - - - -
It was a frigid night, but the near-full moon glowered unhindered upon the motionless air as I drove along the Cumberland 9th Line that March to listen for owls. Two days before, the breath of spring had been in the air, but it had died quickly, as all such breaths must near the second-coldest capital on Earth, leaving thick ice moulding smooth the crumpled hummocks of grass in the pastures, the fence posts encased as in liquid plastic. Loud cracks, from ice compressed by the cold, rent the air with the rhythm of an Opera audience during 'flu season. The progress of every car in the township was marked by brief bursts of barking, quickly smothered by the beasts' hurried return to shelter from the cold.
Surrounded by moonlight warping about, hopscotching with myriad feet, I almost missed them--two gleams, atop a fence post, that were not moving. A cautious stop, an equally cautious exit, binoculars stuck clumsily between down-filled mitts ... and an ookpik of feathers was revealed, a rounded lump half the diameter of the post, and little higher than wide.
The saw-whet owl, for that was what it was, let me peer for several minutes, patient while my penlight alternated between schematic icons of his purported kin in my bird guide, fearless of binocular eyes extended to minimum focusing range, seemingly impervious to the haemorrhage of warmth out to the waning primordial heat of creation.
Then, it seemed to expand ... and expand ... and expand! Never in
my wildest dreams could I have imagined so much bone-supported
tissue enfolded within such a speck of fluff, to be transformed before
my eyes into such an expanse of floating wing, two eyes and a
beak fitted to the leading edge, two feathered sinewy-strong
claws trailing under.
Methodically, it quartered fence-lined fields shrink-wrapped in light, light seemingly funnelled from within their very substance. It ghosted by barn walls etched by the moonlight, circled entombed farm implements. Then, suddenly, it vanished, folded again into the blob whence it had formed to drop into a shallow ditch a field away. Presently, it reappeared, a vole-sized object in its claws. Flapping now, rather than floating, it laboured to clear the fence, then headed with the precision of a radio range towards the conifer-laden escarpment three kilometers to the south.
Blood pierced my collapsed leg arteries, invoking the wrath of a hundred needle-wielding witches upon every muscle. Forgotten eyelids scraped behind suddenly opaque glasses. The landscape reawoke in newly-perceived sound. It was cold again.
But the moon seemed to smile.
Spring comes late to the Valley. Several recent Junes have featured temperatures below freezing. For birds, spring is the time for nesting and raising young amidst our flush of protein-rich insects. A single nest of meadowlarks requires some 5000 grasshoppers between hatching and fledging. It's a great time to see birds. When they are so busy, they spend less time hiding from the potential danger we represent.
But, raising young is a tough job. For every ten yellow warbler eggs laid, only three hatch (cowbirds and jays account for most of the losses here), and only two birds successfully leave the nest. Both effort and failure are part of nature.
- - - - - - - -
Rising water a few years ago suffocated a grove of young birch trees near the Dewberry Trail in the Mer Bleue. Now, topless but still white, they harbour an eclectic variety of insect life. Too small to attract most cavity excavators, one tree was agreed upon last year by a downy woodpecker pair. This year, the abandoned cavity was inherited by tree swallows.
By mid-June, when I walked the trail, the swallow parents had been collecting food for their nestlings for perhaps two weeks, at an ever increasing tempo, and the young had swelled to near-adult size. Three meters above the cavity, a pair of eastern kingbirds reigned supreme, the swallows tolerated only because they collect small insects well out in the free air, while a kingbird insists that its insect food be of reasonable size and fly within easy reach of its perch.
The young swallows were strong enough now that one had wedged itself in the entrance hole, to deny its nestmates food for much of the day. It sat there, eagerly scanning the sky, inciting its parents on with close to adult call, forcing them to deliver food on the wing with not even a brief respite within the nest cavity to search for fecal sacs.
But, there were other eyes than mine scanning the scene. With a flash of white and blue, a smack of claws, a blue jay hit, just to the side of the hole. It had its own ravenous fledglings to feed, back in the leafy woods. No matter that the nestlings instantly retreated to the bottom of the cavity--the jay's long bill reached in, and in.
Frantic, the two adult swallows dove with all the speed at their command. With soft bill, and weak feet, they could only attempt to frighten the jay with fast close hawk-like passes. But now, the previously benign proximity of the kingbirds proved decisive. In order to attain sufficient altitude for a dive at the jay, the swallows had to climb past the kingbirds' nest. The fuss was far too much for a bird that will even attack an airplane that flies too close.
Furiously the swallows chittered about the jay, ever so often climbing for a dive, only to be bowled over by an irate kingbird. A pair of yellow warblers nesting in dense shrubbery nearby left their nest to sit exposed, nervously chipping, on stubs of an adjacent birch; the local chickadees and swamp sparrows fell silent.
In a few minutes, it was all over. One by one, each nestling was despatched and carried to the nest not of its species' making.
Life continues beyond will, beyond even consciousness. The following day, I saw three swallows feeding a single nest across the stream. The extra food would speed its nestlings' maturity. Once in the air, after all, a swallow is safe from any jay.
Each year, many young birds die because well-meaning people assume wrongly that they have been abandoned by their parents.
It is normal for many birds to leave the nest before they can fly, to escape parasites. Young owls in particular leave several weeks before, and are fed by their parents away from the nest until they become self-sufficient. Young birds require an extraordinary amount of precisely suitable food. Even experts often fail as foster parents of nestlings.
Young birds are not mechanical packages of preprogrammed instincts, as some writers still insist. Many birds must learn from parents how to recognize enemies and food. Most must learn how to behave so as to not attract the fatal attention of a predator. Their education must be as precisely planned as any school curriculum. Most die shortly after release from hand rearing. As if that were not enough, most birds must learn from parents how to recognize and attract a mate. They can never breed even if they survive hand rearing. (Mammals rely much more on instinct in this respect than birds do.)
So, the best rule is to leave any woodland bird strictly alone. In the urban habitat, however, this is not necessarily the case. Urban cats are not constrained by natural laws, and urban construction projects frequently make all nature moot. Still, unless a nestling is in immediate danger of death, phone an expert before you "rescue" any bird. There are times when you may think the effort worth it, as the following reminiscence of Ray Holland shows.
- - - - - - - -
A local pair of kingfishers who selected a nesting site in an apparently suitable sandy bank got more than they bargained for one June. Their choice fell in the middle of construction for the OC Transpo transitway down Scott St.
Everything started off normally, as the birds took shifts digging out a tunnel, three meters long, with their bills, and scratching the earth out with their feet. It continued normally as eggs were laid, and intermittently began to hatch. At this point, July 11, with the parents bringing fish to the young, two local birdwatchers noticed the nest, and realized that cement would soon be covering the nest entrance. Their call to Elizabeth Le Geyt of The Citizen resulted in the formation of a rescue team - myself and Bruce Di Labio.
The work foreman diverted operations around the area, and loaned shovels. The adult kingfishers flew around, digging began, and soon we could hear the rattle-rattle from a young bird. Half way in, we encountered a huge underground cable, and manoeuvered around it (with the foreman's OK). Finally we were there. The fumes of dead fish, one long-dead nestling, and baby kingfisher droppings on the hot humid day smelled putrid. Bruce handed me the only live youngster in the nest. It was quite bald, with only a few feathers, and was still blind. A drive to Manotick followed, and Mrs. Le Geyt had fish waiting for her newest orphan when I arrived.
"Rattles", as he was now christened, was placed in a dark box with plain walls, opening from the front, to approximate his burrow. He immediately downed five minnows, and rattled at the entrance of his box when he was hungry for more. Soon he was eating a dozen minnows a day, then larger fish as he grew larger. It was amazing to see the difference in him each subsequent visit, as the prickly shafts turned into beautiful feathers.
By the 29th of July, Rattles was full grown. We put up perches around the lawn and placed him on one. He looked around, spread his wings, raised his crest, but did not fly, and wouldn't eat until returned to his box in the house. On the 30th, his box was put outside, with the door open. He jumped from perch to perch, ignoring food, and in mid-afternoon, flew away. Naturally, anxiety was felt all around, as he had never caught a fish for himself, and we didn't know at that time that young kingfishers do not need to be taught how to fish.
Two afternoons later, he returned but wouldn't let anyone feed him. Mrs. Le Geyt noticed that he always flew to the birdbath, so she stocked it with minnows. Great was the delight when, the day after that, he took several fish from it.
We think the story has a happy ending. He was not banded, and he never took food from us again, so we are not certain that it was Rattles that stopped by periodically throughout the rest of the summer. But, a young male kingfisher did overwinter at Manotick that year, and has made infrequent flights by the garden ever since. During one of these, Elizabeth and I were having a cup of tea together in her garden when we heard his call. He flew directly over us, turned around, did a loop-the-loop between the trees, repeated the show again, then vanished.
Here's to Rattles! How could a kingfisher say thank you better?
For every four warbler eggs laid that escape predators such as cowbirds and jays, only one bird returns the next spring. Such is the challenge presented by the immensity of our continent to a 20 gram creature whose life decrees that it migrate thousands of miles, make for the first time a home for itself in its native land in South America, then return successfully here to breed. In few other aspects does our consciousness of self so impede understanding of nature. Acceptance is our only option. "Excess" production is the support system for life.
Each fall, the Valley sees many young birds moving north from southern climes. Many, like mockingbirds, can survive here most winters, thus extending their species' range. Some, such as warblers that should migrate due south, do not have the requisite sense of direction, and fly north in error. It is the latter - tiny avian tragedies all - that make the bird hot-lines buzz.
- - - - - - - -
A chill wind blew off the Rideau River near Manotick, rustling
oak leaves still hanging from the trees, and drifting those of
bright yellow aspen to drop in the windless corners of the
garden, where they mixed with the blazing scarlet of sumac. It
was there, one October, that I found the prothonotary warbler.
Its migration genes had failed the final examination of fall, and brought it half a continent from its fellows. The night before, a sharp frost had downed the last insects. It was out of food. Its life was beyond hope. And, I think it knew it.
In the instinctive struggle of life against non-life, it huddled, on the ground rather than in its normal arboreal haunts, in a patch of warmth from the waning sun, its brilliant yellow tamed by the camouflage of the leaves. A few times it rose from its stupor, to search briefly and vainly for insect movement in the surrounding shrubs.
At the nearby feeder, chickadees nimbly converted sunflower seed into the extra feathers they would use to keep warm during the winter blasts to come. Mallards, already plump, and assured of food throughout winter along the Back Channel, feasted on cracked corn.
I have often read the saying "I never saw a wild creature feeling sorry for itself". I no longer believe it.
Birds are very logical in their choice of locations: they require food, food, and more food! Food is determined by plants, directly for seed eaters, indirectly for insect eaters. (Most insects require a specific plant to mature on.) A defendable territory with a suitable scanning post, and a secure, usually secret, nest support are necessities at breeding time, as is protection from wind during winter. All these are provided by habitat.
Here is a list of the habitat types significant to birds in the Valley. If you want to see many species of birds, your route should include an example of each. The greatest variety of birds is always found where two distinct habitats meet.
Aquatic--under water most of the year:
Lowland--poor drainage, muddy until early summer:
Agricultural--created by man:
Upland--dry soil all year: