NWA 5/3/13

A Northwoods Almanac for May 3 – 16, 2013  

California Birding

            Last week, Mary and I spent five days in sunny southern California with our oldest daughter Eowyn who works for the San Diego Natural History Museum. Besides reveling in the sunshine, we birded along the San Diego River mouth where it empties into the Pacific Ocean, and then traveled inland to the desert habitat of Joshua Tree National Park where we hiked and birded in the park and in several nearby preserves.

            While hiking, we tallied 96 species of birds, including some lifers for us like black skimmer, white-headed woodpecker, yellow-breasted chat, Cassin’s vireo, and little blue heron. In one very small park, we could easily see within 30 yards of one another a red-tailed hawk’s nest, a hooded oriole’s nest, and a western bluebird going in and out of its nesting tree cavity, while in a nearby tree sat a vermillion flycatcher. Just down the road, someone had put out hummingbird feeders where we enjoyed sitting on a bench watching Costa’s, black-chinned, rufous, and Anna’s hummingbirds along with black-headed grosbeaks and Scott’s orioles. This was one hotspot for birds! In the desert, where there’s water, there’s vegetation, and in an oasis like this park, the birds gather like they’re magnetized.

            We saw many species that we commonly see in northern Wisconsin, too. These included kestrel, robin, blue-winged teal, Canada goose, raven, dark-eyed junco, house finch, killdeer, and great horned owl, to name just a few, though very few of these were found in the desert portion of our trip.

            We came home to Wisconsin weather finally changing to spring, and birds finally returning to the Northwoods; a very welcome homecoming!

Sightings: First of year (FOY)

4/15: Cherie Smith observed a yellow-rumped warber (FOY) eating sap off her maple trees. Other yellow-rumped sightings included 4/22 and 4/23 observations by Mary Madsen in Presque Isle, Kay Rhyner in Hazelhurst, and Judith Bloom in Lake Tomahawk. We didn’t see our first yellow-rumped warbler until 4/27.

4/16: (FOY) Osprey appeared on their nesting poles near McNaughton.

4/21: Janet Alesaukus reported a turkey vulture soaring above Minocqua.

4/21: Matt Paris reported a varied thrush visiting his feeders in St. Germain, the first one reported in our area to me this winter/spring. Varied thrushes breed in the western states and occasionally wander east into Wisconsin, so it’s a wonderful and very random gift to have one show up at your feeder!

4/24: Nancy Skowlund in Powell had a white-winged crossbill coming to her feeders.

4/25: FOY song sparrow in Manitowish.

4/26: FOY white-throated sparrow in Manitowish.

4/27: Mary Madsen observed tree swallows and a loon (FOY) on some open water in Presque Isle. We also saw tree swallows that day on Powell Marsh.

4/27: Dan Carney in Hazelhurst reported seeing a flock of over 30 yellow-rumped warblers, a ruby-crowned kinglet (FOY), a winter wren (FOY), and a swamp sparrow (FOY).

4/27: At Powell Marsh, Mary and I saw our FOY snipe, northern flickers, rusty blackbirds, and most interestingly, white-fronted geese, a species we’ve never seen before.

4/29: Again on Powell Marsh, Mary and I saw FOY Bonaparte’s gulls and horned grebes.

4/29: Mary Madsen reported an amazingly early FOY indigo bunting at her feeders in Presque Isle.

It’s a Zoo Out There!

Bob Kovar in Manitowish Waters emailed me this on 4/27: “Lots of birds hanging out here waiting for spring. I had a hard time working yesterday – had a yard full of deer, cranes down by the ice, eagles soaring over, red winged blackbirds calling, kingfisher flying around, pewee stuck in my pole barn, turkeys lurking in the brush, purple finches scarfing bird food, pileated pounding on the suet by the window, otter sliding out in the ice, no kidding! It was like living in a zoo. Made me laugh. Mom always said, because my room was always such a mess, ‘You wanna live in a zoo?’ I never had the right answer . . . it always made me think and I couldn't decide.”

Along those same lines, a bird researcher (Ryan Brady) near Ashland wrote this, also on 4/27: “Floodgates opened in the north today. Finally a major overnight influx to the Lake Superior shore of all those short-distance migrants that have been backed up to the south - Fox, Song, Tree, Chipping, White-throated, and Savannah Sparrows, more Dark-eyed Juncos, Purple Finches, Hermit Thrushes, many N. Flickers, E. Phoebes, Tree Swallows, both kinglets.                                   

“By mid-morning, a big hawk flight developed and continued through the day. In just a few hours atop the Northern Great Lakes Visitor Center just west of Ashland, Nick Anich and I had nearly 100 hawks in view at any given moment. The first wave of Broad-wings dominated (estimated 400+ birds) but diversity was spectacular with a great push of Ospreys, Rough-legs, Sharp-shins, Red-tails, T. Vultures, Am. Kestrels, N. Harriers, and more.”

The next morning, 4/28, I had my own “zoo” experience out on Powell Marsh. The first pool at the overlook parking lot was still frozen, but the back pool was mostly open, and in a world where open water was temporarily at a premium everywhere, the waterfowl were remarkably concentrated. I recorded 16 species of waterfowl including pied-billed grebes, wood ducks, American wigeons, mallards, Canada geese, blue-winged teals, green-winged teals, ring-necked ducks, greater scaup, hooded mergansers, common mergansers, pintails, shovelers, coots, buffleheads, and  redheads. A huge flock of rusty blackbirds formed, unformed, and formed again. Several dozen greater yellowlegs called and called as if they were lost, or celebrating, or arguing over the menu in the muck. Five species of sparrows flitted in and out of the shrub willows and alders. Cranes were calling in numerous directions. Even three otters were swimming among the ducks. 

Just one of those mornings where you hit the jackpot, and that’s what makes watching wildlife such an adventure – you just never know what may be out there if you take the time to look.

Migration on Radar

            Birds migrating at night typically depart 30 to 45 minutes after sunset, a departure that is easily visible on weather radar. As birds climb to the altitude at which they’ll migrate, they enter the radar beam and begin reflecting energy back to the antenna. Their mass departures appear as rapidly expanding circular patterns that look to me like blooming flowers. By examining the radar imagery during the departure times, you can identify the specific areas where birds tend to stopover for the night to feed and rest prior to resuming their migration the next day. Areas around La Crosse, Green Bay, Madison, and Duluth are Midwestern hotspots for overnight stopovers, and you’ll see them “blooming” any spring night in the spring when there’s a good south wind. Since not all habitats are attractive to migrating birds, and so much of this world is fragmented into farmscapes or cityscapes that aren’t suitable for birds, the hotspot phenomena is often striking.  

            So, just open your favorite weather radar site after sunset, and watch the migration taking off – it’s a remarkable visual tool to “see” what’s going on at night in the world of birds.

Celestial Events

            The peak Eta Aquarid meteor shower occurs in the predawn of May 5. This day also marks the midway point between the vernal equinox and the summer solstice.

             In Woody Hagge’s nearly 40 years of keeping records on Foster Lake in Hazelhurst, the latest date of ice-out was May 7 in 1996. We may get close to that this year!

            On 5/12, look for Jupiter three degrees north of the waxing crescent moon.

White Deer of Boulder Junction on PBS Nature

On May 8^th at 7 p.m., the PBS series Nature will feature a program on “The Private Life of Deer” that will include a segment on the albino deer gracing our area. The show’s creator came out to Boulder Junction last spring to film the deer and to interview Jeff Richter, the Mercer-based photographer who published the book White Deer: Ghosts of the Forest in 2007. In 2008, Wisconsin Public TV produced a video of the deer that eventually went viral over the Internet, garnering over 20 million hits. So, now Jeff’s going national, as are the deer! They even interviewed me, a frightening thought indeed.             So, tune in – hopefully we’ll have done justice to the uniqueness of the white deer.