Ciblek Mania

While there I gave three talks and lead a couple of bird walks, one of which was on the Plum Orchard Trail behind Nature's Classroom. We had 30 or so folks along, including some keen young bird watchers, and the birding was fairly good, considering it was a hot, muggy afternoon. We had lots of red-eyed vireos, eastern kingbirds, a green heron, immature white ibis, little blue heron, tricolored heron, pine warbler, four woodpecker species, and a noisy flock of brown-headed nuthatches. But the most interesting sighting happened right at the end of the walk on the sandy pool of water behind Nature's Classroom.

As we returned on the loop trail, one of our group spotted two shorebirds out on the pool. We initially thought they were spotted sandpipers because there were lots of spotties around and because they were teetering their tails the way that spotted sandpiper often do. But as they came out of the vegetation and walked closer it was clear that they were the larger solitary sandpiper. And they were really behaving weirdly: running around excitedly, bobbing almost constantly, looking into the grass.

That was when the object of their attention slithered into view: a banded water snake came gliding toward the birds. The birds seemed to be conflicted about this: should they run or should they fight? As soon as the snake would head away from them, the solitaries would chase it. If the snake came toward them, they scampered away. Certainly the snake was too large for them to kill and eat, and I'm not sure that the snake could have subdued the sandpipers, so they were left to perform pantomime parries and thrusts with no actual attacks.

This was my first trip to St. Marks—one of our oldest national wildlife refuges. What a fantastic place it is! I'm certain I'll be back again for another visit.

When the weather gets tough, it's fascinating to see how birds will change their behavior to adapt. Conventional wisdom says that juncos are ground-feeding birds that prefer to scratch through whatever is covering the ground for their food. Or they may mount a weed stalk to get at the seed heads near the top. Normally at feeding stations, they are on the ground below the feeders, scratching for mixed seeds such as millet, cracked corn, or sunflower bits.

With our recent snows and ongoing low temperatures, the bird feeders are a blur of activity. When I looked out the other day, I did a double take. There was a junco, perched on a vertical log feeder, pecking at bits of suet dough we had packed into the drilled holes. The suet log, hanging nearly six feet off the ground, is normally visited by woodpeckers, nuthatches, chickadees and titmice, starlings, and Carolina wrens. Seeing the junco using it, despite the lack of strong clinging feet, was a new one.

We'd seen the juncos at the hopper feeders (top image) picking out sunflower bits. And we knew the juncos loved the suet dough we put out on the deck railing, so I guess his should not come as a huge surprise. After all, the birds don't read the books describing their behavior. They're just trying to survive until tomorrow.

Last July I was on a digiscoping trip to Trinidad & Tobago sponsored by Leica Sport Optics. On the second day of the trip, we left the friendly confines of Asa Wright Nature Centre for a bit of birding afield. We drove down out of the mountains to the Aripo Agricultural Research Station, where, after turning off the highway into the station's entrance, we encountered our first interesting birds.

A pair of tiny green-rumped parrotlets was exploring a natural cavity in a tree by the roadside and we stopped our vans to try to get photographs of them. We snapped a few shots, but needed to disembark from the van to let everyone see the birds. As happens so often, our stopping and unloading spooked the birds into flight. Even though hundreds of cars and trucks pass right by this tree each day, few of them probably stop by this tree. And our stopping was enough to encourage the birds to flee. We thought they might be nesting in the cavity, so we removed ourselves a bit and waited, hoping they would return.

About this time a crew of workers down the road 40 yards started up their weed-whackers. The noise immediately over-rode all other sounds around us and the tall grass which they were cutting down began to fly, in pieces, in all directions. Along a fence line behind the workers a flock of smooth-billed anis began dropping down onto the ground and flutter-walking over toward the weed whacking action. I did a double-take. Conventional wisdom would have had the birds fleeing at the start of the noisy, smoky, grass-destroying trimmers. But these birds were attracted to the noise and activity.


And then it dawned on me. The anis were after an easy meal. Just like bald eagles waiting below a dam spillway in winter, grizzly bears gorging on post-spawn salmon, or the barn swallows that follow my tractor when I mow, these anis had made the connection between weed whacking and easy-to-catch insect prey. The string trimmers (called, I once was told, "strimmers" in the United Kingdom!) cutting down the grass were disturbing and maiming lots of grasshoppers and beetles and other yummy bugs. Smart birds.]

Here's a short video of the opportunistic smooth-billed anis:



Judging from the height of the grass, the trimming had not been done here for a long time—maybe a few months. Yet the anis knew to associate the sounds and activity with an easy meal. Isn't that interesting?

Smooth-billed anis are reasonably common birds in the central part of their range: from the islands of the Caribbean, south throughout South America. But they reach the united States only in central and southern Florida, where the species seems to be declining rapidly. Where you find one smooth-billed ani, you are likely to find others since they spend their lives as a part of a noisy flock of a dozen or more birds.

Speaking of a flock of anis. I wonder what the term of venery for a flock of anis is? A showtune of anis? A yawn of anis? A Yanni of anis (for the horrible noise they make)? Your suggestions are welcome here.