spring birds in the park

This has been a good spring for seeing birds in our local park. In addition to the pair of Yellow-crowned Night Herons that returns each year, we have two and possibly three pairs of Mallards nesting along the stream. During my morning walks with the sprout, I’ve seen the usual suspects (Northern Flickers, Red-bellied Woodpeckers, Eastern Phoebes, Northern Cardinals, Northern Mockingbirds, Catbirds, Blue Jays, American Crows, Grackles, Carolina Wrens, Song Sparrows, House Sparrows, Starlings, American Robins, Carolina Chickadees, Downy/Hairy Woodpeckers, Mourning Doves, and American Goldfinches) as well as some fun surprises. We’ve come across Brown Thrashers, Yellow-rumped Warblers, a Common Yellowthroat, and Wood Thrushes foraging in the brush along the stream banks. There was a pair of Red-shouldered Hawks hanging around for long enough that we thought they might be nesting, but we haven’t seen or heard much of them lately. One day we walked along behind a Pileated Woodpecker going from tree to tree; now that the woods north of town have been demolished, I doubt it will be able to find suitable habitat nearby.

While I’m always happy to see birds, I’ve been thrilled to find frogs in the stream! So far I’ve only been able to spot bullfrogs, but I have high hopes for more diversity in years to come. We’ve also startled several bunnies (making the sprout cackle with glee) and seen one or two groundhogs in our travels. No luck yet with our nocturnal friends, although I’m pretty sure something (possum? raccoon? fox? skunk?) is visiting the side yard to chow down on the mulberries.

Now that summer is kicking into gear, I need to think about incorporating a bird bath into my plans for the garden. It’s getting hot out there and the little fluffballs of sparrow, cardinal, blue jay, and robin that we’re starting to see are going to need a place to cool off.

spring birds in the park

don’t let some yahoo kill my wolves!

Just exactly like last year, states have started allowing private citizens to kill public wolves in the Rockies. Why public? Because the federal government has spent 27 million dollars to reintroduce those wolves and obtain the stable 1600 animal population, that’s why. When we let yahoos real estate agents kill wolves, we give them an $18,000 gift of public funds, one they didn’t even have to buy a house or a car to get.

Of course I agree with the ecological and ethical arguments against killing these animals. Mostly, though, I just think it’s like cleaning up Lake Erie only to start allowing dumping a year later: stupid.

don’t let some yahoo kill my wolves!

don’t let them kill our wolves, government dudes!

Over the past 13 years, the federal government has spent $27 million on the restoration of gray wolves in the United States. Western states have also spent money, although it’s hard to identify the costs related to wolf reintroduction specifically versus things like public land management and rangers generally. With about 1,500 gray wolves now living in the lower 48 states as a result of this program, the publicly owned animals have a value of about $18,000 each: about what it would cost to buy a regular thoroughbred race horse.

Please, government officials unto whom we entrust the responsibility of wise management of public resources: do not allow folks to kill our valuable public property for anything less than $18,000 cash in hand.

don’t let them kill our wolves, government dudes!

new life bird in the local woods

Last week I saw my first new life bird of the year, a Pileated Woodpecker, in the woods on the north side of town. They’re urban woods; stands of old growth trees, but with buildings visible at every point within. They line the creek that divides the north side of town from the University Campus, and were easily explored this time of year. I imagine that ivy, multiflora, and general temperate jungle shrub will make most of the area impassable later in the year.

As with most of the life birds I’ve sighted around town, seeing the woodpecker was pure luck. I had decided to go through the woods rather than up to the pond in the hope of spotting some owl-sized roosting cavities in the trees. We’d heard rumors of owls in town, but had yet to spot any. Not setting the alarm for 2am in order to prowl the streets probably had something to do with that. At any rate, I investigated sheets of bark raining down from a mostly-dead tree and discovered a ginormous woodpecker. To be fair to my burgeoning birding skills, a few minutes before I’d noticed the smattering of round tree holes and said to myself, ‘This would be a good place to come look for Pileated Woodpeckers during the spring migration.’ Which, you know, makes me glad I didn’t say something like, ‘Gee, I hope that rotten limb doesn’t come crashing down onto my head.’

The other fun aspect of the woods was the discovery of a variety of animal tracks along the sandy creek bed. We were able to identify the usual suspects—raccoon, possum—as well as a few mystery tracks. At the opening of what can only be a decent sized den in the creek bank, we discovered a print that could be badger, woodchuck, or striped skunk. We’ve see gray foxes in town, but the print had a distinct fifth toe, so it seems likely that it was something else. Dog-like prints at a few points in the creek bed led to speculation of the presence of coyotes, although it’s (of course) more likely that they’re just someone’s dog. I made the (compelling, no doubt!) case that domestic dogs off-leash usually run up and down creek beds like maniacs so the few prints crossing over were more likely to be a wild animal than not. And, the prints did differ from standard dog prints, but there is so much variation that I wouldn’t bet my own money absent spotting an actual animal. Nonetheless, a walk in the woods is always more fun when imagining being stalked by invisible beasts than not.

I had hoped to return to the woods this week, but the weather has turned from global-warming-mild to positively wintry, and I’ve hunkered down inside like the tender Southern grub that I’m becoming. Wiping out on the sheet of ice that was the entrance to the Metro and bashing the @#$% out of my knee and rear yesterday also didn’t do much for my desire to go tromping around outdoors. Although it did momentarily restore my faith in area youth, as two young men who witnessed the crash very solicitously inquired after my well-being. Of course, the further dozen young men that gathered in the area during the time I was in the store to loudly guffaw at others sharing my earlier plight somewhat dampened my good opinion, or rather restored my general opinion of the moral compasses of teenage boys.

new life bird in the local woods

wildlife adventures in University Park

We had no idea when we moved here that we were moving to a haven of sorts for wildlife in this area. The past few weeks have been full of wildlife, in more ways than we could have imagined. We’d heard from our neighbors that coyotes, foxes, and something which might have been a Bobcat had been seen in our town, but I found that a little hard to credit since the area is so densely populated. However, during one of our nightly walks, about a month ago, we were surprised by a Gray Fox running across the road, from one part of the park to another, a mockingbird in close pursuit.

This sighting was the beginning of a string of such events. A couple of weeks ago, we discovered a featherless baby bird on the ground in the park. The nest from which it had fallen was easily identifiable, but there were no signs of parent birds anywhere around, and there was another (dead) baby bird on the ground next to it. I decided to take it home rather than put it back in the nest, and I then spent the next few hours trying to find someone to take it. I eventually succeeded, with Gerda at Wildlife Rescue, Inc., telling us she’d be happy to wait up for us to arrive. The only problem: they’re located about an hour and a half away from DC, and we don’t own a car. Thank you, Flexcar!

By the time we were ready to go, the bird had thankfully realized it was night and gone to sleep, so I didn’t have to keep feeding it (I was feeding it bread soaked in water, which you are not supposed to do, but I didn’t have any dog or cat kibble). On the way up, we didn’t listen to the radio (it could wake up and stress out the bird) or use the air-conditioning (it could cool down and stress out the bird). For all that we were a little bit tense, the directions were easy to follow and the evening was a pleasantly mild one. We arrived to find Gerda waiting for us on the porch. We promptly delivered the bird (identified as a robin) to her, whereupon it woke up and was fed something more suitable: mush. Once the bird was settled, we were given a small tour, and enjoyed seeing the other young birds — wrens, screech owls, a cedar waxwing, and a red-shouldered hawk were the most unusual — and mammals. The little foxes were my favorite, perhaps since I had only recently seen one for the first time, but the baby possums in a pillowcase sack were cute as well.

Before we got back on the road we gave Gerda a hand bottle-feeding the fawns. This consisted mostly of us trying to hold onto the bottles while the baby deer hoovered them and trying not to flail around while the others licked the back of our knees. The experience was something akin to Gonzo eating a rubber tire to the tune of The Flight of the Bumblebee (just replace chewing with little deer licks). On our way back out of the barnyard, I managed to avoid getting head-butted in the rear by the donkey; I will only say that others of our party were not so fortunate. The final treat of the evening was seeing a Red Fox crossing the road on the way back to the highway. Before this month, only other time I’d seen a fox in the wild was over ten years ago, in Europe. We were on the Zürichberg, returning to the tram from the ice skating rink late one night, when the fox walked out onto the middle of the road, stopped and looked at us, and then continued on into the woods. It was snowing that night, and the fox looked silvery; it could have been a silver morph of a red fox, or it could have just been the snow and the light making it appear so.

After that experience, I wasn’t sure how much more wildlife excitement I could handle. Over the intervening two weeks, though, we’ve had two sightings in our yard. One was the gray fox: we heard yowling and came down to turn on the outside lights, and the fox paused by the back door and then ran off to the alley. The second was just a couple of nights ago: I heard rustling at the front of the house, turned on the outside lights, and watched a possum waddle off across the neighbor’s front yard, heading toward the park. I imagine they’re both attracted by the mulberry trees along our side border, as we’ve found fox scat at the side of the house under that tree.

I have to say, having our yard become part of the local fox’s territory has improved (and by that I mean, of course, diminished) the presence of cats in our yard. I can only hope that it’s eating the rats we saw in the autumn and spring, and not preying on our resident birds.

wildlife adventures in University Park