Words on Birds and Wildlife

ELY, MINN. — The flowers in the ditches along the road between our cabin and the nearest town, Ely, some 10 miles away, provide an unfolding commentary on the progress of the seasons. The past few days, they seem to be saying that summer is waning and autumn — still seven weeks off according to the calendar — quickly approaching.

It’s not the single conspicuous sugar maple in all its autumn splendor that stands out like a traffic light among an otherwise verdant forest canopy. Though the brilliant red leaves do cause one to stop and consider what’s coming next.

Instead, the majority of the hints and signals the ditches project are subtle, such as the gradual yellowing of bracken ferns, the shriveling and browning of common milkweed flowers and the recent emergence of wispy gray beards on stands of field thistle and bull thistle, those prickly plants that provide the down used by American gold- finches to finally build their summer nests.

After more than a month in the spotlight and dominating large stretches of innumerable ditches, ox-eye daisies, with their pure white petals and golden centers, are disappearing as quickly as fresh snowflakes on a warm spring day. Gone, too, are the great displays of false sunflower, also known as ox-eye, blue flag iris, swamp buttercup, marsh marigold, orange hawkweed, black-eyed Susan, gumweed, daisy fleabane, and my favorite, big-leaf lupines.

This latter plant, which begins flowering in late May and stars for several weeks into early July, seems to spread a little more each year, flooding long stretches of byways with predominately bluish-purple, sometimes pinkish- red and occasionally white petals that arrange themselves on tall, sturdy stalks. Big-leaf lupine is a bit controversial as it is a non- native refugee garden plant that often crowds out native plants, including its close relative the wild lupine. Among ecosystem purists, the big-leaf lupine is to be scorned and abhorred; to most everyone else, it’s ebullient colors are some- thing to be admired and enjoyed.

Despite the disappearance in abundance and variety, there are still drips and drabs of color here and there. Already New England asters and fireweed, true harbingers of the changing season, are revealing themselves in the dusty ditches where they are joined by small clusters of golden Alexander, common tansy, stiff golden- rod and common mullen. These are all representatives in the finale of the summer wildflower show. So, too, is the thin ribbon of birds-foot trefoil that was originally planted as a way to control erosion along newly constructed roads, but like many non-native plants it took a liking to its new surroundings and quickly began spreading like fire. Seemingly its only competition for the real estate nearest most road edges appears to be red clover, another non-native plant that tends to thrive nearly everywhere that the sun shines.

There’s still a month to go before the deciduous trees begin to turn colors in earnest, and while the great panoply of summer wildflowers is fading as quickly as an autumnal sunset, there are still many less conspicuous flora to keep an eye out for along the roadside, no matter where you live.

Drive carefully and enjoy what remains.

Todd Burras can be reached at ou****************@gm***.com.

If winter and spring statewide weather conditions are an accurate indicator, then upland gamebird hunters should be optimistic heading into the field this autumn.

That’s the opinion of Todd Bogenschutz, upland wildlife biologist for the Iowa Department of Natural Resources. Bogenschutz relies on winter and spring conditions as reported by the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration to make the pre-season pheasant predictions.

“Last year our weather model predicted no change or a small increase in pheasant numbers, and our roadside counts showed a 12 percent decrease so the model was in the ballpark with a stable population,” Bogenschutz said. “We’ve used this model to forecast pheasant trends since 2002 and it’s been correct 12 of those 15 years.”

Bogenschutz said the state’s pheasant population typically shows increases following mild winters with springs that are dryer and warmer than normal.

“Statewide snowfall from December through February averaged 20 inches or about 5 inches below the 1961 to 1990 average,” he said. “The vast majority of the state saw snowfall well below this average with only the northwest and north-central regions reporting above normal snowfall.”

The pheasant population typically shows an increase following milder winters because more hens survive the winter leading to more hens available for nesting.

“The spring started nicely with warmer-than-normal March and April temperatures, while May was cooler than normal,” Bogenschutz said. “According to the state climatologist, statewide nesting season rainfall (April and May) was 8.7 inches, while April-May temperatures averaged 54.8 degrees, both very close to historic averages. Rainfall totals were a bit wetter than normal in both April and May but fairly consistent statewide.”

That said, Bogenschutz anticipates a stable to increasing population of pheasants that will be available to hunters starting in late October.

“Our weather this year is nearly identical to what we saw in 2015, and statewide pheasant counts increased 40 percent that year,” he said. “If we document a similar increase to 2015 in bird numbers on our roadside counts, it may mark our highest statewide count since 2006.”

The DNR’s August roadside survey is the best gauge of what upland populations will be this fall. The DNR will post survey results on its website around Sept. 15.

“Anecdotally, staff and landowners have reporting more roosters crowing and male bobwhite calling across the southern one-third of Iowa this spring, a sign of good overwinter survival,” Bogenschutz said. “Bobwhite numbers could be some of the best seen in decades.”

Successful martin hatch
It’s too early to say a new purple martin colony has been established at Ada Hayden Heritage Park, but if this summer was an indication, then there’s reason to be hopeful that one will be established in the next couple of years.

This spring and summer, two pairs of martins used compartments in the large T-14 house situated between the lake basins at the popular park in Ames. Dave Duit, who helped construct and install the house nearly three years ago, is clearly pleased with this year’s developments at the site.

“There were five nestlings in each of the two compartments, and each of the two nests successfully fledged all of their nestlings about 30 days after they hatched,” said Duit, who lives in Nevada and works at Ames High School. “The parents will train their newly fledged offspring for two weeks — how to catch bugs, keep away from predators and sharpen their flying skills.”

Near the end of August, Duit said, the martins will start their 5,000-mile journey to Brazil where they will spend the winter.

“They will fly around 250 to 350 miles per day,” he said. “If we all cross our fingers, hopefully 10 to 20 percent of the nestlings will return back to their

Ada Hayden home in early April.”

Duit said if all 10 nestlings survive their round-trip migration only one or two will take up residence at the Ada Hayden site; the other eight or nine “will find housing in the area of Ames. They may also find a new home to call their own during their spring migration.”

“The adult parents will return because they were successful in raising a family,” he said. “This is now ingrained and is what is known as site fidelity.”

Not until a site reaches five pairs of nesting martins can it be called a colony.

“This could take a few years,” Duit said. “We are playing a numbers game, and once the site hits a critical number and the house and martins are taken care of, the colony will be thriving with martins.”

Duit said he encourages the public to stay on the bike path to observe the martins and to not approach the house for their own safety as well as that of the martins.

Waiting on swifts
Another new man-made nesting and roosting structure of interest to birders in the area is the chimney swift tower at the new Dakins Lake Park near Zearing.

The 12-foot-tall tower with vinyl siding that is anchored to a concrete slab was constructed late last fall by local Boy Scout Sam Taylor as part of his Eagle project.

The tower, which is designed to be used by a pair of nesting birds in the spring and summer, could hold up to potentially 100 roosting birds in the lead-up to the fall migration.

“I didn’t see any activity (Monday) when I checked, though it probably wasn’t the most ideal time of day and weather conditions to do so,” said Erica Place, outreach coordinator for Story County Conservation. “I’m hopeful it will be used this fall as a roosting site. It might take some time for the swifts to find it.”

If they do, much like the martins, it will take only a short time before it becomes a familiar nesting and roosting site for future flocks of chimney swifts.

Todd Burras can be reached at ou****************@gm***.com.

“Build it and they will come” has become a mantra for conservation groups that view the creation of habitat as one of the most significant investments humans can make in supporting wildlife.

In some cases, building housing structures and adding them to the surrounding landscape, or habitat, is a vital component to a particular species’ survival. That’s certainly been the case in helping bluebird and wood duck populations recover and flourish for many, many years, and more recently it’s become en vogue as a means for helping bats, ospreys, chimney swifts and even some native bees, among other wildlife.

The dilemma humans in our culture face at times, however, is we don’t like playing the waiting game. If we “build it,” we want them – whatever the “them” are — to come now. In fact, right now. But unlike most people, nature isn’t always in a hurry, and animals certainly don’t work on a human being’s time schedule. Nature has its own rhythms and priorities, and human conservation is, after all, a practice with a long view of the future. Waiting is a required expectation and condition in most cases.

Dave Duit certainly knows a bit about waiting. The Nevada resident has come to expect it and teaches patience to those who share his interest in aiding one of those species that has evolved with a significant dependence on humans: the purple martin.

Duit put up his first purple martin gourd house about a decade ago, and it took five years before the first pair of martins moved in. Since then, he’s attracted dozens of nesting pairs to his backyard and seen hundreds of offspring produced. As founder of the Iowa Purple Martin Organization, he’s helped others around the state start or revitalize martin colonies.

“It just takes time,” he said. “Martins have strong site fidelity and the adults won’t leave their established site unless there is a bad predator attack day after day. The second-year martins from a nearby site are the ones that will usually start a new colony.”

As of last week, it appears that purple martins are finally beginning to establish a new colony at the site of a purple martin house, or hotel, between the lake basins at Ada Hayden Heritage Park in Ames. Duit and Dustin Haegele, an Ames High student at the time, constructed the house nearly three years ago and installed it at a prominent location at the popular recreational area.

“I’m very excited and happy to announce that there are two purple martin nests at the Ada Hayden martin house,” Duit said by way of email late last week. “One is for certain made from an older pair because of its well-built intricate construction. If it were a young pair it wouldn’t be as elaborate. This first nest has five eggs, which tells me it is an older pair. Younger pairs usually have less than five eggs in a clutch. … The other nest may be made by a younger pair. It has small green leaves placed in the cup of the nest, which indicates they will be laying eggs very soon.”

Duit said when an older pair nests in a new location other than its original colony, it likely means the two martins abandoned their old colony due to extreme mite infestation, which was not controlled by the landlord of their dwelling; continual predator attacks from hawks or owls; sparrows or starlings took over the site; or their clutch was destroyed by sparrows pecking holes in the eggs.

“Purple martins are 100 percent reliant upon human-made housing east of the Missouri River,” Duit said. “One of the reasons I started the Iowa Purple Martin Organization is to educate the public on the need for martin housing.”

But establishing a healthy martin colony isn’t limited to just providing a nesting structure, Duit said. It also means being a good landlord by trying to eliminate English house sparrows and European starlings from the site area; picking a safe location from predators, such as owls and hawks; perhaps putting a protective cage over the house; and cleaning out nesting cavities at the end of the summer.

If you do those things, and add a little patience into the process, you might just be rewarded. The site at Ada Hayden is a case in point.

“If these two pair successfully raise their nestlings to fledge, there is a strong likelihood that 10 to 20 percent of these new baby martins will return to the Ada Hayden martin house next year, while the other 80 to 90 percent will seek out new housing within the area,” Duit said. “That’s pretty exciting to me.”

And that’s one way how conservation practices take hold and wildlife populations can flourish and expand.

 

• ••

More information on purple martins can be found at www.iamartin.org

Dave Duit is seeking volunteers to help monitor the martin site at Ada Hayden Heritage Park. If interested, contact him by email at da******@ya***.com.

 

Dad, what’s wrong with that bird?

That was the question posed by our daughter, Elizabeth, as we walked down the sidewalk toward the car following church.

The bird in question was flopping about on the stone-covered walkway like a mortally injured gamebird shortly before gasping its final breath. With wings akimbo, the brown-and-white-colored bird with black neck bands indeed looked as if it was on its last leg, literally and figuratively.

It quickly struck me, however, as I looked up from the bird to see the concern on Elizabeth’s face that this wasn’t a struggle over pending death but rather a ruse in an effort to preserve life. Or, as the case may be, future lives.

As you may have already deduced from the description of what occurred or from looking at the accompanying photo that the animated bird was a killdeer, and he or she was simply doing what any killdeer parent does when it or its young are confronted with danger: feigning injury. Like some other species, killdeer will perform a broken-wing impression in an effort to draw attention away from its nest of eggs or its young. In our case, the killdeer was trying to divert our attention away from its nest — a simple depression in the rocks — and its contents: four tan eggs with dark markings.

It’s easy to be both impressed and amused by the antics of killdeer. They ardently utilize both vocal and theatrical expression to draw the attention of people or potential predators to themselves and then lead them on a wild chase away from their nest or offspring. Once they sense they have created a safe distance between the intruder and whatever they are protecting, the adult killdeer miraculously recovers from its “injury” and flies even further away, often with the predator in pursuit.

Killdeer are upland shorebirds that tend not to spend time at the shore. Rather, they prefer gravel roadways, mudflats, railroad edges and open fields where they feast on insects and occasionally snails, crayfish and worms. Killdeer are most closely related to plovers and spend the spring, summer and fall throughout all of the upper Midwest before migrating to southern states and Central America for winter.

The next time you see a boisterous bird dragging its wing and frantically calling “kill-deer, kill-deer,” don’t take the bait. Instead, carefully look around for a nest of well-camouflaged eggs or, if you’re fortunate, a small clutch of fledglings that look like stilted dandelions going to seed. Either way, you’ll be happy to have made the discovery.

 

 

We don’t see because we don’t look.

We don’t look because we don’t slow down.

We don’t slow down because we’re in too big a hurry to get on to the next thing.

Most of the time we don’t see the trees for the forest. One wonders if we even see the forest much of the time.

Maybe we should heed the wisdom in one of the lyrics of the old Simon and Garfunkel song “The 59th Street Bridge Song,” otherwise known as “Feelin’ Groovy.” “Slow down, you move too fast. You’ve got to make the morning last.”

Instead of “morning,” I’d interject “moment.” We’ve got to make the moment last.

Slow down. Look. Listen. Ask questions. Seek out answers. Be present. Be alert. Be all in.

It’s the only way we can begin to see and appreciate the trees for the forest, and everything else that’s beautiful in the world around us.

— Todd Burras

Pictured above: American toad, honey bee, creeping charlie, white clover, Kentucky bluegrass, dandelion. There could be others.