The dead crow incident

Written by Jack Sanders
Friday, 12 September 2008 08:34

Last week’s column described two unusual cases of intelligence in crows, one dealing with the use of weapons and the other, with face recognition.

The report of the University of Washington professor’s experiments with crows’ recognizing masks worn by people who had captured and banded the birds brought back memories of an incident many years ago.

At the university, campus crows and even their descendants a couple of years later would squawk at anyone wearing a “caveman” mask, which had been worn by the banders. They believed the face represented danger. In our yard, a similar experience occurred.

The weapon-wielding birds: Avian intelligence

Written by Jack Sanders
Thursday, 04 September 2008 15:31

Many people have remarked on the story that appeared in last week’s New York Times about a scientist’s discovering that crows can recognize individual human faces, but a perhaps more remarkable account of crow intelligence appears in the current issue of Bird Watcher’s Digest.

It’s long been known that the corvids — crows, ravens, magpies, and jays — are quite smart, doing things like using tools and employing automobile traffic to break open nuts.

The Times story told of a wildlife biologist at the University of Washington who did an experiment in which crows on campus were trapped and banded by students wearing a “caveman” rubber mask. A Dick Cheney mask was used as a “neutral” mask by students not involved in the trapping.

In the weeks and months that followed, student volunteers who walked around campus with caveman masks were yelled at by the crows, which ignored the Cheney-masked students. Two years later, the number of crows recognizing the caveman mask as dangerous had spread to many birds that had never been trapped, indicating that parents and others in the community had taught offspring that this was a dangerous face.

The ranges of birds: What factors change them?

Written by Jack Sanders
Thursday, 28 August 2008 10:54

When I was a kid in Danbury in the 1950s, we hardly ever saw cardinals. Now they are among the most commonly seen local birds. The cardinal’s “range” has definitely changed.

Only 33 bird species were believed to be year-round residents of central New England in the year 1900. By the 1980s, 70 species were resident and by the turn of the 21st Century, still others had established themselves year-round, including the Carolina Wren, Song Sparrow, Red-bellied Woodpecker, and Northern Mockingbird. Among the most recent arrivals is the Black Vulture, a species abundant in the South, which in the late 1990s began making its way into southern New England and New York, where it is now resident.  

Happenings natural and not so natural contribute to the expansion and contraction of bird ranges.  Chief among the factors are changes in climate, accidents of nature, and the hand of man.

A Peterson in your pocket; electronically, at least

Written by Jack Sanders
Thursday, 21 August 2008 09:40

Ed Kanze, who knows a good field guide when he sees one, offers his thoughts on the new, heavyweight Peterson Field Guild to Birds of North America in his column this week.  While he's full of enthusiasm for the new edition, he says it’s too big for his back pocket — and that it is. You’d need pockets in size-54 overalls even to squeeze this volume in.

And there’s also the weight. The new Peterson weighs a hefty two and one-half pounds while my old Petersons (Eastern Region) were a mere one pound, one ounce in paperback and one pound, three ounces in hardcover.

However, this field guide has an almost weightless supplement — or at least, one that weighs as much as your mp3 player.

By simply registering at the Peterson Field Guides Web site, you gain access to more than 30 downloadable podcasts, each between three and five minutes long, that are like short lessons in species or genera of birds. They can be played on your computer — or better yet, on your mp3 player, such as an iPod, where they can be viewed anywhere.

The videos pack in a lot of information in a relatively small amount of time, and with nicely done dialogue. Produced by Jeffrey A. Gordon and Bill Thompson III (Bill is editor of Bird Watcher’s Digest), the narrated videos contain many, often spectacular photos and drawings, a lot of identification techniques, range maps, and even discussions of history and conservation status.

Birds that cough, eclipse and drum

Written by Jack Sanders
Thursday, 14 August 2008 14:17

Longtime correspondent John McGinley of Wilton sends along a couple of entertaining observations.

“I spent an interesting hour at the lake in Mead Park, New Canaan, this afternoon,” he wrote a couple of weeks ago. “A Great Egret had just caught an immense frog. He was trying to kill it by both shaking and drowning it. Finally he tried to swallow it — in fact several times. Back to shaking and drowning; four times he tried to get it down.

“The last time he actually got all but the hind legs down. Then with a mighty effort, it all disappeared — only to get coughed up again.

“I thought he’d give up, deciding it was too big. But finally, he gave it one last effort and it disappeared down his gullet.

“Then there was the problem of getting it down the long, thin neck. This took time, swallowing throat motions, extensions of the neck out and back, waiting, and then he did it! I couldn’t see it as a bulge going down; it just disappeared.

Where are all the birds?

Written by Jack Sanders
Thursday, 07 August 2008 10:34

“I have been living in Weston since June 14th and I can’t seem to get any birds to my feeder,” she writes. “The two-acre parcel is completely cleared but there are trees (hemlocks, cedars and hickories mostly) around the perimeter. Troutbrook Valley (a preserve) is just a stone’s throw away.  

“I have seen Red-bellied Woodpeckers, nuthatches, goldfinches, and Chipping Sparrows in the trees. Robins were abundant in June. Now, the only birds I see are crows and even these don’t come to the feeder. They did eat black oil sunflower seeds when I threw the seed on the ground.

“I have hypothesized that perhaps there is not enough cover, or too much available food or maybe the crows are a threat. I had tons of birds at my other house and I miss them. Can you help?”

Kerri poses an interesting question with many possible answers. Let’s run through some.

Saving on seed; summer feeding suggestions

Written by Jack Sanders
Thursday, 31 July 2008 13:28

Pat Warren of Darien, who owns Wild Birds Unlimited at 532 Bedford Road in Bedford Hills, N.Y., has been following the recent columns about bird seed costs. Here are some of her thoughts on that and on summer feeding.

According to her franchise headquarters, the “crazy high” seed prices exist because “farmers plant according to government instructions. Lately, instructions have been to plant less sunflower and more corn, etc. With the diminished crop of sunflower to stretch over the demand, the price has skyrocketed. And, because of the transfat campaign, there is an even greater stress put on the availability of sunflower seed.”

Pat offered suggestions on how to economize. First, she said, “Make sure you are squirrel-proof and/or big-bird-proof,” she said. One of the feeders available is the Squirrel-Buster, featured in this column several issues ago. Wild Birds Unlimited sells the same model under the name, The Eliminator. “It works!” Pat said.

Birds as art and annoyances

Written by Jack Sanders
Thursday, 24 July 2008 15:43

Glorious birds

The Weir Farm Art Center offers Art Explorer classes for kids every summer for six weeks at Weir Farm National Historic Site on the Wilton-Ridgefield border. Recently, noted Redding artist James Grashow worked with 11 students aged 9 to 14 to create larger-than-life birds from ordinary corrugated cardboard, a couple of which are shown here from a brief exhibit called “Glorious Birds.”

“His exuberant personality inspired fantastic results,” said Amy Allen, program manager at Weir Farm Art Center. “Each sculpture was painted and displayed in the terraced gardens at Weir Farm National Historic Site at the end of the week. “It was a true happening!”

Anyone who has seen Mr. Grashow’s work — his flowers and his cityscapes that have been exhibited at The Aldrich Contemporary Art Museum in Ridgefield, for instance — cannot help being amazed at his ability to turn cardboard into works of exquisite detail and beauty. His many subjects include birds, and you can see samples of his remarkable “Cardbirds” on his Web site, www. jamesgrashow. com.

Eine kleine Nachtmusik: Midsummer surprise

Written by Jack Sanders
Thursday, 17 July 2008 10:10

Songs in the night

The night is supposed to be a pretty peaceful time, except perhaps when the winter owls, spring frogs and midsummer insects offer their songs and calls. But Lisa McCormick of Ridgefield has found that sometimes, the night offers noisy surprises.

“Since I’ve opened my windows the last few nights after our heat wave ended, I’ve become aware of an amazing bird living in the trees of our back yard,” Lisa writes. “This bird begins singing at exactly midnight and goes on until at least 4:30 a.m. It sounds like a synthesizer — changing sounds every few minutes, each completely different sounds. There are buzzes, chirps, whistles, melodic songs and more. It’s really loud, too! He has a repertoire of dozens of ‘samples.’

“My Internet research suggests this may be a mockingbird. Do you think so? Is this unusual around here? We’ve been here 13 years and I’ve never heard anything like it. We have a lot of feeders near this tree, and we’ve kept feeding all summer.”

The attack of the fearsome phoebe

Written by Jack Sanders
Thursday, 10 July 2008 10:16

A phoebe attack

Irene Marks of North Salem, N.Y., recently “looked out my window at a phoebe nest under the eaves of our house. The phoebe often sits on a nearby post, hunting and keeping an eye on things. A small bird, perhaps a wren or Chipping Sparrow, landed on the roof edge, about eight feet from the nest. The phoebe was off the post like a shot, rammed the other bird, dragged it to the grass and held it down, belly up on the ground, mantling it like a hawk with prey. The other bird was screaming, as the phoebe attacked it.

“After close to a minute, the other bird escaped, with the phoebe in close pursuit. Once it cleared the territory, the phoebe returned to its post, and starting hunting insects again.