Bird Migration and Misc Birding Thread
- Thread starter Kinch
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I've always wanted to see a pair of them up close in person.A Brown Booby has to be interesting specimen....lots of people on the lookout.
Do they come in pairs?
There is a nesting, naturalized population of Great Tits in Sheboygan, WI that I've seen, and we got some weird looks at a restaurant afterwards talking about how awesome it was to see the Tits.
If interested in this topic the birds were part of a release of six species in Chicago back in 2004.
I dealt with this when on the Wisconsin Bird Records Committee. Here is an old link: https://ebird.org/atlaswi/news/species-survey-strategy-recently-introduced-european-songbirds.
I haven't kept track of which introduced species are taking hold but the European Goldfinch is doing really well and may occur in Iowa in the future.
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Not sure if you asking why they were introduced - some vendor released caged birds - or why invasive species are a problem - invasive species compete with native species for all manner of resources.
Definitely the former. Very few invasive species have positively impacted the are in which they've been introduced. Unless these birds eat Japanese beetles!
I have a bit of a backlog of photos taken this spring, got some catchup to do in posting/sharing.
8:30 pm last night in local park. I have quite a few screech photos but this is only my 2nd or 3rd time seeing screech owls not just sitting in a cavity. And never caught an adult pair side-by-side. They are a breeding pair, male is the gray morph and the red morph is the female.
8:30 pm last night in local park. I have quite a few screech photos but this is only my 2nd or 3rd time seeing screech owls not just sitting in a cavity. And never caught an adult pair side-by-side. They are a breeding pair, male is the gray morph and the red morph is the female.
Great picture. I couldn't help myself to come back with ... "guess which one is the female" picture.
In the owls case people have seen them get busy so we know who is who.
Most of the time the mom owl is prime caretaker. Dad barred owls and great horned owls provide security and bring some food. Mom provides closer in security and does most of the feeding. These two have kiddos in a cavity and mom stays close by.
Outlier I learned about this spring at a saw-whet owl cavity, the dad's end up as the caretaker. When they are ready to fledge the mom leaves them with the dad to feed and see goes off on her own. A non-routine "divorce" in the owl word.
Hard times for birds? My Tree Swallow nestlings became oddly quiet without any hint of fledglings begging around my property. The Eastern Bluebirds slowly disappeared, and the old nest box sits empty. Usually I see multiple baby Common Grackles hopping across the yard; this year, zero. The Brown Thrasher abandoned the nest in the brush pile without even laying eggs.
So I started checking. Four ready-to-fledge baby Tree Swallows were dead in the box. The Bluebird nest contained three white eggs—which should be blue—and the bird had obviously abandoned them. Combined with only seeing a couple of young Grackles begging in other yards and a lone fledged Chipping Sparrow, it's clearly a very low productivity year following an already-weak year last year.
Weather doesn't appear to be a significant factor. My neighbor's cat roams freely, but I suspect the lack of insects is the primary culprit. A few pest species are around, like Rose Chafers, but there are no June Beetles, butterflies, moths, and especially no mosquitoes.
So I started checking. Four ready-to-fledge baby Tree Swallows were dead in the box. The Bluebird nest contained three white eggs—which should be blue—and the bird had obviously abandoned them. Combined with only seeing a couple of young Grackles begging in other yards and a lone fledged Chipping Sparrow, it's clearly a very low productivity year following an already-weak year last year.
Weather doesn't appear to be a significant factor. My neighbor's cat roams freely, but I suspect the lack of insects is the primary culprit. A few pest species are around, like Rose Chafers, but there are no June Beetles, butterflies, moths, and especially no mosquitoes.
Byproduct of spraying everything. I had one of those kill everything companies "Hi, we are working your neighborhood..." guys stop by my house a couple of weeks ago saying he was treating neighbors yards for insects and rodents. Told him we have owls in the neighborhood and I was NOT interested in poisoning them or other birds. He said nothing in response and just walked away. Distressing to know I have neighbors that think they need to kill everything and starve song birds and kill rodent eating raptors.
Mourning Doves don't feed on insects and they seem to be doing well:
Mourning doves nourish their young with crop milk, a nutritious substance secreted from the lining of the parent’s crop, a specialized pouch in their throat; how do mourning doves feed their babies? – by regurgitating this “milk” directly into the mouths of their squabs.
