Brown Creeper (Certhia americana)

Despite inconspicuous habits that often allow them to remain unnoticed by the casual passerby, Brown Creepers are a fairly common bird in New Hampshire.  Although they nest in NH, the creepers that we find this time of year may actually be short distance migrants who are overwintering here, rather than our summer breeders.

On still winter days, their soft, high-pitched call notes are easily heard rising through needles of hemlock and pine.  Look for them amidst mixed foraging flocks of chickadees, titmice, kinglets and nuthatches.  While their soft brown mottled plumage blends in perfectly with their forested habitat, creepers can be identified by their tendency to flit to the bottom of a tree and then wind their way upwards around the trunk.  Creepers often select older conifers with deeply furrowed bark from which they glean tiny insects with their long, decurved bill.

American Tree Sparrow (Spizella arborea)

Coinciding with the onset on cooler weather and declining daylight hours, the arrival of American Tree Sparrows is a harbinger of crisp winter days.  Beginning in October, they stream into the lower 48 to pass the winter months before returning to breeding grounds far to the north.  This species has several unique features distinguishing it from other sparrows; note the bi-colored bill, chestnut cap, and dark central spot on the breast.  Look for these birds in fields and shrubby areas, they will also visit feeders as they search for seeds.

Yellow Palm Warbler (Dendroica palmarum)

A boreal breeder like last week’s Fox Sparrow, Palm Warblers are generally observed in New Hampshire during migration.  They overwinter in the southeast U.S. and the Caribbean.

Palm Warblers are separated into two forms, the Yellow (Eastern) and the Western.  Shown above is the Yellow Palm Warbler, with its yellow supercillium (eyebrow stripe), yellowish underparts, and rufous cap.  In the field, this species is easily identified by its tail bobbing behavior, shown in this video of a foraging Palm Warbler (video courtesy of Bill Meier, 2008).

Fox Sparrow (Passerella iliaca)

This large, striking sparrow was netted at the KSC Wildlife Management Area during the tail end of the fall banding season.  In addition to being much larger than most other sparrows (this one was really a handful!), Eastern foxes stand out with their bold, triangular chest markings and stunning rufous tail.  Plumage is highly variable and four distinct, geographically separated forms of this species are currently recognized.

Fox Sparrows are not known to breed in New Hampshire; they are generally observed here when migrating from  northern breeding grounds to the southern U.S. where they overwinter.  About 58% of the North American population nests in boreal forest (Boreal Songbird Initiative 2007) while others breed in the western U.S.  For more on Fox Sparrows, click here.

Above, Byard’s photo illustrates the size difference between three sparrow species.  From the left: Fox Sparrow, White-throated Sparrow (Zonotrichia albicollis), and Linclon’s Sparrow (Melospiza lincolnii).  This fall, we netted one Fox and seven Lincoln’s as compared to 52 White-throats!

A Thrush Quartet!

Maggie, Kate, Meghan, and Maki with Hermit Thrushes

With four thrushes netted at the same time this past Wednesday, it seems like the perfect time to talk about the Catharus thrushes encountered during AVEO’s banding endeavors. While Veeries (Catharus fuscescens) are considered “standard fare” at our MAPS banding stations during the breeding season, fall migration banding provides nice looks at other members of the Catharus genus, including Swainson’s (Catharus ustulatus) and Hermit Thrushes (Catharus guttatus).

Swainson’s Thrush                   Hermit Thrush                         Veery

This year, Veeries showed up earliest in the season; we banded several between late-August and early September.  Hermits are later migrants that began winding up in the nets in early October.  Swainson’s are netted less often; so far we have banded only one in early September and one in mid-October.  

Determining a bird’s age is a significant part of the banding process. For these thrushes, one characteristic to look for are buffy tips on covert feathers on the wing; the presence and extent of these marks often helps us to decide if a bird hatched this year.  Look closely at the Hermit Thrush’s upper wing to see these buffy tips.  For more thrushes, click here.

Ruby-crowned Kinglet

This past week, we banded two Ruby-crowned Kinglets (Regulus calendula), aptly named for the small patch of red feathers on the top of the male’s head.  Weighing between only 5 to 9 grams (about as hefty as a single quarter!) kinglets are nonetheless hardy birds that breed in North America’s boreal forest.  We encountered these two as they were heading to wintering grounds throughout the southern U.S. and Mexico.  Click here for more on kinglets.

Blue-headed Vireo

This gorgeous Blue-headed Vireo (Vireo solitarius) happened into our net late last month.  Formerly known (more poetically) as the Solitary Vireo, the species has been recognized as distinct from the western Cassin’s and Plumbeous Vireos. Blue-headed Vireos show up early in the spring migration in New Hampshire.  They sound much like the ubiquitous Red-eyed Vireos, who sing incessantly on summer afternoons in our woods.  The Blue-headed Vireo’s song, however, is a bit more robust. You can listen to it at this link.

This guy (or gal) got a bit mussed in the net and had to take a few minutes to rearrange his feathers so he could look like the smooth individual at the 1 minute mark in this video.

Black-billed Cuckoo

This Black-billed Cuckoo (Coccyzus erythropthalmus) showed up just in time for Ken Bergman’s Vertebrate Zoology class from Keene State College during a bird banding demonstration this past Tuesday. Though a relatively common species, cuckoos are more often heard than seen, and they are not a typical bird to wind up in a mist net. In fact, the last time we banded a cuckoo at the Keene State College Wildlife Management Area was in 2004.

This past July, I came across a cuckoo nest (shown below) located in a low-growing Spiraea alba. Although it’s nearly impossible to say if the bird we banded hatched from this nearby nest, it’s amazing to consider the transformation from awkward nestling to striking juvenile that occurs over the course of several weeks!

Visit http://www.allaboutbirds.org/guide/Black-billed_Cuckoo/lifehistory to learn more about this secretive species.

Alder Flycatcher

Belonging to a group of birds collectively known as Empidonax Flycatchers, Alder Flycatchers (Empidonax alnorum) and Willow Flycatchers (Empidonax traillii) were once considered to be a single species.  Nearly identical in plumage, they are best separated by either habitat or vocalizations.

Without either of these cues to go by, these two birds are so difficult to distinguish that banders rely on good old mathematics to differentiate between them.  We closely examine a flycatcher’s bill and flight feathers and enter these precise measurements into a special formula that helps to separate Willows from Alders.  Last Wednesday, this method allowed us to correctly identify this week’s featured bird as an Alder Flycatcher.

Byard’s photos illustrate how tricky it can be to identify the Empids.  Below (from the left) are an Alder, Least, and Willow Flycatcher - all banded in Keene, NH!

Intrigued?  Check out http://www.allaboutbirds.org/guide/Alder_Flycatcher/id for more information.

Philadelphia Vireo

Last week, the bird banding team had the pleasure of banding a Philadelphia Vireo (Vireo philadelphicus) as it traveled from breeding grounds in northern New England and Canada to its wintering range in southern Central America. Described in The Birds of North America as one of the continent’s “most obscure birds,” Philadelphia Vireos resemble the more familiar Warbling Vireo in plumage and the Red-eyed Vireo in song; they are easily mistaken for these closely related species.

In hand, Philadelphia Vireos are separated from other vireos by several characteristics, including strong yellow color of the underparts and distinctive facial markings.  In addition to these more obvious features, banders frequently rely on slight details to positively identify or age a bird, sometimes even a single feather!  The definitive feature for this species, for example, is a “vestigial or minute” outermost flight feather that measures shorter than the covert feathers located below the birds wrist.

Special thanks to AVEO volunteer Byard Miller for his great shots of this beautiful bird!

For information on the life history of this species, follow this link.

Belted Kingfisher

When I saw Kate’s great photos of this guy I was so envious!  Every bird species has a distinct personality in the hand, and it is not always the same as what they are like while roaming free.  Kate says this guy was “pretty docile other than when he lunged at my eyes.”

Belted Kingfishers have some oddities.  The males are less colorful than the females, both parents incubate the eggs and feed young.  They build nests in long tunnels in the river bank, and are sometimes joined by swallows who build side tunnels of their own.  As they feed by diving for fish, we generally don’t get to enjoy them all rear round, but they don’t go far, performing a “sympatric” migration, only gong as far as necessary to find open water.

To learn how to recognize the distinctive cry of the Kingfisher, click this link.

Northern Cardinal

While Northern Cardinals are far from exotic, Byard Miller’s pictures shown here are too good to pass up.  Cardinals are also interesting from the standpoint of history, behavior, and fashion (or at times, the lack thereof).  The shocking, naked-headed Cardinal who kicks off this slide show is a male who has molted most of his head feathers, and he makes it easy to imagine that birds descended from dinosaurs. We do catch Cardinals like this in our nets at the banding stations, but they’re not usually this bad!  Thanks to DansPhotoArt at Flikr for that shot.  Byard also shows how Cardinals can be a challenge to band, as their adaptation for cracking tough seeds gives them a defensive advantage against banders.

Cardinals were not always a part of the New England scene.  They began to expand northward around a hundred years ago, but not until the 1940’s and 50’s,did Cardinals expand into New England, arriving in large numbers as resident birds in NH in the 60’s.  It is thought that a combination of warming mean temperatures, changes in habitat, and the growing prevalence of feeding birds contributed to the dramatic shift in the northern limit of the Cardinal’s range.

To learn the Cardinal’s song and more about it’s ecology, visit this link.

Yellow-bellied Sapsucker

Some non-birders think this species name is a hoax, dreamed up by someone who wanted to make fun of the kookiness of avian pursuits.  This woodpecker, however, does indeed have a yellow belly and sucks sap as well as feeds on the insects that it finds in its “sap-wells.”  These even rows of holes are often seen on apple trees in yards, and on many species in the woods.

This unfortunate male Sapsucker was killed on south village road in Westmoreland this morning.  It is estimated that over 80 million birds are lost each year to vehicular collisions.  While there is not much we can do about the sudden appearance of a bird in our path, I find that honking the horn does help!  Inexpensive devices are available that are designed to prevent other wildlife collisions, and much work is being devoted to reducing the toll of our transportation infrastructure on terrestrial and aquatic wildlife.

Click here to hear the quirky, uneven drumming of the Yellow-bellied Sapsucker, and explore more life history information.

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Click here for Bird of the Week 2008.