Red Wing Nature Notes

Since the first of May, there has been a remarkable symphony of beautiful bird calls emanating from our backyard.  Actually beginning April 30th, that musical gift has been led by a short series of rich, clear, whistled notes of the Baltimore Oriole.  For many years, we have encouraged their participation by providing sugar water syrup and grape jelly at our feeding station.  For the most part, we have two pairs of orioles that frequent our sweet treats.  An added bonus that attracts these colorful birds to our yard is the presence of two very large mature trees, one cottonwood the other a silver maple.  For many years, oriole hanging nests have been constructed in each tree.  Try as hard as we might, we can never locate the nests until the leaves drop with the coming of fall.  There well camouflaged nests are usually built at the ends of slender twigs to discourage visitors such as red or gray squirrels.

As I mentioned in an earlier post, every evening I retrieve all our bird feeders and bring them in so as not to be frustrated by pesky raccoons.  Sleeping with our windows open, my day usually is greeted at daylight with oriole calls at the feeding station.  I can only imagine them saying “bring out the syrup and jelly.”  This past Friday morning, we experienced a fairly substantial rainfall punctuated by about twenty minutes of gale force east winds.  Later that morning as we were working out in the yard, we discovered three full sized flightless oriole nestlings dead in the lawn below the cottonwood tree.  I learned  Saturday that at the same time the fierce wind was bringing down the oriole nestlings, it also blew down a large bald eagle nest in Frontenac State Park.  This nest contained two black feathered eaglets that were at least two to three weeks away from fledging.  Yes, nature can be cruel.  Fortunately in the case of the eaglets, park staff were able to construct a temporary platform (nest) ten feet off the ground and replace the uninjured birds.  As of late Saturday afternoon, the parent eagles were attending to their eaglets.  Hopefully that will continue until the young birds fledge.

Due to the fact that last Saturday was open house day for Frontenac State Park, I was asked to conduct two interpretive hikes for park visitors.  The first hike was on the trails through the wooded area adjacent to the picnic grounds.  Highlights of that hike included observing the fairly rare Indigo Bunting and the colorful red flowers of the wild coffee plant.  As I posted last fall, the mature ripe orange berries that develop from these flowers can be dried and roasted and used as a coffee substitute.

As we were nearing the end of our hike, we observed a Yellow-Bellied Sapsucker working it’s way down the side of a dead aspen tree.  Upon closer examination, it had a nest in a cavity of this tree filled with young birds clamoring for their next meal.  Standing quietly along the trail, we were able to observe the parents returning to the nest with beaks full of insects.  After our hike concluded back at the picnic pavilion, I returned to the nest site for further observation of the sapsucker activity.  During my twenty minute stay in which I stood  fifteen feet away from the tree, I discovered something quite interesting.  The male flew directly to the tree at least six times with food while the female would fly back and forth from tree to tree and never once reveal the location of it’s nest.

The second hike of the day took place in the open prairie area just north of Frontenac Pond.  Observations on this hike included wild roses and blanket flowers blooming.  Along this trail are several bluebird nesting boxes.  Most of these boxes are being used by tree swallows.  It is very easy to distinguish swallow nests from those of the bluebird.  Swallows have white eggs while the bluebird has blue.  Another interesting characteristic of a swallow nest is the use of feathers in building the nest.  In nests constructed near water, feathers of waterfowl are frequently used.  Nests I have examined in the park, many times possess wild turkey feathers.  These feathers are used to provide added insulation for the young nestlings.

I will conclude this post with a photo I took this morning from our kitchen window as I worked on this writing.  It is of the very rare Red-Headed Woodpecker that surprised me with a short visit.  Fortunately, my camera was close at hand.