Nature Note #163: Lawn Birds

Zee-jirp! Zee-jirp!

A buzzy whistle rattles the windows outside of the apartment as fog veils the trees in the valley. A little black bird sits in one of the pines, fluffing its throat feathers and glancing around. It has a bright yellow bill and jet fighter wings that let it blast around the eaves and roof like an F-16. 

Three weeks ago, when we finally moved into our apartment in Marcellus, Alison and I immediately noticed the starlings nesting under the eaves of our home. The European starling (Sturnus vulgaris) isn't a bird that birders admit to enjoying, at least most of the time. For the purists, they are an unwelcome pest that steal nesting sites from other birds in the spring. The rest of the year is spent in roving flocks that roost in city trees and building archways and supports, leaving snowy layers of guano in their wake.

While most homeowners would seek to eliminate these birds from the exterior of their homes, I see this as an opportunity to observe these birds at close range. Although I am a birder, having the chance to see breeding behavior up close is always a treat, even if it is from a nonnative bird.

Last Saturday, I took a stroll around the house to look for signs of starling activity. I didn't have to wait long and spied a male singing on the wire.

His glossy plumage shone in the sun as he whirred and whirled, his voice  filling the air with electric trilling and chattering. When I zoomed my camera lens for a closer look, I noticed a detail on him I'd never noticed before. At the base of his bill (I'm presuming sex based on his previously observed behavior) there was a pale blue color. According to Cornell's All About Birds page, this feature is present in birds that are in full on breeding mode. Despite this interesting feature and his rapture, I had no other indications that this bird was male or female. Unlike robins or mallards or even cardinals, starlings aren't sexually dimorphic meaning that both males and females resemble one another to our eyes.

Fortunately for the birds, they are able to see into the UV light spectrum and that might assist females in teasing out males in a crowd. Just as whites and brights blaze under a black light at a mini golf course in a rundown strip mall, starlings and other similarly dressed birds can look radically different. Under the scrutiny of UV light, they stick out like a sore thumb and are easier to pick out with than in the relatively simple white light spectrum that we are confined to.

As I wandered the property, two or maybe three pairs had made their homes under the eaves in broken patches of wood either ripped open by ice and wind or perhaps gradually nibbled by squirrels interested in high rise living. I chose not to take photos of the birds entering and exiting the holes as being branded "that weird guy with the binoculars/camera" within the first month of being there wouldn't help. It also didn't help that I was also thinking about a recent article in the Washington Post about how birders are thought to be a little "creepy". To prevent this accusation from flying the coop, I decided to move further out into the yard.

My observations of the starlings were quickly side tracked by a flash of white on tan that plopped onto the grass nearby. Lacking binos, I instead zoomed in with the camera. The images I snapped confirmed my suspicions that I had come upon a Northern flicker (Colaptes auratus).

Now these birds are can be sexed visually! A moustache stripe is a positive indicator that this is a male flicker. If there was no moustache, you have a female. It's as simple as that! While most members of it's family are more comfortable in a vertical position on a tree, flickers can be found on the ground just as frequently. This way, they can locate one of their favorite foods: ants. My attempts at another photo were foiled when one of our neighbour's kids ran past, flushing the bird.

The starlings jeering drew me back towards the house, but my eye was caught again by another species. A bird with a brick red breast and upright stance eyed me nervously before scampering away. A male American robin (Turdus migratorius) cocked his head sideways in his quest for worms.

Another common nesting bird in suburban neighbourhoods, my mornings are now just as punctuated by the electrical chatter of the starling as with the sweet carols of the robin. Often when I've been walking to my car, I'll spy a male in full song in the low branches of a nearby dogwood.

Over the next few weeks, I'll have to keep an eye out for fledglings as the summer grows closer. While we can grumble that starlings are non-native nuisances and are some unwelcome pests, we still have to share our space with them and by doing so, we may learn something about their home life in the process. I hope I can share some of my finding with you all again real soon.

See you all on Saturday.