Wooing Mrs. Nuthatch

Bird watching can be a lot more than just identifying what shows up in the yard. A good bird watcher also notices what the birds are doing.

Nine-year-old Blythe Filaski of Ridgefield is a good bird watcher. “Recently, I spotted two nuthatches on my pear tree,” Blythe writes. “The nuthatches must have been mates, because their bills were together, almost as if they were kissing. I think they were sharing seed.”

Blythe was lucky enough to observe an interesting courtship behavior of the White-breasted Nuthatch. Here is how Arthur C. Bent described a pair of nuthatches 60 years ago:

“All through the winter the pair has lived not far apart, feeding within hearing of each other, but the male has paid little attention to his mate; in fact, on the food shelf, he has shown dominance over her; but now in the lengthening, warmer days of spring, he becomes actively engaged over her comfort.

“A real courtship begins: He carries food to her and places it in her bill, he stores bits of nut in crevices of bark for her convenience, and he often addresses his singing directly to her. Standing back to her, he bows slowly downward as he sings, then in the interval before another song he straightens up, then bows as he sings again. The songs come with perfect regularity over and over again and can thus be recognized even in the distance as the courtship song.”

Ornithologists have been fascinated by this behavior in many species, including cardinals and hawks. Of course, on the simplest level, it can be taken as a way of wooing a mate by making her happy – just as men often take women out to dinner on dates.

However, scientists see more in the behavior. The food exchange not only develops pair bonding, but may also help convince the female that her mate will be a good provider during the forthcoming nesting period.

“Increasing evidence suggests that females who receive more food from their mates lay larger clutches” of eggs, wrote David W. Winkler, in Handbook of Bird Biology (Cornell Lab of Ornithology, 2004). “Mate feeding probably makes it possible for a female to raise more young, by keeping her in good condition and allowing her to put more energy into feeding the young.”

In other words, a nice dinner now may mean more and healthier kids later.
So, for the nuthatch and many other species, “the way to a woman’s heart is through her stomach.”

Sound of the Veery

I heard a Veery on Sunday. That may not sound like a big deal, but it’s the first one I’ve heard locally in more than five years.

And hearing them is often all you do, for these brown thrushes are somewhat secretive and stick to woodlands where they can be hard to spot.

However, their song is one of the most distinctive and easy to recognize of any of our migrants. It’s a flutelike cascade of notes, seeming to echo as if they were sung through a long open pipe. Once you’ve heard the song, you never forget it.

Time was when the song of the Veery was a sure sign that spring had settled in. It was something to listen for. But Veeries are in what the Cornell Lab of Ornithology calls a “slow decline” throughout their range.

In winter, that range includes a large area of central and northern South America, much of it rain forest, which, as we all know by now, is being cut down. Ornithologists suspect that this “rapid habitat conversion” is reducing the Veery population.

Up north, these birds may also be suffering from the deer overpopulation. Veeries nest on or near the ground and thus prefer woods with dense understory that provides a degree of camouflage and protection. Overpopulating deer have stripped so much of the understory of our woods that Veeries may be having difficulty finding suitable nesting sites. (However, the latest statistics from the state of Connecticut indicate the state’s deer population may be in decline from a peak of 75,000 a few years ago to a current estimate of 62,000.)

Veeries have also suffered from nest parasitism by Brown-headed Cowbirds, but the latest studies on cowbirds are finding that these birds may also in decline. So it’s likely that the habitat destruction, in both winter and summer ranges, have been affecting the Veery numbers in our neighborhood.

Nachtmusik

It is the middle of the night. Off in the distance, a Northern Mockingbird is singing, belting out his repertoire of dozens of songs as if it were broad daylight. But no, it’s 2 a.m., and there’s no sign of his stopping.

Some mockingbirds have been known to sing all night long. The same incredible album of tunes that is such cheerful music during the day seems almost haunting at night.

Why the nachtmusik from a day-loving creature? Ornithologists have found that the midnight mockers are unmated males, apparently desperate to attract a female. Simply speaking, they are lonely and singing a birdworld version of the blues.