Horned Larks are tough as nails

A wintertime country road in rural Ohio. Frigid temperatures, a landscape blanketed in snow, and brutal winds conspire to make this a habitat unfit for man or beast. But even such a seemingly stark environment does indeed have its beasts, even if overall biodiversity of living species can often be tallied on one hand.

 

I spent this morning searching backroads in Pickaway and Ross counties for Snowy Owls. Even though none of the big Arctic visitors put in an appearance, I saw scores of another bird species not put off by tough winter conditions. Horned Larks. These sleek Fox Sparrow-sized members of the Alaudidae share familial ties with the fabled Sky Lark of Eurasia, and are - in my estimation - just as special.

 

As I cruised roads similar to the above, small flocks of Horned Larks scurried mouselike along the verges of the lanes, seeking sustenance at the interface of gravel, blacktop and snow. When fields become smothered in the white stuff, the larks are forced to the roads to find feed, and an observer can get an idea of just how common they are. But what, in such a barren landscape, are they eating?

 

This gravelly tract is superficially similar to most Ohio roadsides, and shares the same plants. Several species of small spindly grasses find a foothold in such sites, and much of their biomass is of species in the genera Sporobolus (dropseeds) and Aristida (triple-awned grasses). The fruit of these plants is tiny, but is nutritious and produced en masse.

A Horned Lark, Eremophila alpestris, examines your narrator. To most people, if they notice these birds at all, the larks are just fleeting shadows; brownish wisps flushing from the roadside and coursing out over the surrounding fields. Birders notice them, and those up on field ID know to look for the lark's flag, a conspicuous black tail. Sometimes the rarer Snow Bunting and/or Lapland Longspur are intermingled.

After a bit, I came across a lark flock that was fixated on a section of vacant roadway, and slowly coasted my car up close. Using the vehicle as a blind and exercising a bit of patience, a couple of the larks eventually moved in close to feed. We - or at least I - may marvel at the hardiness of these songbirds, as well we should. It was about 20 degrees F and breezy when I made these photos, and the larks routinely endure FAR colder temperatures. The wide-open spaces of a barren corn field on a sub-zero winter night might seem to be about the most inhospitable place in the world, but that's typical of where the larks bed down. They shun all but the most open places.

Anyway, it doesn't seem like there would be much of sustenance in the above shot. But there is, although few animals could successfully exploit such a niche. This Horned Lark, fat and all afluff, was feeding on the grasses springing from that crack in the asphalt between it and the snow. The aforementioned Sporobolus grasses had found a home in this fissure, and the lark was gobbling down their fruit.

A first-year Horned Lark joins the adult on the right, both busily milking that crack in the road for all it's worth. This is what all those roadside larks are doing: harvesting the seed of grasses and other plants that survive along the roadsides, or have blown in from nearby fields. If passing grain trucks leak some cargo, all the better. As befits a bird that habitually feeds on the ground, the larks walk, not hop. It's a more efficient mode of locomotion.

In the relatively brief period that I watched these larks and their companions, scads of tiny seeds were plucked and consumed. Grass seed is tough stuff, and some of those grains are destined to run through the larks' digestive tracts intact. They'll be expelled somewhere else, maybe  near, maybe far.

Horned Larks have been harvesting grass seed for eons, and play a valuable role in dispersing native plants.

Motorboating raccoon

I really like raccoons, and that, I know, is not a universal sentiment. Get a couple of the masked bandits in the attic, and chaos can ensue. The wily beasts discover your garbage in the garage, and havoc might be wrought. But you've got to hand it to the critters - they are nearly on a par with most humans (so it would seem) when it comes to smarts.

David and Laura Hughes sent me several outstanding trail cam videos recently, including the following. We've all seen the little handlike paw prints of raccoons on the muddy banks of streams and ponds, and here is one in the act of making those prints. But what is really cool is its buddy, who soon swims into the picture. He/she is just happily motorboating about, so it would seem.

Video: David and Laura Hughes

Raccoons, Procyon lotor. Shot in October, 2013, Monroe County, Ohio.

An interesting (and rare) hybrid duck

Photo: Larry Jeanblanc

On December 1st, Doug Overacker made an interesting report to the Ohio Birds Listserv. He, Julie Karlson, and Larry Jeanblanc had discovered what appears to be a very noteworthy hybrid duck. They found the bird at a park in Springfield, Ohio that is well known for the numbers and diversity of migrant waterfowl that stop to rest and refuel there.

Being keen on all things waterfowl, I asked Larry - who imaged the bird - if he would allow me to share some of his photos. He kindly agreed, and here they are. These photos are actually from yesterday, when Larry went back found the odd duck still in residence. I believe it was still there today.

Photo: Larry Jeanblanc

If you're a student of waterfowl, this bird will instantly remind you of two species, just as it did to Doug, Julie, and Larry when they discovered it. It's as if a Green-winged Teal (Anas crecca) and a Gadwall (A. strepera) were welded together. The head and breast are totally teal, while much of the remainder of the bird recalls features of the Gadwall. Traits of the latter are the conspicuous charcoal-black rump, beautiful gray vermiculations on the sides, smoky-brown upperparts, and the white and cinnamon on the wing.

I had never heard of a Green-winged Teal x Gadwall, hence my interest in their find, and desire to share Larry's photos.

Photo: Larry Jeanblanc

A typical Gadwall with the hybrid. Our cross is consorting with a hundred or so Gadwall. I delved into the literature to see what I could find about this weird combination, and there's little to be found. The Birds of North America monographs do not mention this pairing under either species' accounts, nor do other sources that I checked. Finally, I came across a waterfowl hunting website, and there I found a post from a waterfowler in Kansas who took one of these hybrids on November 16 of this year. He doesn't say the exact locale where he shot the bird, but the post and photos are RIGHT HERE.

Waterfowl are notorious for jumping the genetic fence and crossing with other species, and hybrid combinations abound. At least 400 different combinations have been recorded worldwide, and waterfowl are the most prolific hybridizers of any family of birds. Keepers of captive fowl encourage many strange pairings, but there are scores of examples of wild cross-breeding. Given the timing and location of this bird as well as its associates, I'd suspect that it was spawned in the wild. The breeding ranges of Gadwall and Green-winged Teal overlap extensively, so the two species commonly come into contact. Their size differences must be a formidable barrier to interbreeding, as the comparatively massive Gadwall outweighs the tiny teal by nearly three times. Perhaps that's why this hybrid combo is so scarce.

If anyone knows of Gadwall x Green-winged Teal hybrids, please let me know. As cool as this report is, and the one from Kansas, I can't imagine that they are the first to be reported. Thanks to Larry for sharing his photos, and to he, Doug, and Julie for making this find and reporting it.

The Million Dollar Duck

I wrote about the "Duck Stamp" not long ago, HERE. The $800 million raised by the sale of stamps since its inception in 1934 has resulted in a LOT of on the ground conservation. Here in Ohio, about 89% of Ottawa National Wildlife Refuge was purchased with stamp dollars. There are myriad similar stories around the country.

In short: purchasing a Federal Migratory Bird Hunting and Conservation Stamp (as it is formally known) is perhaps the best $15 investment you can make to protect wildlife, no matter what your interests may be. Grasslands and wetlands purchased with Duck Stamp dollars doesn't just protect ducks, but the entire suite of plants and animals that depend upon these biologically rich habitats. Everyone benefits. Birders, botanists, dragonfliers, butterfliers, and of course, hunters.

Independent filmmaker Brian Davis is in the midst of producing the first documentary about the stamp. It promises to be interesting, and should be a big boost to getting the message of conservation into new quarters. Davis seeks funds to make this project a reality, and you can contribute via Kickstarter. He's most of the way to his goal, and the deadline to donate comes this Friday morning.

Check out the trailer below; it'll tell you all about "The Million Dollar Duck". To donate to this worthwhile project, CLICK HERE.

Snowy Owls invade Ohio (and elsewhere)!

Photo: John Howard

John Howard snapped the image above, of a big beautiful immature female Snowy Owl, Bubo scandiacus, near twilight, tonight! This sighting is especially significant as the bird is in southern Ohio, and we seldom get these Arctic visitors that far south. This owl is frequenting an area along State Route 73, just north of the Adams County line in Highland County.

The Highland County bird is certainly not the only one in the state. At least eleven others were reported today. One was in western Ohio, in Paulding County, and the others were along Lake Erie, with Cleveland the hotspot. About eight have been along the lakefront there, and two were seen by John Pogacnik at Conneaut Harbor. You can be sure that more are out there awaiting discovery, and if one turned up in Highland County, they could be anywhere. Double-check anything that looks like a distant white bag caught up in corn stubble in a field.

Snowy Owls are appearing in numbers beyond Ohio, and at least one has made it is far south as North Carolina. Our neighbor to the west, Indiana, had at least ten today from various locales, and numerous others have turned up around the Great Lakes.

It was just two winters ago that we had another notable flight, and I got the opportunity to talk about those owls with NPR's Melissa Block, RIGHT HERE. It may well be that this winter's flight will eclipse that 2011/12 invasion. Keep your eyes peeled!

"Naming of birds proves baffling at times"

A "murder of crows" settles in to roost

Columbus Dispatch

NATURE
December 1st, 2013

Jim McCormac

May 13, 1851, was a big day for Charles Pease.

But the date turned out to be more momentous for his father-in-law, Jared Kirtland.

That spring morning, Pease was collecting birds on Kirtland’s farm near Cleveland and bagged a warbler unknown to him or anyone else. The specimen made its way to ornithologist Spencer Baird, who named it Kirtland’s warbler in honor of the great Ohio naturalist and politician.

Kirtland’s warbler is one of many birds with honorific titles. Of about 425 species seen thus far in Ohio, the names of 41 recognize an individual. Some are justified, such as the aforementioned warbler (although the collector might have hoped for “Pease’s warbler”). Others are not as deserving.

One of our showiest songbirds is the Blackburnian warbler. The male’s throat is brilliant orange, as if the bird is aflame with glowing embers.

What, though, is a “Blackburne”? Ashton Blackburne was a naturalist who collected animals around New York in the 1700s. One of his specimens wound up with Thomas Pennant, who named the stunning bird for Ashton’s sister, Anna Blackburne, a British botanist. Ms. Blackburne never visited the Americas or saw her namesake in the wild.

Blander are bird names that commemorate a region. Seventy-four of the species found in Ohio are tagged with “Northern,” “Eastern,” “American” or some such locational descriptor. One of these is a woodpecker, the former yellow-shafted flicker. In 1983, ornithologists redubbed the bird “Northern flicker” — a nomenclatural tragedy.

The most common modifiers used in bird names involve color. One hundred forty Ohio species collectively describe a palette of color.

Sometimes these monikers make sense; other times, less so. No one would quibble over the titles of blue jay or yellow warbler.

But an observer might look askance at a red-bellied woodpecker. What red belly? The species has one, but an observer must have a bird practically in hand to see the subtle pinkish feathers.

All of our birds were named during the shotgun era of ornithology, when collectors blasted their target, then described it. Thus, the red belly of the aforementioned woodpecker was obvious to the original describer even if not for us, looking from afar.

Most people are far more attuned to visual senses, and that explains the scarcity of birds named for the sounds they make. Only 24 of our birds are named for their melodies, such as the song sparrow, even though all of them produce sound. Early ornithologists weren’t following their ears nearly as much as their eyes.

Congregations of birds are sometimes given whimsical names.

A flock of crows is a “murder of crows.” You’ve heard of a “gaggle of geese,” but what about a "charm of finches”? A roost of owls is a “parliament.” Wrens are musical, and a group is aptly named a “chime.” Perhaps the “quarrel of sparrows” raiding your feeder is irritating. As an antidote, visit the zoo to discover a “flamboyance of flamingos” or “ostentation of peacocks.”

And my favorite, if not that of the fishy crowd, is a “siege of herons.”

Naturalist Jim McCormac writes a column for The Dispatch on the first and third Sundays of the month. He also writes about nature at www.jimmccormac.blogspot.com.

Kittiwakes: A long, cold journey, including Cleveland

Photo: Chuck Slusarczyk

They've been finding great birds galore of late along Cleveland's Lake Erie coast, many of them practically in the shadow of the Cleveland Browns stadium. Chuck Slusarczyk, ace photographer who has shared his work with us many times, sent along some images of the latest batch of rarities. Viewing Chuck's work made me pine for a trip to the lake, but at least his images allowed me - and you - to live vicariously through his camera's lens.

Above, a first-cycle Black-legged Kittiwake, Rissa tridactyla, showing its distinctive sooty collar. Kittiwakes are mostly pelagic (ocean-going) and we get precious few of them in Ohio. In fact, this bird was Chuck's first kittiwake, along with many others, no doubt. We probably get far more kittiwakes than are seen, but most probably blow right down the middle of Lake Erie on the way to the Atlantic, and are never seen. Once in a while, one has the good matters to come to shore and hang loose for a bit, as this one did.

Other than a small percentage of the population taking a brief Great Lakes hiatus while in transit, Black-legged Kittiwakes are seldom out of sight of the sea. They nest on cliffs overlooking the sea, and winter at sea. This towering rock face is on St. Paul Island, Alaska, which is one of four islands that form the Pribilofs. I made this photo during a June 2010 trip, and I can tell you that this is a cold place. Kittiwakes thrive in cold environments, and spend that vast majority of their lives in wet frosty conditions that would kill you or I in short order.

The ledges of this cliff are festooned with nesting Black-legged Kittiwakes. Being that this is St. Paul Island, there are much rarer Red-legged Kittiwakes mixed in, but most are the former. There aren't many safer nesting spots. Would-be predators will have a tough time accessing kittiwake nests.

This was one of my more surreal experiences on St. Paul. Kittiwakes, gathering moss from the tundra in pea soup thick fog. This is one of few times that kittiwakes purposely alight on flat ground away from the water. As we stood there, taking in the scene, ghostly kittiwakes would materialize from the fog, bills full of moss, flying to the distant coast and their nesting colony.

Kittiwake-harvested moss goes to good use - it provides the birds with fodder to build these bulky cups. Few gull chicks have it as good as the kittiwake chicks. The specific epithet of the Black-legged Kittiwake - Rissa tridactyla - means "three toed". They actually have four toes, but the hind digit is greatly reduced, apparently an adaptation to better improve the birds' ability to stand on narrow cliff ledges such as this.

This is an adult Black-legged Kittiwake, and we never see this plumage in Ohio. All of them are young birds, such as in Chuck's shots. Supposedly there are four records of adults from Lake Erie, but I don't know any details...

The adults are gorgeous black, gray, and white gulls. Very neat and long-winged, the wingtips appearing as if dipped cleanly in a vat of ink. They are wonderful flyers, too - far more at home in the air than anywhere else. I made this image from atop a tall sea cliff, while kittiwake after kittiwake streamed by below, effortlessly riding the turbulent air currents blasting off the sea and smashing into the cliff. If Jonathan Livingston Seagull were real, he'd be a kittiwake.

Photo: Chuck Slusarczyk

If all goes well in the kittiwake nest high on a cliff ledge, this is the result. A strikingly marked juvenile, as in this beautiful image by Slusarczyk. The bold black bands on the wing form a rough W, and the inky-tipped tail band and charcoal neck collar provide punctuation. I've seen four or five of these in Ohio, and they've all jumped out visually from the pack of associated gulls. The best kittiwake find I made was a bird on the Scioto River in downtown Columbus, years ago. Ohio kittiwake records are few and far between away from our Great Lake.

Map courtesy Birds of North America Online/Cornell Lab of Ornithology

It would be most interesting to know the origins of Lake Erie kittiwakes. This species has a split breeding distribution in North America. There are the birds that breed along the Alaskan coastline and island chains, and there are populations centered around the Gulf of St. Lawrence and adjacent Newfoundland on the other side of the continent. There are also disjunct scattered populations breeding in the high arctic of Canada, due north of Hudson Bay. The St. Lawrence populations have expanded greatly in the past 40 years; I'm not sure if the high arctic colonies have also increased.

So, Chuck's immature Black-legged Kittiwake may have wandered into the Great Lakes from the east, by following the St. Lawrence River, forging through Lake Ontario, passing over the falls at Niagara, and eventually finding itself on Lake Erie in the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame's backyard.

Better yet, and a far wilder journey but not an implausible one, is that the kittiwake originated in one of the high arctic colonies. If so, it likely made its way south through Hudson Bay and into James Bay, aerially portaged across the landmass between there and the Great Lakes, and entered our waters. If so, what a trip! That young kittiwake would have traveled nearly 2,500 miles to reach Cleveland! I think that other species of seabirds that are rare on Lake Erie, such as jaegers, travel a path similar to the one outlined above.

Presumably, the Alaska breeders winter in the Pacific off the west coast and it's unlikely those birds would appear here. But, there is another possible point of origin. Many kittiwakes that breed in northern Europe make their way across the Atlantic to our offshore waters, especially young birds. Some of these juveniles stay on this side of the Atlantic for their first year, before heading back to breed when mature. I suppose it's possible that one of these European kittiwakes could make its way to Lake Erie. My money is on the high arctic birds, though.

However this kittiwake came to be in Ohio, it has thrilled many a birder and we're glad to have it. Thanks as always to Chuck for sharing his work, and check out more of his images HERE.