Download TRANSCRIPT 6/27/12 Bird Notes with Mark LaBarr of Audubon Vermont

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TRANSCRIPT
EPISODE DATE: 6/27/12
EPISODE NAME: Bird Notes with Mark LaBarr of Audubon Vermont
Today on Across the Fence it's our monthly bird notes program. We're going to talk about some
of the interesting things happening in the bird world. Good afternoon and thanks for joining us,
I'm Judy Simpson. As always on the fourth Wednesday of the month I am joined by Mark
LaBarr, conservation biologist for Audubon Vermont. Great to see you.
Mark.: Always great to be here.
Judy.: We're going to start off with something that's really close to home to the Across the Fence
staff. Let's take a look what he thinks going on here?
Mark.: It's funny because what's happening was this raven has been coming over to the video
building. The building is made of glass very close to the quarry nearby where raven’s
nest. Keith Silva got out there and took these images of this raven doing some crazy antics up
there. Holding on pulling the stuffing out between the windows.
Judy.: That's not good.
Mark.: Yet it's pecking on the windows. We are assuming both the male and female have been
walking along the edge. More than likely this bird is doing what we get viewers calling in about
every spring with robins and cardinals hitting windows. It's probably seeing its reflection and
since it's nesting close by with its territorial range so it comes over to see who's around and it is
bothering them.
Judy.: It's the same bird.
Mark.: It's that same bird right that keeps showing up. People at that whole building were
talking about it so Keith got some of the footage for us and that was great to see. Always nice to
get bird stuff right there at Across the Fence.
Judy.: What else do you have for us today?
Mark.: I thought I would show some pictures of some cool birds for me. Some normal birds
from around Vermont. The first one is a verrie which is a thrush. Or let's start out with a cat
bird. That cat bird what's cool about that is you can see that's my hand right there. It's a bird that
I captured it's got a band on its leg and it was captured about three years ago. And this is a bird
that has come back to the Audubon now and has flown back and forth to Central America. We
know that because of that band. The band has a number on it and we've talked about bird
banding here before. It's great to see this guy return to the Audubon. And the same thing with
the next bird. This is a verrie it's a thrush so it's in with the robins and wood thrushes and hermit
thrushes. This is one we're seeing all over the Audubon right now. This is an old timer too. We
caught this bird four years ago. This was a female and again it's a bird that flew down to me our
tropical migrants in a big migration that likes to come back and likes the habitat it finds of the
Audubon. It's one of the ways we use bird banding to follow survivorship to see how long these
birds live and we are also able to track that bird. We will probably catch that bird a couple of
times during the summer and potentially catch its young as well.
Judy.: Interesting.
Mark.: Yes so all the information goes to the institute for bird populations and they are able to
crunch those numbers and come up with productivity data as well as survivorship data.
Judy.: That's great. What other birds are you seeing around?
Mark.: It's been pretty good and I’ll stick now with the Audubon. These birds have been around
too, people have been reporting them. A black billed cuckoo this is a really cool tropical bird in
fact my friend was driving down the road and that's exactly what he said to me. I saw this weird
bird and it looked like he'd been to Jamaica. The black billed cuckoos are around people have
been seeing them around the Audubon, we've been hearing them and they make a typical Koo
Koo Koo Koo noise. They like shrub habitats but it's a really cool bird with a red eye and the
long tail.
We've also been out trying to find golden winged warblers. This is a species of concern and
there's a whole working group that's evolved around this particular species which has been
declining. It likes early successional habitat as well so I've been visiting a couple of different
places. The Charlotte Wildlife Park and Geprag's Community Park in Hinesburg they have a
number of these birds and that's been kind of fun. Always a nice bird to see since it's not so
common. With that bird we find this bird. This is the blue winged warbler. Both the golden
winged and the blue winged they use the same habitat so you can often find them in the same
location.
Again Geprag’s in Hinesburg up we're seeing these guys but what's interesting about these, they
can also hybridized. One of the hybrids they create is a Brewster’s warbler. So they get
components of each one of those. You can see this bird kind of has that black eye stripe of the
blue wing warbler it's got some golden wings on it and these birds will not only look similar to
each one but they will sometimes saying the one species song sometimes sing the others song so
over a Geprag’s Park for instance we picked up one Brewster there and all the golden wings and
blue winged warblers that we had. This is kind of a problem for the golden wing because as the
blue wing expands into the golden wing’s territory it genetically swamps that species so it's kind
of slowly taking over and you don't see as many new or golden wings around anymore.
Another bird we have been seeing around the Audubon, actually interesting enough, has been
tree swallows. Tree swallows we have 10 or so boxes that are set up and this is a male and
female and a classic bluebird tree swallow box and we haven't seen any tree swallows around at
all at the Audubon this year. They came they moved around but they didn't set up shop which is
very unusual for us. Talking to a number of other people that has also been the case.
Judy.: Yes that happened in my yard usually we have a pair.
Mark.: So they're not around and when I posted on the listserv we got people that said they had
normal numbers there are people who said they did and so it will be a mystery that we're going to
try to follow. Then one other bird that's really cool is the morning warbler. This is a bird that
you can see has a black bib there that gray hood we're seeing that at the Audubon as well. We
were doing some power line surveys walking up and down the VELCO power lines. And we
had a couple of morning warblers yesterday they are another early successional forest habitat
bird that shows up in those scrubby kinds of things.
Judy.: What about any other surveys?
Mark.: One of the things we've been starting to look at is purple martin. I sit on what's called a
scientific advisory group on birds and that advises the endangered species committee. This is a
bird that has been declining and we've discussed whether not we should recommend it be listed
as threatened or endangered. This summer they have been going out and looking for purple
martins. Purple martins are pretty easy to locate because they nest in martin houses. This is a
structure that many people are familiar with especially if you live around Lake Champlain and
live up and down the lake in these houses. Purple martins are colonial masters so they use these
houses the blame any numbers of them. And when you have a colony's there they often come
back to the same colony. What folks are doing is there going up the islands on Lake Champlain
trying to find the houses and counting the number of birds that are there as well as posting on the
listserv any reports of purple martin occupying houses. They'll be able to take that data and we
will discuss it at the fall scientific advisory group on birds meeting and be able to put together
some information for the endangered species committee to consider.
Judy.: Any other birds in decline?
Mark.: I would go back to the tree swallow we do not know about tree swallows. A lot of these
aerial forgers as they're called are birds that fly around catch food on the wing have been
showing declines so it will be interesting. This might be a species that on a state level we might
start looking at a little bit more closely. It could be small populations are shifting around but it
could be a sign of a larger trend so something to look at in the future.
Judy.: We have some viewer mail this first one is from Proctor Dutton of White River Junction
and he sends a note saying even after mowing we have lots of ticks do birds help with this?
Mark.: Ticks are a big thing, they actually can be vectors. What will happen is and you can see
here a cat bird and a verrie and you can see where the arrows are. Those are actually ticks that
are attached to the face of the bird.
Judy.: Oh dear.
Mark.: Since ticks take some time to feed and birds often migrate. Ticks will move with the
birds and if the bird happens to be carrying Lyme disease or the tick happens to be carrying
Lyme disease by the end of that they both will be carrying it. The tick falls off in a new location
into something that’s one of the reasons. Not necessarily the sole reason but one of the reasons
we're seeing higher numbers of ticks here in Vermont. Especially deer ticks, and higher cases of
Lyme disease. That coupled with the really mild winter has seemed to be a real problem this
year.
Judy.: It's everywhere. We've had an e-mail that came from Cheryl in Milton and she sent along
pictures and said what is this?
Mark.: This is a lunar moth. There have been a number of sightings of these beta butterflies or
moths they're just really big. Almost bird like in size. They get right up there with the size of a
hummingbird and they're really cool to see. A great shot we thank her for sending that in it's
always nice to shift gears a little bit on birds notes.
Judy.: And a bug that you'd like to see outside as opposed to inside.
Mark.: I guess. There's another one to that many people see and that's the hummingbird moth
which is another bird-like one that actually looks a lot like a hummingbird. We get reports of
this all the time and again mixing it up here on bird notes. We go into the insect world every
once in a while.
Judy.: Here's a question from John and Jane Solstrum in Barre. We have two small bird houses
for chickadees a wren took it over yesterday it was throwing out its nesting material from one of
the houses. It was amusing to watch, wondering why it was doing that?
Mark.: Wrens occupy nest boxes. You're saying that you had one that set up shop and the male
will oftentimes if there are number of different boxes will occupy or at least build nests with the
in each one of those. The female then chooses one that she likes. They can dominate a number
of different boxes. I was at a property the other day where the tree swallows were pushed out of
a couple of boxes that they normally use and wrens house wrens like these like sticky nests. The
nests of people that have boxes I open them up and you find a lot of sticks in there that means a
wren. Why the wren was pulling the sticks out if he had potentially put them in there before it
could also be a competitor that's getting in their pulling the sticks out it could also be he's using
them at a different location and has decided to move them along.
Judy.: Recycling.
Mark.: Yes, not exactly sure why he would be doing that, but a number of reasons it could be.
Judy.: We have time for another letter this one's from Lauren Cabot from Worchester. She
writes over the weekend I was weeding my small rhubarb plant and discovered a bird nest
beneath the large rhubarb leaves. The nest is meticulous there's about five white eggs of
brownish reddish spots. I tried unsuccessfully to identify the bird using my bird book. This
coworker suggested that I e-mail you with some pictures so that's what she did. She's curious to
know what kind of bird this might be?
Mark.: This is a junco. You can see the great back in its right down on the ground. She wrote in
from Worchester. Juncoes tend to be in areas a little bit more high elevation. You find them up
on the tops of mountains as well. Once you get into Worchester things are getting up there and
back into the hills a fair bit. It's always nice to get an image that I can identify relatively quickly.
Judy.: Bird detective.
Mark.: Images are great because you can see the bird. We get a lot of calls and some people try
to give as much information as they can but I still get stumped so it's nice to be able to know
exactly which are looking at.
Judy.: I didn't realize that they were building nests on the ground.
Mark.: They do; there are lots of birds that do that. Ground nesters can be more susceptible
sometimes to predation from cats and everything. I recently heard an article that was discussing
turbines and wind turbines and the big uproar about wind turbines killing birds. When they
compare the number of birds killed by wind turbines and cats there was a fairly great disparity
between the two. Those low nesters often can be predated easier but they stay pretty tight. I was
talking to another person who was walking the power line and they came across a turkey and
they almost stepped on the turkey the female stayed so close to that clutch and again that's one of
the strategies. If you can stay tight and a predator misses you when you're walking along.
Judy.: That's the defense.
Mark.: If you flush that gives the predator an idea that there's something around that might be
worth eating.
Judy.: And once again always give birds their space.
Mark.: Always give birds their space that's right. And you said you have a pair of cedar wax
wings.
Judy.: Yes nesting which is new in our yards so that's exciting.
Mark.: That's a beautiful bird to have around.
Judy.: It is it's fun to watch.
Mark.: They're late nesters there like gold finches so they're just getting underway whereas a
number of other birds have already fledged but at least their first clutch.
Judy.: I almost got hit by one. We should remind people that if they have bird related questions
they can pass them along to Mark. You can write to him at 255 Sherman Hollow Road in
Huntington 05462 if you prefer you can contact mark by e-mail. His address is
[email protected]. Send Mark your questions and he will try to find answers for you on
upcoming editions of bird notes. And of course we always love pictures. Thanks for joining us.
Mark.: You're very welcome.
Judy.: That's our program for today; I'm Judy Simpson. We will see you again next time on
Across the Fence.
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