Bonfire Visitor

Two non-conformist Hermit Thrushes have a mysterious habit of visiting us at restoration bonfires in winter. 

Why are you here?

For years at Somme Woods, one would show up in winter around the bonfire toward the end, as the crowd drifted away. We'd never see it at any other time. 

This year, one has shown up thus at the end of our Saturday work sessions at Shaw Woods. See more about this species in All About Birds.

According to standard sources, most thrushes winter in the Amazon or Central America. But some of the Hermits may winter as far north as the Ohio River - Kentucky, Missouri, and the very south edge of Illinois. Even so, we're far north of their regular winter range. (In the summer, we're far south of their breeding grounds.)

At the bonfires, they seem quite tame. They seem to be finding insect prey uncovered and/or warmed up by our work. They also seem like kind of friendly colleagues, even if we don't know quite what their presence means. 

Acknowledgements

Thanks to All About Birds for both photos and good info.

Thanks to Eriko Kojima for proofing and edits. 

Love Among The Woodpeckers

I had a little big experience in early January. See YouTubes and photos below, but it was so much more than they show. To try to put this drama into words: 

At first, three downy woodpeckers, in stylized fashion, danced and sang their hearts out - most spectacularly. Then one "got voted off the island." 

I watched for about 15 minutes. I'd never seen anything like it. Very fast, very precise, it reminded me of David Attenborough videos from the tropical rain forest. I realized that a lot of the magic of the exotic tropics is how hard people work to get great video. This performance was as spectacular as the Attenborough miracles, but would anyone go to that much trouble to record it? And if not, do we lose a lot of potential love/respect/constituency for the needy temperate ecosystem? 

Please, someone, make compelling videos, YouTubes, TikToks and more, to help We The People learn to care for the ecosystem near us as much as it deserves and needs. 

Nothing I can find on-line comes close to what I saw. The best I could find was some sweet dancing by flickers - marred by the photographer scaring them from time to time. But it basically held only a vague hint of the dramatic performance I saw. 

It was a warm day in the "dead" of winter. The birds had amorous thoughts of spring. When my downies were a splendidly operatic threesome, there were crescendos of passionate calls and feather-flourishes from all three. Winter is the time for pairing up. Then, once one of two competitors was chosen, the dance began in earnest. 

They'd face each other, often on horizontal branches, and with lightning speed crane their heads and bodies from side to side, striking various dramatic poses, in unison, or each going precisely the opposite the direction from the other, almost too fast to watch, singing their impassioned soprano duet all the time. 

LesleyTheBirdNerd has a nice piece on the downies, but for drama, I'm sorry, it pales. You probably already need to be a BirdNerd to want to watch it? What I saw deserved both Spielberg and Attenborough.   

There is a video of red-headed woodpeckers mating. But the interest comes mostly from handsome plumage. The videographer missed the dancing and caught only "the act" - which, in the bird case, has little prurient interest - or any other kind. 

I did find a video of woodpeckers doing a pale version of what I saw. I this case, pileated woodpeckers danced (with nice technique, but less obvious passion) on Thomas Shue's gravel driveway. 

Thanks, Thomas, a treat. But the world of conservation needs more, if people are to get excited about our temperate ecosystems. The planet needs us to fall in love with (and have our lives be inspired by) what's near and dear to us.

Parental advice from downy woodpeckers: 

"About 2-3 days before the young fledge, the adults will reduce feeding in order to encourage the young to leave the nest. Adults will continue feeding and teaching their young for as many as 3 weeks after the young leave the nest."

The Woodpeckers of the Somme Preserves

Somme has rare species and impressive numbers, in part because so many trees have died of elm and ash diseases and in part because stewardship kills many invasive trees in the process of improving prairie, savanna, and oak woodland habitat. Let's enjoy elevated numbers of woodpeckers while we can ... and let's continue good stewardship to assure good habitat for all, into the future. 

Red-headed Woodpecker

This beauty had been called the fastest declining bird species in North America, because its savanna and open woodland habitat is degrading so fast under the onslaught of invasive trees and shrubs. No red-headed woodpeckers were seen at Somme during the early years of restoration. Once Somme Prairie Grove savanna restoration was well under way, a single pair showed up and raised young. But the big woodpecker triumph was at Somme Woods. Though these 200+ acres were slower to get opened to healthy sunlight and biodiversity, now that the zone stewards are making rapid progress, four pairs nested last year. Wonderful. 

Photo by Lisa Musgrave. In this species, both sexes have completely red heads. 

Northern Flicker

Northern flicker is listed as a species of concern by the Bird Conservation Network, mostly because the natural habitat of this ground-feeding, ant-eating woodpecker is sharply reduced. It can breed in yards and parks, if pesticide levels are not too great. LesleyTheBirdNerd has a nice piece on them. 

Pileated Woodpecker

Not expected at Somme, this crow-sized woodpecker has started showing up fairly often. Keep your eyes out for something big. Photo by Lisa Musgrave.

Hairy Woodpecker

Downy on left. Hairy on right.
The hairy looks a lot like the downy. To tell them apart, the main clues are the overall size, size of bill, and the calls. The hairy is deeper-voiced and does "a rattle like a kingfisher." (Also, the downy has black dots on its white outer tail feathers. The hairy typically does not.) The the photo below Lisa Musgrave captured a still of hairy woodpeckers doing a similar mating dance.

Red-bellied Woodpecker

Red-bellied woodpecker rarely has even a hint of red on its belly. Some people call it "red-headed" - which wouldn't be a bad name, if another bird didn't already have it. This head has its kind of orangy red on the back and top - not on the sides and front. 

Yellow-bellied Sapsucker

Eriko Kojima points out that there is another woodpecker that, though not regularly seen, is a constant presence at Somme - and indeed, most places that have trees. We mostly don't see these birds; they just pass through in spring on their way to the northern forests; instead we see the lines of holes they leave in trees. 

Sapsuckers eat the tasty inner bark of trees and drink the sweet spring sap. They return to their lines of holes after a while to eat more - especially the insects attracted to that sap. And after they do all the work, many freeloaders join them. These feeding stations are said to be important to early migrant hummingbirds under some weather condition. Warblers, kinglets, orioles, squirrels, and other join in the banquet - though the sapsuckers sometimes patrol their lines of food founts and drive others off. The handsome culprit with a mix of old and recent holes is shown below:

Credits and references

Opening photo of downies dancing by Lisa Musgrave. Lisa writes: "There was a lot of chirping, but the most obvious part (to me) in all the woodpecker courting was the neck stretching, left and right, back and forth, as they circled the tree truck. Then they would fly to another tree and start again. It was fun to watch!"

Parental advice thanks to: Wild Bird Watching. 

Flicker, red-bellied, and downy/hairy photos courtesy of AllAboutBirds from the Cornell Lab of Ornithology

Photo of old sapsucker holes from Nature Watch.

Photo of actual handsome sapsucker with holes thanks to blog.nature.org. 

Thanks for proofing and edits to Eriko Kojima and Kathy Garness.