Inca Dove

Inca Dove photo courtesy of Clinton and Charles Robertson.

Overall, the yard at our new house isn't very birdy--there isn't much in the way of understory right now. However, one of the nice surprises has been the pair of Inca dove that appear in my yard regularly. I usually don't see them, just hear the distinctive sound of their wings as they take off when I come out of the house. This morning though as I was sipping my tea on the back porch, I was able to watch the doves during the breakfast feeding frenzy at the feeder. The Inca's seem to come in before and after the masses of white-winged dove.

We in Wichita Falls, TX are just about as far north as the dove occurs--they are very sensitive to cold weather. Although the doves don't seem as common here as they used to be (purely anecdotal), they are expanding their range, according to Birds of North America Online. They seem to prefer to live around people. The species account in BNA (available only with a subscription) tells a lot of interesting facts about these doves. I was aware of their pyramid roosting to combat cold, but I did not know their metabolic rate is about 20% less than most passerines, which seems to help them cope with the hot environments in which they live and would indicate why they might be more sensitive to cold.

Such a sweet little dove--I hope you are able to enjoy them in your yard too.

Good birding!

Swainson Love or War?

Why is it that I often see really interesting things while driving, when I can't easily stop in time to get a good look?



I was driving the other day and caught a glimpse of two Swainson's hawks grappling and falling toward the ground. They broke apart and flew away just before reaching the ground. Neither appeared to be injured. Could it have been two birds establishing territory for nesting or was this some mating ritual?



I pulled up Birds of North America online, my usual source of information on all things about birds (especially relating to ID and behavior.) I did not find a reference to this specific behavior. The mating behavior described was not specifically as seen--that doesn't mean this wasn't what I saw. By the same token, Swainson's are not especially territorial, except immediately around a nest and then primarily against red-tailed hawks, not one another.



It's interesting to note that the Cornell All About Birds shows that Swainson's don't winter in our area--just another example that birds don't read the range maps. They are not in The Birds of North Central Texas checklist as common in the winter, but I have been seeing them fairly regularly the last couple of years--another bird changing its range?



Another mystery; another reason birding is always so interesting.



Good birding!

Inca Dove Question

The other day Bob, from Wild Bird Rescue asked me if Inca Doves migrate. I told him I didn't think they did, as I see them here in the winter regularly. However, the two that normally feed at my feeders haven't been seen in several weeks. Bob said the flock of a dozen he has a Wild Bird Rescue routinely has been down to two or three.

When I am not sure about a bird question, I go to my trusty "Birds of North America Online," a subscription service from the Cornell Lab of Ornithology. They have a free resource I frequently link to in this blog (All About Birds) but the BNA has a lot more information. Anyway, there is no indication in the literature about Inca Doves migrating, in fact, BNA indicates the doves tend to stay put year around. However, there is prominent discussion of cold sensitivity in Inca Doves. We are on the northern edge of the Inca Dove range, and it has been unusually cold for longer stretches than normal this winter. Perhaps our doves have been casualties of the weather. I would hate that to happen--these diminutive dove are not that common now.

I did find some interesting information about the Inca Dove on BNA. Doves are among the first and last babies we receive at Wild Bird Rescue--the Inca dove rears up to 5 clutches a season of 2 babies each. However, BNA also notes many broods are lost to storms, wind and rain. If you have ever seen a dove's nest, that's easy to believe.

A subscription to Birds of North America Online is $40 a year; $25 if you are a member of the Texas Ornithological Society (TOS) also.

Good Birding!

Bird Sounds

Birders often identify birds entirely or in part by sound. Although we tend to think of bird sounds as bird songs, there are other sounds which are distinctive to some species of birds that are not songs.

One sound I associate with fall is the sound of Inca Dove wings when they fly. It sounds like dry leaves rustling and is very distinctive. Unfortunately, I am not aware of any sound libraries that have captured this sound--they focus on calls. The Birds of North America Online (access available by subscription only) mentions this sound, but doesn't provide a recording. However, it does say the sound is produced by elongated 6th and 7th primary feathers and that immature birds produce less sound because only one primary is longer. If you're interested in a subscription to BNA, it is $40 a year; $25 a year if you are a member of the Texas Ornithological Society (TOS.) The Cornell Lab of Ornithology has the online Macaulay Library of sounds, but I haven't taken the time to listen to all of the available recordings to see if any capture the wing sound.

One non-song sound that these libraries do contain is of woodpeckers drumming. Different species of woodpeckers drum in differing rythyms, which can be used to identify woodpeckers in the field.

Speaking of sounds....Bob Lindsay of Wild Bird Rescue reports in his blog that he heard the distinctive calls of sandhill cranes at Lake Wichita this week.

Good birding!

Winter Sparrows

It's cold this morning. Near 70 yesterday and in the 20's this morning.

One of the special things about winter is the arrival of the winter sparrows. A few years ago I set myself the task of learning the LBJs and have become much better with my identification, although I am by no stretch an expert.

I consider the field sparrow one of my winter feeder favorites. A small sparrow, it has a wide-eyed look due to the distinctive eye ring. I usually have one or two that will come to the feeder each day; today I was excited to have three at one time searching the ground for the seed that I throw out each morning (not that there is much to search for--I am generous in the amount I throw on the ground.)

I decided to look up the species account for the field sparrow on Birds of North America online (http://bna.birds.cornell.edu/bna) and my first surprise was the range map. It showed Wichita Falls in the year-around area of the map. I know I have never seen nor heard a field sparrow in this area during the summer. I have an email out to Terry McKee from the North Texas Bird and Wildlife Club for clarification. She and her sister Debra Halter keep records for this area and publish the bird checklist.

Field sparrows live in much of the eastern United States and don't migrate much. They vacate the very northern portion of their range and their southern range moves south somewhat. Their range is contained within North America--unlike many of our migratory birds, they do not move south into Central or South America.

According to BNA, the field sparrow normally doesn't frequent areas inhabited by humans and is uncommon in the suburbs. I suppose that is why it causes comment when I mention them at my feeders. But I have an unruly yard, next to an unkempt lot near open area. Perhaps that is why I am so lucky.

As is true of many sparrows, they eat primarily grass seed, supplemented by insects in the breeding season. Field sparrows build their nests in tall grasses within a few feet of shrubby vegetation or in the crotches of shrubs or saplings. They may nest multiple times in a season, building a new nest each time. Only the female broods the eggs.

One interesting item I noted in the species account was a record of the field sparrow feigning a wing injury when a predator approached a nest. We think of this in the killdeer--I wonder how many other species of bird demonstrate this behavior?

Another interesting note in the account was that cowbird parasitism was not very successful. Although cowbirds did parasitize field sparrow nests, few of the cowbirds fledged (unfortunately, neither did the baby field sparrows.) Makes you wonder why cowbirds continue to try, doesn't it? It would seem at some point, this behavior would stop. But perhaps the cowbird can't differentiate between one little bird and another.

Good birding!

White-winged Doves in Abundance

I looked out my dining room window earlier today to count birds for Project Feederwatch and had 22 white-winged doves. When I first moved to Wichita Falls, we rarely saw white-winged doves. A few years ago, Texas Parks and Wildlie asked Wild Bird Rescue to notify them any time we had a baby come in as there were few records of nesting in the area. Times have changed.

Both the white-winged dove and Eurasian collared dove populations have boomed in town over the past several years. They are by far the most numerous doves in town. They don't seem to care much for the rural life--mourning doves still predominate there. People who feed birds are beginning to get aggravated with the birds. Unlike other doves that feed on the ground on seed spilled by others from feeders, white-winged dove will land on the feeders themselves and stop other birds from eating. One would think that white-winged dove would be too big to sit on a tube feeder perch, but that is not the case--they are fairly agile for a large bird. And they love black-0il sunflower seed.

According to Bird of North American Online (one of my favorite internet sites), prior to 1980 white-winged doves were found primarily in the Rio Grande and since have expanded northward into Oklahoma (in fact, Wichita Falls is specifically listed as one of the expansion areas.)

They like pecan and live oak trees for nesting and usually have two broods a year (since they start in March and end in August/September in Wichita Falls, I would be surprised if some don't sneak in an extra one in this area, but I could not find any documented cases of that.)

Improved Membership Bennies from TOS

The Texas Ornithological Society (TOS) has been working hard to make membership more attractive. Brad Lirette, the Membership Committee chair, has been pulling out all the stops to improve the value of TOS membership (in the interests of disclosure, I am a life member of TOS).

Recently, it was announced that TOS members could get their subscription to Birds of North America for $25 a year instead of $42 (of course, that happened right after I renewed this year--but next year will come around quickly enough). Also TOS members can also get 30% off books published by the Texas A&M University Press (and we've already established that one cannot have too many bird books!)

Thanks, Brad and TOS!

Getting Out the Winter Duds

(Note: photo courtesy of Lila Arnold)

The European Starlings are molting into their winter attire. In the summer, they appear predominantly brown--I think because so many are young birds (they have a very high survival rate). Right now they are an odd combination of winter and summer with speckled breasts and brown backs and wings. Soon they will be a glossy black with spots all over them.

The starling is a very successful introduced species. Today some 200 million starlings make their home in the United States from an original release of about 100 individuals in New York's Central Park in 1890 and 1891. This is not a good thing for our native cavity-nesters as starlings are intensely competitive for these nesting sites.

Although I think of starlings as year-around residents, many starlings do migrate. They tend to be associated with urban areas and agricultural crop land--areas with short vegetation. They avoid large areas of woodland or desert. They will eat almost anything. Although invertebrates (especially those which live in the soil) are their favorite food, they eat fruits and berries, seeds, garbage, and livestock and pet food. Their diet is almost exclusively invertebrates in the summer and more plant foods in the winter.

I was reading the account on starlings in Cornell University's Birds of North America (http://bna.birds.cornell.edu/bna) and found it interesting that the digestive system of the starling changes with the change in diet:"The digestive system of starlings can respond to changes in diet to make more efficient use of a seasonally variable food supply. After switching to plant food, the gut lengthens, the gizzard becomes larger, and the intestinal villi lengthen (in Feare 1984). The rate of food passage through the gut also increases (Levey and Karasov 1989)."

I am always amazed what information you can find on Birds of North America--I didn't know that starlings cannot digest sucrose or that they prefer green nesting materials.

I don't care much for starlings, mostly because they are very aggressive in seeking cavities to nest and will evict many of our natve birds. Among them: wood ducks, buffleheads, woodpeckers, bluebirds, great crested flycatchers, purple martins, and tree swallows. Since there are many other small burds that use bluebird boxes to nest, I assume they would also interfere with them: wrens and chickadees for example. However, you have to admire their ability to be so successful in the scheme of things.

Unfortunately, there is not a good deterrent for starlings--they adapt fairly quickly. I don't often have any starlings in my yard, but I don't maintain a beautiful yard either. My neighbors have them; I see them as I drive by. But I rarely have any. Sometimes in the winter I will have one or two show at the feeder. But my yard has a lot of bushes, tall grass and trees and very little grass. There are good things about being the neighborhood yard pariah.

Indoor Bird Activities

Any birds out today will need water wings. It poured all night long. Many local roads are closed. So I am doing "indoor birding." My subscription to Birds of North America online was to expire today, so I took care of renewing. If you haven't looked at this resource, you should.

BNA is an on-line resource which replaced a very expensive series of books a few years back. I use it when I am preparing to make a presentation about birds, write an article, or just want to listen to the calls of a bird for identification. You can sign up at bna.birds.cornell.edu. This is just one of the great resources available from the Cornell Lab of Ornithology. Since I am sure I will talk about other items at some point in the future, I won't now.

Today is also the monthly meeting of the North Texas Bird and Wildlife Club. Although the group has programs on many nature-related topics, the favorite topic is birds. Tonight's program is on Birds on Coins. The group meets the third Tuesday of each month at 7 pm at the NALC building on Southwest Parkway in Wichita Falls, TX. Like many clubs, the group is small but dedicated. Guests are always welcome.