Wood ducklings are natural-born paratroopers (Photo: Winnu, Creative Commons license)
.
What has webbed feet, waterproof feathers, a broad bill… and nests in a tree? Don’t let that last clue fool you. While it’s true most ducks build their nests on the ground, the wood duck (Aix sponsa) aims a little higher.
This species is easy to recognize, at least as adults. The male is a dandy dabbler, sporting a glossy iridescent green head, a white chin, and a speckled russet cravat. The female’s wardrobe is a bit more subdued, but her large, white teardrop-shaped eye patches are unique among North American ducks.
Wood duck hens prefer to nest in a tree cavity, but they’ll accept a custom-made nesting box if it’s positioned correctly—you know what the Realtors say, “Location, location, location.” After hatching, ducklings spend about 24 hours in the nest while their baby down dries. The young are precocial, meaning they can walk, swim, and feed on their own—but first they have to get out of the tree house. And that first step is an 8–30’ doozy!
Momma flies down to the ground and then calls for her offspring to follow. But the hen has fully developed, fully feathered wings. There’s nothing aerodynamic about a one-day old duckling. Yet, one by one, they use their sharp claws to scramble up from the nest floor to the entrance, balance on the edge, and…. LEAP!
Fluttering useless wing stubs they fall like fluffy stones and land with a thump on their sternums. They shake it off and wait for the rest of their siblings to take the plunge, then the whole family heads off to join Dad at the nearest body of water. Foolhardy as this approach to child-rearing may seem to us, it’s worked very well for generations of tree-nesting ducks.
That is, until they had to share the woods with people. Mother duck may mistake a swimming pool for a pond, and while she can easily clear a tall fence to find wilder waters, her youngsters can’t. However, they’re drawn instinctively to the safety of water. Homeowners who find themselves hosting an impromptu waterfowl pool party should consult with their friendly neighborhood wildlife rehabilitator for advice. Wood ducklings are shy creatures, and the wrong kind of help can send them into a state of shock, or worse.
Delicate? I guess that’s one way to look at it. Who am I to judge, though? I’m not afraid of heights, but if I were a duckling making that jump from nest to terra firma, I’d be in shock before I was halfway down.
.
..
.
Start your day with a little Next-Door Nature—click the “subscribe” link in the upper right-hand corner of this page and receive notifications of new posts!
By the end of winter, the fruit upon which cedar waxwings depend can pack a real punch (Photo: Eve Fraser-Corp, Creative Commons license)
.
I recently came across a report that cedar waxwings (Bombycilla cedrorum) have returned to Texas. Every time I hear someone mention this species I’m reminded of my days as director of a wildlife center in Houston. For a few weeks every year the waxwings would show up by the cardboard box-full and the rehabilitation clinic would turn into… well, a different kind of rehab center.
With their handsome, distinctive plumage, even a newbie birder can easily recognize this species. Their yellow tail- and red wing-tips look as if they’ve been dipped in sealing wax—thus the name. With a range that covers much of North America, waxwings aren’t rare but they’re not as common as some of our iconic backyard birds, so it’s always a bit of a thrill when they’re in the neighborhood.
They’re one of only a handful of avian species in the U.S. and Canada whose diet is composed largely (but not entirely) of fruit, a useful characteristic when one shares a breeding territory with brown-headed cowbirds (Molothrus ater) and other nesting parasites—females who don’t bother to build a nest of their own. Instead, they leave their eggs in the nests of other birds and the cowbird chicks are cared for like biological children. In fact, the foster nestling normally out-competes the surrogate’s own offspring when food is being passed out but the high-sugar diet provided by waxwing parents, while perfect for their own kids, causes the cowbird to waste away.
Waxwing adaptability has allowed them to benefit from the introduction of non-native fruit-bearing plants used in urban and suburban landscaping. For example, they seem to love honeysuckle… and it shows. The red pigment in the exotic vine’s berries can turn the bird’s canary tail-tips bright orange, a plumage change birders and ornithologists first began to notice in the 1960s.
Waxwings travel in flocks that may include 40+ individuals, all searching for pyracantha and privet, choke cherries, mulberries, and any other tree or shrub that bears sugary fruit. Once they’ve gobbled up every last berry, they move along without a backward glance.
Unless the fruit is spiked.
It’s not a matter of someone trying to contribute to avian delinquency. From late autumn until plants have produced new spring and summer crops, last season’s berries, drupes, drupelets, pomes, and other sweet seed containers hang on, growing inceasingly less… fresh, shall we say. Temperature fluctuations and the presence of wild yeasts often will cause fruit to ferment in situ. Migration and colder temperatures make for voracious birds and the waxwings are carbo-loading as fast as they can swallow. They don’t seem to notice some of the snacks pack a punch. When you weigh slightly more than an ounce, the alcohol content doesn’t have to be very high to knock you for a loop. Next thing you know, birds are careening around on the front lawn like New Year’s Eve.
It can look rather comical but it’s no laughing matter. Many inebriated birds are seriously injured or are killed when they fly into cars and windows.
Good Samaritans across the county scoop disoriented birds into cardboard boxes and head for the nearest wildlife rehabilitation center. There, the birds are given a head-to-toe, beak-to-tail examination. Most of the patients are simply allowed to safely sleep it off in a warm, dark room before being released to continue their travels… although they probably set out with a doozy of a headache.
Start your day with a little Next-Door Nature—click the “subscribe” link in the upper right-hand corner of this page and receive notifications of new posts!
No, not Tchaikovsky. These are avian nutcrackers (left to right): northern cardinal, rose-breasted grosbeak, and red crossbill. (Photos: ehpien, Conrad Kulper, and Eugene Beckes, Creative Commons licenses)
.
Ever wonder why hens’ teeth (and any other kind of avian teeth for that matter) are rare? It’s because teeth are heavy. That’s a problem if you live life on the wing but can’t use a knife and fork to cut your meals up into easy-to-swallow morsels. A bird’s beak (aka bill) is an adaptation to flight that serves most of the same functions choppers handle in Earth-bound creatures, but without the high metabolic cost of carrying around a set of pearly whites.
Figure A. Beak shape and size offers a clue as to what the owner likes to eat.
The beak is a sheath of tough skin on the upper and lower mandibles. Wild birds exploit a wide array of feeding resources and niches, and they are aided in this task by a startling diversity of beak morphology (see Figure A). For example, nectarivores (nectar-eaters), including hummingbirds, usually have long, straw-like beaks that reach deep into flowers. Insectivores (insect-eaters) tend to have narrow, slightly curved beaks that can reach into the small crevices where their prey try to stay out of sight. Piscivores (fish-eaters) have a sharp hook, serrated edges, or both, that help them hold on to their slippery supper. Some of the most distinctive beaks, though, belong to nutcrackers.
The northern cardinal (Cardinalis cardinalis) is a familiar and popular resident of cities and suburbs, possibly because it’s so easy to spot and identify. It’s so popular, in fact, that seven U.S. state legislatures have chosen this species to be their avian poster child. At 8½—9” (21—23 cm) from jaunty crest to tail tip, it’s a medium-sized songbird with a stereotypic nut- and seed-busting beak—short, stout, and cone-shaped. Cardinal beaks can crush more than seeds, as I can personally attest. From time to time a cardinal would find its way, with the help of a kindly Samaritan, to the Houston wildlife rehabilitation center where I used to work. When this happened, I would stand at the intake desk, teeth clenched, trying to muster enough courage to open the shoebox in my hands. Now, I like cardinals as much as the next person—I’m from St. Louis, after all, where you can walk down any street in the whole town and know you’ll see someone wearing a shirt adorned with a bright crimson bird perched on a baseball bat. You’d think that would make me an insider of sorts, an honorary member of the family who’s entitled to a few special perks. Hardly. Every time I’ve held a cardinal in my hand, no matter how gentle the exam or treatment, I was rewarded for my efforts with a throbbing blood blister on my palm, administered by a tiny but furious red vice-grip. Who would have guessed you could feel empathy for a sunflower seed?
The rose-breasted grosbeak (Pheucticus ludovicianus) is slightly smaller (7—7½” or 18—21 cm) with a pale, conical bill reminiscent of the cardinal’s, only more zaftig… a chestnut to the redbird’s hazelnut. Of course, it’s natural for kin to resemble one another, and the RBG is, in fact, one of 17 species known as the “cardinal-grosbeaks.”* Grosbeak—from the French grosbec (gros thick + bec beak) is a bit of a misnomer for this striking black and white bird with a cherry cravat (the females prefer a more sedate, sparrow-like wardrobe). Compared to the schnozzes sported by some members of the Cardinalidae clan, the RBG has a proud but modest snoot. Although not as common as its stop-light colored cousin, human development—and the fire suppression policies that accompany it—have caused forests to sprout where once only grasses grew, allowing the RBG to expand its breeding and migration range westward (although the Rocky Mountains have proven to be a tough nut to crack). They’ve become a more frequent visitor to backyard bird bistros, where they like to snack on safflower, cracked corn, and black-striped sunflower seed. Insects and fruit are part of their diet as well, but seeds account for the majority of their calorie intake, especially during winter months.
The beak says it all—red crossbills (Loxia curvirostra) are true specialists. At first glance you might think this is a bird in dire need of an orthodontist, but that oddly shaped bill allows them to force open conifer cones and extract the tasty nuts inside. The muscles that allow birds to bite down are stronger than the ones used to open their beaks. But unlike cardinals and grosbeaks, who can clamp down with great force on tough-hulled sunflower seeds (and tender wildlife rehabilitator hands), the crossbill can wedge the slightly opened tips of its bill between the scales of a tightly closed pinecone and then bite down, pushing the scale up to expose the kernel. The red crossbill is extremely dependent on conifer seeds—wildlife biologists refer to animals whose very existence depends on a narrowly-defined habitat or food sources as an obligate species. Most granivores (seed-eaters) start their lives eating protein-rich insects, making a dietary change when they reach adulthood, but crossbills feed on seeds from cradle to grave. Of course, there are risks associated with being a specialist… we’ve all been warned against “putting all your eggs in one basket.” But as long as long as you follow the advice of Mark Twain and “watch that basket!” there are benefits as well. For example, red crossbills can raise young any time of the year—even during winter—as long as the cone crop is abundant. I guess some nutty looking adaptations are really quite shrewd.
The Clark’s nutcracker (Nucifraga columbiana) uses the same reliable food resource—conifer nuts—to expand its breeding season. But this member of the Corvidae family (jays and crows) takes the idea even further. It is a hoarder, storing surplus pine, spruce, and hazelnuts. They actually have a special pouch under their tongues to carry seeds over long distances. A single Clark’s can hide as many as 300,000 pine nuts over the course of a year, and they use this cache crop to feed themselves and their nestlings. Research has shown they have a phenomenal memory and can find most of the seeds they’ve stashed, even months later. Most… but not all; some of the hidden seeds germinate, re-establishing the bird’s favorite trees in areas cleared by fires or logging operations. It’s a sustainable harvest practice, however accidental, and a form of basket-watching that would make Samuel Clemens proud.
.
* The grosbeak taxa is a conglomerate of distantly related songbirds known as a polyphyletic (“of many races”) group that we’ll explore in greater detail in future NDN posts.
This species is easy to recognize, at least as adults. The male is a dandy dabbler, sporting a glossy iridescent green head, a white chin, and a speckled russet cravat. The female’s wardrobe is a bit more subdued, but her large, white teardrop-shaped eye patches are unique among North American ducks.
That is, until they had to share the woods with people. Mother duck may mistake a swimming pool for a pond, and while she can easily clear a tall fence to find wilder waters, her youngsters can’t. However, they’re drawn instinctively to the safety of water. Homeowners who find themselves hosting an impromptu waterfowl pool party should consult with their friendly neighborhood wildlife rehabilitator for advice. Wood ducklings are shy creatures, and the wrong kind of help can send them into a state of shock, or worse.
