Birds Loose Their Mates Also

Birds and people have similar problems such as losing their mates through death or desertion. When this occurs it places a demanding burden on the surviving mate, whether bird or human.

A fellow bluebird enthusiast, Ann Sawyer, called to report that she found the nestlings of one of her bluebird families dead in the box when she monitored it.

She has seen neither parent since finding the young dead. The nestlings were about a week old.

Her question.

What could have caused the death of the baby birds? It could be they were fed by the parents worms and insects that had eaten a diet of pesticide sprayed foliage. This might be confirmed if the parents return to the box after it is cleaned out and start another family.

If the parents have truly disappeared, most likely they were killed because bluebirds don't commonly desert their nestlings. If one is killed, or flies away from its responsibilities, the other takes over the job of rearing the young until they are able to care for themselves.

Generally, female bluebirds start another nest almost immediately after the young leave the nest. The male then takes charge of the fledglings, feeding them and guiding them in selecting their own food, protecting them until they fly well. The parent birds of the dead brood might have already moved away from the disaster and started a new nest.

It is well to remove the nest as soon as the young fledge. On our bluebird trail, we observed that if it was not removed, often the pair would build a nest on top of the old one bringing it almost to the level of the opening. We found starlings, house sparrows, 'possums, raccoons or other predators could reach their dirty paws or claws into the nest and pull out the eggs or young and destroy them. This happened several times on our trail.

There was a couple who discovered one of their bluebird boxes on the ground and all but one egg gone. The husband secured the box back to the pole. A new nest was built and five eggs laid. The culprit returned and stole the second clutch of eggs without damaging the nest. They decided they needed a metal-mounted box.

Erecting a new box about six feet from the old nest and pole, they removed the nest from that box and put it in the new one. The bluebirds sat on the wire overhead and watched and cheered and hurrahed.

Three days after changing boxes and putting the nest in the new box there were two eggs in the nest. In time, a clutch of five eggs was laid.

These experiences point out how little bluebirds are disturbed by human contact. On our trail, when we found the female on the nest we quickly closed the box. We didn't try to count the eggs. We observed that if the hatching date was near, the mother would not leave but would sit tightly on the eggs. If incubation had just begun, she flew away as we touched the box.

The late T. E. Musselman pointed out that during 40 years of working with thousands of bluebird broods, he had never seen a bluebird desert a nest because of monitoring. Even some, he wrote, didn't leave the nest while he checked the eggs beneath her.

Parrot Talks His Way Home

Window Crashing Birds

Ghostly Chills In The Night Air

A purple and aqua afterglow bars the western sky. As the last gleam of sunset fades, there comes a sudden radiance in the east as the full moon vaults above the wooded hills.

Abruptly, from the wooded lot comes the "whoo, hoo, hoo, hoo" of the great horned owl. Visiting our neighborhood frequently is the barred owl whose screeches and screams send chills up your spine. The great horned owl's voice, a ghostly and weird sound, is much softer than the barred's shrieks.

We stand in the deepening dusk and search for the intruder whose voice comes across the moonlit lot. A few moments later a shadow drifts across the yard and vanishes in the branches of a tall, thickly-leafed sweet gum tree on the front lawn. The flight of the horned owl is powerful, swift, graceful and quiet. This predator's habitat is heavily wooded regions where it nests and finds ample food supply in the deep dark woods. It seldom leaves such security. This is only the third time it has visited us in the 40 years we have lived in this lightly wooded neighborhood.

The great horned usually does not nest in hollows but almost always usurps the nests of red-tailed hawks, eagles, ospreys or crows. They line these stolen stick nests with downy feathers of the owl. These owls are early breeders, the female laying 2 - 4, two being more common, rounded white eggs in February or early March. Incubation is 26 - 30 days with both parents participating. The young leave the nest when they are four or five weeks old. Only one brood a year is undertaken.

These owls are hostile and will not hesitate to attack humans if the owls think their nests or young are in danger. There have been reports that the owl's ferocious attacks draw blood.

Measuring 24 inches with a 60-inch wingspan, the great horned is the largest of the common owls in the Central Savannah River Area. It is some three or four inches larger than the barred, darker in color and brown rather than gray-browned as the barred. Perched, the horned's ear tufts are conspicuous, but in flight the tufts are not usually seen. The large head and short neck will tell you you are seeing the horned owl. It has a white throat patch and large yellow eyes.

Other names for this owl are "Tiger of the air", "Big hoot owl" and "Cat owl".

Though horned owls migrate from the frozen north when food becomes scarce, they are year-round residents of the CSRA.

Beauty And Tragedy Go Hand In Hand

In nature beauty and tragedy often go hand in hand. Some avian creatures are spectacularly lovely in their own right. Others acquire a magnificent beauty through albinism. Seeing a partially albino robin on the lawn set me to reminiscencing about other albinos I have seen.

The sad history of the great egret tells a tale of what is meant by exquisite beauty. This beautiful bird almost became extinct because of being killed for its lovely feathers, used by milliners to decorate hats. Other pretty feathered birds have faced s similar fate.

Albinism in wild creatures gives them a radiant but hazardous beauty. Science attributes this condition to a lack of pigmentation that causes a white color of the skin and of the hair. The eyes of a pure albino appear pink.

Usually albinism in wild creatures means high exposure, for they are more noticeable. Because of their beauty they are more apt to be destroyed by predators. Albinistic creatures have a reputation of being extraordinarily shy. Wild wisdom tells these birds they are different from other feathered creatures and they become wary.

In most cases nature gives to animals and birds of the wild protective coloring. To survive, albinos are cautious, more alert and usually stay close to deep cover. At least the mockingbird and brown thrasher that live in our neighborhood were extremely careful. Never once did I hear either of them sing. They were seen more often in the dusky hours of evening than at any other time of day.

The brown thrasher was not a pure albino. Its wings and tail were washed in light tan and its eyes were bronzy, not pink. Otherwise it was pure white. I never saw it out of cover, it was so unusually wary. It stayed in the neighborhood all that summer, disappearing during the winter.

The next nesting season a friend called to say a "white brown thrasher" with a natural plumaged mate was nesting in his yard. Though we had not known the sex before, we now assumed she was the same bird seen in our yard. She nested on his premises for two summers, then disappeared. As far as we could determine there were no albinistic young in the broods from the two-year nestings.

The white mockingbird was first observed eating lushish mahonia holly berries in our yard. He was not as shy as the thrasher, shyness not being a characteristic of the mocker, and was seen by several of our neighbors. He, or she, stayed around for four years. If the bird nested, the nest was never found.

Several years ago a brood of albinistic bluebirds were hatched at Silver Bluff Sanctuary. Both parents had normal plumage.

Back during the big snow of "73 there was a partial albino cardinal at a fellow birder's home. The beauty of it still lingers in my mind. Notes made at the time I observed the bird will give you a good idea of its beauty.

"The top feathers of its crest are pink, the lower feathers white. The head is white, black eyes, a rosy-pink bill. The throat is white as is the breast and belly. Its back is white with pink secondary and red primary feathers, olive shoulders. Out tail feathers are a dark red-olive. The inner tail feathers are pink. This bird is much more beautiful than a true albino."

Albinism in birds is by no means as rare as many suppose, but being shy because of their white color, albinos tend to shield themselves in deep cover for their own safety making it hard for us to know they are about.