Birds Quarantined at JFK

Birds Fall From the Sky

The Name Truly Fits

Often habits and body markings are the clue to a bird's name. Just so the chipping sparrow's moniker comes from the dry, one tone chip he "chips" over and over again.

Chippies, or chipping sparrows, are the smallest of the species. You may know them by the name Chip-bird, Hair-bird, Hair sparrow or Red-headed chipping bird.

Measuring only 5 to 5 1/2 inches, this littlest sparrow wears atop his head a cinnamon-rufous cap edged in broad white stripes. A dark streak seems to go through his dark eyes. His throat, breast and rump are silvery gray. His coat is light brown streaked with darker brown. The female is dressed like her mate but sometimes in duller colors. Immature chippies are browner looking than either of the adults and have not yet developed any rufous in the crown.

This spiffy little sparrow is a dooryard bird in our area and nests in evergreen shrubbery and trees around our homes as well as in fields and along roadsides. Winter populations of this social bird are much heavier than summer populations because winter visitors merge with local yokels, creating tremendous numbers.

In early spring, northern visitors begin to migrate from wintering playgrounds in small waves of from a half-dozen to a dozen or more to northern nesting grounds.

This littlest sparrow prefers evergreen trees (in the South, pines) or evergreen shrubs to place its small, delicate cup of grass and curly rootlets, cleverly interwoven and lined with hair. Chippy nests have been found lined with black horse hair, white hair, and even red hair, almost the color of their crown. The red hair could have come from a fox, horse, a dog or even a human.

Four bullish-green eggs, thinly spotted with blackish-brown, are laid in the small cradle. Incubation lasts for northern nesting chippies for 11 to 14 days, with the nestlings fledging in about the same period. In the warm South, the incubation period is close to 11 days and the nestlings fledge in 10 to 11 days.

Its diet is mostly wees seed though it does eat a great many insects and worms, largely caterpillars. I watched one morning as a chippy pounced upon a tent caterpillar. Scores were crawling about not long out of the web. While attempting to swallow it, I thought he would choke, but after several jerks and yanks of his head and neck, one big gulp took it down. Such a large worm for such a small stomach.

The chippy's tinkling trill is easily confused with the quavering trill of the dark-eyed junco and the more musical and slower trill of the pine warbler. Until you are able to distinguish the three (veteran bird watchers are sometimes confused), you must observe the bird to be sure which of the three is singing to you.

The first winter visitors of these friendly little chippies usually arrive in the Central Savannah River Area in late October or the first few days of November where they mingle with the southern born. We always find them on bird walks around these dates, hobnobbing with white-throated, song, field, vesper and swamp sparrows. Along wood edges we observe them with chickadees, Carolina wrens, titmice and kinglets.

The southern chippy could nest in your yard this summer. Look for him.

An Unexpected Surprise

We awake early on a sunny, dewy day to be greeted by the morning chorus. We lie in bed with windows open and try to name all the birds that are singing so delightfully. We pick out the robin, the brown thrasher, the wood thrush, crested flycatcher (two summer visitors), the mockingbird, Carolina wren, the mourning dove, the titmouse and oh my, yes, it's the red-eyed vireo.

In early April these energetic wood sprites return to us from Central and South America where they have enjoyed another summer with plenty of insects. Now they are back to build their nests and rear their young. Come August and September they'll hazard another long journey so they might live in perpetual summer with an abundance of food.

After breakfast we open the doors to the patio and our little dull, olive-green friend is still singing the same monotonous notes. He doesn't stop, but goes on and on with the monotonous song, "Look up, over here, see me, up here" he sings, repeating the phrase as often as forty times a minute. It has now been an hour and fifteen minutes since we first heard his greeting to us. He seems to be working the new growth of foliage on the oaks, maples and sweet gum trees.

The red-eye of this vireo is not a distinctive field mark unless one is close to the bird. A clearer identification mark of this six-inch vireo is the clear white line over the eye, bordered with black. An olive-greenish back with no wing bars and a gray head are more distinctive markings. The under parts are dull white with sides and flanks being washed with a dirty greenish-yellow. The slight hook at the tip of the large bill, characteristic of all vireos, is also a good field mark in distinguishing vireos from warblers.

The red-eye is a common nester in this area. Check your yard borders, all trees on lawns and wood lots and you'll probably find his nest, if he's in your neighborhood at all.

Its nest is made of wood fibers, bark, weed stems, dried leaves, moss and lichens. The small cup-shaped hanging cradle is placed almost to the end of a branch, usually ten to twenty feet from the ground. It is attached to a fork with part of the nest attached to a third twig growing from one of the branches forming the fork, thus forming a parallelogram. All red-eyed's nests that I have seen are placed in such a situation, the clincher that tells you you've found a red-eyed's nest in bare winter woods when no vireos are around.

The nest is about two and one-half inches across and the same, or nearly so, in depth. It is so strongly and compactly built that it can stand the storms of winter. One hung in our yard for three years.

Vireos are our best leaf debuggers. The spastic warblers flit from twig to twig, leaf to leaf, without cleaning the foliage. Vireos, on the other hand, leisurely search each leaf and twig, cocking their little heads to look up at the underside of the leaf and peck off the bugs hidden there.

Vireos work as the seven dwarfs did . . . singing as they work. Sometime sit in the yard and watch them labor.

Flycatchers Arrive

When first you see the great-crested flycatcher in the spring, back from his winter vacation in the tropics, he may look as if he collided with a tropical storm on his way across the Gulf. Sometimes his crest looks ratted, a sign that he is not yet over jet lag.

This bushy, crew-cut bird wears a drab olive coat on his back, accentuated with bright mahogany wings and tail. Its lemon-yellow shirt adds to its camouflage of the yellow-green leaves of spring.

A large flat bill, with bristles at the base to help scoop in those noxious insects, is a good field mark. You hear this bird more often than you see him because his voice is so loud and grating. But with all his roughness, he is beautiful.

Found in our wooded neighborhoods from Florida and the Gulf Coast into Canada, this big flycatcher was once considered a woods bird, not a suburbanite. If in your neighborhood you have large trees scattered with woodpecker holes or natural cavities, he'll probably be your neighbor this spring.

The great-crested is a hole-nesting bird and natural cavities seem to be his preference, though he will build in man-made boxes, mailboxes and other cavities.

Hardly a summer passed that we didn't have at least one flycatcher nest on our bluebird trail. Usually the opening of the boxes used had been enlarged by squirrels.

He has a reputation of always using a snake skin in the nest, and it is still used in many. But because man is such a litter freak, this magnificent bird has become a garbage collector, for we now find in his nest long pieces of plastic and other shiny material carelessly discarded by man. This habit of his collecting shiny strings of material can probably put to rest the centuries old tale that he uses snake skins to frighten away predators. Now, we can assume he uses the natural litter of snake skins as decoration.

Twice on our bluebird trail there was a nest with snake skin hanging from the nest almost to the ground five feet below. It fell between the crack in the door and the wall of the box. Now, how did the bird accomplish this?

Eggs laid by this flycatcher usually number from five to six. They have a ground color of creamy or pinkish buff with streaks, scratches and blotches of brown and various shades of purple or lavender. Incubation lasts about 15 days and the young leave the nest when they are around 18 days old.

By September these youngsters are ready to leave for their winter vacation in Mexico, Central and South America.

During the hot days of lingering July this noisy bird drops the harshness of his "wheep" and becomes more or less quiet. His loud "wheep" of early summer is now toned down to a low, almost insignificant note. In August and early September the note has a sadness to it, almost a mournful intonation, like that of his cousin the wood peewee's mournful fall note, ">pur-eee."

You might say he comes upon the spring scene arrogant and self-determined, flinging out his harsh notes at random. But come early September, with his brashness subdued, he bids us farewell until the next April. He's due now. Look and listen for him.