Birds Experience Housing Crisis Too

Unusual nesting sites of birds are always interesting, especially when the nesters use locations that aren't in the books.

Some years ago an article appeared in the Atlanta Constitution of an unusual mockingbird's nest. Adelaide and Laurance Sawyer of Ringgold, GA, put up a log bird house for bluebirds with a metal flange around the opening to exclude larger birds. An arbor supported the 10-foot pole. The arbor, the pole and the bluebird house were supported by trellises for growing tomatoes and climbing beans, come spring.

In the spring, before the bluebirds could nest, a yellow-shafted flicker comes bouncing in and tries to enlarge the cavity. Day after day he works at it. His constant drilling gains the sympathy of the Sawyers and they remove the flange thinking they are helping the flicker. That does it. He doesn't want anyone messing around with the construction of his house and never returns.

To their surprise a pair of mockingbirds become interested in the bluebird house. One day they see both birds go into the box. One goes in and stays. When the Sawyers check, they find one egg . . . a mocker's egg in a mocker's nest.

If another article was in the paper giving the outcome of the nesting, I missed it. I never knew if they completed incubation and the youngsters fledged.

On our bluebird trail we had a mockingbird build in a hanging basket of begonias on the porch of a family who had one of our bluebird boxes on their premises. Eggs were laid in the nest but they disappeared. There were no clues as to what happened to the eggs. The birds didn't attempt another nesting in the basket.

To our surprise and excitement, a robin started a nest in somewhat of a crotch on a slopping branch of a sweet gum tree outside our living room window. It was not saddled on the branch as usual, but about half of it hung somewhat like an oriole's nest from the unstable fork.

One day it looked as if it were complete. That afternoon a strong thunder shower came through the area and the nest was thrown to the ground. I examined the fallen nest. The same materials were used as in other robin's nests. The nest was not as large as usual, but the inside depth seemed to be about the same.

The next day the female starts another nest using some of the material from the nest nature had foreclosed on. She placed the nest on the same spot on the branch. In a few days it appeared to be near completion. It was not meant to be. A strong wind comes out of the west and brings destruction to the second nest.

Two days later the robin was busy rebuilding . . . same style, same spot, same materials.

Again, in a few days, the nest appears ready for use. A determined mother, wouldn't you say? A few mornings later we find this nest on the ground. At the time, no eggs were in the nest.

There had been no wind nor rain. We never knew what brought the third nest down. She used mud on it, as all robins do, and that makes a robin's nest heavy and not very suitable for swinging in the wind.

Take Part In Bird Banding At Chatfield

Whip-poor-will's Song Tugs At A Memory

Nostalgia sweeps over me when I hear the call of the whip-poor-will as he passes through the Central Savannah River Area in spring migration.

This wisp-of-the-night is a summer resident of the North Georgia mountains where I lived as a child. Consequently, his continuous calls were one of the first "bird voices" I could recognize. These denizens of the night came into the edge of our yard as the sun splotched glades of the surrounding woodlands were overtaken by the spooky twilight of dusk.

Although many people have heard the songs of this ghost of the night, few people have ever seen the author. These birds sleep all day on dead leaves and other debris on the forest floor, their mottled coloration protecting them from enemies.

I used to sit with my dad on the steps of a stone wall in the deepening dusk to listen to the whip's calling as he did almost every night throughout the summer. Suddenly, there the bird was on an almost bare oak branch where he began his incessant "whip-poor-will, whip-poor-will, whip-poor-will". Then he dropped to a sandy spot in the road where he continued his calling for a hundred times or more. Reluctantly, I had to go to bed most nights with the whip still calling.

This spectral bird belongs to the Goatsuck family. Believing these birds sucked milk from goats during the night, centuries ago Europeans gave them the ill-named moniker of goatsucker. These birds did and do fly around goats and cattle at twilight, but it is to catch insects bothering the animals rather than the whip's love of milk.

This fellow has an enormous mouth, bordered above by long, stiff bristles which act as a net in catching insects, their only diet.

Measuring around ten inches from his short, dark bill to the short, rounded tail, the whip's overall plumage mimics the color of dead leaves of the forest floor. He wears a narrow white necklace around his throat. In flight, white tail feathers flash out. The female appears all brown. The large, black pair of button eyes, typical of nocturnal birds and mammals, is the easiest field mark to attract attention.

No attempt at nest building is made. The two eggs, buff colored with gray or light lavender splotches, are laid on a litter of dead leaves where the flickering light of the woodland tends to give them protection. The incubation period is around twenty days. During incubation, the female sits with her eyes closed, the better to avoid detection.

The nestlings match the dead leaves on which they are hatched. Their down is soft and silky, shading in color from cinnamon on the back to pinkish cinnamon on the crown and abdomen.

The whip is a common summer resident of both north Georgia and the upstate of South Carolina. It is now thought to breed along the Edisto River in Aiken County and in the Lake Thurmond area. It has been heard calling in midsummer, a good indication that it is expanding its breeding range southward. It winters along the Gulf and Florida coasts. Some of the more daring will go on to the Islands for their winter respite.

Don't Confuse A Loggerhead With A Mocker

We haven't seen him in our yard for several years, but on a sunny warm May day, he arrived. He sits on a dead limb of a dogwood tree and surveys the comings and goings of the large insects and butterflies fluttering by. I make myself comfortable to watch for the catch, but it doesn't materialize. Evidently, beetle or butterfly fingers don't whet his appetite, or the warm sun has made him too lazy to make the effort for such a small prize.

Slightly smaller than a robin, the loggerhead shrike has a big rounded head, thick neck and an all black, hawk-like bill and hook-like claws.

Having the weak feet of song birds, the shrike kills its prey with his strong bill, shaking, twisting and choking it until it is dead. Small birds, shrews, small rodents, grasshoppers and other large insects are some of its favorite catches. Shrikes hunt only by day and have remarkable eyesight, comparable to that of hawks, eagles and falcons. They are the only truly predatory songbirds in that they consistently prey on vertebrate animals.

The shrike gets its nickname "butcher bird" from the habit of hanging its prey on thorny trees, barbs of wire fence, or wedging them into the crotches of limbs. The head of the victim is up, the body hanging suspended, much like a butcher hangs a leg of lamb or a side of beef from a hook in his shop.

These situations are used as pantries to store food for future use as well as a "dish" for his present meal. The thorny branch, his plate, holds the prey while he eats it. There are scientists who say shrikes don't return to eat the impaled food. There are others who say it does occasionally return for its stored food. I wouldn't know, but when I'm out on walks I see dried insects, a mouse or bird hanging on thorns, indicating the prey has been there for awhile.

Light gray covers the back and head of the shrike. A black mask covers the eyes. Black wings with a white patch, white throat and dirty white breast complete his attire. He blends well with his surroundings.

The only bird that could be confused with the shrike in our area is the mockingbird. Though both are black and white and gray birds, the shades and tones of the colors differ, the shrike's being much lighter. The shrike is a chunkier bird than the mocker and his head is larger with a thicker neck. The black, gray and white of the shrike are distinctly defined. They don't blend as they do in the mocker's plumage.

Breeding from Florida northward to southern Canada and westward to Louisiana, the loggerhead is a common resident of the Central Savannah River Area. He builds a bulky nest of twigs, leaves and grasses in a thorny bush or dense tree from eight to twenty feet above ground. Usually, a clutch of four to seven dull white to grayish or creamy white eggs is laid. They are thickly and evenly spotted and blotched with dull browns and light lavender.

The loggerhead is a poor songster. About the best he can do is a series of squeaky whistles, strangling gurgles and high-pitched pipings, though sometimes he might burst into harsh warble-like notes.

Common nicknames are French mockingbird, butcher bird and cotton bird, from the habit of using cotton in his nest.

Noisy Outcast Pretty But Annoying

In every family there's a black sheep, usually. The yellow-breasted chat is that dude in the warbler family.

When you think of a warbler, you think of a small songster dressed in olive-greens, yellows, grays, blues and black and whites. The chat fits into the family as far as colors are concerned, but there his qualifications end.

His song, if you can call it a song, unlike that of any other warbler, is loud and fractious. Not only is the song unusual but the manner of singing is different. He flies from one bush to another while getting his garrulous message across. All the other little warblers' songs are soft and pleasing.

He is a full two inches larger than most warblers. He has a long tail like a mocker, a bill that is larger, heavier and more curved than the smaller warblers and his wings are shorter and rounded.

He's a handsome guy. He wears this year's fashionable olive-green on his back with a yellow shirt. His colors glisten in the golden sunlight. The white strip over his eye and his size distinguish him from the small yellow-throated vireo.

He prefers brushy habitats for his hangouts, the better to hide, for he is more often heard than seen.

The eccentric, ludicrous, almost clownish behavior is one of the chat's most outstanding characteristics. He hides in dense thickets and from this secluded place he sends out "bizarre noises", whistling, chuckling, barking, mewing, scolding and swearing. He gurgles, laughs, chatters, squeaks and cackles.

But wait, when the females arrive from the tropics his language changes. He finds some elevated perch and there pours out what melody he can muster. Then, pitching himself into the air . . . straight up . . . with wings fluttering and legs dangling limply like a Raggedy Ann doll, he lets fall from his yellow throat a wild, rich, rapturous love song. While he's courting he leaves off name calling.

Measuring 1 and 1/2 inches from the stout, arched bill to the long, rounded tail, this largest of all warblers is the good ole boy of the bird world. He's here now, joking and cat-calling and generally interrupting the sweet songs of other birds.

The chat claims a characteristic of the mockingbird and that is singing all night on moonlit nights, but the chat adds dark nights also to deliver his repertoire.

One chat observer says the olive-clad bird on her premises usually starts singing at 10:30 in the evening and keeps up his "noise" all through the night. The next morning she serves breakfast, accompanied by his squeaks and squawks. She serves the noon meal. The shrieking goes on and on. Sometime in the late afternoon the songster stops, apparently to rest up for his next performance at 10:30 that night.

Becoming involved with keeping four hungry nestlings satisfied, he quietens down. He's so quiet you might think he's left his tangled haunts, but he's still skulking around.

By late August, however, he heads south and calm once again reigns in thickets and tangles across the countryside.