April 2016 ROSE- BREASTED GROSBEAK 4
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North America’s only magazine devoted exclusively to backyard birds! watchingbackyardbirds.com • Vol. 19 No. 2 • April 2016 ROSE- BREASTED GROSBEAK 4 Oddballs in the Yard 28 Watcher at the Window— Looking Down From the for Birds 8 publishers of Features Rose-breasted Beauty — WBB staff 4 Readers Write: Our Fair Lady: A White Hummingbird —Lana Worley 12 Humor: In a Bit of a Jam —Al Batt 16 Photo Blog: Tips for Photographing Birds in Your Backyard —Bruce Cole 20 Ask Birdsquatch: Feeding & Housing 24 Oddballs in the Yard —Dawn Hewitt 28 Why a Hawk Is a Hummingbird’s Best Friend —Elizabeth Pennisi 31 LINDA HARTOB/WIKIMEDIACOMMONS LINDA 8 Watcher at the Window: When There Are No Birds, Look Down—Julie Zickefoose Above: Kissing cardinals. Right: On a jog down a country lane with her dog, Julie Zickefoose fi nds a pile of something that becomes a lesson about JULIE ZICKEFOOSE pileated woodpeckers. &_AB C E F G H L MNO P Q FOUNDING PUBLISHERS William H. Thompson (1932 – 2011) & Elsa Ekenstierna Thompson CO-PUBLISHER AND EDITOR William H. Thompson, III CO-PUBLISHER Andrew M. Thompson EDITORIAL Dawn Hewitt, Managing Editor PRODUCTION Claire Mullen, Magazine Design Male rose-breasted Lori Crook, Marketing Design grosbeak. ADVERTISING Wendy Clark, Sales Director Kyle Carlsen, Data & Accounts Manager Mollee Brown, Marketing Assistant Departments CIRCULATION AND MARKETING Laura Thompson, Director Editor’s Note 2 WEB MASTER Katherine Koch CONTROLLER Ann Kerenyi BIRDbites FULFILLMENT & SUBSCRIBER SERVICES Amy Sole SHIPPING AGENT Melody Carpenter Dryer Lint Isn’t Good 3 INTERNS Emily Jones, Andrew Knizner Nesting Material Plant a Tree for the 23 Contact Us Birds ADVERTISING/SUBSCRIPTION INFORMATION GERALD MARELLA/DREAMSTIME.COM Garden for 32 Watching Backyard Birds Caterpillars P.O. Box 110 Marietta, OH 45750 Thanks to our CUSTOMER SERVICE sponsors! 800-879-2473 or (740) 373-5285 [email protected] Optics: Celestron 19 Advertising: [email protected] Editorial: [email protected] Bird feeding: 27 Find us on Facebook and Twitter! Audubon Park facebook.com/watchingbackyardbirds @bwdmag Watching Backyard Birds (ISSN 1098-0229) is published bimonthly by Pardson Corporation. Material appearing in Watching Backyard Birds may not be reprinted without permission. Subscriptions One year: $16 • Two years: $30 • Single issue: $4 U.S. FUNDS ONLY PLEASE. Canada: add $3 per year. Other foreign: add $6 per year. For subscription or other information, please call BOB HINES/USFWS 800-879-2473. Gray-cheeked thrush. COVER—ROSE-BREASTED GROSBEAK BY PIA1996/DREAMSTIME.COM Watching Backyard Birds • watchingbackyardbirds.com 1 Editor’s Note —WBB Editor Bill Thompson, III It’s SPRING! Dear Bird Watchers: I relish the spring return There’s no denying it’s spring, of the chipping sparrows to people! The birds are singing, our Ohio yard, their sewing- the buds are popping, you can machine-like trills ring out smell the wet earth when you across our greening lawn. The step outside. It’s such a delight- ruby-throated hummingbirds ful season to be a backyard bird always come back around watcher. And while our avid, Tax Day (April 15). And the field-birding friends are chasing scarlet tanagers come back all over the place, trying to catch about May 5 or so. We keep a wave of warblers, we back- track of these spring return yard watchers are content to sit dates each year—it’s amazing back and let the birds come to how consistent these return- us. Depending upon where you ing birds can be. Spring is the live in North America, spring can time when the backyard bird be a long, drawn out affair over list swells to its fullest. two months, or something that And speaking of lists… lasts just a week or so. For my Did you get your Watch- friends in Alabama, spring starts ing Backyard Birds feeding in late February. WBB columnist chart and bird list poster yet? Al Batt, who lives in Minnesota, Here’s our Managing Editor, is still wearing two pairs of Dawn Hewitt, adding a spe- long johns in February—and cies to her backyard list. If you he won’t take them off until late don’t have yours yet, you can May—that’s how late spring can get it by renewing your own arrive up North. subscription or giving a gift 2 watchingbackyardbirds.com • Watching Backyard Birds Managing Editor Dawn Hewitt adds another species to her list. —WBB Editor Bill Thompson, III subscription to WBB. Simply write BACKYARD POSTER on your order form or mention it when you call our office (800-879-2473). But hurry! Supplies are limited. Happy spring backyard bird watching! M Tidbits of Backyard Info BIRDBites You Can Use! Dryer lint isn’t good nesting material Although it feels soft and fl uffy enough to sleep on, dryer lint is not good nesting material for birds. Birds might fi nd it appealing, but it can be harmful to eggs and nestlings. When dryer lint gets wet, it absorbs and retains moisture longer than natural materials. Be- cause of its structure, dryer lint is a poor insulator, and eggs or young birds surrounded by it can be lethally Material with long strands chilled. Furthermore, lint is made up mostly of tiny makes sturdy nests. fabric particles rather than long strands, so it lacks structural strength. If used in nest walls rather than as a lining, the nest will be weak and could fall apart. Finally, depending upon the laundry detergent, fabric softener, or dryer sheets, residue of perfumes, soaps, or other chemi- cals are potentially harmful for young birds, and they certainly aren’t part of a natural environment. Better sources of nesting material that humans can offer birds include: human hair or animal fur, shredded paper, natural-fi ber string in three- to fi ve-inch lengths, pine needles, mud, moss, or lichen, grass clip- pings, twigs and small sticks, and dead leaves. Leaving your yard slightly wild and less than perfectly manicured is more helpful to nesting birds than dryer lint. Other things that should never be made available to nest-building birds include plastic, nylon, and, especially, fi shing line. M BRIAN HENRY Watching Backyard Birds • watchingbackyardbirds.com 3 ROSE-BREASTED JULIE ZICKEFOOSE HAIRY IS Beauty Returning soon to bird feeders in the East: rose- breasted grosbeaks, both male (left) and female (right). 4 watchingbackyardbirds.com • Watching Backyard Birds Newsletter —Dawn Hewitt and Bill Thompson, III ROSE-BREASTED HAIRY IS Beauty It was the spring of the rose-breasted gros- beak in southern Indiana a few years back, and not repeated since. “I had 22 grosbeaks on my deck railing this morning!” my friend Ann told me, almost breathless. That year everyone had crazy numbers of rose-breasted grosbeaks I GERALD MARELLA/DREAMSTIME.COM in their yard and at their bird feeders. Watching Backyard Birds • watchingbackyardbirds.com 5 Even those who generally don’t the finch family. give a hoot about birds couldn’t Females and immature rose- help but notice. “I saw a flock of breasted and black-headed gros- black-and-white birds with a red beaks look very similar, like an splotch on their chest,” they’d tell overgrown female purple finch, me. “Were they woodpeckers?” but with a size XL bill. The breast Everyone was talking about it. of a female black-headed grosbeak The females confused some is a bit less streaked than that of folks: “The world’s largest female the female rose-breasted, however. purple finch is at my feeder right In the Great Plains, where now! I’ll send you a photo! You ranges of the two species overlap, won’t believe it!” they are known to hybridize. The That amazing spring, rose- hybrid offspring can look like breasted grosbeaks were some- either parent, or something in times more numerous than between, sporting black, white, mourning doves and northern rose, orange, or pink plumage. cardinals in the yards of most The males don’t look so folks who feed the birds. similar. It’s hard to mistake a Rose-breasted grosbeaks are a male rose-breasted grosbeak for short-term thrill for those of us anything else. No other bird has who live outside their nesting a black head and back, a rosy-red area. Those who feed birds and patch on its breast (usually trian- generally pay attention to the gular), and a clear white belly. In avian visitors in their yards see flight, the male flashes rosy-red them from early to mid-spring. under his wings with a wide, Rose-breasted grosbeaks migrate rectangular wing patch. east of the Rockies to nest in the “Black-headed grosbeak” is Appalachian Mountains and in an apt name for the male of that the northeastern quadrant of the species. His head is all black, and United States as well as across his bill is huge and black. His Canada’s prairie provinces. breast and belly are orange like a Rose-breasted grosbeak is robin’s, but with two bold, white in the same family as cardinal, bars on his wings. the tanagers, dickcissel, pyrrhu- The songs of both species loxia, and blue, lazuli, indigo, are similar to that of a robin—a and painted buntings. Its clos- rising and falling whistle—but est cousin is the black-headed the black-headed’s song is said to grosbeak, which is the western sound like a drunken robin! The counterpart of the eastern rose- rose-breasted’s song is sweeter breasted grosbeak. Oddly, they and richer than a robin’s, and it are not close cousins to pine or also emits a distinctive chink that evening grosbeaks, which are in sounds like a sneaker squeak- 6 watchingbackyardbirds.com • Watching Backyard Birds Female rose-breasted grosbeaks have a striped face, similar to that of a female purple finch, but more crisp.