More sparrows, and a sparrow talk!

 

An American Tree Sparrow (Spizelloides arborea) plunders seeds from a Virginia mountain mint (Pycnanthemum virginianum) plant this morning. The bird may only weigh 20 grams, but it is tough as nails. It was minus 2 F when I made this shot early on the morning of January 19. We walked a fair bit through a large prairie remnant north of Columbus and saw dozens of tree sparrows. They were unfazed by the frigid temperatures. There was plenty of Indian grass (Sorghastrum nutans) at this site, and the sparrows were also feasting on that.

The plucky sparrow in the act of plundering seeds from the mountain mint. A major goal of mine is photo-documenting birds interacting with the native plants that they rely on. 

Sparrows are utterly dependent upon plants and are largely vegan for much of the year. I'm giving a talk about sparrows and their ecology at the Midwest Native Plant Society's "Creating Living Landscapes" conference near Dayton, Ohio on March 29. Registration is open and all are welcome. There are a number of other speakers presenting on interesting topics, and it should be a great time. The event website, with full details and registration info, is RIGHT HERE.

Hope to see you there!

Nature: Ohio winters offer a warm welcome for tree sparrows

An American tree sparrow/Jim McCormac

Nature: Ohio winters offer a warm welcome for tree sparrows

Columbus Dispatch

November 27, 2016

NATURE

Jim McCormac

Come late October/early November, the American tree sparrows descend on Ohio’s meadows. To these plucky little songbirds, Ohio’s winters are its Florida vacation.

Tree sparrows breed as far north as the Arctic Circle. Some of the birds that winter in Ohio might have traveled 2,000 miles south to reach our latitude. Tropically speaking, that’s equal to hopping on a jet and flying south to San Jose, Costa Rica.

One often hears the sparrows before seeing them. Foraging flocks are usually concealed in the vegetation, but they make their presence known with beautiful calls. Tree sparrow notes sound like delicate icicles softly shattering; a crystalline tinkling melody that carries the promise of short frigid days to come.

Tree sparrows are rather extroverted, unlike most of their brethren. When on alert, flocks will often rise atop vegetation where we can admire them. The tree sparrow wears a rusty cap, and sports a black stickpin in the center of its breast. A pair of white bars stripe its wings, and its bicolored bill is yellow below, black above.

The name is a bit of a misnomer. Tree sparrows generally shun trees. They are birds of treeless plains, whether it be Canadian tundra or Ohio meadow. The first Europeans to encounter them were reminded of a songbird of the Old World, the Eurasian tree sparrow, hence the name.

Although tree sparrows won’t rebuff an insect meal, such fare is hard to come by in an Ohio winter. Thus, they adopt a vegan diet and feed heavily on the seeds of plants.

I recently visited Glacier Ridge Metro Park near Dublin and had my autumnal reunion with the tree sparrows. That’s where I shot the accompanying photo.

Park managers have encouraged large, diverse meadows rich in native flora. The birds offered a ringing endorsement. Dozens of American goldfinches capered about, plundering the fruit of various “ weeds”.

In Glacier Ridge’s north meadow, several dozen eastern bluebirds hunted nearly inert grasshoppers stunned by the brisk air. An eastern meadowlark, its lemon breast emblazoned with a black chevron, took to the summit of a small tree. Buoyed by an impeccable azure November sky, it whistled its sharp cheery song.

Numerous sparrows were in the mix: field, song, swamp, white-crowned, and white-throated. And, of course, tree sparrows. The latter fixated on abundant tall goldenrod. Like feathered acrobats, the sparrows would dangle from the goldenrod heads, deftly plucking seeds.

The fruit of goldenrod is rich in fat and protein — just the thing for firing fast metabolisms and creating the energy necessary to survive long frigid nights.

Food-rich meadows rife with native plants have become much scarcer, victims of overly neat agriculture and other development. Natural refugia such as Glacier Ridge have become all the more important in protecting our songbirds.

Naturalist Jim McCormac writes a column for The Dispatch on the first, third and fifth Sundays of the month.

Woodpecker sleeking, sparrow seeding

As chance would have it, my route yesterday took me (somewhat) near the legendary Sandy Ridge Reservation in Lorain County (a Lorain County Metro Park). Scores of notable birds have been seen here over the years, in large part because of the reservation's sharp-eyed and knowledgeable naturalist, Tim Fairweather. A two mile long path cuts through mature woods then circles some large wetlands. I had only been to the nature center once or twice to give talks, and had never seen the real meat of the park. Time to correct that, so I grabbed some camera gear and took to the loop trail to see what I could see.

I had barely broke free from the woods when a distant menacing shape caught my eye. There, perched on a snag in a dead tree out in the wetland, was a Merlin. These muscular little falcons are among a small bird's worst enemies; feathered Freddie Kruegers. I had scarcely registered the Merlin when the male Downy Woodpecker in this photo bounded in low over the marsh and swooped up into a nearby tree. It apparently had been out working the drowned snags, and the Merlin came in too close for comfort. The woodpecker pressed itself to the trunk, and remained quite still for several minutes. In the photo, it is casting a glance backwards in the direction of the predator. Shortly after the Merlin departed, the woodpecker skedaddled to somewhere else.

Such uncharacteristically frozen postures are sometimes adopted by songbirds and other small birds such as this woodpecker when avian predators are close at hand. You've perhaps seen chickadees or other feeder birds do it when a Cooper's Hawk barrels into the backyard. I have heard this behavior termed "sleeking", as the potential victim presses its feathers down and attempts to become one with its surroundings. It's probably not the best descriptive word for this, but I've always liked the sound of it.

 

Towards the end of the loop around the large wetland, I encountered a small flock of American Tree Sparrows. Their airy crystalline tinkling notes gave them away well before I got near, and I was prepared to try for some imagery. If I were ever forced to name a Top 10 list of favorite birds, this species would be on it. And one can never have too many photos of a Top 10 favorite bird, especially one as delicately stunning as this.

 

The animals were not put off by my furtive skulking, and I was able to observe some of their food choices. I was pleased indeed when the sparrow in the photo alit atop this old withered inflorescence of blue vervain, Verbena hastata. My first reaction was to the pleasing aesthetics of the situation, but became more meaningful when the bird began avidly ripping seeds from the candelabra of cylindrical flower (now fruit) spikes. This was not a plant that I've observed American Tree Sparrows feasting upon before.

 

American Tree Sparrows, when they arrive at these southerly latitudes for the winter (I've written more about this species HERE), are much tied to open meadows that grow a diversity of herbaceous plants that produce bumper crops of small seeds. Goldenrods are especially favored, but the sparrows feed on a wide variety of other plants, especially those in the sunflower family (Asteraceae). Over the long haul, I am sure these plucky little sparrows are major dispersers of many of these plants.

 

Unfortunately, prime American Tree Sparrow (and many other songbirds) foraging fields are all too often thought of as weed fields. While nearly everyone gets up in arms over protecting bogs, old-growth forests, and prairies, the much more mundane goldenrod and aster-dominated meadows are shrinking away, the victims of various development. These common and largely ignored meadows are biodiversity factories, and even fuel topnotch beauties such as the American Tree Sparrow.



 

American Tree Sparrows usher in Old Man Winter

Freshly burned over, Daughmer Savanna in Crawford County awaits botanical renewal with next year's growing season. Prairie ecosystems and fire are yin and yang, the fire performing many roles: keeping woody plants from choking out sun-loving prairie plants, discouraging nonnative invaders, providing a big infusion of nutrients to the soil, and heat-scarifying the seeds of plants.

I had chance to drop by here last Saturday, unbeknownst to me, hot on the heels of a controlled burn that was orchestrated by ODNR's Division of Natural Areas. The Division stepped in and purchased this gem a few years back, when it went up for auction. Daughmer Savanna is one of the finest prairie savannas left in Ohio, and one of the few that remain. About 99.9% of this habitat has been destroyed. Today, the Crawford County Park System oversees its management. If you ever get the chance, stop by and check out this relict of our prairie past.

Controlled burns seldom singe all of the vegetation, and in corner of the prairie the standing goldenrod had attracted one of my favorite birds, the American Tree Sparrow, Spizelloides americana. I heard their delicate notes before seeing the birds - the calls of a distant flock sounds like icicles falling and shattering. Occasionally a bird would deliver a truncated version of its song, a beautiful somewhat melancholy series of whistled notes.

This was the first weekend that I've noticed this harbinger of winter in substantial numbers. Another sparrow, the Dark-eyed Junco, often gets props for being the "snowbird", but in my book the tree sparrow is the true snowbird. When they show up in numbers, winter with its frosty bite and sleet and snow will not be far behind.

Map courtesy Birds of North America Online.

American Tree Sparrows breed far to our north, beyond the range of most Homo sapiens. For such a common wintertime resident in the northern and central states, it is a surprisingly enigmatic bird insofar as its breeding ecology goes. Tree sparrows nest in places where most people don't go; indeed, can't go in most cases.

The plucky little sparrows are common at backyard feeders when they come south, but feeders of course are a recent source of food for the birds. I have noticed time after time, over many years, their fondness for the fruit of goldenrod when encountering the birds in places wilder than the backyard. Goldenrods in the genus Solidago produce huge crops of seeds which are high in protein and fat, and the sparrows thrive on this fruit. I suspect goldenrods do the heavy lifting when it comes to supporting wintering American Tree Sparrows. We may temporarily entice the visiting northerners from the goldenrod patches with our feeders, but given a choice I think most tree sparrows prefer the wild crops of seeds.

American Tree Sparrow

While traipsing through the winter-browned Sandusky Plains prairies today, I crossed the path of some American Tree Sparrows, Spizella arborea. Lucky me, and I had my camera in tow. These jaunty little sparrows rank high among my favorite birds, and I settled in to watch the little flocks as they worked over the seeds of goldenrod, switch grass and other ripenings.

I'm usually first alerted to foraging tree sparrows by their thin wispy tseet notes - contact calls by which they talk to each other. Sooner or later, the flock will take wing, blowing low over the ochre prairie like delicate little leaves on the wind. Their sweetly musical flight notes sound like tiny icicles shattering. The tree sparrow and its subtle melodies mesh perfectly with the barren prairies of winter.

Should you have an interest, I wrote in more detail about American Tree Sparrows HERE.

American Tree Sparrow

American Tree Sparrow, Spizella arborea, Marion County, Ohio.

I've been spending a lot of time out in the field, mostly because it is Christmas Bird Count season. Did the Beaver CBC yesterday, and the Columbus count today, with two or three yet to come.

During a trip to Big Island Wildlife Area last weekend, I ran into a cooperative little pack of one of the most interesting birds to grace our wintertime landscape, the American Tree Sparrow.

These tough little birds have come a long way; they nest in the tundra of the North Country, and the bird in my photo above may well have traveled 1,200 miles or more to be with us.


I wrote a cover story for Bird Watcher's Digest on tree sparrows for their winter 2009 edition, and it was a fun piece to write. The article was complimented by wonderful artwork by David Plank.

There are few birds that I admire more than American Tree Sparrows. For one, they are fun to watch. The flocks greatly enliven somber fields of goldenrods, their tinkling calls sounding like the shattering of distant icicles. These rusty-capped seed-eaters love the fruit of goldenrod, and dangle like feathered acrobats as they pull and pluck the seed heads.

But what impresses me the most about them as their ability to deal with COLD weather. Many is the time that I've watched flocks cavorting about fields, busily gorging on the seeds of various old field "weeds" on days so cold it hurts to breath. Watching them, I always think about their upcoming night. Clear starry winter evenings, when the temperatures plummet to 0 F or colder, and you've got no warm bungalow to repair to, makes for a long evening.

That's why tree sparrows really stoke the furnace with all of those seeds. An efficient forager can shovel in 6 grams of food a day - nearly one-third their weight! They need all of that energy to make it through the long winter nights.