A jaunt through the Wilds, bird-seeking

This is my 1,832nd post over this blog's history (I had two previous iterations), for whatever that's worth. The first entry dates to July 22, 2007, and covered the Ohio Dragonfly Conference (see that post HERE). There have been nearly 4.3 million page views over that span, and I'm grateful that people check into this space occasionally, whether by accident or intentionally. It's been a great forum for keeping the digital pen honed, and to share (hopefully ever-improving) photos. If nothing else, I've got staying power on my side. A great many blogs that I've seen launched during this span have drifted off into the ether. Hopefully I'll still be on this space when it comes time to write my 2,000th post.

A strange sunset illuminates Long Lake and surrounding strip mine reclamation grasslands at the Wilds in Muskingum County, Ohio. This sprawling site encompasses 10,000 acres, and there are tens of thousands of additional acres of similar habitat, owned by American Electric Power, in the area. I've written about the Wilds many times. If you wish to see other posts, just type "the wilds" into the search box at the top left of the page (it works very well).

We've been having an extending period of gray gloomy days here in central Ohio, so when I saw that last Sunday was supposed to be largely blue skies, I left home well before the crack of dawn to visit the Wilds. This is a strange place, weather-wise, and I am becoming convinced it generates its own weather. As I neared the place, the skies were clearing and all looked good. As I entered the Wilds proper on Zion Ridge Road, dense fog settled in, shrouding the landscape and largely putting the kibosh on bird photography. Prior to strip mining, this region was almost entirely deciduous forest. After clearing and major soil disturbance, numerous springs were exposed and the ground is seemingly soggy nearly everywhere. Maybe it's all that moisture going airborne that creates the fog, I don't know.

While the fog killed any chance for a good sunrise, the sunset sure looked promising. Come day's end, I got myself into a good position, and was rewarded with the odd flaming orange and yellow sky you see above. I was hoping for one of those brilliantly parti-colored palettes of pinks, oranges, reds, blues and purples, but no. Oh well, it was still pretty cool looking.

A battalion of mourning doves uses some wires as a command post. They were staging raids on a roughly harvested cornfield nearby that no doubt had lots of waste kernels ripe for the plucking. Several hundred doves were present, and I spent some time watching them. Often cited as one of North America's most numerous species, there is no question the mourning dove is widespread and abundant. Nonetheless, I think they are declining, and have declined considerably since I first learned of doves as a young kid. I don't run across many big flocks like this one anymore.

This bird was a prime target on this mission, and I was successful. It is a northern shrike, and a juvenile to boot. It was one of the first birds that I saw upon entering the Wilds, along Zion Ridge Road. Because of the early morning fog, I couldn't work much with the animal photographically, but had a great time watching it. Northern shrikes breed far to our north, and are rare winter visitors to Ohio, with most records along in the northernmost tier of counties. This far south, they're really rare, but shrikes have been found wintering at the Wilds and vicinity for many years now.

Shrikes are sometimes called "butcherbirds". Slightly smaller than a robin, these songbirds are predatorial terrors. They'll catch prey ranging from large insects to mice and voles, to birds up to the size of blue jays. Shrikes often cache their victims by impaling them on thorns, hence the somewhat gruesome nickname.

I refound the shrike twice throughout the day, and during the second bout with it, as the fog was lifting, I had a great mammalian experience. This is the section of road the bird was frequenting, and as I stood watching it, a coyote began singing not too far off, in the brush on the right. Their song is one of Nature's great melodies, and always a treat to hear. After a while, I saw it or another coyote trot onto the road WAY down there in the distance, by the curve in the road. It apparently hadn't spotted me yet (I was mostly hidden by my vehicle, well off the road), but as soon as I clapped my big telephoto lens on it, the better to see the beast, it stopped, turned, and impaled me with baleful stare for about fifteen seconds. The sixth sense of these animals is almost supernatural, and I was glad I was not an eastern cottontail.

A handsome male American kestrel "play flies" atop a post. A brisk steady breeze was blowing into his face, and he seemed to enjoy holding his wings out, like a kid (or me) sticks an arm out the window of a moving vehicle and rotates his/her hand. At first, I figured he was doing this to balance in the wind, but no, I think not, as he also sat with wings tucked for extended periods.

While kestrels have declined alarmingly in most regions, they appear to be on the upswing at the Wilds. Local nesters have been bolstered by the placement of numerous nest boxes, many of which are now occupied.

Prior to this trip, I did not have any truly great kestrel shots. As I noted numerous pairs during this days travels, I resolved to bag some nice images, and here we go. This is the same male as in the previous shot, and I spent quite some time with him. By using the Jeep as a blind, I was able to stay fairly close without bothering the little falcon.

This shot was made from the vehicle, not long after he launched from a wire on one of his hunting forays. The topography worked to my advantage, as he was not far above eye level when I made the shot and the natural light was superb. The image was made with the Canon 5D IV and the outstanding Canon 500mm f/4 II lens, with 1.4x teleconverter (=700mm). The settings were f/8, ISO 500, 1/1600, +0.3 exposure compensation. As always, I used back-button focusing, and only the center focus point was active.

Speaking of bird photography, if you would like to enter the land of avian abundance and feathered photo ops galore, Debbie DiCarlo and I are leading a photo workshop to Florida from February 18-23 (with optional extension from February 23-25). We'll have scores of opportunities to shoot many interesting species, and learn lots about the art of bird photography. All details on this trip ARE HERE. We'd love to have you along!

Northern Shrike, aka "Butcherbird"

Big fluffy cumulus clouds drift across a blue prairie sky. This is one of my favorite places in Ohio, Killdeer Plains Wildlife Area in Wyandot County. I've been coming here since I had a driver's license (before, actually) and have made scores of trips to Killdeer over the years. It's only about an hour from my house, so if time is tight and I need a short trip, this is often my destination. Rare is the trip to Killdeer Plains that doesn't produce something exceptional, no matter the time of year.

Tall prairie grasses lit golden by the sunset. Killdeer Plains is a 9,000+ acre remnant of the Sandusky Plains, which was a massive swath of prairie that blanketed parts of Crawford, Hardin, Marion, and Wyandot counties in north-central Ohio. Once John Deere devised a tool capable of busting the thick prairie sod, it didn't take people long to figure out that this was some of the richest soil to be found. In the relative blink of an eye, farmers transformed the staggering botanical diversity of the prairie into a vegetative triad: corn, soybeans, and wheat.

Probably over 99% of Ohio's original prairie, which may have once covered 1,500 square miles, has fallen to the plow or other development. That makes remnants such as Killdeer Plains all the more important. Birds, in particular, "remember" the prairies. It hasn't been that long since we pulled the habitat rug out from under their feet, and it seems that species that favor prairie habitats still are genetically encoded to use the former prairie areas as way stations, wintering grounds, and nesting areas.

A messy, scraggly pin oak stands alone in one of Killdeer's prairie meadows. It is a great perch tree, and many a raptor has probably used it as a lookout. That's not a raptor teed up atop the tree in this photo, but it might as well be. To songbirds, small rodents, and in season, large insects, that silhouette is the grim reaper incarnate. A Northern Shrike.

Killdeer Plains is a reliable spot to find shrikes in winter, and on a recent visit, I found a few. Two species of shrike occur in North America, and both turn up in Ohio. The southerly Loggerhead Shrike, Lanius ludovicianus, once was a fairly common and widespread breeder throughout the state. Its fortunes have waned, and Loggerheads are now quite rare here.

The shrike of the north is this species, the Northern Shrike, Lanius excubitor, which is an uncommon winter visitor, mostly in the tier of counties buffering Lake Erie. Scattered individuals turn up inland, with Killdeer Plains probably being the best such place to find them.

Loggerhead and Northern shrikes look similar, and can be tough to separate, especially if one does not have much comparative experience with the two. This photo shows two characters of the Northern Shrike: the underparts are faintly but noticeably barred, and the black bandido mask is broken or diminished on the forehead, over the bill.

I was quite surprised to discover two shrikes, together, on my recent visit to Killdeer. These birds normally seem to be quite antisocial, excepting a breeding pair. I had apparently fortuitously stumbled into a border dispute. The two birds lunged, attacked, and scolded one another from the tops of tall cottonwood trees as they attempted to work out the edges of their territories.

When I returned to this area later in the day, one of the shrikes was conspicuous as it perched atop prominent trees, but the other was not to be seen. I suppose it was forced to move to a distant patch of turf. They're both probably still within the wildlife area, and likely will be until spring.

While there is an Australasian family of birds in the genus Cracticus that are officially known as butcherbirds, the shrikes are our "butcherbirds". They've earned the nickname. It is also reflected in the genus name Lanius, which means "a butcher". The shot above shows a meadow vole draped unceremoniously from a thorny tangle of autumn-olive branches. I was helping to lead a field trip at the Wilds a few years back, when we observed a Northern Shrike laboriously toting this hefty rodent into the shrubs. After it departed, we of course rushed over to see what had become of the vole. Its neck vertebrae had been snapped by the shrike's raptorlike bill, and later the shrike undoubtedly returned to tear the beast asunder as it hung from the branches as if suspended by a butcher's hook.

At least by human standards, shrikes are easily our most brutish songbirds. They are fierce indeed, and have been known to attack birds as large as a Blue Jay. It is always a treat to find a shrike, and they are interesting to observe. Killdeer Plains is obviously a good bet, and the Wilds generally has a shrike or two each winter. The Ohio Ornithological Society hosts their annual Birding at the Wilds event on January 17th. That's always fun, and might produce a shrike. Details will eventually be posted HERE.

The Butcherbird

Yesterday marked the sixth annual Ohio Ornithological Society winter raptor field day at the Wilds. Twas rather a balmy day by January standards in a wide-open 10,000 acre former strip mine in Muskingum County, Ohio. Here, my group basks in the nearly Floridian low 30's temperatures as they scan for Golden Eagles (we saw one, albeit at great distance).

It never fails to amaze me how many people come out for this gig. We had 120 birders this year, and some years there have been 150. Of course, two years ago we did have some last minute cancellations and a few no-shows. It's possible that the minus 12 degree temperatures had something to do with folks begging out.

A big thanks to Marc Nolls of the OOS and all of the expert birders who volunteer their time to organize this extravaganza and lead the field trips. Major props go to Nicole Cavendar of the Wilds and her staff for hosting us as they do every year. Not only does the Wilds open up and heat the normally shuttered restaurant for us to repair to at lunch time, this year they took everyone behind the scenes into the rhino and giraffe houses.

Between the birds and mammals, this field trip sported quite a diversity of observations.

There are lots of small rodents darting through the grasses at the Wilds, and their enemies are many. This is a female American Kestrel, and she was actively hunting a meadow right in front of our group. Whenever she'd spot suspicious movement, the kestrel would hover in place as if tethered to a string. We saw more kestrels than in recent years, and I am hopeful that the birds are claiming more of the nest boxes that were installed a few years ago.

Another raptor noted for wind-kiting is the Arctic-breeding Rough-legged Hawk, and we saw many of the patchy light morph birds such as the one above. Fewer, at least for our group, were the ebony dark morph Rough-leggeds, one of the world's most striking raptors in my estimation.

However, it was this distant speck that probably thrilled everyone more than any of the other feathered predators. Perched at treetop level, around 1:00 in the photo, is a Northern Shrike, one of the most violent songbirds to ever evolve. Northern Shrikes are not common birds in Ohio, and become downright rare south of the counties that buffer Lake Erie. However, this is at least the sixth year that one has been found in this location, and there was another in a distant corner of the Wilds yesterday.

Classic shrike posture: perched horizontally, tail out, and eyes and head constantly awhir as it seeks victims. Once a shrike takes to the wing, watch out! They've got a very strong, fast flight and really cover the ground. Fast flurries of wingbeats are interspersed with pauses during which the bird starts to drop like a rock. Thus, their flight is quite undulating and woodpecker-like, or perhaps suggestive of a rabid oversized goldfinch on steroids and with a penchant for murder.

Should you be a weaker animal, you'll do very well to stay out of sight of one of these beasts as we shall see.

Classic edge habitat and the sort of country favored by shrikes. Open fields, shrubby successional areas, and interspersed stands of larger trees. And very importantly, plenty of suitable cache shrubs. Such as that bushy Autum-olive, left center, which will play into this story.

Photo: Marek Szczepanek via Wikipedia Commons.

Marek's excellent photo was taken in Poland. The Northern Shrike has a broad breeding distribution across the northern reaches of North America and Eurasia. Shrikes move southward as need be in winter to find food. We've got another, far scarcer shrike in Ohio - the Loggerhead Shrike. Loggerheads are far more southerly in distribution and experienced a boom and bust cycle in eastern and midwestern North America. Now that they've largely gone bust, only one or a few are found each year in Ohio.

Anyway, this photo shows why a nickname of the shrike is "butcherbird". This shrike's hapless mouse victim has been firmly impaled on a thorn, and that's how these homicidal songbirds roll.

Map courtesy Cornell Lab of Ornithology.

Purple and brown denote the breeding distribution of Northern Shrike in North America. Our Ohio birds have certainly come a long way, and it'd be interesting to know where they come from. East or west of Hudson Bay? As shrikes can be long-lived for a songbird, it'd also be interesting to know if this Wilds bird or some of the others that show up at the same places each winter in Ohio are the same individuals.

As word of the shrike spread among the eight groups that were out canvassing the Wilds, more people stopped by to admire the bird. One of the trip leaders, Jason Larson, observed the shrike rocket into an Autumn-olive shrub with a furry bundle. After the bird left, he sped over and discovered its somewhat grisly cache.

Shrikes are well known for capturing and killing all that they can, which in the olden days of rampant anthropomorphism led to them being branded as wanton killers; evil scourges among otherwise delicate and golden-voiced songbirds. I'm sure that many a shrike has been offed by old-time naturalists incensed by the highly predatory habits of these feathered Vlad the Impalers.

The reason that shrikes go on killing sprees is to stock the larder for lean times. Cold northern winters can be tough to survive, and if a tasty vole presents itself, the shrike would be foolish not to take advantage, even if it is still sated from the previous meal. So, the excess plunder is hung in dense shrubs where it less likely to be discovered by ground-roaming mammals. The shrike will return to the cache later and devour its victim.

It must have been a sight, that shrike trundling through the air lugging this fat meadow vole. A plump vole can weigh about 50 grams; the shrike weighs but 65 grams. That's an extraordinary feat of strength!

A shrike is certainly not an animal to be trifled with. They will attack nearly anything up to their size or even larger. There are reports of shrikes going after birds up to the size of Blue Jays and even Rock Pigeons. If the shrike gets the advantage, it'll snap the cervical vertebrae of its victim with a crushing pinch of its powerful bill. If that happens, its game over for the prey and that's a merciful thing considering how it'll later be dealt with.

A common belief is that shrikes impale their victims because their feet are too weak to hold it, so the bird wedges the morsel between some twigs or hangs it on a thorn and then tears it asunder. I don't know about this. Any songbird that can carry a chubby meadow vole that nearly matches it in weight can't be that weak in the feet. It may be that the shrike's short legs and body dimensions just make it difficult to grasp the prey in its feet and simultaneously reach it with its bill.

Once the victim has been secured, whether by thorn, barbed wire, or lodged between twigs, the shrike is free to use its raptorlike hooked bill to tear into the prey. While such manners may seem gruesome, the shrike has merely evolved a wonderfully efficient method of dealing with its food.

Let's just be grateful that shrikes aren't the size of condors or we'd all be in trouble.