Mobbing of a relaxed sort

Sunny, clear winter mornings are certainly not the norm around these parts (my thoughts on the subject here), and every golden ray is a moment worth savoring. One common sight around the pond on such mornings is a bright shining spot in the trees ringing the pond. Upon closer inspection, the upright stance of a red-shouldered hawk basking in the warmth of the sun makes itself clear, and for some reason it always makes me feel warm too.

On this day, a blue jay that had actively been mobbing the RSHA took a break from antagonism and joined the hawk around the figurative campfire…

A Treasure Trove of Fibers

The Lab of Ornithology is playing host for the next two months to a stunning display of avian quiltwork by local artists Alice Gant and Elsie Dentes entitled, “Oh Joy! Oh Raptor!” Forget any preconceptions you have of quiltwork being confined to repetitious geometric patterns: these quilts exhale life from their fibers, and the fine detail work (in combination with the fabric swatches themselves) project a rich, three-dimensional world more suited to a wall than a bedspread. If you’re in the area, it’s worth a stop by…The official opening is tomorrow (Thursday 31 January) from 5:30-7:00, and the exhibition will be on display until 2 April. Hope to see you there!

*****

(image above: “Loon Family”, by Elsie Dentes)

Red-tailed Marauder

This winter has seen the persistent presence of a single banded Red-tailed Hawk in Sapsucker Woods. Whether she’s harassing the red-shouldered hawk or being harassed by a murder of crows, her burnt-red tail never fails to bring color to a drab Ithaca day.Nor terror to an suspecting prey item. Recently we were watching while she stooped on an unsuspecting short-tailed shrew; the result? Three quick bites, and a little blood on the talons. Sort of a tapas dish for the Buteo crew. Other days the results are more gruesome:

Talon marks in the snow and a half-meter of rabbit intestine spooled out amid the footprints of mice and squirrels. Just another reminder that life’s violent ends can, in the case of a bunny, sometimes be tasty; also, that a clean blanket of snow is perfect for getting a surreptitious look at the eating habits of animals…

Despite my earlier posts lambasting Rhamnus in all its glory, the birds seem to find it an acceptable substitute for a native berry bush. The cold and snow makes their preference visible in the form of a shotgun blast of purple pellets, the cast-off bits from consuming the small purple berries that festoon the branches of buckthorn all along the trails on the north side of Sapsucker Woods.

Even more fun is stumbling upon the chipped up remains from the ardent attention of a woodpecker. It’s almost as though I have encountered the workshop of a small elf, chiseling away at the trees for some arcane purpose.

 

(winter)berries’ bounty

The canopy continues to thin here in Sapsucker Woods, leaving the trails adrift in reds and oranges. Oaks and beeches are some of the last holdouts, their leaves providing much of the color in the all-too-soon-to-come winter landscape. However, these leafy slowpokes aren’t the only thing brightening up the grays of late fall; among the most spectacular is an oft-overlooked native shrub that becomes even more beautiful as it drops its leaves. The culprit? Winterberry.

(a thick crop of winterberries)

For most of the year, Common Winterberry (Ilex verticillata) is a nondescript shrub with deep green glossy leaves, but come Fall it sprouts linear clusters of intense red berries that become more prominent as this deciduous holly drops its leaves. It can be found from Nova Scotia to Florida, and west to Missouri, excelling in areas of poor drainage. Around Sapsucker Woods, this is the only native deciduous holly we have, but there is another red-berried plant that it is sometimes confused with: Honeysuckle.

(winterberry on left, honeysuckle on right)

Honeysuckle is one of the most invasive shrubs in the area, forming dense thickets of yellowish-gray striated bark along woodland edges. The superficial similarity to winterberry lies in its possession of juicy-looking red berries, and its shrubby nature. You can find honeysuckle just about anywhere you want to look in Sapsucker Woods; much of the understory on the north side of the pond is composed of either honeysuckle or buckthorn (both invasive berry producers), and both were likely brought to Sapsucker Woods by the very creatures we spend so much time studying, namely fruit-eating birds (though each is likely also a favored treat for another woodland nuisance, the white-tailed deer). Honeysuckles also have the ability to spread vegetatively and some research has suggested that they can poison the chances of other plants through allelopathic interactions.

(light-green patch of honeysuckle)

The thing that all three of these berry producers have in common is the production each year of a heavy crop of berries that are characterized by being “low in nutritional content“. Roughly translated, these berries are the equivalent of a can of coke, offering nothing more than a rush of soluble carbohydrates, and this results in them being eaten later in the season as birds (especially migrating birds) target fat-rich foods. While it might not seem intuitive, berries can also be high in fats, and a selection of other berries in the landscape (dogwoods, sassafras, poison ivy) are relatively high in lipids (fats), and offer something closer to a bag of chips to the migrating masses, and most of these berries are gone by the end of Fall.

Given these intrinsic differences in the “value” of a given berry, it’s fun to think about how a fruit eater might choose to exploit these resources, and it is thought that birds try and eat a mix of sugars, proteins, and lipids for nutritional balance. However, by midwinter, all that might be left for a hungry resident is the equivalent of a can of coke…

First Frost Fright

Two days ago saw our first real frost, as grass blades bent heavy to the ground and the sun’s path became illuminated in shades of green. My last post spoke of warmer weather, and in consulting my records I found that we are nearly 2 weeks later than last year’s first frost. There’s something about the clarity of the air in these brisk Fall mornings that makes the day seem almost limitless, and as I traipsed around the parking lot area, I was regaled with frosty seed heads, curling oak leaves, and the incessant chatter of chickadees in the distance.

Not surprisingly, the cooler temperatures and clear skies brought out hungry critters from the forest, and the day got off to an exciting start watching an adult sharp-shinned hawk taking swipes at the goldfinches near the feeders.

(Female Sharp-shinned hawk perched above the N side feeders)

Her knowledge of the feeders either marks her as a very savvy late migrant, or one of our resident sharpies that patrol the feeders throughout the winter. Though sharpies breed around central NY, only their larger congener the Cooper’s Hawk is confirmed to be breeding in Sapsucker Woods (try and tell that to the frightened songbirds!), usually on the west side of the sanctuary.

As for the fright part, I’ve included a picture montage from our recent halloween celebration here at work, complete with pirates, scary people, and some just plain ugliness! Enjoy the holiday