Category: Birds

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Bird vs. Window

The Cedar Waxwing is a fruit eating bird.
It can become intoxicated
eating the fermented fruit of
mountain ash, chokecherry
and other trees and bushes.
Courtesy Utah Division of Natural Resources

Hi, I’m Holly Strand from Stokes Nature Center in beautiful Logan Canyon.

While working at my desk this fall, I was unnerved by the frequency of soft thumps caused by feathery bodies slamming into the windows of our house. One day I counted 20 hits in a single hour . We have designs etched into the glass, but they didn’t seem to deter the feathery missiles from their kamikaze flight trajectories.

Intense periods of frequent window strikes coincided with feeding frenzies on chokecherry and then crabapple fruit in our yard. Birds get intoxicated from the berries and their judgement flies out the window (so to speak) impairing flight control. Robins, waxwings and other fruit eaters that feed on fermented berries from mountain ash, crab apple or other trees and bushes are the most frequent crash victims.

Of course drunkenness is not the only cause of bird- window confrontations. Sometimes birds attack windows. This spring, I was startled by an angry-looking robin trying to attack me through the glass. But I was not the object of his rage. He was simply a male defending his territory against his own reflected image.

But back to collisions. Most accidents occur when birds see trees, sky, or clouds reflected on a glass but do not see the hard transparent window surface itself. Ornithologists estimate that in the United States alone well over 100 million birds are killed each year by window collisions. Sometimes the birds are merely stunned and recover in a few moments. Often, however, window hits lead to severe internal injuries and death. Strikes are most frequent in winter because birds are attracted to feeders placed near windows.

Luckily, there are quite a few things you can do minimize collisions. First, check your feeder placement. Pete Dunne, an ornithologist, found that feeders placed 13 feet away from a window corresponded with the maximum deaths. However, a feeder place within a meter of window actually reduced the accident rate. Birds focus on the feeder as they fly toward the window. If they strike the glass leaving the feeder, they do so at very low speed.

You may want to cover windows with netting or screens which will function as a sideways trampoline if a bird should hit them. You can also redirect birds by putting up awnings, beads, bamboo, fabric strips. Stickers or silhouettes will help if they are spaced 2-4 in. apart across the entire window. A single, black hawk-shaped silhouette in the middle of a bit picture window does not prevent crashes.

If you find a bird dazed from a window hit, place it in a dark container with a lid such as a shoebox, and leave it somewhere warm and quiet, out of reach of pets and other predators. If the weather is extremely cold, you may need to take it inside. Do not try to give it food and water, and resist handling it as much as possible. The darkness will calm the bird while it revives, which should occur within a few minutes, unless it is seriously injured. Release it outside as soon as it appears awake and alert. If the bird doesn’t recover in a couple of hours, you could take it to a veterinarian or wildlife rehabilitator.

Thanks to the Rocky Mountain Power Foundation for supporting research and development of Wild About Utah topics.

For Wild About Utah and Stokes Nature Center, I’m Holly Strand.

Credits:

Photo Courtesy Utah Division of Natural Resources, https://dwrcdc.nr.utah.gov/rsgis2/Search/Display.asp?FlNm=bombcedr

Text: Stokes Nature Center: Holly Strand

Sources & Additional Reading

Dunne, Pete. 2003. Pete Dunne on Bird Watching: The How-to, Where-to, and When-to of Birding. HMCo Field Guides. https://www.amazon.com/Pete-Dunne-Watching-Where-When/dp/0395906865

Cornell Lab of Ornithology. Bird Notes from sapsucker woods. https://www.birds.cornell.edu/AllAboutBirds/notes/BirdNote10_Windows.pdf (Accessed Nov 30, 2008)

Leahy, Christopher. 1982. The Birdwatcher’s Companion. NY: Grammercy Books. https://www.amazon.com/Birdwatchers-Companion-North-American-Birdlife/dp/0691113882/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1228882143&sr=1-1

Wildlife Rehabilitation Center of Northern Utah, Ogden, UT https://www.wrcnu.org/

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Bird Feeding

Bird Feeding: Pine Siskins and an American Goldfinch feed on thistle from a sock feeder, Copyright 2008 Jim Cane, Photographer
Pine Siskins and an
American Goldfinch feed
on thistle from a sock feeder
© 2008 Jim Cane

Hopper Feeder, Courtesy and Copyright 2008 Jim Cane, Photographer Hopper Feeder
© 2008 Jim Cane

Hopper Feeder with frustrated squirrel, Copyright 2008 Jim Cane, Photographer Hopper Feeder
with frustrated
squirrel
© 2008 Jim Cane

Suet Feeder, Copyright 2008 Jim Cane, Photographer Suet Feeder
© 2008 Jim Cane

Many of our songbirds have departed for tropical climes to spend their winter. I confess that some days I envy them their choice. Like you and I, though, many others remain behind. They will fluff their feathers to tough out the cold, spending these short days in a perpetual hunt for food to keep them warm. You can help their hungry quest.

Remember the movie Mary Poppins and the scene where the lady sings “Feed the Birds”? She was feeding city pigeons, but you can feed our diverse songbirds using a convenient birdfeeder. For loose seed, we use a hopper feeder. The hopper resembles a tiny roofed house which is filled with seed that is dispensed from a trough at its base. To exclude squirrels, we have a metal squirrel-proof feeder, but you could put a baffle on the feeder’s supporting pole. The other common style of seed feeder is a broad tray. It will need a roof and drain holes to keep the seed dry and free of mold. Our feeder is above a stone walkway for birds like juncos that prefer seed spilled on the ground. A ring of upturned tomato cages around this area excludes cats, and the season’s discarded Christmas tree will provide them cover.

The best seed to offer is black oil sunflower seed, rich in fats and proteins, with a thin shell. Our diners include chickadees, finches, sparrows, nuthatches and woodpeckers. If you buy seed mixes, juncos and sparrows will take white millet, but milo or so-called red millet is a filler. Doves and jays like cracked corn too. Goldfinches and pine siskins flock to Nyjer thistle seed dispensed from a fine mesh sock you can buy with the seed.

Woodpeckers and nuthatches appreciate a suet feeder too, being a wire mesh cage containing a block of seed-filled suet, typically rendered from beef kidney fat. Expect magpies to hammer chunks off that suet block occasionally; our dog knows all about it. Nothing quite cheers a wintry day for me like colorful songbirds noisely bustling at our feeders.

If you do put up feeders, consider participating in Project Feeder Watch. You can find details on our web site, WildAboutUtah. Bon apetite!

Credits:

Photo: Courtesy & Copyright 2008 Jim Cane, Bridgerland Audubon Society, www.bridgerlandaudubon.org

Text: Jim Cane, Linda Kervin, Bridgerland Audubon Society

Bird Recordings Courtesy and Copyright Dr. Kevin Colver, WildSanctuary, Soundscapes, https://wildstore.wildsanctuary.com/

 

Additional Reading:

Backyard Bird Feeding, US Fish & Wildlife Service, https://library.fws.gov/Bird_Publications/feed.html

Project Feederwatch, Cornell Lab of Ornithology, https://www.birds.cornell.edu/pfw/

Educator’s Guide to Bird Study, Cornell Lab of Ornithology, https://www.birds.cornell.edu/schoolyard/all_about_birds/feeding_birds/bird_feeders.htm

The Great Backyard Bird Count, Birdsource.org, https://www.birdcount.org/

Creating landscapes for Wildlife — A Guide for Backyards in Utah, A production of the Utah Division of Wildlife Resources, Utah State University Cooperative Extension Service & Department of Landscape Architecture and Environmental Planning, https://digitallibrary.utah.gov/awweb/awarchive?type=file&item=10215

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Burrowing Owls

Burrowing Owl Near the Great Salt Lake
Courtesy Bridgerland Audubon Society
Lyle Bingham, Photographer

This is Dick Hurren from the Bridgerland Audubon Society.

During a recent field trip sponsored by our group, we saw two small burrowing owls with long legs and round faces, standing by their burrow, near the road, on a large stone.

A car stopped close by and the owls disappeared under the ground. Not wanting to disturb them, we stayed in our car to watch the pair. A few minutes later, after the other car left, one of the owls was back on the stone surveying the area and the other reappeared soon thereafter.

Burrowing owls are one of the less commonly seen of the 14 owl species found in Utah. With many former grasslands and prairies, the preferred habitat of these owls, now cities and cultivated farms, these protected birds have tried to adapt.

As their preferred habitats disappear, they may take up residence in cemetaries, golf courses, airports, on the edges of farms or in deserts. But their numbers are declining precipitously.
Most inhabit holes built by other animals. Occasionally, however, they burrow their own holes. For both nesting and off-season living, their preferred holes are bare of vegetation with a nearby mound. They stand on the mound mornings and evenings and hunt primarily nocturnally. Burrowing owls are often common near prairie dog towns and love to take over old prairie dog holes for their own. Where natural burrows are sparse and in winter, they may resort to using dry culverts under roads.

In spring, burrowing owls migrate north from the southerwestern states, that is Texas, New Mexico, Southern California, and Arizona. As well as parts of Mexico and from as far south as Honduras. Some travel as far north as Canada to nest. Most burrowing owls fly back south by the end of September, with the last leaving in October.

Weighing less than 6 ounces, this long-legged owl stands just 8 inches tall. The female incubates from 3 to 11 eggs while the male ferries in food to her for that 30-day period.

Their diet is diverse, a smorgasbord of invertibrates such as scorpions, grasshoppers, beetles, moths and worms as well as vertibrates like kangaroo rats, mice, frogs, snakes and lizards.

Both parents tend to the young until they fledge, at 40 to 45 days. In the burrow, the young can make a buzzy rattle-snake-like sound. This helps deter animals and humans from reaching in the hole to disburb them.

Land owners find that providing space for burrows or by building artificial burrows gives them, that is the landowners, the benefit of a voratious preditor of insects and rodents.

We can enjoy burrowing owls, and help reduce their declining numbers, when we preserve open spaces, restrict free-roaming dogs and cats, and restrict using pesticides that kill owls and the insects and small animals they eat.

For Wild About Utah I’m Dick Hurren.

Credits:

Photo: Courtesy Bridgerland Audubon Society, Lyle Bingham, Photographer, https://bridgerlandaudubon.org/
Voice Talent: Richard (Dick) Hurren, Bridgerland Audubon Society https://bridgerlandaudubon.org/
Text: Lyle Bingham, Bridgerland Audubon Society https://bridgerlandaudubon.org/

Additional Reading:

Woodin, M.C., Skoruppa, M.K., and Hickman, G.C., 2007, Winter ecology of the Western Burrowing Owl (Athene
cunicularia hypugaea) in Southern Texas 1999–2004: U.S. Geological Survey Scientific Investigations Report
2007–5150, 33 p. https://pubs.usgs.gov/sir/2007/5150/
https://pubs.usgs.gov/sir/2007/5150/pdf/SIR2007-5150.pdf

Romin, Laura A. and Muck, James A., Utah Field Office Guidelines for Raptor Protection from Human and Land Use Disturbances, Utah, Laura A. Romin and James A. Muck, U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, Utah Field Office, May 1999,
https://fs.ogm.utah.gov/pub/MINES/Coal_Related/MiscPublications/USFWS_Raptor_Guide/RAPTORGUIDE.PDF

Burrowing Owl (Athene cunicularia), Factsheets, Hawkwatch International,
https://hawkwatch.org/learn/factsheets/item/827-burrowing-owl

Burrowing Owl, Utah Division of Natural Resources,
https://dwrcdc.nr.utah.gov/rsgis2/Search/Display.asp?FlNm=athecuni

Burrowing Owls, Burrowing Owl Preservation Society (California), https://burrowingowls.org/

Wright, Tony, A little owl makes a big journey, Wildlife Blog, Utah Division of Wildlife Resources, Utah Department of Natural Resources, https://wildlife.utah.gov/news/wildlife-blog/711-a-little-owl-makes-a-big-journey.html

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Important Bird Areas

Important Bird Area Sign
at the Deep Canyon Trailhead
Leading to the Hawkwatch Intl
Wellsvilles Site
Courtesy Bridgerland Audubon Society

Not all places on earth were created equal. Some places attract lots of birds, and some don’t. And some places support birds that are at more at risk of extinction than others. Those two simple statements are the basis of a worldwide effort to map Important Bird Areas or IBAs as they are called in the birding world. This effort has been led by Birdlife International which is a conglomerate of partnership organizations dedicated to the welfare of birds. To date, over 7500 IBA sites have been identified and described in over 170 countries.

In the United States, the partner for identifying IBAs is the National Audubon Society. Wayne Martinson and Keith Evans of the Wasatch Audubon Society have just completed a book about the IBAs in Utah called Utah’s featured birds and Viewing sites. Reading it, I learned that Utah has 21 different sites and more are under consideration. Many of Utah’s IBA’s are clustered around the Great Salt Lake . The largest ones in area are Gilbert Bay and the Deseret Land and Livestock Ranch.

Landowner permission is required for an area to be recognized in Utah. Furthermore, an IBA designation does not imply any oversight or management implications. It is merely a form of recognition of the unique nature of each site.

IBAs are designated to be of global, national or state significance. There are carefully-defined criteria for making the designation. To be considered globally significant, one of the following must be true for a given site:

  1. It must regularly hold significant numbers of a globally threatened species or
  2. It must regularly hold a significant population of narrow endemics or species with very limited distribution or
  3. It must regularly support exceptionally large numbers of migrating or congregating species

8 of Utah’s 21 IBA’s are considered of global significance. The globally significant sites include Gunnison Bay , Bear River Bay, Ogden Bay, Farmington Bay, Gilbert Bay of the Great Salt Lake, Deseret Land and Livestock Ranch, and the San Juan County/Gunnison Sage-Grouse IBA.

In the future, we’ll probably see more including Zion National Park based on the presence of Mexican Spotted Owl and California Condor, Parker Mountain based on Greater Sage Grouse , and Cutler Marsh-Amalga Barrens based on its large White-faced Ibis colony.

Each one of Utah’s important bird areas is an interesting subject in and of itself. You might just hear about a few of them in future episodes.

Credits:

Photo: Courtesy Bridgerland Audubon Society

Text: Stokes Nature Center: Holly Strand

Sources & Additional Reading:

Cutler Marsh-Amalga Barrens IBA site description https://www.audubon.org/important-bird-areas/cutler-reservoir-and-marsh-ut08

Ryder, Ronald A. and David E. Manry. 1994. White-faced Ibis (Plegadis chihi), The Birds of North America Online (A. Poole, Ed.). Ithaca: Cornell Lab of Ornithology; Retrieved from the Birds of North America Online: https://bna.birds.cornell.edu/bna/species/130
[Accessed December 2, 2010] Note: Moved by Cornell Labs to a subscription service, Birds of the World: https://birdsoftheworld.org/bow/species/whfibi/cur/introduction [Accessed September 19, 2021]

Important Bird Areas, Audubon Society, www.audubon.org/bird/IBA/ Note: Website changed to https://www.audubon.org/important-bird-areas
See also
https://www.audubon.org/important-bird-areas/state/utah
https://www.audubon.org/important-bird-areas/cutler-reservoir-and-marsh-ut08 [Accessed September 19, 2021]

Important Bird and Biodiversity Areas (IBAs), BirdLife International, https://www.birdlife.org/worldwide/programme-additional-info/important-bird-and-biodiversity-areas-ibas [Accessed September 19, 2021]