Category: Birds

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Discerning the Glorious Songs of our Thrushes

Discerning the Glorious Songs of our Thrushes: Hermit Thrush Catharus guttatus Courtesy US FWS Lee Karney, Photographer
Hermit Thrush
Catharus guttatus
Courtesy US FWS
Lee Karney, Photographer

Hermit Thrush Catharus guttatus Courtesy US FWS Dave Menke, Photographer Hermit Thrush
Catharus guttatus
Courtesy US FWS
Dave Menke, Photographer

Swainson's Thrush Catharus ustulatus Courtesy US FWS Peter Pearsall, Photographer Swainson’s Thrush
Catharus ustulatus
Courtesy US FWS
Peter Pearsall, Photographer

Utah is blessed with many melodious songbirds, but which one sings most beautifully of all? I vote for the haunting, achingly beautiful melodies of our two common thrushes, Swainson’s Thrush and Hermit Thrush. These birds have been leisurely migrating northward from the tropics since early spring. By June, males are singing on their forested territories.

Thrushes are a bit secretive, but if you re lucky, you’ll see a bird a tad smaller than a robin clothed in rich brown back feathers that contrast with a pale breast sporting descending lines of fat brown spots the size of raindrops. Both thrush species look much the same, however. To distinguish them, you need to listen. Their haunting melodies arise deep in their chests, in the syrinx. Their syrinx works something like our larynx, using vibrating membranes that can be stretched taut or relaxed to produce different notes. Unlike our larynx, the bird’s syrinx sits where it’s two tracheae meet the windpipe. The most skilled songsters, like these thrushes, can work the two sides of their syrinx independently to produce two simultaneous notes.

The song of the Swainson’s Thrush always ends in a spiral of ascending notes.

[Audio: Swainson’s Thrush #61 Songbirds of Yellowstone and the High Rockies]

Now listen to the song of the Hermit Thrush. It ends with a warbling flourish that alternately rises or falls in pitch.

[Audio: Hermit Thrush #27 Songbirds of the Rocky Mountains]

It helps me to remember the song of the Hermit Thrush as being a lonely hermit talking to himself in two different voices, one ending high, the other low.

The glorious songs of thrushes grace our woodlands all through the weeks of early summer. So listen carefully and see if you too can now distinguish the song of Swainson’s Thrush from that of the Hermit.

This is Linda Kervin for Bridgerland Audubon Society.

Credits:

Photos: Courtesy Fish and Wildlife Service Online Digital Media Library, https://www.fws.gov/digitalmedia/
Hermit Thrush: Lee Karney, Photographer
Hermit Thrush: Dave Menke, Photographer
Swainson’s Thrush: Peter Pearsall, Photographer
Audio: Dr. Kevin Colver, https://wildstore.wildsanctuary.com/collections/special-collections
Voice: Linda Kervin, https://bridgerlandaudubon.org/
Text: Jim Cane & Jason Pietrzak, https://bridgerlandaudubon.org/
Additional Reading:

Hermit Thrush
Fieldguide, Utah Division of Wildlife Resources, Utah Department of Natural Resources, State of Utah, https://fieldguide.wildlife.utah.gov/?species=catharus%20guttatus

All About Birds, The Cornell Lab of Ornithology, https://www.allaboutbirds.org/guide/Hermit_Thrush/

Swainson’s Thrush
Fieldguide, Utah Division of Wildlife Resources, Utah Department of Natural Resources, State of Utah, https://fieldguide.wildlife.utah.gov/?species=catharus%20ustulatus

All About Birds, The Cornell Lab of Ornithology, https://www.allaboutbirds.org/guide/Swainsons_Thrush/

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Spring Migration

Bobolink
Dolichonyx oryzivorus
Courtesy: U.S. Fish & Wildlife Service
Steve Maslowski, Photographer

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

As temperatures warm and spring flowers appear, Utahns will hear an increasingly diverse choir of twitters, whistles, chatters and coos filling the air. Continuing over the next few weeks, thousands of migratory songbirds will mingle with our year-round avian residents in fields, forests, and wetlands.

No road maps or GPS units guide these migrants to their desired destinations. Scientists continue to marvel at how the birds know exactly where to go. There is evidence that magnetic fields of the Earth, landmarks, the Moon and stars—even specific  odors– may guide their flight.

Most songbirds migrate during the night. Cooler air helps keep the birds from overheating.    Also, night air tends to be less turbulent, so birds are less likely to be blown off course.  Just like humans stuck in an airport, birds can be grounded for hours or days during bad weather.  Birds may die of hunger, fly into objects, or be eaten en route.  Obviously the benefits of the destination must outweigh the risk of travel or birds simply wouldn’t bother.

So where are these migrant birds coming from?  Well, not unlike some Utahns, many birds spend the colder months in Arizona or New Mexico.  Others overwinter south of the border in Mexico or Central America.

Bobolinks have one of the longest annual migrations of any North American songbird. These Neotropical migrants travel over 12,000 miles from their North American breeding grounds to their “wintering” grounds in Argentina or Paraguay. This means they spend about half of each year in migration. They typically arrive in Utah in early to mid May..  Even after such a long flight, there’s no time for rest.  The weary, soon-to-be- parents must busily prepare for the arrival of hungry offspring.   Then  around mid August or September it’s time for the long flight back to the southern hemisphere.

No longer common, bobolinks are now  spotted in isolated patches primarily in the northern half of the state.  Look for them nesting or  foraging in wet meadow and  grasslands, and irrigated agricultural fields.

Frank Howe and Mary-Ann Muffoletto provided text and background information for this piece.

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

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

Credits:

Text: Stokes Nature Center: Holly Strand with text from Mary-Ann Muffoletto, Frank Howe

 

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A Bird for All Seasons, The American Dipper

American Dipper or Cinclus mexicanus
Courtesy: U.S. Fish & Wildlife Service
Dave Menke, Photographer

You are walking along side a swiftly-flowing mountain stream when you notice a slate-gray bird, tail cocked up jauntily like a wren’s, but a bird of a size nearer to that of a robin or large thrush. He is doing continual knee bends: bobbing up and down unceasingly. He (or is it she?) is perched on a rock drenched with spray from rapids. Your attention is arrested.

Suddenly the bird plunges into the foaming water as it rushes over rocks. Surely you will next see it (if at all) a bedraggled wreck surfacing way down stream, swept along to destruction by the raging torrent.

American Dipper by a stream
Courtesy: U.S. Fish & Wildlife Service
Dave Menke, Photographer

But no, he surfaces in a bit of calm water between rapids and swims nonchalantly to shore where he goes back to his bobbing routine, singing joyously all the while. What is this phenomenon you have stumbled upon?

You page through your field guide. Ah, here he is, the American dipper, also sometimes called a water ouzel. Yep, the bobbing is mentioned, along with the likelihood of his being found near rapidly flowing mountain streams in the American West. You also learn that he swims––no web feet but he swims––and better under water than on the surface, his wings assisting.

This bird was born almost literally of these waters. His parents built a mossy nest on a ledge of rock in the spray of the stream. His mother laid eggs looking like bubbles of foam. From one of these he emerged like Venus coming forth out of the sea.

American Dipper Nest
Courtesy: U.S. Fish & Wildlife Service

He never strays far from these waters and seems impervious to the vicissitudes of weather––undaunted by snow and ice (after all his habitat flows too swiftly to freeze in the coldest weather), undeterred by heat (he has continual mist and frequent bathing to keep him cool).

So, the next time you are out––in summer’s heat or snowshoeing in coldest winter––keep an eye out for a nondescript little bird bobbing on a slippery or ice-coated rock beside a fast-moving mountain stream. You can report that you have sighted an American dipper.

This is Linda Kervin for Bridgerland Audubon Society.

Credits:
Photos: Courtesy U.S. Fish & Wildlife Service
https://images.fws.gov/

Audio: Courtesy and Copyright 2008 Dr. Kevin Colver, Songbirds of Yellowstone, https://wildstore.wildsanctuary.com/collections/special-collections

Text: Norman Davis, with thanks to Dorothy Egan, Bridgerland Audubon Society

Additional Reading:

The Water Ouzel from The Mountains of California as quoted in The Wilderness World of John Muir, https://www.amazon.com/Wilderness-World-John-Muir/dp/0618127518/ref=sr_1_1?

American Dipper-Cinclus mexicanus, Utah Division of Wildlife Resources, https://fieldguide.wildlife.utah.gov/?species=cinclus%20mexicanus

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Men’s Hair and the Male House Finch

Male House Finch, Courtesy US FWS, Gary Kramer, Photographer
Male House Finch
Courtesy US FWS, Gary Kramer, Photographer
This is Linda Kervin for Bridgerland Audubon Society.

A man’s vanity is nowhere more apparent than for the hair atop his head. As men age, their hair may whiten, thin or disappear. As a remedy, some men use dyes or hair growth potions.

But imagine this: What if the right food alone could restore the virile dark hair of youth?

There is a common songbird at your birdfeeder this winter that can do just this. It is the male house finch.

[House Finch Call – #3 Songbirds of the Southwest Canyon Country]

As with many songbirds, the female house finch is drab compared to the brightly colored male. He sports a showy brow and bib in colors that range from tomato red to orange to straw yellow. Like the tomato and carrot, these colors come from pigments called carotenoids. All birds with red feathers get these carotenoid pigments from their diet, ultimately from the plants that can produce them.

What does the red feather color mean for the house finch?

The ornathologist Geof Hill of Auburn University experimentally altered head feather colors of male house finches. To make red-headed males into carrot tops, Jeff used peroxide. Red hair die achieved the opposite transformation. He then let the guys compete for the attentions of females.

Jeff’s experiments demonstrated that plumage does make the male. The redder the male’s head, the higher his place in the pecking order. And the more females that he could attract. Conversely, redheads lost rank after bleaching. Among male house finches, blondes really don’t have more fun.

So now you can predict the likely winners and losers in the mating game from just a glance at the male house finches at your seed feeder. As is common in science, this discovery leads to new questions: What food makes the male’s head feathers red? Is it some red fruit or berry? Why do some males manage to get more carotenoid pigments than others? Do they instinctively know the right seed or fruit to eat? We humans must get our carotenoids from plant sources too, such as the carotine that we transform into Vitamin A for night vision. The produce aisle at the grocery store might be a much different place though if the right fruit or vegetable could transform our hair color too.

This is Linda Kervin for Bridgerland Audubon Society.

Credits:

Photo: Courtesy US FWS, Gary Kramer, Photographer
Bird Sounds: Courtesy and Copyright 2008 Dr. Kevin Colver, Songbirds of the Southwest Canyon Country https://wildstore.wildsanctuary.com/collections/special-collections
Text: Jim Cane and Linda Kervin, Bridgerland Audubon Society https://www.bridgerlandaudubon.org
Voice: Linda Kervin

Additional Reading:

House Finch, Carpodacus mexicanus, Utah Division of Wildlife Resources, Department of Natural Resources, State of Utah, https://fieldguide.wildlife.utah.gov/?species=haemorhous%20mexicanus

House Finch, Utah Bird Profile, UtahBirds.org, https://www.utahbirds.org/birdsofutah/ProfilesD-K/HouseFinch.htm

A Red Bird in a Brown Bag: The Function and Evolution of Colorful Plumage in the House Finch , Dr. Geoffrey, E. Hill, Oxford University Press, September 2002
ISBN-13: 9780195148480, https://www.amazon.com/Red-Bird-Brown-Bag-Ornithology/dp/0195148487

New Addition: How birds turn red, Phys.org, May 19, 2016, http://phys.org/news/2016-05-genes-enable-birds-red.html

Pharr, Lauren D., Seeing Red: What the Color of House Finches Can Tell Us, Cool Green Science, The Nature Conservancy, November 2, 2021, https://blog.nature.org/2021/11/02/seeing-red-what-the-color-of-house-finches-can-tell-us/

Lowe, Joe, Invasive Birds of the U.S.: Seven of the Most Common Species, Bird Calls Blog, American Bird Conservancy, February 24, 2020, https://abcbirds.org/blog20/invasive-birds/

Leffer, Lauren, 10 Fun Facts about the House Finch, News, National Audubon Society, December 21, 2021, https://www.audubon.org/news/10-fun-facts-about-house-finch