The Bird Blog, June, 2024

(Read the first part of the News and Muse sum­mer report in our Newslet­ter here.)

One of the many things I learned while mon­i­tor­ing the trail is the impor­tance of remov­ing non-avian nests from the nest box­es. I removed mice, wasps, and ants on 25 occa­sions since mon­i­tor­ing began March 12 in addi­tion to the many mice that were evict­ed dur­ing the Blue­bird Trail reha­bil­i­ta­tion project this past Fall/​Winter. They are removed with­out killing. Most of them go else­where after one or two evic­tions, but not always. We’re hap­py to share the land with these crit­ters but not the nest box­es. The prac­ti­cal effect of rou­tine box mon­i­tor­ing com­bined with this removal effort is that 6 bird nests were built in box­es pre­vi­ous­ly occu­pied by mice/​wasps/​ants, a 24% increase in total bird nests to date! 

Mon­i­tor­ing is focused on the 40 nest box­es along our trail. How­ev­er, most birds at Lan­dis nest else­where such as in trees, on the ground or in some of our build­ings. On my week­ly mon­i­tor­ing trek, it’s hard not to notice some of these oth­er nests. For instance, there’s an Amer­i­can Robin nest in the Shan­ti-Vun Med­i­ta­tion Gar­den pavil­ion, an East­ern Phoebe nest in the vis­i­tors park­ing lot kiosk, a Song Spar­row nest in the field below the barn (see pic­ture below), and an uniden­ti­fied ​“lit­tle brown bird” nest­ing in the dinosaur sculp­ture.
 

Watch your step! Song Spar­row nest locat­ed in the field between WPT1 and WPT2. 

Look for our annu­al trail mon­i­tor­ing sum­ma­ry report in the fall issue of the Arbore­tum newslet­ter and a more com­pre­hen­sive ver­sion in the fall issue of the Blue­bird Blog. 

Blue­bird Lot­tery inter­im report 

Lan­dis held a free East­ern Blue­bird nest lot­tery this year. By the April 15 dead­line, 74 par­tic­i­pants had sub­mit­ted guess­es for which nest box loca­tions would pro­duce blue­birds. These guess­es spanned all 20 of the nest box pair loca­tions. So far, two loca­tions have fledged blue­birds and sev­er­al more are on track to do so by the June 15 end date. Par­tic­i­pants who guessed cor­rect­ly will win free Lan­dis Arbore­tum mem­ber­ships and be entered into a draw­ing for one of our 12 Grand Prizes which include two $50 cash prizes, two nest box­es, a bird feed­er, $20 cred­it for one of our plant sales, free atten­dance at one of our field trips, and five sub­scrip­tions to The Moun­tain Eagle/​Schoharie News. Thanks again to the busi­ness­es that donat­ed prizes: The Apple Bar­rel (Schoharie), Wild Birds Unlim­it­ed (Sarato­ga), Wild­bird Junc­tion (Del­mar), and The Moun­tain Eagle/​Schoharie News. 

The Grand Prize draw­ing will be held in late June and win­ners will be noti­fied by email. You don’t have to be present at the draw­ing to win one of the grand prizes, but unless you agree to pay ship­ping, you must pick up the prize at the Arbore­tum with­in 30 days fol­low­ing noti­fi­ca­tion that you are a win­ner. Anoth­er draw­ing will be held to award any prizes that are not picked up with­in 30 days of notification.

Look for our Blue­bird Lot­tery final report in the fall issue of the Arbore­tum newsletter. 

Fea­tured Bird

Pileat­ed Wood­peck­er – The Pileat­ed Wood­peck­er is one of the largest for­est birds in North Amer­i­ca and a year-round res­i­dent at Lan­dis. It’s near­ly the size of a crow and you might mis­take it for one if not for the flam­ing-red crest on its head and its white stripes. These wood­peck­ers are well-equipped to make their own nest holes in trees. The holes they make are also used by oth­er bird species and mam­mals for nest­ing and shel­ter. Pileat­ed Wood­peck­ers are noisy birds – from their whin­ny­ing calls to their loud tree drum­ming and for­ag­ing. They leave unique rec­tan­gu­lar holes in the wood while search­ing for their prey. They pre­fer car­pen­ter ants but also eat oth­er insects, and some­times fruits and nuts. Pileat­ed is a word that means ​“crest­ed”. Not sure whether to pro­nounce ​“pileat­ed” as PIE-lee-ay-tid or PILL-ee-ay-tid? It appears that both pro­nun­ci­a­tions are accept­able so pick the one you like. You can learn much more about Pileat­ed Wood­peck­ers by vis­it­ing https://​www​.allabout​birds​.org/​g​u​i​d​e​/​P​i​l​e​a​t​e​d​_​W​o​o​d​p​e​c​k​e​r​/​o​v​e​rview and by fol­low­ing the link in the next section.

Muse for the Trail 

Read about the Woody Wood­peck­er ori­gin sto­ry here https://​www​.ornithe​ol​o​gy​.com/​p​o​s​t​/​p​i​l​e​a​t​e​d​-​w​o​o​d​p​ecker .

Ran­dom Facts and Help­ful Hints 

Sci­en­tif­ic stud­ies have shown that bird­ing, or sim­ply lis­ten­ing to birds, relieves stress and has oth­er sig­nif­i­cant men­tal-health ben­e­fits. Lan­dis Arbore­tum is a great place to do both. 

Per­haps my favorite loca­tion to bird watch is the Shan­ti-Vun Med­i­ta­tion Gar­den pavil­ion. It is a great place to relax in the shade, lis­ten to and watch birds in all direc­tions, and it is very acces­si­ble. One can see Amer­i­can Robins nest­ing on a beam in the pavil­ion and watch var­i­ous birds bathing under the near­by water­fall. The nest­ing behav­ior of East­ern Blue­birds, Tree Swal­lows and House Wrens can be observed at the two near­by nest box pairs. Bring binoc­u­lars or a cam­era with tele­pho­to lens so you can watch their com­ings and goings up close.

Quar­ter­ly Boggler

Name at least one ani­mat­ed movie, TV series or video game that includes a depic­tion of a Pileat­ed Woodpecker. 

(see answers at bot­tom of page) 

Nest­box Spotlight 

The ​“col­or of mon­ey” in nest­box WPT5W. 

To be lot­tery win­ners these eggs had to hatch, and the nestlings had to fledge by June 15, which they did. Three peo­ple picked loca­tion WPT5 so they will receive a free one-year mem­ber­ship to the Arbore­tum and be entered in the Grand Prize draw­ing. AT1 is also a win­ner. It is like­ly that some of the oth­er East­ern Blue­bird nests will pro­duce fledg­lings, and addi­tion­al lot­tery win­ners, by the deadline. 

Bog­gler Answer 

Bam­bi, Dis­ney film Can­dy­bots Kids World, series

Fan­ta­sia 2000, Dis­ney film Grav­i­ty Falls, Dis­ney series

Impos­si­ble Crea­tures, video game Stan­ley (Wood­peck­er Woes), Dis­ney series

Total Dra­ma Island, series Wild Kratts, TV series

The Woody Wood­peck­er Show – series 

There must be oth­er cor­rect answers that aren’t list­ed above.