News & Muse: 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. 

March, 2024

The Lan­dis Arbore­tum Blue­bird Trail fea­tures 40 nest­ing box­es locat­ed through­out our grounds. This is the inau­gur­al post of News & Muse from the Blue­bird Trail. Each post will con­sist of the fol­low­ing sections:

News from the Trail – what is hap­pen­ing on our trail.

Fea­tured Bird – infor­ma­tion about one bird species that you may encounter on the trail.

Muse for the Trail – an artis­tic or inspi­ra­tional item that is relat­ed to the trail or to bird­ing in general.

Ran­dom Facts and Help­ful Hints – use­ful infor­ma­tion that is gen­er­al in nature.

Quar­ter­ly Bog­gler – a rid­dle, puz­zle, or triv­ia ques­tion to solve.

Nest­box Spot­light – a pho­to and/​or infor­ma­tion about our nestboxes.

The infor­ma­tion we pro­vide is intend­ed to spark your inter­est with­out being over­ly schol­ar­ly or exhaus­tive. We will some­times sug­gest where to find addi­tion­al infor­ma­tion for those of you that would like to learn more. Some issues will be long and oth­ers short. We hope you will enjoy them all. Please sub­mit any com­ments, ques­tions or sug­ges­tions to birding@​landisarboretum.​org.

News from the Trail

Let me intro­duce myself: I’m Shayne Mitchell, and I began vol­un­teer­ing at Lan­dis in Novem­ber 2023. My assign­ment has been to come in on Tues­days to take care of the Blue­bird Trail. When I start­ed, many of the nest box­es along the trail need­ed repair. I met with Fred Breglia, who explained the over­all reha­bil­i­ta­tion plan and gave me some guid­ance on how to begin. I con­tin­ue to meet with Fred from time-to-time.

Ini­tial­ly, I focused on assess­ing and record­ing the con­di­tion of the trail. Dur­ing Novem­ber, each nest box was vis­it­ed, pho­tographed, and cleaned out, and its loca­tion, struc­tur­al con­di­tion, and oth­er attrib­ut­es were entered into a spread­sheet. Required repairs were iden­ti­fied and the nec­es­sary mate­ri­als scrounged – scrap wood from behind the Meet­ing House and unused hard­ware from the barn. For­tu­nate­ly, the ground hadn’t frozen yet, so I was also able to straight­en and rein­stall posts dur­ing this time rather than hav­ing to wait for the spring thaw.

By the end of Decem­ber, I had cut down encroach­ing brush and took down the nest box­es that need­ed repair and brought them to the green­house. Nest box repairs were begun and con­tin­ued into ear­ly Feb­ru­ary. The most com­mon prob­lem I encoun­tered was leak­ing roofs. Instal­la­tion of repaired nest box­es is near­ly com­plete as I write this. I plan to put up the last two on the final Tues­day in Feb­ru­ary, in time for nest­ing season.

I am hap­py to report that weath­er con­di­tions did not inter­fere with the reha­bil­i­ta­tion project. I nev­er had to skip a week of work because of extreme cold or snow that was too deep. That’s not to say that we didn’t have any cold weath­er. For­tu­nate­ly, the green­house pro­vid­ed a refuge from the cold as it hov­ers around 50° inside when it’s cloudy and is warmer when sun­ny. So, I had a rel­a­tive­ly warm space to take tem­po­rary breaks from the trail on the cold­er days and for mak­ing repairs.

On a philo­soph­i­cal note, I’ve observed that win­ter is a qui­et time of year at Lan­dis, both out on the trail and in the green­house. My Tues­days have been peace­ful, even med­i­ta­tive. Much as I have loved the com­par­a­tive soli­tude, I am look­ing for­ward to a tran­si­tion to spring­time, warmer days, and see­ing more peo­ple. Also, it will be great to see plant activ­i­ties ramp up in the green­house, even if it means that I lose most of my ​“office space”.

Trail reha­bil­i­ta­tion by the numbers:

40 nest box­es inspect­ed and cleaned.

30+ nest box posts straightened.

20 nest box roofs replaced or repaired.

18 weeks spent on project (one day per week).

15 mice evict­ed dur­ing box cleanouts.

Many miles of hik­ing back-and-forth between green­house and nest boxes.

By March the reha­bil­i­ta­tion project will be com­plete, just in time to begin trail mon­i­tor­ing. Look for my first report on trail mon­i­tor­ing in the next issue. 
 

“Didn’t pay the rent … so out the door they went.” Nest box FLT5E, Novem­ber 2023.

Fea­tured Bird
 

East­ern Blue­bird – I think it is safe to say that the East­ern Blue­bird is the favorite bird at Lan­dis. Cer­tain­ly, they have to be count­ed among the most well-loved species of birds in the world. While there are many rea­sons for their pop­u­lar­i­ty, the great­est fac­tor is arguably their beau­ti­ful col­or­ing. They typ­i­cal­ly live in open coun­try around scat­tered trees and where there is lim­it­ed under­sto­ry and sparse ground cov­er. They pre­fer to nest in cav­i­ties such as holes in trees and in human-made nest box­es. These birds main­ly eat insects and fruit. Lan­dis has an abun­dance of habi­tat, foods, and nest cav­i­ties that East­ern Blue­birds favor and that’s why they are com­mon­ly seen on our prop­er­ty. You can learn much more about East­ern Blue­birds by vis­it­ing https://​www​.allabout​birds​.org/….

Muse for the Trail

Muse (noun) the spir­it that is thought to inspire a poet or artist; a source of genius or inspiration.

(verb) to think about some­thing care­ful­ly and for a long time.

The Last Word of a Bluebird

By Robert Frost

As I went out a Crow

In a low voice said, ​“Oh,

I was look­ing for you.

How do you do?

I just came to tell you

To tell Les­ley (will you?)

That her lit­tle Bluebird

Want­ed me to bring word

That the north wind last night

That made the stars bright

And made ice on the trough

Almost made him cough

His tail feath­ers off.

He just had to fly!

But he sent her Good-by,

And said to be good,

And wear her red hood,

And look for skunk tracks

In the snow

with an ax—

And do everything!

And per­haps in the spring

He would come back and sing.”

Note — Some of our blue­birds stayed through the win­ter. For any that didn’t, spring is near­ly here, and we look for­ward to their return.

Ran­dom Facts and Help­ful Hints

If you would like a free, well-regard­ed App to help you iden­ti­fy birds that you see or hear, try Mer­lin Bird ID. Vis­it https://merlin.allaboutbirds.o… for more information.

Quar­ter­ly Boggler

Bog­gler (noun) some­thing, as an amaz­ing fact, puz­zle, or rid­dle, that astounds or defeats.

Which state has des­ig­nat­ed the East­ern Blue­bird as its state bird? (see answer at bot­tom of page)

Nest­box Spotlight

“Before and after” pic­tures of a pair of nest box­es (PT2W and PT2E) along the Pio­neer Trail. Before reha­bil­i­ta­tion above, Novem­ber 2023. After reha­bil­i­ta­tion below, Feb­ru­ary 2024. Brush was cut, one post straight­ened, box ven­ti­la­tion improved, one roof replaced, and the oth­er roof was shin­gled which will buy some time before it must be replaced.

Bog­gler Answer

Both Mis­souri and New York have des­ig­nat­ed the East­ern Blue­bird as their state bird.