The Bird Blog, September 2024

Sep­tem­ber, 2024

News & Muse from the Blue­bird Trail – Blue­bird Blog Autumn 2024 Issue

By Shayne Mitchell

Please sub­mit any com­ments, ques­tions, or sug­ges­tions to birding@​landisarboretum.​org. 

News from the Trail

Trail mon­i­tor­ing report

All nest mon­i­tor­ing is con­duct­ed in accor­dance with The Cor­nell Lab of Ornithology’s Nest­watch Nest Mon­i­tor­ing Man­u­al. All mon­i­tor­ing data is entered into the Nest­watch data­base, and an end-of-year sum­ma­ry is sub­mit­ted to the New York State Blue­bird Soci­ety. If you’d like to fol­low along with our Blue­bird Trail Map, please open https://​lan​dis​ar​bore​tum​.org/​a​s​s​e​t​s​/​i​m​a​g​e​s​/​L​a​n​d​i​s​-​B​l​u​e​b​i​r​d​-​T​r​a​i​l​.jpeg 

Rou­tine nest box mon­i­tor­ing began on March 12 and end­ed August 23. As expect­ed, the three species of birds using our box­es were East­ern Blue­birds, Tree Swal­lows and House Wrens. A few ear­ly birds showed inter­est in the box­es in March and April, but it wasn’t until May and June that they real­ly got busy. New nest­ing activ­i­ty declined sharply dur­ing the sec­ond half of July and the final batch of fledg­lings left the box­es in late August. Over­all, it was a great year for nest­ing suc­cess on the trail.

Off-sea­son main­te­nance has already start­ed. Most nest box­es have been thor­ough­ly cleaned. Between now and spring­time there are some box­es that require repairs, and there is brush to cut, but much less than last year. Undoubt­ed­ly, some posts will require straight­en­ing in spring­time after the ground thaws. 

Box­es that did not host nests this year will get an off-sea­son eval­u­a­tion to see if mod­i­fi­ca­tions might improve their bird appeal. A box might not be used for sev­er­al rea­sons, includ­ing high­ly ter­ri­to­r­i­al birds nest­ing near­by, mouse or wasp nests, or an issue with the box, e.g., loca­tion, con­di­tion, design, com­pass fac­ing. Also, box­es that host­ed lots of wrens may be moved dur­ing the off sea­son to be fur­ther away from the tree line or brushy areas, where pos­si­ble, to try to favor more blue­birds and swallows. 

Look­ing ahead to 2025, the Set­ting Up a Blue­bird Nest Box class and Blue­bird Trail Walk field trip will like­ly be repeat­ed as they were both well attend­ed this year. If there are oth­er class­es or field trips you’d like to see, please email us your ideas. Also, we hope to repeat the Blue­bird Lot­tery (more infor­ma­tion below). 

2024 Sum­ma­ry statistics:

Num­ber of Nest Box­es = 40 (20 loca­tions with a pair of box­es at each)

Total Nest Box Vis­its = 1000+

Fledg­lings: 

East­ern Blue­bird = 62 

Tree Swal­low = 55 

House Wren = 109 

Oth­er = 0

Total (sum of all species): 

Eggs Laid = 285 

Young Hatched = 236

Fledg­lings = 226

More detailed nest­ing infor­ma­tion can be found in the table at the end of this edi­tion of the blog. 

2024 Nest Box Award Win­ners:  

First – The first egg of the year was laid on April 13 in Box WPT5W, East­ern Bluebird.

Last – The last fledg­ling depart­ed from Box WPT5W on August 21, East­ern Bluebird.

Most – The box with the most fledg­lings was WPT3W, 12 House Wrens.

Least – Also known as Par­tic­i­pa­tion Tro­phy Win­ners. Box­es FLT1W, FLT4E, PT3E, WT4E, WT6W had zero nest­ing attempts for the year. ​“Sor­ry you didn’t host any birds this year but thanks for try­ing your best … did you real­ly try your best?” Maybe they did. In every case their paired box host­ed blue­birds, so I sus­pect that high­ly ter­ri­to­r­i­al blue­bird neigh­bors pre­vent­ed use of these box­es, i.e., it’s prob­a­bly not their fault they were emp­ty all year. Even so, we’ll give them an extra eval­u­a­tion dur­ing the off season . 

Ruler of the Roost – More House Wrens fledged than any oth­er species. 

Most Unwant­ed Vis­i­tors – Paper wasps nest­ing in PT3E. I removed their nest for sev­en weeks and then gave up and let them stay. I could have tried apply­ing some soap to the roof of the box to deter them but kept for­get­ting to bring it.

People’s Choice Award – Loca­tion WPT4 received the most Blue­bird Lot­tery guess­es. See Nest­box Spot­light below.

Blue­birdi­est Box – WPT5W host­ed 3 broods and 9 fledg­lings. More than any oth­er box this year. The fol­low­ing pic­ture was tak­en August 6.

Blue­bird Lot­tery sum­ma­ry report

The odds of win­ning the grand prize in the New York Lot­tery Mega Mil­lions is approx­i­mate­ly 0.00000033%. The odds of win­ning a grand prize in our Blue­bird Lot­tery was 16%. There­fore, the chance of get­ting a return on your invest­ment was 48.5 mil­lion times high­er if you played our Blue­bird Lot­tery … except that no invest­ment was involved since our lot­tery was free to play! 

Did I men­tion that Lan­dis held a free lot­tery this year? Lot­tery par­tic­i­pants guessed which nest box loca­tions would pro­duce (fledge) blue­birds this year. Sev­en­ty-four par­tic­i­pants sub­mit­ted guess­es by the April 15 dead­line. Every loca­tion received at least one guess. Eight loca­tions out of 20 fledged blue­birds by the June 15 lot­tery end date result­ing in 22 par­tic­i­pants (30%) win­ning free Lan­dis Arbore­tum mem­ber­ships. Each of the 22 win­ners was then entered in our grand prize draw­ing and 12 of them won grand prizes, which includ­ed two $50 cash prizes, two nest box­es, a bird feed­er, $20 cred­it for our plant sale, free atten­dance on one of our field trips, and five sub­scrip­tions to The Moun­tain Eagle/​Schoharie News. The total val­ue of all prizes was $1200. Thanks again to the busi­ness­es that donat­ed: The Apple Bar­rel (Schoharie), Wild Birds Unlim­it­ed (Sarato­ga), Wild­bird Junc­tion (Del­mar), and The Moun­tain Eagle/​Schoharie News. Whether you enjoyed the lot­tery this year or missed out on the fun, stay tuned. We hope to do it again next year.

Win­ning loca­tions: AT1, FLT1, PT1, WPT1, WPT5, WT1, WT4 and WT6.

Fea­tured Bird

Ruffed Grouse – The Ruffed Grouse is the most wide­ly dis­trib­uted native game bird in North Amer­i­ca. They are a lit­tle larg­er than pigeons. The name ​“Ruffed” is based on their long neck feath­ers that are most obvi­ous when a male is ​“dis­play­ing” while court­ing a female or defend­ing ter­ri­to­ry. Males also ​“drum” to pro­claim own­er­ship of ter­ri­to­ry. This thump­ing sound is made by beat­ing their wings against the air to cre­ate a vac­u­um. Drum­ming can occur year-round but is most com­mon in the spring. Ruffed Grouse are often incor­rect­ly referred to as par­tridges. They do not migrate and live their lives in a wood­ed area of a few acres, pre­fer­ring young forests. They nest and spend most of their time on the ground and rarely fly far. Their pop­u­la­tion in New York has declined by 75% since the 1960s due in part to the wide­spread matur­ing of forests. Their diet is most­ly com­posed of leaves, buds, fruits, and insects. They pos­sess unusu­al­ly large crops that allow them to con­sume enough food for an entire day in min­utes, unlike many oth­er birds that must for­age con­tin­u­al­ly through­out the day. I fre­quent­ly observed Ruffed Grouse along the Pio­neer Trail this year. 

You can learn much more about Ruffed Grouse by visiting

https://​www​.allabout​birds​.org/​g​u​i​d​e​/​R​u​f​f​e​d​_​G​r​o​u​s​e​/​o​v​e​rview . 

Muse for the Trail

Good-by and Keep Cold

By Robert Frost

This say­ing good-by on the edge of the dark

And the cold to an orchard so young in the bark

Reminds me of all that can hap­pen to harm

An orchard away at the end of the farm

All win­ter, cut off by a hill from the house.

I don’t want it gir­dled by rab­bit and mouse,

I don’t want it dream­i­ly nib­bled for browse

By deer, and I don’t want it bud­ded by grouse.

(If cer­tain it would­n’t be idle to call

I’d sum­mon grouse, rab­bit, and deer to the wall

And warn them away with a stick for a gun.)

I don’t want it stirred by the heat of the sun.

(We made it secure against being, I hope,

By set­ting it out on a norther­ly slope.)

No orchard’s the worse for the win­tri­est storm;

But one thing about it, it must­n’t get warm.

“How often already you’ve had to be told,

Keep cold, young orchard. Good-by and keep cold.

Dread fifty above more than fifty below.”

I have to be gone for a sea­son or so.

My busi­ness awhile is with dif­fer­ent trees,

Less care­ful­ly nour­ished, less fruit­ful than these,

And such as is done to their wood with an ax—
Maples and birch­es and tamaracks.

I wish I could promise to lie in the night

And think of an orchard’s arbo­re­al plight

When slow­ly (and nobody comes with a light)

Its heart sinks low­er under the sod.

But some­thing has to be left to God.

Ran­dom Facts and Help­ful Hints

The fall migra­tion has start­ed! August through Octo­ber is the peak migra­tion peri­od, though some species, espe­cial­ly those that trav­el short­er dis­tances, don’t start migrat­ing until lat­er. Some species are only seen here when they are pass­ing through on their migra­tion. This is a great time to go bird­ing. Vis­it https://​www​.sier​r​a​club​.org/​s​i​e​r​r​a​/​f​a​l​l​-​b​i​r​d​i​n​g​-tipsto learn more about fall migration.

Quar­ter­ly Boggler

Name at least one way that Ruffed Grouse have evolved or adapt­ed to sur­vive the winter.

(see answer at bot­tom of page.)

Nest­box Spotlight

Loca­tion WPT4 won this year’s People’s Choice Award by receiv­ing 15% of the Blue­bird Lot­tery guess­es, which was twice as many as the sec­ond-place vote-get­ter. While no blue­birds nest­ed there this year, the two nest box­es at this loca­tion did host Tree Swal­lows and House Wrens.

WPT4W – Eggs on May 14 and moth­er keep­ing new­ly hatched babies warm on May 28.

Bog­gler Answer

Ruffed Grouse have evolved or adapt­ed to sur­vive the win­ter in a num­ber of ways:

Ruffed Grouse cre­ate igloos – They some­times dive head­first into deep, fluffy snow, bury­ing their entire body. Their body heat cre­ates an open space under the sur­face of the snow, mak­ing a bird-sized igloo that main­tains a steady tem­per­a­ture of 20° F or more. This also helps them hide from predators.

Ruffed Grouse sprout snow­shoes — Grouse have evolved to grow spe­cial scales that grow lat­er­al­ly from their toes as win­ter approach­es. These scales, called pecti­na­tions, increase the sur­face area of their feet allow­ing them to more eas­i­ly walk on snow. Pecti­na­tions also help them to grip icy branch­es. As win­ter is com­ing to an end these scales begin to wear off.

Ruffed Grouse grow addi­tion­al feath­ers — Insu­lat­ing feath­ers thick­en around their nos­trils and legs. These feath­ers help warm the air that they breathe in and reduce heat loss. 

Lan­dis Arbore­tum Blue­bird Trail Breed­ing Summary