Red-bellied Woodpecker

Photo by Arlene Koziol

The red-bellied woodpecker, found in forested areas across Wisconsin, is a charismatic species and a year-round resident. The bird is commonly confused with the red-headed woodpecker, and eBird sightings are further confounded not only from the red-bellied woodpecker's red head, but also from its closeness in name, which can result in accidental identification.

Much more common than the red-headed woodpecker, the red-bellied woodpecker occupies a broad range of habitats, and over the continent its range has been increasing for quite some time. Range increases have been documented as early as 1910, and since the 1950's the bird has been pushing north at .85 degrees per decade and west at 1.06 degrees per decade. Interesting research from Jeremy Kirchman and Kathryn Schneider found that the bird's northern expansion has followed Bergmann's Rule, with larger-sized birds occurring in the northern latitudes. This is possibly due to a lower surface area to volume ration, which radiates less heat per unit of mass and is advantageous in a colder climate.

Photo by Arlene Koziol

The range expansion of the red-bellied woodpecker is likely the result of a warming climate, and the birds have moved north into areas previously too cold to occupy. Researchers from UW-Madison have found that certain habitats enhance overwintering survival of birds, as they must expend vast energy reserves when the temperature dips below zero. These habitats include urban forests and high elevation forests that are not entirely fragmented. The urban heat island effect influences the first, while cold pooling is thought to influence the second.

We can see the effect of cold pooling at Faville Grove, as cool air at night dips into the Crawfish River floodplain. On walks back to my house at Prairie Lane, the rise of the Lake Mills Ledge marks a distinct rise in temperature. These warmer microenvironments can provide refuge for those cold winter evenings and offer a stepping stone as a species advances north.

The female will typically lay 3-4 eggs, with breeding beginning in late winter. Males will hold a territory year-round, and are known to aggressively defend nests, though red-bellied woodpecker nests are often the victims of starling competition.

You can find these woodpeckers in the Lake Mills Ledge and Faville Woods year-round. Just remember, even though the red-bellied woodpecker has a red head, its barred black-and-white back is distinct, along with its red nape.

Written by Drew Harry, Faville Grove Sanctuary land steward

Pileated Woodpecker

Mama pileated is bringing home the bacon... errrr, bugs for her young nesting in a tree at Madison Audubon's Otsego Marsh. Photo by Mark Martin

Mark Martin and Madison Audubon board member John Shillinglaw were touring the prairies at Goose Pond Sanctuary on August 25th. They had just left Sue Ames Prairie and were going past the Hopkins Road Prairie when Mark spotted a large crow-sized bird flying over Hopkins Road Prairie. He excitedly said to John what is that bird? John must have been a Boy Scout because he was ready with his field glasses around his neck and cried “pileated woodpecker”!  It is nice when two people confirm the same species with confidence.

This is a new bird for the Goose Pond Bird List.  It is not often we can add a bird to the 250-plus bird checklist, and this brings the tally of woodpecker species up to seven. We learned that these large woodpeckers have a home range of around 300 acres that must include a lot of wooded land.

With our lack of trees, woodpeckers are uncommon at Goose Pond. The last yellow-bellied sapsucker was recorded in 1991. Last year we saw a red-headed woodpecker fly past the back yard, our first sighting in 38 years! In the past two years, birders have observed northern flickers, downy, hairy, and red-bellied woodpeckers.  The downy woodpeckers are sometimes seen in winter in our food plots looking for insects in the stems of corn, sunflowers, and sorghum.

A pair of pileated woodpeckers navigate the entryway of a nest at Otsego Marsh in Columbia County. Photo by Richard Armstrong

In 1991, Sam Robbins wrote in Wisconsin Birdlife that the pileated woodpecker “is a rare resident in southeast Wisconsin” and “is uncommon in the western edge of Columbia County.” Goose Pond Sanctuary is located in both.

The current breeding bird atlas shows eight atlas blocks in Columbia County with nesting confirmations of pileated woodpeckers compared to two blocks in the first atlas conducted 1995 to 2000.  

Pileateds are increasing in southeast Wisconsin as forested cover increases.  Atlasers in Dane County have found pileateds in Madison at the UW Arboretum, Owen Park, and at the Madison School Forest just southwest of Madison.

 We wonder if someone will see this bird again in our area. It pays to always be observant and ready with your field glasses when out birding, especially at Goose Pond Sanctuary.

Written by Mark Martin and Susan Foote-Martin, Goose Pond Sanctuary Resident Managers

Bringing Birds Back to Faville Grove

Since its inception in 1997, Faville Grove Sanctuary has been benefiting the landscape and the human communities around it. There are countless individuals to thank, and as the sanctuary has grown, the people deserving thanks continue to increase. Growing to encompass more land, neighbors, organizational partners, and wildlife than ever before, it's appropriate to turn back and look at who has benefited from Faville Grove Sanctuary. Not humans, but birds, of course.

(Click on the photos below to scroll through)

The red-headed woodpeckers chatter through the ledge savanna, now mostly cleared of invasive brush and trees. Some large standing dead black willows provide nesting cavities for the birds and are a good spot to catch their brilliant crimson head.

A cacophony from primrose means the dickcissels have made their tardy but annual return to the prairies. Once a grassland bird of great decline, they've found a home here.

There's nothing quite like hearing the wheeling call of a bobolink on the floodplain prairies of the Crawfish River. A neighbor on a walk remarked, “it's so nice to have them back every year.”

The song of meadowlark is as sure a spring sign as any, and the competition to hear the first remains strong at Faville Grove.

Henslow's sparrow, photo by Arlene Koziol

Henslow's sparrows now find home in prairies that haven't burned for a few years. Their little call marks a big success story.

Northern harriers hunt the flat, open grasslands, apex predators giving a signature to the landscape. Their presence indicates a healthy vole population, an unseen but vital part of the ecosystem.

Short-eared owls have returned on cold winter nights, and can sometimes be seen haunting at dusk. Their silence contrasts the big role they play as a predator on the prairie.

With a long buzzing call, grasshopper sparrows can be heard migrating through the sanctuary in spring, hopefully they'll find the habitat to nest here in future years.

There's countless more: sedge wrens, scarlet tanagers, catbirds, great horned owls, mallards, blue-winged teal, northern flickers, red-tailed hawks, bald eagles, Cooper’s hawks, willow flycatchers, field sparrows, clay-colored sparrows, and on and on.

Faville Grove landscape, photo by David Musolf

Looking forward, one can hope for more wildlife to call Faville Grove home. Upland sandpipers, which once nested in great densities on Faville Prairie, haven't been seen since the 1940's, but with increasing habitat one can hope for a return. Bell's vireo, loggerhead shrike, American golden plover, and northern bobwhite could also conceivably return. For that, it will take the right kind of people to continue the tradition of habitat restoration here, and fortunately those people are just the type who have made Faville Grove what it is today.

We celebrate Faville Grove Sanctuary and the incredible amount of work and love poured into this land on Sunday, September 10, 2-5pm at the Prairie Lane site. Stop by to say hello and check out the restorations for yourself!

Written by Drew Harry, Faville Grove Sanctuary land steward

White-throated Sparrow

White-striped white-throated sparrow, photo by USFWS Midwest

“Old Sam Peabody body body body.” So the song goes. It was the first bird song mnemonic that I learned. I learned it while up north, on Wisconsin's Long Island on the shores of Lake Superior. It took me an embarrassingly long time to figure out that song. As I monitored the endangered piping plovers on Long Island's sandy shores, the white-throated sparrows seemed to follow and mock me. I had uncovered the identity of the white-throated sparrow, but as it turns out the bird's identity is much more complex than its name.

These sparrows exhibit polymorphism, with four possible identities that they assume for life. Males and females may be either white-striped or tan-striped on their crown. These differences in phenotype have huge implications for the sparrows, and shape their social interactions and even habitat selection.

White-striped birds will aggressively defend the nest, sing much more frequently, and the males will copulate with multiple female partners. White-striped females will copulate multiple times with their male counterparts. The white-striped males' breeding territory includes more open forest canopy. For these reasons, the birds I heard on Long Island—which called all day amid the open pine forests, bogs, and dunes on the island—were almost certainly white-crowned males.

White-striped white-throated sparrow, photo by Kelly Colgan Azar

The tan male birds tend towards denser forested habitat, sing less, and spend more time on the nest taking care of young.

To complicate things, opposites attract in the world of white-throated sparrows. Females of both types prefer tan-striped males, and the aggressive white-crowned females will quickly pair with the tan-striped males. That leaves the white-striped males to mate with the tan-striped females. This is known as dissasortative mating, where opposite genotype/phenotypes mate more often than would be expected randomly. In white-throated sparrows, this mating maintains the polymorphism in about equal proportion of white-striped and tan-striped birds.

Tan-striped white-throated sparrow, photo by Kelly Colgan Azar

All of this information was gathered through simple ornithological research, conducted analyzing museum specimens and following hundreds of live birds. This simple research revealed intriguingly complex social lives in white-throated sparrows and allowed scientists to test for a genetic basis of the differences, which exists due to a chromosomal inversion.

You can find white-throated sparrows migrating through Faville Grove soon. They prefer some type of forest cover, but can be found in brushy edge habitat as well. These birds are recognizable as winter feeder birds during a Wisconsin winter, but at that time it's very difficult to tell the difference between tan-striped and white-striped birds. The simple and folksy song of the white-throated sparrow belies its remarkable life history, a truly fascinating discovery of science. You can read more about this bird in Ken Kaufman's Notebook, which delightfully delves into the nuance of different bird species and is accompanied by wonderful illustrations.

Written by Drew Harry, Faville Grove Sanctuary land steward

Header photo by Kelly Colgan Azar