Chestnut-sided Warbler

Photo by Jeff Bryant

The chestnut-sided warbler, decorated as it is with chestnut-streaked flanks, almost resembles an oak leaf. Indeed, in southern Wisconsin the breast of a chestnut-sided warbler could very well extend from a cured black oak leaf—a potential spot for finding this warbler during the breeding season.

I love the appearance of a chestnut-sided warbler: with its yellow cap it declares its warbler-ness while its messy chestnut streak resembles spilled coffee down its side. Likewise endearing is its call—the mnemonic I've come up with is “choo choo choo god-bless-you!” Unlike the eastern towhee which admonishes you to “drink your tea,” or the yellow warbler (which can have a confusingly similar song) in its braggadocios endowment of itself as “sweet, sweet, sweeter than sweet,” the chestnut-sided warbler sneezes and humbly excuses itself.  

There's more to that song than the trivial way a human remembers it, however. Ending the chestnut-sided's song is either an accented or unaccented syllable. When the accent is used, the male is attempting to attract a mate, while the unaccented song is employed for territory defense when other males are around. So, we have some idea of the language of the chestnut-sided warbler: if he's on a nest, you might expect to hear the territorial song (unaccented) while his accented ending may mean he's still looking for a mate.

Photo by Arlene Koziol

Further research into chestnut-sided warbler song has revealed that certain songs are associated with greater reproductive success. It turns out, in chestnut-sided warblers, high-pitched and steady wins the race. Males who sing with a high and steady pitch and consistent timing are more likely to have a successful breeding season. If you hear a chestnut-sided warbler in the woods that's mapping new vocal territory with each song, it's not as likely that a female will choose this variable warbler.

When I've encountered chestnut-sided warblers it's been in oak barrens areas in northeastern Wisconsin, where the bird is common north of Marathon County. It's uncommon in central Wisconsin, and a rare breeder in southern Wisconsin where I've seen it in regenerating oak scrub in the southern Kettle Moraine. While this bird's preferred habitat is rather rare in Wisconsin (oak savanna and barrens), the advent of large-scale logging operations proved a great benefit to chestnut-sided warbler populations. These birds will readily occupy cut-over land, and as such they have a secure population in northern Wisconsin.

Written by Drew Harry, Faville Grove Sanctuary land steward

Banner photo by Arlene Koziol

Sora

Chris Ribic in 2006 wrote in the Atlas of the Breeding Birds of Wisconsin, “Clap your hands in a wetland or slap your canoe paddle on the water in May or June, and you will likely hear the whinny of North America’s most common rail.” 

Ribic also reported that Wisconsin wetland bird researchers “have found that sora occur in higher densities in cat-tail or bulrush marshes compared to sedge/grass meadows.”  We search for them in shallow water areas.

Range map provided by Cornell Lab of Ornithology

If you are lucky to see this small rail (that weighs less than three ounces) fly, it appears to be a weak flyer and only flies short distances.  But don’t be fooled by this illusion: soras migrate south hundreds of miles to the coastal marshes and central America for the winter. 

The Cornell Lab of Ornithology reports “Their population was stable between 1966 and 2015… they rely on wetland habitat that is dwindling due to urban and agricultural development”.  In Columbia County, we where we are conducting the Breeding Bird Atlas II surveys, we are finding soras in several thousand acres of restored Wetland Reserve Program (WRP) lands.

Columbia County atlasers have been out for the past four nights and are impressed with the number of soras found.  Mark and Brand Smith walked in a large WRP wetland for 1.5 miles from 8:45 p.m. to 10:30 p.m. They stopped seven times and played songs/calls of sora, Virginia rail, least bittern, and American bittern and were rewarded by hearing 22 sora and two American bitterns. Only one sora called before the recording of the call was played. (Click here to read about the “Proper Use of Playback in Birding”.)

Mark and Brand also stopped at two other sites along a road in a sedge meadow and found nine soras and three Virginia rails, all within 100 yards of the stops. 

Sora rail (check out its giant feet!). Photo by Becky Matsubara

We always thought that the best time for surveying for rails was after sunset and before sunrise. However, we learned that they can also call during the day when Brand was surveying for red-shouldered hawks by playing the hawk call and a sora answered. He then switched to calling rails and had replies from 8 Virginia and 11 soras. Impressive, since he was out in the early afternoon.

Our goal is to search the 18 priority atlas blocks in Columbia County for rails and bitters in the next month. Graham searched all the rail habitat (less than five acres) in the Arlington CE block and was lucky to hear a sora that was calling within 100 yards of the interstate.

Mark and Graham recently conducted a waterfowl count at Goose Pond and flushed four sora rails. On May 16, they conducted a rail count on a beautiful spring night with a lot of frogs and toads calling, and two males responded to the calls. They will survey again in a week and if they hear the rails call, the species will be upgraded to “probably nesting” in the Breeding Bird Atlas II project.

We encourage you to check out “rail” wetlands and see what you can find. Two locations in Jefferson County to explore are Zeloski Marsh (purchased by Madison Audubon and donated to the DNR) and Rose Lake/Dorothy Carnes Park (donated to Jefferson County) near Fort Atkinson. Look for shallow waters with cattails, bullrushes, and marshy habitat. You might get lucky enough to hear that magical whinny.

We are always looking for help with the atlas and welcome rail surveyors (goosep@madisonaudubon.org) or you can help with the DNR survey for Secretive Marsh Birds including rails. There are 13 open routes within Madison Audubon’s chapter boundaries.

Written by Mark Martin and Sue Foote-Martin, Goose Pond Sanctuary resident co-managers

Cover photo by Arlene Koziol

Northern Parula

The northern parula is a delightful spring treat in Wisconsin, as it skips along the canopy, headed to northern boreal and coniferous forests. This blue-gray bird, with a yellow belly and throat and a bejeweled necklace of blue gray and copper, looks to have arisen from the tropical forests of Central America, and does return to those forests to overwinter for over almost 8 months of the year.

Photo by Steve Guttman

Recent research indicates that northern parulas may not be keeping up with a changing climate. On their spring flights from Central America and the West Indies, the birds are falling behind leaf-out dates in North America. This asynchrony can have cascading impacts on the birds and their overall populations. A key to the migratory ecology of neotropical migrants is the correct timing of migration, yet as these birds follow the day length, northern climates are rapidly greening, and this leafing out of trees and shrubs brings a pulse of insects, including many caterpillar species. Missing this important pulse of resources could have significant implications for the conservation of the northern parulas.

Range maps of northern parulas show a distinctive gap roughly through the Midwest and portions of the Northeast. There are a number of possible explanations for this, though none very satisfying.

One possibility is habitat loss in these areas; the northern parula needs rather extensive blocks of forest, and remaining forest tracts in southern Wisconsin are relatively small. Yet, the parula makes it into areas of northern Illinois and Indiana, which are intensively agricultural and only have small forest fragments.

Old Man’s Beard lichen, photo by Bob the Lomond

Another possibility is that parulas have some ecological requirement that is unfulfilled in the upper Midwest. In many observed cases of nest building, northern parulas use Spanish moss in the south (actually a bromeliad) and old man’s beard lichen in northern Minnesota, Wisconsin, and Michigan. These wispy materials are ideal for constructing nests. It is possible that a decline of the old man’s beard lichen (an Usnea species) due to air pollution has also caused a decline in northern parulas.

Lichens offer astounding insights into the overall quality of an ecosystem. Research in the Pacific Northwest has shown lichens to be reliable bioindicators, or representative of ecosystem health. Lichens accrue pollutants throughout the year, showing no seasonality, and they are long-lived. Lacking roots, lichens depend on atmospheric and water sources for nutrients, which also contain contaminants. Dynamic cycles of moisture and drying can concentrate pollutants over the lichen tissues, cell walls, and organelles. These features make lichens sensitive to pollution. In addition, widespread ranges offer clues as to where more severe pollution may have reduced or eliminated populations of lichens.

Above, a density map of native epiphytic (plant growing on another plant, obtaining nutrients from air, rain, water, or debris) species in the United States roughly corresponds with the range of the northern parula.

All of this is to say, the northern parula has an interesting range map; a curious gap in the central United States likely has no clear explanation, but a number of theories take aim at reasons why.

While northern parulas do not breed in most of southern Wisconsin, you can find them right now and in the next few weeks as they move through woodlands where the oaks are just starting to leaf out. Just the other day I was watching a group of parulas flitting through a stand of aspen. I got an excellent look at one of the birds as it dropped down onto a shrub and swallowed a massive caterpillar. The bird sat still for a few seconds—an eternity for a parula—and then flew off again, likely on its way to a spruce or tamarack forest in northern Wisconsin.

Written by Drew Harry, Faville Grove Sanctuary land steward

Header photo by Dan Pancamo

A Banner May: Goose Pond bird count

May is a busy month for birding!  It is designated as American Wetlands Month; is the month for Big Day counts that are often tied in with the Natural Resources Birdathons; a month to add species to priority Breeding Bird Atlas blocks and confirm early nesters; a major month of for migrating songbirds warblers, and shorebirds; the month when most ducks and wetland birds begin nesting and an ideal month to enjoy the spring weather and birds (just check out all the field trips we’re hosting this month).  Put all of these factors together, and you have the makings of a great bird migration spring!

A pied-billed grebe paddles through Goose Pond. Photo by Arlene Koziol

This is the 40th year that waterfowl pair counts have been conducted at Goose Pond and it also happens to be a record year for high water. Water is present from Highway I on the west side of the Sanctuary and goes east one for one and a half miles to Ankenbrandt Prairie. The large amount of shoreline habitat and shallow wetlands are attracting large numbers of marsh birds.

Mark and Graham conducted a 3.5-hour bird survey on May 2, with a focus on breeding waterfowl and cranes, and found 42 species of and 1,048 birds!  This count was very good considering that only three shorebirds were found including 46 yellowlegs, and one warbler, a yellow-rumped. And that doesn’t even include the grassland birds flittering about, but were not a focus of this count.

Five species were found nesting including one Canada goose nest, a clutch of 16 hooded merganser eggs in the duck box at Sue Ames Prairie, two sandhill crane nests (another pair was seen building a nest earlier in the day), a robin nesting on a window ledge of the smoke house at the Kampen Road residence, and unfortunately, a pair of starlings nesting in the kestrel box at Hopkins Road Prairie. 

Blue-winged teal pair, photo by USFWS Midwest Region

Puddle ducks were the focus of the count and a record of 141 mallards were seen. Lone drakes count as pairs since the females may be already be incubating eggs on a nest. Mark and Graham estimated a high of 118 mallard pairs compared to a previous high of 93 pairs in another high-water year. They believe the 49 pairs of blue-winged teal will stay and nest along with some of the 16 pairs of green-winged teal and eight pairs of northern shovelers. One drake pintail was observed, and while pintails have not been confirmed in the current Breeding Bird Atlas, the hope is that the female is nesting and we will locate a brood!

Most diving ducks are at the tail end of migration, however we found 117 ring-necked ducks, 70 lesser scaup, and seven buffleheads. Also found were a pair of redheads and hopefully that pair will nest. There are no records for nesting redheads at Goose Pond even though they nest every year at Schoeneberg Marsh about three miles to the northeast.

Ninety-nine American coots and 28 pied-billed grebes were present and we could have record numbers nesting for both species.

American coot, photo by Arlene Koziol

Other interesting observations were a merlin at the Lapinski-Kitze Prairie just north of Goose Pond, a sora rail that Mark flushed along the Manthe wetlands to the east of the pond, and a flock of eight turkeys adjacent to Hopkins Road with two gobblers in full display.  There are few trees in our area and are always surprised to see turkeys.

Goose Pond is in two atlas blocks and you see the species and totals on  https://ebird.org/atlaswi/view/checklist/S55707690 https://ebird.org/atlaswi/view/checklist/S55706285

On a sad note, there was a dead gray squirrel on Goose Pond Road between the ponds.  In the past 40 years there have been less than 10 squirrels observed at Goose Pond, not surprising due to the lack of trees.

We hope you will visit Goose Pond in May to view the wetlands and enjoy the birds.  And consider participating in the Great Wisconsin Birdathon by forming and team and going birding or supporting one of the many teams raising funds for bird conservation.  Half of the funds that our “Reckless Wrens” team raises goes to Madison Audubon.

This is the final year to participate in the Breeding Bird Atlas. You can contact Mark and Sue, Columbia County Coordinators, at goosep@madisonaudubon.org to participate. No experience is necessary. In Columbia County we will be going out in teams to survey atlas blocks or search for priority species such as families of screech owls. The highlight this spring so far was finding at least six red-shouldered hawk nests!

Written by Mark Martin, Goose Pond Sanctuary resident co-manager and Graham Steinhauer, Land Steward

Cover photo by Arlene Koziol

Eastern Meadowlark

Stout and confident, this bird attains reach with its melodic song. From pasture to prairie and back, those inhabiting this grassy world know that song to belong to the eastern meadowlark, as even the star-nosed mole (functionally blind) stops and listens to the meadowlark’s declaration “spring of the year.”

An eastern meadowlark sings “spring-of-the-year!” Photo by Pat Ready

A lemon yielded from a leafless gray hickory tree seems quite unlikely, yet every spring the meadowlark makes its way north into Wisconsin where grass will host it, revealing itself as a sweet and tart spring treat, all the way from Blue Mounds to Door County to the Bayfield Peninsula and back.

This bird, not a member of the lark family but rather of the tribe of blackbirds, possesses similar habits in feeding to other blackbirds; the eastern meadowlark will probe its beak into the soil, open the beak, then pick through the open hole for invertebrates. Crickets, grasshoppers, caterpillars, and grubs make up much of the diet during the summer breeding season.

An eastern meadowlark nest, tucked in the grass and litter. Photo by Carolyn Byers

Enjoying large fields and savannas of open grassland, meadowlarks prefer taller vegetation, and are rather choosy about breeding in unburned prairies. This litter accumulation helps conceal the nest from potential predators, and the nest structure becomes a tent that hides the eggs/chicks, and can be quite effective camouflage.

Meadowlarks are among the first species to stake their claim to the recently defrosted Wisconsin landscape, arriving as early as February. Migration south occurs from mid-September through early November, though a handful of meadowlarks have overwintered in Wisconsin in the past decade. On that southern journey, meadowlarks will reside in open areas as far north as central Illinois, but commonly overwinter in the south-central United States.

Here at Faville Grove, I’ve seen just one meadowlark this spring, singing on from the top of the shed on Prairie Lane. The absence of meadowlarks here is curious, given the abundant grassland habitat and large acreage of prairie restorations, which meadowlarks are typically not shy about occupying. Recent sightings from eBird, as of 4/26/19, show the relative absence of meadowlarks in the centrally located area.

eBird shows observations of eastern meadowlarks to be pretty sparse in the Faville Grove area.

Significant population declines have occurred since the 1960’s, according to data from the National Breeding Bird Survey. Changes in agricultural practices have had major impacts on many grassland birds, including meadowlarks. Increased haying destroys nests, conversion from grass hay fields to alfalfa degrades habitat, and conversion of pastured areas to row crops eliminates habitat entirely. It’s possible that the intensity of agriculture and development north of Lake Koshkonong has considerably degraded habitat for meadowlarks. In any case, growing areas of prairie restoration at Faville Grove should provide ample breeding habitat, and we hope to see more meadowlarks in the future.

Written by Drew Harry, Faville Grove Sanctuary land steward

Header photo by Arlene Koziol