Eastern Kingbird

The Eastern Kingbird, a delightful bird to watch on June mornings, marks open areas with its broad tail feathers, notched at the bottom with white. To watch a kingbird is to see a bird puppeted about as it moves from a snag, hawks a group of insects, and returns to that same perch. Last year I witnessed the delightful presence of recently fledged kingbirds on a power line along North Shore Road. The parent bird went one by one and delivered food to each fledgling—a precise and delicate process.

Photo by Arlene Koziol

Kingbirds can be found in open habitats, from savannas to prairies to orchards, across much of the United States, including all of Wisconsin. Constructing haphazard nests in shrbus and trees, the birds will defend those nests and territories from nearly every intruder. Aggressiveness of breeding birds is a common sight, and dazzling aerial maneuvers often ensue. In flight, the kingbird’s tail will regularly fan out, as the bird hovers, twists, and maneuvers chaotically.

Its Latin name Tyrannus means tyrant or despot, and the kingbird lives up to this with its defense of its nest from brown-headed cowbirds, blue jays, and hawks. You can find kingbirds at Faville Grove in most open habitats with a scattering of trees. Watch for their distinctive white tail tip and kiting flights in grassy areas.

Photo by OHFalcon72

Written by Drew Harry, Faville Grove Sanctuary land steward

Cover photo by Andy Reago & Chrissy McClarren

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