Roads End Naturalist
Exploring the natural world as we wander at the end of the road
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Red-belly
~A poem by Melissa Dowland, images by Mike Dunn
Down in my woods grows a graceful old oak
With a stout trunk and a crown of branches,
Splitting like feathers, reaching for the sky.
It has stood, thus, for centuries.
Nearby, a smaller maple.
Its crown lost in an ice storm,
A few broken branches strain upward
with peeling bark remaining, like something partially remembered.
Guess—
Which tree does the red-belly love?
Which tree do I?
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Snow has made everything earthly clear and quiet.
My mind is simple and patient.
– Tuomas Anhava, Finnish writer
The predicted big storm fizzled once again. We certainly live in a region in which weather forecasters are challenged to get it right when it comes to predicting snowfall. Of the predicted 5 to 6 inches, with some maximum predictions calling for up to a foot of snow, we actually had about 2 inches of white stuff fall here in the woods – about 1 inch of sleet, and 1 inch of snow.
But, no matter how much or how little, snow is always magical (and sometimes maddening). This storm combined with some very cold temperatures (it got down to 7 degrees here one night) so things have not melted at all until yesterday’s high of 38. The biggest problem we have here are the hilly roads that invariably turn to ice-covered ski slopes (great for sledding, not so much for trying to go anywhere in a car).
For us, it is always fun to see what is out and about, moving in our woods that we might miss were it not for the repository of tracks left behind. It was shocking to see how many gray squirrels inhabit these woods based on all the tracks…more work for the resident red-tailed hawks for sure.
The wanderings of the local deer herd are along their usual well-worn trails, especially just outside our deer fence, down in the ravine, and up on the south-facing slope.
This being a good mast year, they have made the rounds and dug beneath some of the large white oaks throughout the property, with most of it happening on the south-facing slope on the far hill, where the ice accumulation may be less.
Our yard bunny is still around, though I haven’t seen it in quite some time. Hoping it will be selective once the spring wildflowers start to emerge, but that seems a far off possibility right now.
A lone raccoon has been at the huge hollow tulip poplar near the house, and it, or perhaps another, crossed the hillside over to a neighbors woods. I am surprised we have not seen it beneath the bird feeders, looking through the discarded seeds for a snack.
We found a set of canid tracks inside the fence (they had crawled under the low bar of the side yard gate). Once inside, there were places where the pattern in the snow resembled that made by a cat, but these tracks had claw marks. Not sure whether it is a red or gray fox (both live in these woods), but I am betting red, since their numbers seem to be increasing.
Among the many bird tracks, there was one set that stands out. It has a normal three toes forward, one toe back print, and then one with just a depression with one toe back.
We recognized it as the track trail of an American crow with a disabled right foot that we have seen the past two years. It is generally with another crow (presumably its mate), and seems to manage just fine.
The activity at the feeders has been frenetic, with American goldfinches, dark-eyed juncos, purple finches, and pine warblers mobbing the seed and suet, along with the usual appearances by downy and red-bellied woodpeckers, Carolina chickadees, tufted titmice, and a ruby-crowned kinglet.
The hermit thrush has stopped by to grab some suet, and we had a rare visit by a fox sparrow, though it was reluctant to get out in full view, preferring to scratch through the snow and ice in the thicket of wildflower beds out front.
Walking in the winter woods is such a treat – the serenity and quiet, the small details of texture frozen in time, and the signs of life unseen.
The intermittent stream below the house seems more intermittent than ever, but an ice artist left some unfinished work in one of the few shallow pools.
The woods may be quiet after a snow event, but they are watching, and waiting for the sun to finish its work, until the next time. For us, we anxiously await both the ability to be able to get out of the neighborhood, and the next chance to experience this…
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Any glimpse into the life of an animal quickens our own and makes it so much the larger and better in every way.
~John Muir
I’ll just say it…I love being around the swans at Pungo. There is something magical about these birds and every winter I find myself drawn to them and wanting to spend time in their elegant presence. While the snow geese tend to provide more of a spectacle with their huge noisy flocks swirling overhead, the swans of Pungo are a constant in winter, providing the musical score for a play I have seen hundreds of times and yet continue to find fascinating.
There are an estimated 100,000 tundra swans in the Eastern population. Most breed in northern Alaska and then migrate 3000 or so miles to spend the winter along the East Coast, with about 70% spending much of their time in North Carolina. And one of the best places to observe them is the area around the Pungo Unit of Pocosin Lakes National Wildlife Refuge.
The birds start arriving in November and will stay through much of February, roosting at night on large bodies of water like Pungo Lake and Lake Phelps, and flying out to surrounding agricultural fields during the day to feed on waste corn and winter wheat. Adult swans weigh 15-20 lbs and have a wingspan of over 5 ft, so they are easy to spot as they go about their daily routine. For the past several years they have found the managed impoundment along West Lake Road at the Pungo Unit to be to their liking and it has provided a great spot for swan watching. So that is how I spent almost a full day last week, standing next to a dead snag and observing swans (it helps to try to blend in with your vehicle or something like a tree to reduce your human form and put the birds a bit more at ease – they tend to swim away or take flight if you are out of your car walking around near them). Below are just a few of the hundreds of photos I took of a day in the life of these majestic waterfowl.
It looks like it was a good year on the breeding grounds as there seem to be more juvenile swans this year. Juveniles follow their parents to the wintering grounds and can be distinguished from the adults by the gray plumage on their head and neck, and patches of pink on their bills.
Juvenile swans tend to stick pretty close to their parents on the wintering grounds, but you occasionally see one off by itself, like this one that was picking at some aquatic vegetation. There is so much commotion on the water that I wonder how they all manage to find and stay with each other.
While the swans give the initial impression of being regal and serene compared to the huge flocks of boisterous snow geese, at times they can actually be quite aggressive towards one another. These agnostic interactions often start with adult swans giving a distinctive trumpeting three-syllable call – oo-ou-oo. This is usually accompanied by a forward-leaning outstretched neck.
It can then escalate to a wing-quivering display.
These threatening displays probably help avoid actual physical interactions that could lead to injuries. It seems more often than not, that one of the interacting groups often backs down in the face of these threats.
But fights do occur…and when they do, it can be quite impressive as the huge birds flail with their wings and bite each other until one group has been vanquished.
Most fights are over quickly with no apparent harm done. It’s hard to tell what all the fuss is about…most likely territory or personal space. I often saw a preening swan get chased off of a small clump of underwater vegetation that seemed to provide a platform on which to stand. I guess a place to stand in water world is something of a premium. Studies have shown what you might expect from these aggressive encounters – larger groups tend to dominate in fights; larger swans (most often males) tend to dominate smaller ones; and juveniles almost never win (I rarely saw them even get involved in fights except some nips with other juveniles).
Following an aggressive encounter, group members often engage in another bout of wing-quivering and calling, which is sometimes called the triumph ceremony. This is similar to the display given when family members reunite. After a successful bout, there is often a wing flap by one or more of the group members (usually the victors, but occasionally even by the defeated swans). The wing flap is certainly one of the more striking behaviors these magnificent birds can perform, as they tend to rise up and flap 3 or 4 times, exposing amazing “sculptural details” in their wings.
Swans often also do a wing flap after a nice long bout of preening and bathing.
It begins with a slight raising of their breast, and then a full extension of the body and neck.
Needless to say, I tend to snap way too many images of swans flapping their wings. Most of my pics have another swan partially obscuring the flapping bird, or the wing-flapper is facing the wrong way. But, I apparently can never get enough of these images as I keep trying every year to get that “perfect” wing flap.
Another swan sound I love hearing is the slap, slap, slap of their huge feet hitting the water surface as they run and flap to take off. It is tough to get a decent photo of one as they are invariably in a crowd of other birds, but they do usually give you a “heads-up” so you can prepare yourself for the shot. Swans typically will swim a short distance with the direction of the wind, and then turn into the wind before taking off (for greater lift). They also do a series of head-bobs (or quick head-pumps) that intensify and get more frequent right before they raise their wings and start running across the water. Many of the swans I was watching in Marsh A took off less than an hour before sunset, presumably to feed in the fields for a little while before returning to the safety of open water for the night.
Swans, like most birds, preen extensively to help keep their feathers in good shape. If they weren’t squabbling with their neighbors, they were preening or resting during much of the time I spent with the flock.
It seems that tundra swans have a lot of feathers to keep up, more than most birds, in fact. The number I keep seeing in various sources is about 25,000 feathers on a swan, compared to 14,000 for a Northern pintail, 7,000 for a bald eagle, and around 3,000 for an American robin. No wonder that preening seems to be the primary thing the swans are doing during the middle of the day.
A swan’s long neck, white feathers, and jet black facial markings give it an air of elegance. To watch and listen to tundra swans for a day is a privilege and is a certain way to help you feel connected to the natural world, and realize that there are things in this world more beautiful, wonderful, and important than anything you see on a screen or read in the news. I am always thankful for the opportunity to renew my optimism and recharge my batteries by spending time with these majestic creatures.
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A poem for the new year, accompanied by a short video clip of a sunrise with tundra swans at the Pungo Unit of Pocosin Lakes National Wildlife Refuge last week. May we all find peace in the coming year.
The Peace of Wild Things, by Wendell Berry
When despair for the world grows in me
and I wake in the night at the least sound
in fear of what my life and my children’s lives may be,
I go and lie down where the wood drake
rests in his beauty on the water, and the great heron feeds.
I come into the peace of wild things
who do not tax their lives with forethought
of grief. I come into the presence of still water.
And I feel above me the day-blind stars
waiting with their light. For a time
I rest in the grace of the world, and am free.
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It’s never been easier to be a citizen scientist and it’s never been more important to be one.
~David Yarnold, President and CEO, National Audubon Society
Earlier this week, we participated in one of my favorite holiday traditions, the annual Audubon Society Christmas Bird Count at Pettigrew State Park. I helped start this particular count over 30 years ago when I was East District Naturalist for the NC State Parks System. My good friend, and naturalist extraordinaire, Paris Trail, was the count coordinator. The Pettigrew Count is centered on Lake Phelps and the standard 15-mile diameter count circle includes surrounding farmlands and forests as well as a portion of the Pungo Unit of Pocosin Lakes National Wildlife Refuge. It is that latter portion that I have counted in for all these many years. This year, it was officially just Melissa and I, although we did run into some of her museum co-workers and another excellent young birder that helped us with a couple of species we missed seeing (most notably the merlin and American bittern).
The day began with clouds and warm temperatures, but the skies soon cleared, and we had another of those crazy “Christmas” counts with temperatures soaring to the low 70’s. Tundra swans were the bird of the day and we estimated about 14,000 on the lake, although I am guessing this may be an underestimate based on the tremendous flyovers at sunset.
Swans were literally everywhere – in the fields, on the lake, in the impoundments, and in the sky. And I must admit, I could watch and listen to them all day. In fact, I did on the day after the count (more on that in a future post).
The warm temperatures made for some unusual companions for a Christmas Bird Count. There were plenty of aquatic turtles sunning themselves in the canals (which is not really all that unusual on sunny days in winter) plus an Eastern box turtle we helped off the road. There were also several buckeye butterflies, a Carolina anole, and Melissa spotted a very active bee hive high up in a tree.
If you look closely, you can see where bears have clawed around the hole trying to get at the tasty treat inside. Not sure what these bees were foraging on, although I did see a few henbit weeds in bloom along the edge of the road.
The snow geese continue their pattern of erratic and unpredictable behavior of the past few years, with a much reduced flock splitting up and flying off the refuge in different directions to feed. Perhaps when the remaining corn on refuge lands is knocked down, they will provide a brief display of massive flocks coming into feed as in past years.
We managed to spot quite a few species (76 in our portion of the count circle – see our complete list below) with a few that are not regularly seen, including a black-and-white warbler, an orange-crowned warbler, a pair of blue-gray gnatcatchers, and a peregrine falcon chasing a duck.
My favorite species of the day came just as the sun was setting. I looked up and saw what I first thought were three great blue herons flying in tight formation. That unusual pattern caused me to take a second look and I could see the outstretched necks that indicated something other than herons – three sandhill cranes! This is the second Christmas count over the years where we have spotted these magnificent birds. A great way to close out another wonderful day spent in our favorite place.
December 27, 2016 data – Pungo Unit portion of annual Pettigrew State Park Christmas Bird Count (76 species for our team; 109 species for the total count circle with one team report still out):
Snow Goose – 12,000
Ross’s Goose – 5
Canada Goose – 54
Tundra Swan – 14,107
Wood Duck – 8
Gadwall – 22
American Wigeon – 3
American Black Duck – 45
Mallard – 98
Northern Shoveler – 52
Northern Pintail – 3
Ring-necked Duck –1
Lesser Scaup – 1
Hooded Merganser – 20
Bufflehead – 4
Pied-billed Grebe – 4
American Bittern – 1
Great Blue Heron – 3
Sandhill Crane – 3
Turkey Vulture – 47
Black vulture – 2
Bald Eagle – 7
Northern Harrier – 11
Cooper’s Hawk – 1
Sharp-shinned hawk – 2
Red-shouldered Hawk – 1
Red-tailed Hawk – 4
American Kestrel – 4
Merlin – 1
Peregrine Falcon – 1
American Coot – 45
Killdeer – 48
American Woodcock – 3
Wilson’s Snipe – 3
Ring-billed Gull – 73
Mourning Dove – 21
Red-bellied Woodpecker – 8
Downy Woodpecker – 2
Hairy Woodpecker – 1
Northern Flicker – 12
Pileated Woodpecker – 6
Eastern Phoebe – 7
Blue Jay – 5
American Crow – 9
Fish Crow – 18
Tree swallow – 2
Carolina Chickadee – 10
Tufted Titmouse – 2
Brown-headed Nuthatch – 1
Carolina Wren – 15
House Wren – 2
Marsh Wren – 2
Blue-gray Gnatcatcher – 2
Golden-crowned Kinglet – 1
Ruby-crowned Kinglet – 7
Eastern Bluebird – 13
American Robin – 768
Gray Catbird – 2
Brown Thrasher – 1
Northern Mockingbird – 5
European Starling – 22
Black-and-white Warbler – 1
Orange-crowned Warbler – 1
Common Yellowthroat – 3
Yellow-rumped Warbler – 300
Eastern Towhee – 5
Savannah Sparrow – 9
Chipping Sparrow – 15
Song Sparrow – 35
Swamp Sparrow – 6
White-throated Sparrow – 30
Northern Cardinal – 25
Red-winged Blackbird – 855
Eastern Meadowlark – 13
Common Grackle – 5
American Goldfinch – 14
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To be standing together in a frosty field, looking up into the sky, marveling at birds and reveling in the natural world around us, was a simple miracle. And I wondered why we were so rarely able to appreciate it.
~Lynn Thomson
While visiting Melissa’s family in Richmond, I often take walks around a section of shoreline of Swift Creek Reservoir adjacent to where they live. I am always amazed at the abundance and diversity of birds in a relatively narrow natural shoreline designated as a Resource Protection Area in the Chesapeake Bay watershed. Below are some of the birds spotted on a few walks this week…
There are at least 15 to 20 bluebirds foraging through the natural area, often returning to a few American holly trees to glean what must be the last few berries. They also spend a lot of time sitting and watching, then dropping down to the ground like small hawks, picking up unseen morsels (maybe some insects moving about in a sunny spot).
Numerous small birds move through the woods, often together in a mixed feeding flock. In addition to yellow-rumps, I saw ruby-crowned kinglets, Carolina chickadees, tufted titmice, song sparrows, dark-eyed juncos, and American goldfinches.
It was the woodpeckers that really had my attention in one particular patch of woods. There was a downy woodpecker, red-bellied woodpeckers, and several Northern flickers. I watched one female flicker (she lacks the black mustache of a male) repeatedly poking her bill into a small knothole on a tree. Others were doing what flickers often do, hopping around on the ground probing for one of their favorite foods – ants.
Flickers really are beautiful birds when you get a chance to study their varied plumage. The red heart-shaped patch on the back of the head is particularly pleasing. Many of the small black dots on the breast are also heart-shaped. Perhaps a bird better suited for Valentine’s Day than Christmas.
The highlight of my walks was the chance to watch several red-headed woodpeckers forage, chatter, and chase one another. I don’t see them often where I live, as they seem to prefer places with lots of standing dead trees in relatively open habitat, like beaver swamps. They are one of noisier woodpeckers, chattering frequently, allowing me to find them easier than many other species. Adult males and females look alike, with bright red heads and a boldly patterned black and white body.
Juveniles differ in having a brownish or splotchy red/brown head. This one had a small territory amounting to a couple of hundred feet of shoreline containing a narrow strip of trees. It kept going back to one dead snag, so I finally worked my way over to where I could see what it was doing…
It was digging out acorns that it presumably had stashed in the loose bark of the snag. Red-headed woodpeckers are one of the few species of woodpecker that regularly cache food. It is also considered our most omnivorous woodpecker with a diet that includes seeds and nuts, insects, berries and fruits, birds eggs and nestlings, and even mice.
The most noticeable birds along the reservoir were the hundreds of double-crested cormorants that flew in and out every afternoon and morning. I stood at the edge of the water and watched them fly by me, turn back into the wind and land, either on the lake, or in the trees on an island a few hundred yards away.
The cormorants have used this island as an evening roost for at least the past few years. They make a lot of noise at the roost – various squawks and grunts, plus a lot of splashing and washing in the water near the island. A fleet of ring-billed gulls swam nearby, as well as several species of waterfowl including pied-billed grebes, ruddy ducks, buffleheads, mallards, hooded mergansers, Canada geese, and a few ring-necked ducks.
I always enjoy seeing ring-necked ducks with their distinctive ringed bill and bold color pattern (that head can be quite purplish in the right light). Surely, the bearer of one of the least descriptive common names for a bird, the ring-necked duck is known to hunters by the much more reasonable common name of ringbill. There has even been a recent attempt, perhaps tongue in beak, to rename this beautiful duck to more accurately reflect its appearance (see http://www.audubon.org/news/its-time-rename-ring-necked-duck). The actual ring on the neck is a narrow chestnut brown band separating the dark head color from the dark breast feathers in the males only. Not a very useful field mark at all.
All of these birds are all a delight to see on a cold winter morning (especially the two immature bald eagles that sailed by). So, this holiday season, be sure to get outside and give yourself the gift of “…marveling at birds and reveling in the natural world around us”.
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Another of Melissa’s poems about birds (and one of the few rhyming ones she has written)…
Follow the Nuthatch
by Melissa Dowland
When searching for a bird of prey
On a fall or winter’s day
Never trust the noisy titmice
Only the nuthatch will suffice.
The titmouse is a busy soul
Forever making a dreadful scold.
He flits about the whole day long,
Rarely pausing in singing his song.
The busy wren, he too will cry
So loud, he calls, though small in size.
But he is easily distracted by
The lonely squirrel who wanders nigh.
So would you like to spot a hawk
On your hike or winter walk?
Then heed the nuthatch’s nasal cry.
For when the hawk his eye does spy
Out rolls his nasal, cranky ‘yank’
Heard over hill and down the bank.
The nuthatch is a wise old bird
So listen closely to his words.
“There goes the hawk, warn one and all!
Oh forest, listen to our call!”
So look, oh wanderer, for the source of that sound
Up in the trees and on the ground.
If you’re lucky you might be blessed
If the nuthatch and hawk make you their guest.
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While searching online, I did find a local (NC) source for some of these predictions, a woman known as the Persimmon Lady (gotta love that moniker). She is all about appreciating persimmons in folklore (and in recipes) and she makes annual predictions (including predictions for the Farmer’s Almanac) on the winter weather based on persimmon seed cutlery. Based on seeds collected in Eastern and Central NC thus far this season, she predicts the following for the winter of 2016-2017:
“Eastern appears to be in for a nice mild winter (indicated by the forks) with a little bit of precipitation towards the end, however, Central is looking at a wet cold and snowy/icy winter (indicated by the knife and spoons)”.
So, there you have it…look what finding some poop on the trail can lead to…let the cold and snow begin!
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Natural, ambient sounds give us a picture over time and define place…every landscape has a rhythm to it.
~Dr. Bryan C. Pijanowski
There is, indeed, a rhythm to paddling in a swamp, and the sounds help define it. Putting our canoes in at Gardner Creek a couple of weeks ago, we could hear the sounds of traffic on Hwy 64, the tones of people talking, the harshness of barking dogs and a lawn mower – all human sounds, or perhaps I should call them noises. But as we paddled, those noises started to fade and we soon had a rhythm of the place in our ears – water dripping from our paddles, the twitters of a mixed-species feeding flock moving through the trees, or the kerplunk of a turtle dropping off a log. We even heard the truncated calls of a few Southern leopard frogs, since the air was a bit warmer than the calendar date indicated. But, the true sounds of the swamp on this trip came in feathered form, one during the day, and one day and night (although certainly more forcefully after darkness enveloped our campsites on the platforms). Listen to the two audio segments below (recorded on my phone) and see if you recognize the makers of this music of the swamp (answers are below, play at full volume and don’t cheat)…
The first sound is one heard on several occasions as we paddled the waterways in this region, usually heard several times before we would catch a glimpse of the source, if at all.
This call-maker is one I will always associate with this place, and almost any swamp I have visited. These hunters call day or night, and have an amazing repertoire of vocalizations. This is a variation of their best known call.
Now, here are the sound-makers…
A characteristic daytime call of the swamp is the harsh, Kee-aah, Kee-aah, made by the red-shouldered hawk, Buteo lineatus. The call is accented on the first syllable with a drawn-out second syllable having a downward inflection. It is considered a territorial call in the breeding season, and is also an alarm call. We generally heard it when one of these common swamp hawks took flight as we paddled nearby.
Red-shouldered hawks are smaller than red-tailed hawks and tend to favor forested tracts, especially along streams and rivers. They are sit-and-wait hunters, whose diet includes many reptiles, amphibians, small mammals, and invertebrates such as earthworms.
The barred owl, Strix varia, is the monarch of the swamp. Their best known call is often described as sounding like “Who cooks for you, who cooks for you all”. The call presented here is a variation and is described as an Ascending Hoot. The audio has the back and forth calls of two owls on our first night in the swamp (at the aptly named Barred Owl Roost camping platform). One is right above our campsite, the other maybe 100 feet away in the darkness of the swamp.
This back and forth calling likely is between a mated pair. We also heard some of their other calls that night, including the Single Hoot (a throaty descending hoot), and the cacophony of sounds that is often described as a Raucous Hoot and Caterwauling. The latter calls can vary from a high-pitched scream to monkey-like sounds, and can carry on for a minute or two. Unfortunately, the owls engaging in the raucous calls that night were too far away to be picked up by the mic on my iPhone.
The soundscape of a wild place is something we often overlook, but it is one of the things that can really make an outdoor experience memorable. I am grateful for these swamps and the opportunities for the unique camping provided by the Roanoke River Partners. And I am thankful for the sounds that seem to stay with you after any time spent in these special habitats. Be sure to listen for the iconic sounds of your favorite places on your next outings.
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Here’s another of Melissa’s poems that she read at the recent Poetry with Wings event at the NC Botanical Garden (paired with some of my images from our trips on the Roanoke River) …
Swamp’s Sentinels
by Melissa Dowland
In the blackwater swamp
The creeks are lined
With cypress-sentinels
Left whole by the loggers—
Because they were too hard to reach?
Or perhaps, intentionally left,
with great foresight
to remind us of what once was?
The swollen bases are buttressed
and surrounded by their subjects—
Knees, barely poking above the dark surface.
These trees have seen decades, centuries—
Wild times, when they were left alone
They’ve seen the river become
a highway
They’ve seen
bulldozers
pavers
fishermen
and me, in my canoe.
They are not tall—
Their crowns flattened by
the wind of innumerable hurricanes.
Their sprawling branches
covered in resurrection fern—
they who need no resurrection to live for centuries.
And everywhere—
Holes.
Cavities.
Hollows.
Crevices.
Some so large I could crawl inside
Some just right for a chickadee,
or a prothonotary warbler
who brings such song to these solemn swamps!
What lurks inside these hollow
Monarchs of the Swamp?
Were I to knock, what might I see?
The dark fur of the bear
who could smell me from a mile away?
The sharp face of the screech owl,
ready to pull back and hide in a second?
The secreted nest of the prothonotary,
cloaking her bright yellow in
the cavity’s darkness?
Or are these holes
Simply the eyes of the trees?
Windows into their ancient souls?
Tired eyes that have gazed
down the years,
Longing to be left at peace
for yet another hundred years?
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