Raven

I saw a Raven today flying not too high in the sky, Corvus corax. What a beautiful bird. He was a feathery black man and, as a furry black man, I felt a natural affinity.

I knew he was Raven because of the fluid beat of his wings and the articulation of the “finger” feathers, his primaries. Oom was with me and we felt he had a profile reminiscent of a Goshawk…flap, flap, flap, glide. Not like a crow…crows row their wings when they fly. But those finger feathers…I was really impressed. Like synchronized cat tails they were…smooth and strong.

And speaking of tails, his was splayed out when we saw him, like a buteo.

Big bird; big black bird.

Bird Bacchanalia

Mrrrr Friends,

While on my morning constitutional, we heard a mild racket in the Blackberry bushes. I went on point…I cannot help myself, it is a native reflex dating back to my Wisconsin kittenhood when eating little flurry and fluffy things was part of a balanced diet.

We looked into the bushes but nothing seemed obvious. We walked around to the low side of our hill and finally Oom said she saw something. She put me on her shoulders. After a minute or two we saw a feathery form deep in the bushes near the top.  A small to mid-sized bird sat among the very ripe blackberries – in the wonderful high middle of the bushes where Oom had not been able to pick because of the thorns and the deepness – and was dining on the biggest, ripest specimens. Not just pecking at and nibbling, but enveloping, sloppily munching on and swallowing large number of berries.

The little bird glutton watched us the whole time but didn’t get nervous at all as we stood within five feet, me on my person’s shoulders and us taking a picture or two. We realized as the young bacchanalian teetered that the little guy was a little drunk!

We took a picture, since we were having an argument about who he was…Alex is the big birder among us, but she doesn’t come on our walks. I was right, though, we checked Sibley to confirm (I love paging through Sibley though sometimes I do drool a bit). Our friend was a young of year Pheucticus ludovicianus…Rose-breasted Grosbeak.

They’ve been around all year. Their parents and all kinds of cousins took up residence this spring and the kids all fledged about 4 – 6 weeks ago…well before our American Robins (who all did very well thanks to two extremely sharp parent who raised three kids right under the beaks of a bevy of Blue Jays). The Blue Jays seemed to get bored with the berries a couple weeks ago, but it was pleasing to see this fellow enjoying himself. He has a long migration ahead flying from Upper Jay south as far as Costa Rica or Columbia perhaps. Bold little guy, I wish him well, but I have a feeling he’ll be back next year to visit our bushes again.

Flora & Fur

Mrrrrr Friends,

People need fur. I’ve observed this on more than one occasion, but it has really become evident to me of late.

My perambulations around my property are accomplished with my person at my side or nearby. It is a matter of friendship, but also safety. A furry adventurer like me, left on my own, might let his curiosity get the better of him, she insists, and in this slightly wilder, more biodiverse neighborhood, might meet with misfortune in the guise of a wild four-legged.

So almost every morning, and sometimes afternoons too, we head off into the yard for wonderful adventures. We have this lovely brook at the back of the yard, nice marshland with frogs (we had a very nice meeting with a Leopard Frog, Rana pipiens to you, just the other day) and a wetland with ferns and sedges and many more things that we are learning about.

A few samples:

Sweet Joe Pye Weed, Eupatorium purpureum and, one of my favorites, Turtlehead, Chelone glabra













One of our many resident hummingbirds' favorites (they are all Archilochus colubris of course) Touch-Me-Not, Impatiens pallida, and one of my peoples' favorites, part of our huge Blackberry bush, Rubrus rubrus - which many species of birds love too!














Humans are pretty practical, so, oftentimes, when my people are out with me, they start doing little yard chores. One thing leads to another and, as often as not, they end up on some big project. Cutting the lawn, pruning trees, pulling weeds.

As a cat, I find this stuff pretty boring, so I usually sit and wait patiently, staring at bugs, mapping new ways to sleep on my people at night, working out a few eigenvalue algorithms in my head, or else thinking about kibble.

All this is fine. But then, mysteriously, a few days later, my folks start itching. There’s this odd three-leaved plant in the yard…with little white berries at the center.

And here’s where I get back to the fur thing. I really think people need fur. Catsuits (please see “labels” to the right to learn more about catsuits) are not a practical alternative. People are too big and they don’t have tails or paw pads on all fours…and then there are those dumb thumbs to deal with…too much trouble.

Why has evolution led them to a furless state so they are so easily plagued by poison ivy and such? Even my female person – who has never been sensitive to the leaves of three in the past – got the nasty bubbly itchies this year. Turns out exposure to urushiol is cumulative. My male person has legendary abilities in this area, having reached a threshold level of exposure in infancy. Now, all he has to do is look at the stuff and he breaks out rhythmically for weeks. Only problem is, he can’t seem to recognize the stuff. That’s why I’m here to point it out, sniffing it out dutifully, bringing in little samples for him to inspect.

I feel for them, I do, though it is difficult to watch them go through it…and they do complain an awful lot…though I guess that’s par for the course with being human.

Here’s the biggest problem though. At some point – it is inevitable – they start looking at me funny and sure enough, the next thing I know I’m in the tub getting the Johnson’s Baby Shampoo treatment.

Yeah, right, blame the cat. (But the womenfolk sure do love my sweet smell after a bath…)

Goings On and Upwards

Mrrrrr Friends,

Life is pretty busy here in Upper Jay. I’ve got my paws full surveying and monitoring a new yard and getting to know its inhabitants. Here are a few highlights.
My tree of choice right now is the many-trunked Tilia americana, Linden or Basswood, just behind the house at the base of a hill. It sits in a very slight depression with spongy, spring-fed ground around it, sprouting sedges and other cool wet-loving plants. I’ve ascended three of the trunks so far – one at a dead run this morning with a successful 10-foot climb. Here I am scoping out the approach and launch area.

I find the damp wet ground a very appealing launch pad substrate. The shallow mini-pools of water make it possible to abort a run, stop and take a drink of ground water like it was all planned. There is a very nice medium-sized glacial erratic next to the lone trunk, which could serve as an alternative launch pad or sunning rock. It also affords a perch for viewing frogs, who congregate among the sedges and are amazing creatures. The frogs I’m meeting so far are streamlined numbers…not the peepers of my native Wisconsin. They don’t seem too disturbed by me looking at them, but there’s something about them that doesn’t inspire a paws-on approach.
The Linden tree dominates our view from the back porch, and it seems to be one of the favorite haunts of many of the birds that visit us.

While I’m out in the yard, at least once a day, Alex keeps tabs on our winged friends from the back porch. The Linden has hosted racketing Blue Jays, mrrmrrring Cedar Waxwings, staccato Chickadees, tippity tapping Downey and Hairy Woodpeckers, Rose-breasted Grosbeaks, Juncos, Phoebes, Nuthatches, at least one White-crowned Sparrow and a couple of elusive little warbler-types that Alex and Kelley have not yet identified.

Our most frequent bird visitor of late is “Stinker,” a noisy, very territorial male House wren who is renovating the Carolina Wren box hanging from our back porch. He’s had his eye on the place for a month or so, but only recently took the plunge. We think he’s trying to convince his partner Rose to move in for a double-clutch year. Rose seems to be a bit shy of Alex, so I’m not sure that Stinker will persevere in moving her…maybe with some further renovation of the interior he’ll convince her next year?

This bird box has an illustrious history of producing happy wren families. It was chock full of sticks and bird junk from its last happy brood (click on the House Wren link in the “Labels” column to see more on that). In a fit of human moving and organizing mania my male person cleaned it out this spring. Stinker was pretty appalled that the place didn’t come with furniture, but he took care of that right away.

Wren Update! Parts 1 and 2

MrrrrR,

As I blog, the 2 baby wrens are considering fledging. The adult female seems to be encouraging them occasionally by coming to the nest box without food. I've also seen her with food on some of these visits making sure, I guess, they are staying fed up. She has been visiting with increasing frequency throughout the morning.

The young fledglings are vocalizing a great deal and coming to the box opening - here's a picure of the larger of the two.

They are about the size of their parents at this point. We assume they are 10 to 12 days old based on assumed hatch date.

I guess this means they'll be out of the box today. Unfortunately, a large storm is forecast for this afternoon and evening. I am worried about them being out and perhaps on the ground during this...then again, perhaps the parents sense this and are hoping to get them tucked securely on a branch against a tree trunk for the evening?

We can only speculate at this point. We'll update you when we have more news.

UPDATE
Wow, that was intense!

In about a 2 hour period, our parent wrens successfully moved their 4 fledglings to an undisclosed safe zone in the holly tree and/or the bush below it.

Yes, 4! Boy did we not think there were that many...there are supposed to be clutches of this size or greater but we just assumed we had 2 until they started lining up to come out of the house.

It seemed perfectly orchestrated by the parents. One at a time, after the mom came to the house, the fledglings made their first flight from the opening of the nest box to the Japanese cherry tree 10 feet away.

Fledgling1 – likely the dude in the photo above – made it into the foliage about 7 feet high. We then lost track of him until we saw him scuttling across the roof of the garage to take off for a short hopper flight smack into the holly tree.

Just then, F2 hurtled out of the nest box and into the cherry tree at about 5 feet height. We lost track of her right away...must of scurried up the branches and headed out.

F3, a little pugnacious guy, arched out of the nest box about 10 minutes later. He didn’t do so good, landing at the base of the designated cherry tree. But within about 2 seconds, he was clambering up the trunk, stopping only to get directions from mom over in the cedar tree. Here’s a couple pictures of the little guy.

After his photo op, F3 jagged over to the cedar tree on a low flight path hitting the wood pile. (The garage where the nest box hangs, the cherry tree, and the cedar tree are at the points of a rough triangle of space, each about 8 to 10 feet from the other; the 20 foot diameter holly tree is on the other side of the garage from where the nest box hangs, furthest from the cherry.) From the wood pile he flew into the bushes below the holly. From there we lost sight of him.

F4, the baby, was left, but not for long. We didn’t see F4 take off, but it must have went well because she was gone in a flash and the parents were shuffling little ones from the cedar into the holly/bush area.

Amazing and very efficient. I couldn’t imagine my mom getting us kittens to get in line and behave so well for much of anything. These wrens have the survival thing down. I am glad we could help by putting a nice home for them away from streets and pretty much away from dogs and other intruders. Fric and Frac can always be a problem, but at this point the fledglings have good flight skills at about 12 feet. In hours they’ll be even better. In a week or two, they’ll be almost as adept as their parents who will continue to defend and feed them through most of this period.

I wish them luck. My female person and I will keep an eye for them and update you if we have news. We’re assuming (based on my person’s experience with wrens) they’ll find a sturdy, safe, crow-free zone to spend the day and feed up as much as possible. After that, their lives will become largely secret in terms of how much we’ll know. I sure hope though, that we see them next year when they’re all grown up.

Baby Bird Central

Mrrrr Friends,

Wow, I’ve been busy.

There’s been no time for blogging with new visitors everywhere. And it’s hard to get inspiration to blog when you can’t go cat around in your own backyard without getting “lip” from flickers, chatter from wrens, wails from robins, and a host of complaints from titmice, grackles, and, always, catbirds.

I’m thrilled they are all having a successful breeding season, but I’m not going to eat baby birds…really, it is my honest intention not to eat them…maybe just a sniff and a lick?

Not that I’d have a chance because my person is accompanying me everywhere when I do get to go out during fledgling season.

Our House Wrens have about three babies, we think – maybe a week from fledging. They seem quite happy thus far. Their little house never gets too much direct sun and is well protected from storm winds. A brief, sunny warm-up in the morning, then a nice rocking breeze through the afternoon. We are looking forward to seeing them.

We already have a successful backyard robin nest. Here’s a picture of the youngster we saw up in our cedar tree. I am sad to report that the three eggs in our front yard nest were robbed one night a couple weeks ago. Likely it was a squirrel. Alex isn’t too fond of squirrels and likes to chase them.

The grackles also have children running about but no sign yet of catbird or flicker babies (woodpecker babies are just so cute…their little tongues are quite cool). And you never know with titmice…they are so quiet and secretive.

Here’s a backyard catbird scolding me. The front yard catbird’s a bit more chill…

No sign of the Baltimore Orioles. We hear them every so often, and we know there must be a nest somewhere down by the little beach, but we don’t know where the family from the recently felled Black Cherry relocated.

Oh, and we have Wisconsin prairie flowers coming right up where Alex can see them – she loves a good prairie garden.

Happy solstice!

More on new visitors soon…

New Tenants

We have tenants in our wren house.

Here’s a picture of the male wren. There is a female too, but she gets very shy when there are people around. Last week they were both taking small twigs from the cedar tree and adding them to the twigs already in the wren house.

House Wrens (Troglodytes aedon) like these two will often make a “false nest” or two, but it is usually just the male. He’s covering his bets but also trying to shake off any cowbirds or competitor species. The fact that they were both adding to the nest box seems a good omen, but you never know with wrens.

Here’s a less-than-perfect video of the male singing above the house. This is territorial behavior, but it’s wonderful to hear. Turn your volume to medium or so; there’s a big boom noise at the end, it isn’t a gun shot but a delivery man in our neighbor’s driveway.

Anyway, I’ll keep you posted on their progress. The chances of fireworks are great…the house is a Carolina Wren house (Thryothorus ludovicianus) and they are bigger and often more assertive than their House Wren cousins. House Wrens, however, are no pushovers.

Check out the links to the two different wren species to the right in my “places to go” tab. The Cornell Lab of Ornithology always has cool bird information and great photos.