Backyard and Beyond

Well, if I don’t recognize it, how will the other birds?

Spotted in Marine Park’s wild west side a week ago: the identity of this bird baffled me for while. And then it hit me. Young Brown-headed Cowbird (Molothrus ater). This bird was raised by another species, for Brown-headed Cowbirds are brood parasites: they lay their eggs in the nests of other bird species. Yellow Warbler, Song Sparrow, Chipping Sparrow, Red-eyed Vireo, Eastern Towhee, and Red-winged Blackbird are typical targets, but there are 220 species possibilities! Talk about adaptation.

Some birds will recognize the alien egg and push it out, or, if not strong enough for that, build a new nest on top to it. Other species, however, can’t recognize that the egg doesn’t belong to them (even though it may be larger). Hatchling cowbirds will then out-compete if not outright kill their step-siblings in the nest.

Brood parasitism is a remarkable adaptation by several bird species around the world. The BHC use other nests because, we think, they followed the bison around the grasslands of the American west. This left them no time to make a nest and brood a clutch of eggs themselves. They’ve expanded their range eastward as we’ve destroyed forests and otherwise paved paradise.

Some people get very moralistic about BHCs–the birds can negatively affect rare bird populations–but as usual the problem was created and/or exacerbated by us humans, definitely the world champion nest-wreckers.
Also, close by was a singing Eastern Towhee male (Pipilo erythrophthalmus) atop a cherry tree. Coincidence?

Last week, we had some nice views of the more common Black-crowned Night Heron, Nycticorax nycticorax. This is a Yellow-crowned Night Heron (Nyctanassa violacea).If you squinch up your eyes, you can sort of get that creamy yellow crown color the birds are named after… remember that a lot of birds got their names from a dead specimen in hand. (But also see this bird on a nest in Texas.) The binomial name, meanwhile, translates as “night lady violet,” the violet color of the back being imaged, I mean referenced. Another NYC breeding species, nesting in several locals within the city’s watery borders. And  last year there was some exciting news: a pair nested on Governor’s Island, a first; the island’s brief span of isolation after it was abandoned by the Coast Guard seems to have opened the gates to nature again; will the renewed frenzy of human re-occupation close them?

The Common Grackle (Quiscalus quiscula) is no stranger in our midst, but you really need to be along the coast to spot a Boat-tailed Grackle (Quiscalus major). Marine Park had a few of them foraging in the reed stubble recently. Here’s one of these spectacular “blackbirds.” They are bigger than the Commons, with longer tails and a full-body iridescence where Commons have purple-blue heads and brownish-bronze bodies.Unfortunately, none of my pictures quite captured the intensity of this bird’s blue iridescence in that back-lit bright morning sun.

They’re called “boat-tailed” because their tails looks like keels in flight. Their other cousins, the Great-tailed Grackles, have even bigger tails.

About that binomial: Pandion was a mythical king of Athens who had two daughters, Philomel and Procne. The latter married Tereus, king of Thrace, even though he wanted Philomel. To get Philomel, the Thracian cut out Procne’s tongue and pretended she was dead. Unable to speak her woe, Procne informed her sister of her fate by way of weaving a tapestry, or a web in some versions, that told all. The sisters then took ancient Greek vengeance, killing, cooking, and serving Tereus’s own son to him. The gods, with their somewhat delayed sense of justice, punished the sisters by turning Philomel into a nightingale and Procne into a swallow (no singers, they), who would be pursued forever by Tereus in the form of a hawk. Still with me here? Linnaeus thought Ospreys were hawks of the genus Falco. Savigny said baloney to that and placed them in Pandion, where they remain the sole members of their genus, although perhaps the genus name should probably have been Tereus.

The specific part of the binomial is the Greek for “sea eagle”; fish hawk and fish eagle are other names for this fish-eater, which is no eagle.* “Osprey” is also a bit of mess, meaning more or less “bone-breaker,” a name which really refers to the Lammergeier, the enormous Old World vulture.

*The Bald Eagle is Haliaeetus leucocephalus, with an extra “e” in the genus.

Ospreys have begun to return to Brooklyn and on Sunday we had our first sightings of the year: a pair already well into breeding festivities. The sun’s in the way, but you can just see a fish here under this female’s right foot. As she fed, the male went off fishing for sticks. He picked some material off the meadow. But the majority of his forays were towards a nearby row of cottonwoods, which he hovered over searching for suitable twigs and branches. You could see him eyeball some possibilities and then rise above them. Others, he grabbed and broke off. The above was one of his biggest finds, which he just barely got back to the platform. It hung from the edge for a bit before falling into the water; it was not retrieved.He made a half dozen trips. By then the female was finished with her sushi.The birds mated twice. Some Oystercatchers nearby were also so inclined. Even on a Sunday morning, bird sex far from a leisurely activity; if you blink you’ll miss it. And then back to fiddling with the nest.
*

This is one of the least-remote osprey platforms I know of in the city. People run and walk around the Salt Marsh path all day long and that doesn’t seem to bother the birds, who are presumably far enough away across a tidal mire. However, a pair of dog-walkers had their dog-off leash and it was going off the path and down into the marsh. That could be stressful enough to spook the birds off the nest permanently. I spoke with them politely before they turned the corner and got closer to the nest. For a change they didn’t tell me to fuck off, but I’m not sure they actually leashed the animal afterwards, since it was well in advance of them by then. Dogs aren’t supposed to be off-leash anywhere in the city except for specified dog runs. One would think that a “nature center” would be doubly obvious as a place to keep them leashed. But that thought would require… thought.

From back to front, a Great Blue Heron, a Great Egret, and a Snowy Egret. Salt-marshing in Brooklyn.

Heron. Egret. What’s the difference? “Egret” comes from the Fr. aigrette, which seems to have come out the Old High German heigir, which means… heron. But then you know a hawk from a handsaw, right? Hamlet should have said herounceau, a young heron, but then that’s an Old French word and he was Danish, although he spoke in English. Shakespearean English, no less. What a confused puppy. So if you can’t tell a hawk from a heron, you’re in big trouble. And clearly not a subscriber to this blog. What are you waiting for? The half-price sale? It’s on now!