The Marsh Wrens at Maumee Bay...

This post picks up right where the previous post left off...in the middle of the huge stand of phragmites along the boardwalk at the Maumee Bay Lodge. At that time Common Yellowthroats were stealing the show with their happy song, but just a few steps away,  a slew of Marsh Wrens were gurgling out their bubbly song luring me over their way. The little dynamos were on both sides of the boardwalk near the observation deck, singing and moving through the reeds. One male would sound off, and another would reply...then another on the other side would sing, until the entire marsh was a mish-mash of wren music, but not one would come out of hiding to say, "Hi!" So I did what any birder would do. I sat down, listened, and waited. The boardwalk was empty, so there were no humans to scare the wrens away, and eventually, this little fellow popped up, giving me a glimpse of his cute self...

A male Marsh Wren peeks through the reeds along the boardwalk at Maumee Bay Lodge.

Why was I lucky enough to see this little fellow? Well...our little Marsh Wren was sharing his territory with a pair of Common Yellowthroats, or perhaps it's more accurate to say the yellowthroats had encroached on our wren's digs. Who knows, but with human eyes and imagination, it appeared the Common Yellowthroat had let out with one too many "witchety-witchety-witchety woos," and Mr. Wren had had enough. "Be gone, ye yellow-throated thing" seemed to be the call at hand, because suddenly, our wren popped up, gave the Common Yellowthroat what looked like the stink eye, sang his bubbly spring song for all he was worth, and dove back down to the depths of the reeds where he bubbled out more notes to prove his point. Of course, this is probably all fantasy, but it worked out well for me because I was finally able to photograph this little cutie.

Marsh Wrens are famous for being heard and not seen. They love to move around near the base of the reeds, singing while they are down there, taunting humans who hover about with binocs and cameras.

Marsh Wrens are adorable. Their tail feathers are often cocked nice and high, and their constant motion turns them into little imps...and who can resist an imp? I sat for a while without moving, just listening and watching the male wrens periodically pop up in the air and then flutter back down to the watery safety of the reeds, singing the whole time. They were keeping an eye on their territories, and also possibly building "dummy nests." In early spring, males build several nests hoping to catch the eye of a ladylove. The nests are round and hang between the reeds. Eventually, the female picks the nest she likes and then lines it with cattail down.

(Male House Wrens build several dummy nests in their territory as well, but they use nest boxes and other types of cavities. The female also picks her favorite location and finishes off the nest. A few summers ago, we were able to witness some of this behavior in our backyard. Click here to watch a video of our backyard House Wrens feeding their nestlings.

Singing in the reeds, just singing in the reeds...

Hey...when you're finished with that nest, can I use it?
Here's something cool I read about a few weeks ago in Birds of Lake, Pond, and Marsh: Water and Wetland Birds of Eastern North America, by John Eastman. On pages 231-232, Eastman mentions that when Marsh Wrens leave their nests, bumblebees often move in, lining the nests with cattail down to raise their own broods.

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...to say I've fallen behind is an understatement! These photos go all the way back to May 9, 2016 when I was in Toledo for the Biggest Week in American Birding warblerfest.

Witchety-witchety-witchety woo...

Common Yellowthroats were singing for all they were worth a few weeks ago along the Maumee Bay Lodge boardwalk. I was staying at the lodge for the Biggest Week in American Birding warblerfest, and I walked the boardwalk at the lodge many times. In the huge stands of phragmites on the way to the observation deck, Common Yellowthroats were busy staking out territory and singing nonstop...witchety-witchety-witchety-woo...

Male Common Yellowthroat singing along the boardwalk at Maumee Bay Lodge.

The song of the Common Yellowthroat is easy to recognize. It truly sounds like witchety-witchety-witchety-woo! I always hear the bird's song long before I see it. 

The contrast between the black mask and yellow throat and breast stand out through binoculars and the camera's lens, but when you view this bird from a distance with the naked eye, the disruptive pattern and the olive green color on his back help him blend into his surroundings. Thankfully, his loud song gives him away every time and makes easier to find him.

I see you...yes, I do!

A sapling along the boardwalk near the observation tower provided a convenient perch for this male Common Yellowthroat to sing his song. A slew of Marsh Wrens in the same area were singing as well, but they spent most of their time hunkered down in the phragmites. With the Common Yellowthroats and the Marsh Wrens singing loud and clear, this part of the Maumee Bay boardwalk really had it going on! 

I saw so many beautiful warblers at the Biggest Week (I'll try to get all the photos up in a timely fashion...but knowing me, it may take 6 months!). I also taught two field sketching classes and had a lot of fun helping the students discover their inner artists and learn how to become better observers. Observation is the key to drawing...and drawing is the key to observation. :-)

More to come...

Shelling at Lake Erie...

I love trips to Lake Erie because birding is always involved, but this time, unexpectedly, a little shelling was thrown in too...

Conical-shaped shells we found on the beach along Lake Erie at Maumee Bay State Park.

Thousands of these spiral-shaped conical shells were clumped along the beach at the water's edge at Maumee Bay State Park (near Toledo, OH). They were all in perfect shape and incredibly beautiful. I know nothing about shells, so I took a handful home to learn about them. After a few Google searches, I found a NOAA site from the Great Lakes Environmental Research Laboratory (GLERL), and learned these beautiful little shells had once been homes to aquatic algal grazers in the gastropod family, commonly know as...snails!

Thousands of the shells were clumped together near the water's edge.

From the photos and the descriptions on the GLERL page, I'm guessing these shells are Pleurocera acuta (common name, Sharp Hornsnail). According to the information on the webpage, these snails are native to the Great Lakes and Ohio River. They like to burrow in sand and mud, and they like the slower flowing areas of rivers near the bank. I'm going to start looking for them along the Little Miami River. Since it drains into the Ohio, they might be there too.

The color variations among the Sharp Hornsnail (Pleurocera acuta) shells are beautiful...greens, ambers, blues, browns, pinks, maroons, and whites. It will be interesting to see if the colors fade over time. 

"Whorls" are the rings spiraling the conical shell. Pleurocera acuta can have up to 14 whorls.
After checking the shells I brought home, I found most had between 9 and 11 whorls.

Although they look like black and white stripes, closer inspection shows the dark stripe is really a dark chestnut brown.

Sharp Hornsnail shells from Lake Erie (Pleurocera acuta)

Further reading
If you want to learn a little about snail shell morphology, click here for the paper, "North American Freshwater Snails," by J. B. Burch, and go to page 25 (in Walkerana, 1986, 2(6) on the Freshwater Mollusk Conservation Society (FMCS) website. You can learn about the whorls, aperture, shell size, and shell shapes, e.g., the shape of our little Sharp Hornsnail is "elongate conic." This booklet is packed with a lot of information.

Freshwater Gastropods of North America is a blog with higher-level scientific info. Click here for a link to "Pleurocera acuta is Pleurocera canaliculata," by Dr. Rob Dillon. Just like in birding, it seems the species names of gastropods can change!

Where did the colors come from?
In the comments section, Mary Ann asked if I new why the same mollusk would make shells in various colors. I didn't, so I did a quick check to find out. Click here for a blog post by Richard Goldberg titled, "The Significance of Snail Shell Color and Pattern" (6-19-2009) on the Art and Science of Nature blog. Goldberg explains that these varied colors ("inter-population variability") can be explained through evolutionary science, mentioning "extreme color polymorphism" in a population is good, because "looking different from your neighbor" prevents predators from developing a "search image" for its prey. Read the article for more details.

As for the colors themselves, they are produced in many ways, including pigments the mollusk acquires from what it eats, pigments the mollusk produces to strengthen shells, hereditary colors to offer camouflage, and much more. Click here for an article by Gary Rosenberg titled, "Why do Shells Have Their Colors?" on the Conchologists of America, Inc. website for details.

Update!
I emailed Dr. Rob Dillon, a professor in the Department of Biology at the College of Charleston, to make sure I had identified Pleurocera acuta correctly. He replied that I did (yeah!). But there's more...in 2013 Pleurocera acuta received the trinomen "Pleurocera canaliculata acuta" as a subspecies and "junior synonym" of canaliculata. (Pleurocera acuta was first described by Thomas Say in 1821 as canaliculata and the new name reflects that history.) Thanks, Professor Dillon!  See the paragraph above under "Further reading" for a link to Dr. Dillon's blog. Click here if you want to learn what a subspecies is. 

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This post is part of our "Big Water" trip to Maumee Bay. Click here for more posts in the series.

Trumpeter Swans at Maumee Bay State Park

There is nothing more noble on a lake than a Trumpeter Swan gliding through the water, and it's a sight uncommon down in Cincinnati (meaning I've never seen a pair of Trumpeters on any lakes, ponds or wetlands near us...with the exception of Swan Lake at the Cincinnati Zoo), but up in northern Ohio, Trumpeter Swans are almost a common sight. At least they were for us when we were at Maumee Bay earlier in November...

A Trumpeter Swan on the inland lake at Maumee Bay State Park near Toledo, Ohio.
(Photo courtesy of my cousin, Curg. I didn't have my camera with me, so Curg stepped in and captured this fellow!)

In Cincinnati we have Mute Swans on some of our ponds and lakes, which are also beautiful, but not native, so I was really excited to see these huge native swans in the wild! Trumpeter Swans are the largest waterfowl in North America and create quite an impressive sight. In the early 1900s Trumpeters were almost hunted to extinction. Their feathers, skins, meat and eggs were in demand, and hunting coupled with habitat destruction nearly wiped them out. Through habitat restoration, protection and reintroduction, Trumpeter Swans have survived and are now making a comeback!

Two Trumpeter Swans were inseparable on the inland lake at Maumee Bay State Park. I assume they are a mated pair because Trumpeter Swans are monogamous and mate for life. (Photo credit to my cousin, Curg.)

How to tell the difference between a Trumpeter Swan, a Tundra Swan, and a Mute Swan...
Three species of swans live in North America: the Trumpeter Swan (the largest swan), the Tundra Swan (the smallest of the three), and the Mute Swan. The Trumpeter Swan and the Tundra Swan are native. The Mute Swan is an exotic, invasive Eurasian species introduced in the late 1800s as a decorative pond species. Originally, owners kept their wings clipped to keep them on their ponds, but over time, several escaped and now breed in feral populations. Mute Swans are easy to identify. They have large orange bills with a black knob. It's a little harder to tell Trumpeter and Tundra Swans apart since they both have black bills, but there are specific field marks that help you ID the birds. Here are a few sites to help you learn the differences:

Click here for a guide from the Kellogg Bird Sanctuary that explains how to tell the swans apart. It even has a little interactive test to help you learn the differences.
Click here for swan identification tips from the Trumpeter Swan Society.
Click here for a 6-page printable pdf that explains how to spot the field marks that differentiate swans and geese.

If you read any of the ID tips on the links above, you learned Trumpeter Swans are often described as wearing "lipstick." If you look closely, you can see that field mark in this photo. (Again...photo credit to my cousin, Curg.)

The field ID marks of a Mute Swan are easy to recognize...an orange bill with a black knob.
(I photographed this fellow back in 2009 on a pond near my house.)

Trumpeter Swans are making a comeback in Ohio, but they are not safe yet...
The exotic Eurasian Mute Swans populating many of the lakes and ponds in Ohio are very aggressive and can outcompete Trumpeter Swans trying to establish a territory. They also are voracious eaters and can deplete aquatic vegetation for native waterfowl and even destroy entire wetland ecosystems, further squeezing out Trumpeter Swans.

Click here for a post titled "Swan Song," by John Windau on the Wild Ohio Education blog that explains in more detail the Trumpeter's plight and the steps taken to reintroduce them to Ohio.
Click here for details from the ODNR Division of Wildlife.
Click here for two previous posts with photos of Mute Swans and their cygnets on a pond near my house.

Migrating Tundra Swans at Maumee Bay...
We also saw a small flock of migrating Tundra Swans on the inland lake as well. They were off in the distance and didn't stay long. It was an impressive sight to watch them take off together to move on to another lake.

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This post is part of our recent Big Water trip to Maumee Bay, click here for more posts in the series.

Big Water, Big Grass (or...when ignorance really is bliss)

During the first weekend of November, my parents, my aunt, my cousin, and I headed up to Maumee Bay State Park and Lodge near Toledo, Ohio to kick off the winter. It's been a tradition of ours to head north for the last hurrah of fall so we can experience Big Water, go hiking, and do a lot of laughing. Each year we tend to focus on a piece of natural history in the area, and this year it was the tall grasses or reeds that line the boardwalk in the marsh...

Behemoth grasses (Phragmites australis) line the boardwalk in the wetlands at Maumee Bay State Park. The reeds are outrageously beautiful, but the beauty comes at a price...a non-native monoculture that is choking out native plants.

Non-native Phragmites (Phragmites australis), the common reed
We had no idea what this sea of grass was as we walked through it. Down in Cincinnati we're not exposed to grasses that live near Big Water, so when we were walking through the towering reeds with their feathery plumes backlit in the late-afternoon sun, we didn't know it was a bad thing. We just knew it was breathtakingly beautiful, especially when the autumn breezes swept through the fronds, tossing them, and swirling them in one fluid motion...but unfortunately, the 15-ft tall plants are a non-native, invasive species that is slowly choking the life out of biodiverse coastal marshes and wetlands. As phragmites rushes through a wetland, it creates a monoculture in its wake, creating dense thickets that squeeze out native plants such as cattails.

A sea of common reeds is beautiful from the observation deck on the boardwalk in the coastal wetlands of Lake Erie.
If only it were supposed to be there... 

Phragmites australis, the common reed, along the Lake Erie coast.

We loved walking the boardwalk at Maumee Bay State Lodge. It winds through a wet woods that was filled with migrating White-crowned Sparrows and then pushes through an expansive marsh where Red-winged Blackbirds were gathering.

Even though the reeds have squeezed out many of the native plants, a small flock of Black-capped Chickadees didn't mind, and it melted my heart watching them flit back and forth in the reeds, chittering and calling out to each other. I wish I had had my "real" camera with me and not just my cell phone so I could have captured some of their antics.  

Native phragmites
Not all phragmites is bad. Native phragmites hugs the coastal and interior wetlands in the Great Lakes region as well. It supports our native wildlife and lays the foundation for a biodiverse habitat, but it can easily be squeezed out by the non-native form. The invasive form creates dense thickets that kill wild rice, cattails, and wetland orchids, which all grow well around native phragmites.

Click here for a post by the Great Lakes Phragmites Collaborative to help you tell native and non-native phragmites apart.

Click here for a wonderful video created by the Tip of the Mitt Watershed Council that shows how to differentiate between the two types.

Click here for another site with information on phragmites and other Great Lakes Restoration projects.

Goats to the rescue?
In an article titled "The Goats Fighting America's Plant Invasion," by Joanna Jolly in BBC News Magazine (January 13, 2015), Jolly writes that marine biologist Brian Silliman of Duke University in North Carolina has been working over 20 years to figure out how to eradicate invasive phragmites. He tried insects and other forms of bio-control, but had no luck. Then after a trip to the Netherlands, he saw the plant wasn't a problem there because it was constantly being grazed by animals. Cue the goats! Silliman got to work and found goats can get the job done. In one study, 90% of the phragmites in the test area was eliminated. Click here to read the entire article.

Normally, we look for deer hiding along the boardwalk, but I would love to look for goats...


Click here for more of our Big Water (November at Maumee) posts.

The Gray Catbird on the boardwalk...

...this is probably one of the most recognized (and ignored) Gray Catbirds on the planet. I saw him in May when I was at Magee Marsh (near Toledo, Ohio) at the Biggest Week in American Birding warbler festival. Every time I was there, so was he...literally on the boardwalk, walking around trying to get everyone's attention. When you're a Gray Catbird surrounded by thousands of brightly colored rare warblers, you have to work a little harder to get any respect...

A beautiful Gray Catbird at Magee Marsh

Hey! Look at me...I'm a neotropical migrant too (just a little larger and grayer). 

This Catbird was not afraid of anyone. He would walk the planks while people looked on and walked past him. Apparently Gray Catbirds are forced to take drastic measures to compete with the glittery, colorful, tiny, fleeting warblers...

When he wasn't on the boardwalk, he dropped down beside it to forage on the ground and in shrubs for insects. He really is quite beautiful, and when he's not mewing, he has a lovely and varied song (mimicking other birds as well). 

Catbirds are great subjects to study to learn wing feathers. Since the birds are large, the feathers are easy to see. On the top of the "stack" are the three tertials, followed by the secondaries, then the primaries (the longest flight feathers) on bottom. 

The spring songbird in the winter gray flannel suit... 

Is it neophilia, or is it gray flannel?

If I heard, "Oh, it's just a catbird," once, I heard it a million times. These poor birds with their sweet mews and songs got no respect along the boardwalk. It's easy to understand, though. In the grips of WARBLERMANIA, the more common songbirds often fall by the wayside. Neophilia is the love of or enthusiasm for what is new or novel, and humans often fall prey to its lure. Many of the spring warblers are fleeting and rare and are definitely novel in our parts. Some of the visitors stay, but others are just stopping off on their long flight north adding to their mystique, but our sweet berry-loving catbirds are brave enough to live among us, becoming commonplace in the process. In the wild, catbirds like swampy, boggy, and soggy areas. You can always find them streamside along the Little Miami River, but they are neotropical migrants that can adapt, and they have taken to suburban and urban backyards packed with berries. We have resident catbirds in our backyard all spring and summer. They come readily to the mulberries and then stick around for the pokeweed berries, so maybe that's why throngs of people move quickly past them to look for the cute and colorful rare warblers...

...or maybe it's just the gray flannel! 

Cape May Warbler at Magee Marsh...

A drizzly, cool afternoon didn't deter this Cape May Warbler from singing his cheerful spring song. He and several other males piped out their high-pitched notes from the trees bordering the parking lot at Magee Marsh. With his bright, golden yellow plumage and lovely clear song, he was an easy mark, and I saw him as soon as I stepped out of my car...

A Cape May Warbler sings under a heavy gray sky along the parking lot at Magee March in the early afternoon on May 12, 2015.

Cape May Warblers are birds I don't see very often. They migrate through our state in a hurry to get north to their nesting grounds in the forests of Canada and the northern United States, but they always hang out for a bit at Magee Marsh along Lake Erie to refuel and rest up for the last leg of their journey. According to Peterjohn's "The Birds of Ohio," p 430, Cape Mays pass through Ohio between May 5 and May 22. I saw this fellow and about 10 others during the Biggest Week in American Birding on May 12.

At the end of the season, Cape Mays head south for the winter. I read on Cornell's All About Birds and The Birds of North American Online web sites that their destination is the West Indies, where they will spend the winter sipping nectar from flowers with their "unique curled, semitubular tongue." During migration and on their wintering grounds, they also will pierce fruit to drink the juice.

...wait, what? A warbler with a curled, semitubular tongue?
That deserves a few look-ups to learn more. I wondered if a Cape May's tongue worked like a hummingbird's tongue where capillary action drew the liquid up. I couldn't find anything on the physics of a Cape May Warbler's tongue, but I did find an illustration of one. It has fringe at the tip, which looks like it might help the warbler trap nectar so the bird can lap it up. Click here for "The Avian Tongue," by Nancy E. Johnston June, 2014 and go to Figure 12 on page 8 for an illustration.

Interesting: While researching the Cape May Warbler's tongue I found new research on the way a hummingbird gets nectar from a flower. In the article, "How the hummingbird's tongue really works," by Deborah Braconnier, you can read about the research of Associate professor of ecology Margaret A. Rubega and graduate student Alejandro Rico-Guevara from the University of Connecticut. Using a high-speed camera, they found hummingbirds do not use capillary action (assumed since 1833) to take in nectar. Instead, they curl their tongues to trap liquid. It's an unconscious, automatic effort that requires no energy by the bird. Click here for the entire article and a video of the hummingbird's tongue in action.

In the summer while nesting, Cape May Warblers prefer insects and spruce budworms, but during migration and in the winter, when they return south to the West Indies (Cuba, Bermuda, Caymen, Puerto Rico, Virgin Islands, etc.), they turn to nectar to supplement their diet. Their unique tongue allows them to make the transition.

During fall migration, Cape Mays have been seen on hummingbird feeders. I'd love to have one show up at ours!

A Cape May Warbler looks out over the parking lot at Magee Marsh. 

For more information...
Click here for "The Avian Tongue," by Nancy E. Johnston June, 2014. (Figure 12 on page 8 has a nice drawing of a Cape May Warbler's tongue.)

Click here for the report "Status of Cape May Warbler in British Columbia," by J.M. Cooper, K.A. End, and M.G. Shepard. Wildlife Working Report No. WR-82, February 1997.

Click here for the paper "Population Ecology of Some Warblers of Northeastern Coniferous Forests," by Robert H. MacArther, Ecology, Vol 39, No 4 (Oct., 1958), pp. 599-619

Click here for Gardner, L.L. "The adaptive modifications and the taxonomic value of the tongue in birds." Proceedings of the United State National Museum, 1925: 67:Article 19. 

Click here for Lucas, Frederic A. "The Tongue of the Cape May Warbler." The Auk, Vol. 11, No. 2 (Apr., 1894), pp. 141-144.

Click here for the Cape May Warbler's song.

There's magic in the swamp...

This Northern Parula charmed a group of adoring fans along the boardwalk at Magee Marsh during the 2015 Biggest Week in American Birding. I was there with two of my birdy friends Kim Smith (Nature is my Therapy) and Janet Kissick Hug (Nature's Feather Music). We were actually looking for an elusive Blackpoll Warbler singing low in a swampy tangle when this spunky little fella flew in and perched right next to us...

A Northern Parula along the boardwalk at Magee Marsh

I think we were all dumb-founded for a moment as the brave little bird studied us. I've never been so close to a Northern Parula. They usually laugh at me from the treetops where they're safely out of camera range, but this birdy bird was different. He seemed to be curious and sat watching us photograph him...

A Northern Parula studies a flock of adoring fans...

...this Northern Parula took his time looking back and forth at a steadily growing group of people marveling at his beautiful colors and proximity.  What can you say? It's the Biggest Week and there's magic in the swamp.

...eventually he tired of us, turned the other way, and flew off to nab an insect.

The Biggest Week = A Giant Love-fest of Birdy Birds and Birdy People
...which is why I love going to the Biggest Week. I see incredible close-up views of birds I don't see very often, and I get to do it surrounded by people who love birds as much as I do. There is something special about waking up and heading out to the boardwalk where you are among hundreds of people who all love birds. It's great. Wherever you turn, you meet a person willing to help you ID a bird, or point one out...or a person just as excited as you to talk about their finds and what they saw further up or down the boardwalk (in other words, you get no blank looks or glassy-eyed stares when you start talking about birds, their nests, migration, ________, etc.). If you're going, let me know. I'll find you on the boardwalk!

Mark your calendars...the dates for the 2016 Biggest Week are set: 

May 6-15, 2016 

Can you say...anticipation?

Getting ready for the Biggest Week in American Birding!
In only a few days I'll head up to Toledo for the Biggest Week in American Birding where slews of migrating warblers will be flitting, darting, singing, foraging, perching, and dripping from the branches along the Magee Marsh boardwalk...

American Redstart at Magee Marsh 

American Redstart from behind!

...fiery orange among the branches.
American Redstarts stand out because of the strong contrast of black and orange in their feathers.

An American Redstart almost matches the orange fungi growing on the branch. 

      

I will be blogging about the Biggest Week over the next few weeks. The birds, the people, the events...everything about the Biggest Week is amazing!

The boardwalk eagles at Magee Marsh...

I had heard there was an American Bald Eagle's nest along the boardwalk at Magee Marsh, but I didn't know where it was, and with all the excitement of nonstop warblers flitting all around, I forgot about it until I saw an adult eagle fly overhead with a fish in its talons...exciting! I started walking in the direction the eagle had flown and soon heard someone say, "the baby has popped up!" I followed their gaze and was amazed at how close the nest was to the boardwalk...

American Bald Eagle and eaglet at Magee Marsh (view from the parking lot).

Adult American Bald Eagle preening.

The view of the eagle's nest from the boardwalk. I was told this was the second year for the "boardwalk" eagles. This shot lets you see how large the aerie already has become. 

A severed gull's wing hanging in a tree was evidence of the nearby eagle's nest. The gull wing became a landmark of sorts, and I heard once or twice, "a Cape May Warbler is at the gull's wing," or  "possible golden-winged warbler at the gull's wing."

I photographed the eagle and eaglet during The Biggest Week in American Birding.

I'll get busy with warbler posts soon!