What a fun sentence full of alliteration: Today our Burgess bird is Bubbling Bob the Bobolink! Writing that this morning is a great start to the day.
Bobolinks… ever heard of them? Unfortunately, this is a bird that is getting harder to find.
If you are hoping to ever spot one you should look in the grasslands or abandoned fields around you. They can be seen and heard around those long stalks of grass. Within those fields, they build their nests on the ground and when reading about them in our Burgess Bird Book we find that Jimmy Skunk is very interested in Bubbling Bob’s nest. Thankfully Bubbling Bob and his wife are very clever and lead Jimmy Skunk in the wrong direction to protect their nest.
Here is a great clip of a male Bobolink singing and I love it because you can see his back as he hops along the fence line. The Cornell Lab adds that Bobolinks are the only North American bird with black underparts and sections of white on their back calling his pattern a reverse tuxedo. (source)
Baltimore Oriole you’ve probably heard of before, but Orchard Oriole? Maybe not.
The Orchard Oriole exchanges the beautiful orange of his Baltimore cousin with a chestnut brown. The females are very different from the males, wearing yellow and green feathers.
Here is a video of what an Immature Male looks like, much more like the female except with a black throat, and it’s call:
Both Orchard and Baltimore Orioles make hanging nests. As Peter Rabbit finds out from Striped Chipmunk,
“Do they have a hanging nest like Goldy’s?’ asked Peter a bit timidly. ‘Not such a deep one,’ replied Striped Chipmunk. ‘They hang it between the twigs near the end of a branch, but they bind it more closely to the branch and it isn’t deep enough to swing as Goldy’s does.”
Check out this beautiful video of the female Orchard Oriole building her nest:
Now on to a bird that causes a lot of excitement in the Spring. Who is a cousin of Sally Sly the Brown-headed Cowbird, but who is a lot more popular: Goldy, the Baltimore Oriole. Baltimore Orioles are members of the Blackbird family, but they certainly contain more vibrant colors than others in their family. Burgess describes Goldy’s feather pattern in detail, “it seemed to Peter that never had he seen any one more beautifully dressed. His head, neck, throat and upper part of his back were black. The lower part of his back and his breast were a beautiful deep orange color. There was a dash of orange on his shoulders, but the rest of his wings were black with an edging of white. His tail was black and orange. Peter had heard him called the Firebird, and now he understood why. His song was quite as rich and beautiful as his coat.” Burgess Bird Book, Living Press, p. 59
Baltimore Orioles cause quite the commotion when they come through every Spring and Fall and people love to put out special feeders for them. Have you seen one? Cornell Lab’s All About Birds give some excellent suggestions if you want to try to attract Orioles to your yard:
Baltimore Orioles seek out ripe fruit. Cut oranges in half and hang them from trees to invite orioles into your yard. Special oriole feeders filled with sugar water supplement the flower nectar that Baltimore Orioles gather. You can even put out small amounts of jelly to attract these nectar-eaters (just don’t put out so much that it risks soiling their feathers). Planting bright fruits and nectar-bearing flowers, such as raspberries, crab apples, and trumpet vines, can attract Baltimore Orioles year after year.
We are going to try to attract them this year and picked up an Oriole feeder from our favorite Birder in the Chicagoland area, The Wild Bird Shack, in Mount Prospect. They come around during tax time every year and hopefully we will have some come to our yard!
My Baltimore Oriole Travel Checkerboard specially made for and available at The Wild Bird Shack (lower right hand corner)
If you are wondering why they are called Baltimore Orioles, look over at the Allaboutbird Overview and see if you can find the answer.
Until next time, keep on birding! <3 Kate
For our Burgess Bird Coloring and Writing pages check here:
Springing forward isn’t always the easiest or nicest of events on the calendar, but one thing I really enjoyed this morning is that I was able to hear the birds wake with the dawn and chorus their calls to each other again. I sat reading on the couch in our front room, the Snuggle, and smiled to myself as I tried to identify who was calling so early. I feel the anticipation that Peter Rabbit must have felt about all of his favorite neighbors returning in the Spring from the sunny South. We are in for a treat very soon!
Our next Burgess Bird isn’t necessarily one that you can’t wait to spot, but let’s see what we can glean from the Burgess Bird Book and allaboutbirds.org to make us more eager to see them this Spring. You’ll see what we gathered from these resources in the picture above.
Oh dear, but wait, as we happen upon Jenny Wren and Peter Rabbit, Sally Sly doesn’t seem to be getting very much good publicity. There are certainly many ruffled feathers after it is found that she plopped her egg into Mrs. Chebec’s nest. Jenny Wren scolded to Peter, “She laid that egg in Chebec’s nest because she is too lazy to build a nest of her own and too selfish to take care of her own children.” Allaboutbirds adds that the cowbird is “North America’s most common brood-parasite.” “Females forgo building nests and instead put all their energy into producing eggs, sometimes more than three dozen a summer. These they lay in the nest of other birds, abandoning their young to foster parents, usually at the expense of at least some of the host’s own chicks.” Not only are cowbirds bigger, requiring more food, they also most often hatch a little earlier than the other chicks requiring the parents’ attention.
We also heard about another Cowbird in one of our other Natural History books, Among the Forest People by Clara D. Pierson:
““And who is that bird just laying an egg in her nest above us?” (Mr. Red Squirrel asked)
“Speak softly, please. That is Cowbird, and it is not her nest. You will get into trouble if you talk such things aloud. She can’t help it. She has to lay her eggs in other birds’ nests, but they don’t like it.” (Gray Squirrel responded)”
So it’s safe to say that this brown-headed blackbird is not the most popular, but maybe the next bird we learn about will be. Find out next time!
Until then, keep on birding! <3 Kate
For our Burgess Bird Coloring and Writing Pages, check here!
This weekend is the 25th annual Great Backyard Bird Count and I couldn’t resist sharing some links for those who want to participate. To learn more about the event, you can check out a free live webinar tomorrow, February 16, 2022. It is designed for all ages and would be a great way to connect your family with the things you are learning together! If you are rocking your way through the Burgess Birds, you may be surprised by how much you have gleaned this year as you join in on the Webinar. What a cool way to show our kids that Natural History and Nature Study actually have a vital place in the real world!
If you want to find out more about participating, you can also check out the Great Backyard Bird Count page.
Our last Burgess Woodpecker is the Red-headed Woodpecker, a striking bird dressed in deep red, white and black.
This is a good time to ask and answer the question, why do woodpeckers drum on wood? When I was growing up I believed that the reason was limited to their search for food, insects living in the wood. But there may be a few other reasons why woodpeckers drum on trees and wood. According to The Cornell Lab:
* They could be using the loud noise to establish their territory and attract a mate.
* That is how woodpeckers nest. They carve out the wood creating a hole in the tree to build their nest.
* If it is a Red-headed woodpecker they could be storing food in the wood where they are drumming. There are only four woodpeckers who do this in North America, another well-known bird is the Acorn Woodpecker.
This is one woodpecker that we have not seen in our yard, but our eyes are always open and our ears are on the ready when we go out to a trail. Behavior is a great identifier when in the field, so keep in mind that Red-headed Woodpeckers are often spotted fly catching to capture their meal. Or as Peter Rabbit found out from Redhead himself:
“You may have noticed that I go down on the ground myself once in a while. I am rather fond of beetles, and an occasional grasshopper tastes very good to me. I like a variety. Yes, sir, I certainly do like a variety – cherries, blackberries, raspberries, strawberries, grapes. In fact most kinds of fruit taste good to me, not to mention beechnuts and acorns when there is no fruit.”
When we started The Burgess Bird Book, I just couldn’t wait to get to Chapter 11, Drummers and Carpenters. I knew that’s where Peter Rabbit would learn the difference between a Hairy Woodpecker and a Downy Woodpecker. I fought the temptation and was able to wait patiently for the day when we would read it aloud as a family. I was not disappointed. Peter Rabbit learned how to tell the difference and so did I (and my children, of course 😂).
Armed with my knowledge and situated in front of the window to watch our suet feeder, I saw it myself. Have you ever wanted to tell the difference?
Form 1, Grade 3 Student
The tricky thing for most people is when you realize that both Hairy and Downy males have red patches on their heads and look exactly the same with black and white feather patterns. However, there are some striking differences between them. The first is their size, which may be hard to tell when you spot them separately. Hairy woodpeckers are considerably larger than Downy woodpeckers.
“Just then Downy flew away, but hardly had he disappeared when another drummer took his place. At first Peter thought Downy had returned until he noticed that the newcomer was just a bit bigger than Downy. Jenny Wren’s sharp eyes spied him at once.
‘Hello!’ she exclaimed. ‘There’s Hairy. Did you ever see two cousins look more alike? If it were not that Hairy is bigger than Downy it would be hard work to tell them apart. Do you see any other difference, Peter?'”
The Burgess Bird Book, Thornton W. Burgess, Living Press edition, p. 53
Do you want to know the other difference that Jenny Wren taught Peter?
Downy or Hairy, what do you think?
The other difference is in their tails. Speaking first of Hairy, Jenny Wren instructs:
“Look at the outside feathers of his tail; they are all white. Downy’s outside tail feathers have little bars of black.”
The Burgess Bird Book, pp. 53-4
If you look very closely above at the woodpecker on my suet feeder, you’ll see he has a few black bars on his underside white tail feathers. We have positioned a suet feeder right by our kitchen window to see the difference even better. And now we delight in being able to tell with certainty what kind of woodpecker we have spotted that day. Now that I make my own suet, we see the Downy Woodpeckers very often, and Hairy comes at least once a day. And he is certainly larger than his smaller cousin.
For more fun with birds, check out our Burgess Bird pages:
What comes after Red Wing in The Burgess Bird Book? Yellow Wing of course!
Yellow Wing is a Northern Flicker, an absolutely beautiful bird. Thornton W. Burgess describes him like this:
The sides and throat were a soft reddish-tan and on each side at the beginning of the bill was a black patch. The top of the head was gray and just at the back was a little band of bright red…
When his wings were spread, Peter saw that on the under sides they were a beautiful golden-yellow as were the under sides of his tail feathers. Around his throat was a broad, black collar. From this, clear to his tail, were black dots. When his wings were spread, the upper part of his body just above the tail was pure white.
Our house is very close to a walking trail along a creek. One day last autumn, we were walking along the path and heard a loud call up in the trees. The leaves had already fallen and it was a little easier to see what was up in the canopy. Low and behold, we spotted our first Northern Flicker! Check out his call:
MyBackyardBirding
A few months later I started making my own suet out of yummy nutritious tallow rendered from suet, natural peanut butter, nuts, seeds and dried fruit and guess who showed up at our suet feeder… You got it, the Northern Flicker. I was quite happy that I had lured him into our backyard. Who can resist good suet? You’ll see in the next few posts that we have some very happy birds from the Woodpecker family coming to our backyard daily.
Have you ever spotted a Northern Flicker?!
Until next time, keep your family birding! <3 Kate
For more about our Burgess Bird Coloring Pages, check here:
Growing up in Texas, I had no idea about Red-winged Blackbirds, but that doesn’t mean they weren’t there. It wasn’t until I moved to Illinois that I saw one for the first time. They are so prevalent around us and I have a few stories to tell about them because of their habits and characteristics. They are not usually at the top of the average “Favorite Bird List,” and probably don’t make the list for most people.
Last Fall, my family and I went to the Lincoln Park Zoo in Chicago and witnessed one of their less favorable characteristics. They can be quite aggressive when they want food. A lady was walking with her family, pushing the stroller, with a box of cheese crackers in her hand. Her little boy was walking and eating some of them when all of a sudden a Red-winged Blackbird swooped in to try and take them from the little boy. The mother started defending her son from the bird, but it was no small feat because the bird was going back and forth from the cheese crackers the little boy had and the ones left on the stroller. If you’ve ever suffered from a bird attack, you’ll know it’s actually quite scary because of the sound of their wings and the startling occurrence of their approach. Thankfully after a few minutes of fighting the bird away, the family could continue walking through the zoo in peace, but they were flustered to say the least.
On the brighter side, if you’ve driven or rode a bike past a watery field full of tall grass in the Spring and Summer in Illinois you’ve probably heard the Redwing’s call – “Quong-ka-ree! Quong-ka-ree! Quong-ka-ree!” I absolutely love the sound of Red-winged Blackbirds:
An Amazing Video from MyBackyardBirding
We often find Red-Winged Blackbirds picking over our yard during the Summer and Fall, seeing a whole cluster of them. It’s quite interesting to see their patterns, especially because the females have a very faint outline on their shoulders that matches the male’s red and yellow shoulder. I love the way that Burgess describes Mrs. Redwing:
Peter couldn’t help thinking that Old Mother Nature had been very unfair indeed in dressing Mrs. Redwing. She was, if anything, a little bit smaller than her handsome husband, and such a plain, not to say homely, little body that it was hard to realize that she was a Blackbird at all. In the first place she wasn’t black. She was dressed all over in grayish-brown with streaks of darker brown which in places were almost black.
The Burgess Bird Book, Thornton W. Burgess, Living Press edition, pp, 47-48.
Lastly if you are wondering why they are so prevalent, it’s because they have 2-3 broods every breeding season and they are polygamous with males having a few different partners, hence the territorial displays of many males.
While reading The Burgess Bird Book, I realized very quickly that I have a soft spot for small birds with long legs. I could watch them for hours. When we lived in Dubai, my husband and I loved to spot Plovers, watching as they circled and diverted our attention, protecting their young.
You may not have spent a lot of time trying to identify shorebirds and maybe you live too far away from water to be able to do it very often. Did you know that there are actually so many different species? They are actually quite difficult to identify. The Spotted Sandpiper is the most pervasive breeding Sandpiper across North America, and the one Sandpiper that Burgess chose for his book. Shorebirds live and breed among many different types of bodies of water, so even if you don’t live next to a large lake or an ocean, you can find them near streams, rivers, and smaller bodies of water as well.
Burgess gives this bird the name of Teeter, the perfect name for a bird with such long legs, mentioning Peter Rabbits observation, “every few steps he would stop to pick up something, then stand for a second bobbing up and down in the funniest way, as if his body was so nicely balanced on his legs that it teetered back and forth like a seesaw.” (Burgess Bird Book, Living Books Press, p. 44)
A Spotted Sandpiper only wears its spotted breast during breeding season, and wears a plain white breast in winter. (allaboutbirds.org). This year, I have realized that studying the immature and adolescent stages of different bird species, as well as, their breeding and non-breeding plumage is really quite important. For this bird, it certainly is because a Spotted Sandpiper is not spotted all year round!
Look at what my Form 1, Grade 3 student gathered about Teeter:
Hope you have a long leg type of day, getting out to bird! Until the next one, <3 Kate
For more about my Burgess Coloring pages, check here:
