Drumroll please ... Pam Perry is back! My favorite retired nongame wildlife biologist stopped by to talk about autumn phenology with John Latimer.
What are those herps up to?
To begin, John asks Pam to share some herpetology facts. (Herpetology is the study of amphibians and reptiles, collectively known as “herps.”) Pam’s abiding interest in herps started when she was young and busy finding salamanders under logs and bringing them home to show her mom. Luckily, her parents never scolded or shamed her for her interest in little slimy or scaled critters, and she went on to a successful career in wildlife biology!
As he’s led phenology walks and events over the last 39 years, John has been pleased to see many other young kids following in Pam’s footsteps. A lifelong interest in critters means a walk in the woods is never boring! (I came home with five tadpoles in a jar just this week, so ... no sign of “growing up” for me yet.)
Bird migrations
Between Pam and John, the seasonal movements of our avian friends are suitably surveilled. In the first week of September, John spotted his first flock of flickers and his first flock of robins. He notes there are parts of the summer when you’ll reliably spot a robin or two every day, and then, at the end of summer, they suddenly seem to vanish.
However, they haven’t all departed south. They’ve merely changed from moving independently (or in small family groups) to forming large flocks. Thus, instead of spreading evenly across a region, there will be huge densities of robins in a few places and none elsewhere.
Similarly, Northern Flickers operate in family groups for most of the summer and form flocks in the fall. Northern Flickers are a charismatic, ground-foraging woodpecker with a distinctive white rump that is visible in flight. At rest, their colors are more subtle, but their plumage has striking colors and patterns upon closer inspection. (Identification tip: Males have a black mustache, and females do not!)
John and Pam also saw White-throated Sparrows, juvenile Rose-breasted Grosbeaks, and Scarlet Tanagers migrating through the area. The male juvenile Rose-breasted Grosbeaks are beginning to grow red feathers on their chests, and the male Scarlet Tanagers have turned from red to green.
Martin movements
Pam is all fired up about Purple Martins! She retells the story of her first trip to see their otherworldly flocking display. During a trip to Pennsylvania, some of her biologist friends brought her to Presque Isle Bay to watch thousands of Purple Martins swoop, circle and swerve through the sky in their nightly roosting display.
This amazing sight plays out nightly throughout the end of summer and early fall. (Lake Osakis in Minnesota is one spot to watch them!) Then, one day, the flock decides that it’s time to leave. Rising before the sun, the whole flock flies up and begins to move south. The groups are large enough they are visible by radar and fly all the way to South America.
Bird baths
Pam loved watching all the birds visit her bird bath over dry weeks of late August through Mid-September. During the afternoons and evenings, she’s observed up to 12 different species of warblers in her bird bath!
This made John curious, since he has two bird baths and hasn’t spotted a single warbler visiting them. As it turns out, dripping water is the key. Pam has propped a gently dripping hose over her birdbath: the noise of dripping or running water is an important cue to warblers and other birds that a clean source of water is nearby. Another important aspect is ground cover. Small birds feel safest while bathing if there are nearby trees and shrubs to hide in nearby.
Small, secretive birds like warblers can be extremely difficult to observe. They tend to perch high in the trees, rendering them visible only from underneath (and often badly backlit by the sky). The birdbath provides an excellent opportunity to see these birds up close and in good lighting!
Pam recommends propping a garden hose over a conventional bird bath or other wide, shallow dish. Her bird bath is at a slight angle, so the hose drips into the bath and the bath overflows onto the ground below, creating a second bird bath.
Pam concludes, “Bird watching if fun, nature watching is fun: Get out there and enjoy it!”
I couldn’t agree more. See you out there!
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Funding for this project was provided by the Minnesota Environment and Natural Resources Trust Fund as recommended by the Legislative-Citizen Commission on Minnesota Resources (LCCMR).
