Loudoun Wildlife Conservancy

Red-headed Woodpeckers are a pretty neat bird. They are a year-round bird for us but they are also uncommon so keep an eye out for them.

So I wanted to do this post on them, not only because they’re a beautiful bird that is uncommon but also because I’ve received a few emails in the past few weeks about sightings of them in places that range from Algonkian Park in Sterling to various backyards in Round Hill and Middleburg and it’s wonderful to hear about them in different parts of the county!

We had one come to our house in Waterford a few years ago but there were a series of territorial disputes between it and the Red-bellied Woodpeckers that were already established in our woods. Ultimately, the Red-head left our area for one with fewer Red-bellied I believe.

At the Taylor home however, they are having a great time enjoying these birds, three, four and even five at a time coming to the suet and seed feeders and living and nesting in their woods! This picture was taken before the snows but the Taylors are having a great time watching them throughout the year.

Red-headed woodpeckers are forest dwellers and love forests with dead and dying trees since they provide such rich habitat and food sources for them. Woodland wetlands and swamps like those we find at Algonkian Park and at Banshee Reeks are great places to look for these birds since you’ll find dead and dying trees there too.

You can learn more about Red-headed Woodpeckers on Cornell’s All About Birds page. We also have a habitat Herald article on the Woodpeckers of Loudoun that is a nice resource.

This is a rare sighting for Loudoun in the winter, yet this bird has been staying at Sunnylane Farm in Round Hill for most of the winter.

We often see Rose-breasted Grosbeaks during migration as they pass through flying from their usual wintering grounds in south and central America to their summer breeding grounds which are generally north of here although through our bird atlas project we are thinking that they are a probable (although infrequent) breeder for Loudoun County.

You can learn more about the Rose-breasted Grosbeak on Cornell’s All About Birds site. Definitely take a look at the range map and see where this bird ought to be for winter.

It’s really interesting to have it here for the winter. I haven’t heard if it stayed through the snow storms but hopefully it made it through the rough weather.

Grosbeaks are seed eaters so keeping the feeders stocked will likely help this friend through these cold times.

Well Dave Thomas and his wife Anne came back from a trip overseas to both the snow and a hawk hunting around the feeders at Leisure World in Lansdowne.  I had a similar experience myself with a Coopers hawk that grabbed a Starling but alas, I didn’t get any shots of it. Dave was fast in grabbing the camera and has a great story of the event. You can click on the pictures to see them larger:

Here’s the story of these shots from Dave and yes, it is a Coopers Hawk: Neighbors told us that hawks had been visiting the area of the bird feeders behind our Leisure World condominium, so my wife Anne kept watching whenever she could.  Friday (February 12) shortly after noon she said we had a hawk!

The hawk shifted quietly from one tree to the fence, then to a second tree and to a lower branch on that tree (4th and 5th photos).  Two seconds after the 5th photo the bird flew off to the east, and I caught 4 shots with my 6-frames-per second burst mode. The action was very fast, so I had no idea that the bird had captured prey until I looked at the series on my computer screen.

My best guess is that the bird is a Cooper’s Hawk, possibly immature, or maybe a Sharp-shinned Hawk. More experienced birders might be able tell.  Regardless, it was time well spent to record something I had never seen, and which is hard to see with the unaided eye. The hawk was evidently hunting in its patient waiting mode. It is pretty well concealed by the tree, the snow, and its protective coloring, so the feeding songbirds were around, even though they scatter when hawks first arrive.

Bill and Betty Ebert had this story play out at their feeder in Leesburg this week.  I thought it would be fun to share it with you here. You can click on the photos to see them larger:

The Red-bellied Woodpecker had already staked claim to the feeder area but a Starling decided to give it a go anyway…. “Hey! Get away from my seeds!” (the Red-bellied seemed to say) Ultimately, the Red-Bellied Woodpecker was victorious.

So with all this snow, I got to thinking about signs of the seasons (I also got thinking about the snow storm of ’78 when I was a kid up in MA and the fun we had making tunnels! but that would be another blog topic all together).

In addition to snow, of course, there are other elements in nature that are winter through and through and when we think of them we may be brought back to some memory from younger days or think of some activity in anticipation.

So, I decided to make a list of things that make me think of winter and thought I’d share some of them here with you:

- Dark-eyed Juncos with those charcoal eyes and pink beaks
- White-throated sparrows calling “oh sweet Peabody, Peabody, Peabody”
- White-crowned sparrows so regal
- Wildlife tracks that I can clearly follow through a woods in snow
- Icicles forming on eaves
- Structures of trees without leaves
- Leaf buds on tree branches closed up tightly
- Crisp clear night skies with piercing stars
- Birds of prey hunting over farm fields and meadows and more easily seen in trees
- Leaves as insulation
- Roosting, flocking, sleeping in

What are some of the things that jump out for you in winter?

This just in from the Virginia Native Plant Society’s Piedmont Chapter:

Join the Piedmont Chapter of the Virginia Native Plant Society on Sunday, February 28 at 2 p.m. at the State Arboretum, with a focus on evergreens. Please meet at the Kiosk in the parking lot. Carrie Blair will lead the walk. After a 1 ½ hour walk we will serve hot cocoa in the library. To RSVP and for more details, please contact Robin Williams at 540-547-9752 or robinspony@verizon.net within a few days of the event if you plan to come. This event is FREE.

I received an email the other day from a woman asking about a resource that would match up local birds to bird houses and plans for making them. She was looking for something to be able to do with her children so that they could learn about nature and wildlife while providing nesting sites for birds.

This is a really fun topic, not only because it’s fun to set up a new bird house and see the life stories that play out but also because it gives us a chance to look at the world from that bird’s viewpoint and consider the habitat and the features around us that will attract certain birds versus others. It makes us ask questions like: is this a safe spot to raise my young? will it be warm enough or too hot? where will the babies fly to for their first flight from the box? is there food and water around?

But I’m getting ahead of myself…. in terms of books that are great for bird houses and plans, there are two that I’ve found that are particularly good. The first is called Woodworking for Wildlife: Homes for Birds and Mammals. It was put together by Carrol Henderson and published through the Minnesota Department of Natural Resources.  I like this book the most because it is organized by bird or mammal (versus by type of house). 

So, for example, there’s a chapter on Eastern Phoebes and in that chapter the author provides and summary of the types of food the bird eats (e.g. insects, berries or seeds), the type of habitat it prefers, places that they like to build their nests and other specifics like the sound of its call and identifying marks. There are also full color photos throughout the book that include pictures of nests, eggs and fledglings.  Then, at the back of the book they have all the plans and instructions for building the nestboxes and platforms and the specific birds that will use each design are listed.

I’ve used this book to make all sorts of houses from woodpecker houses to screech owl houses and of course bluebird nestboxes. It’s really well done. Almost all the birds listed in this book are native to our area as well so it’s a great resource.

The second book that I’ve found on this is called Birdhouses and Feeders You Can Make, by Paul Gerhards. This book is primarily a book of plans and indeed it too has houses for birds that are local to Loudoun. There’s a table in the front that lists the different bird species and their particular needs and then for each plan they list which bird uses the box or platform type.  The nice thing about this book is that it also has feeder plans so you can get into building those too if you want.

These are fun activities to do over the winter. Best time to have your nest boxes up is by the first week of March or so, so that the birds will find them just as they’re starting to nest. Something to keep in mind is putting up predator guards as well (such as stovepipe guards to keep raccoons and snakes out as well as noel guards).

If you have bird houses or plans you’d like to share please let us know and we’ll post pictures and plans here. Also, I’m going to start doing some posts on general info on our local Loudoun birds and appropriate houses for them so stay tuned for that too.

It’s that time again when we put out the word to college juniors, seniors, grad school students and beyond that we’re looking for a summer intern to not only get some hands on experience with us but also make a difference right here in our local community.

In 2010, the internship will include working on the bluebird and butterfly monitoring programs as well as the stream monitoring program. Work will include both indoor projects (e.g. designing and developing programs, conducting research) and outdoor tasks (e.g. monitoring, habitat restoration)

Interns will also support our children’s nature camp for two weeks during the summer and may participate in a habitat restoration project.

We are looking for an intern who will take initiative and apply creativity to follow through on projects while reaching out to our experts to ask for help or input when needed. Because Loudoun Wildlife Conservancy is an all-volunteer organization and we do not have a location that we call ours, this internship does require some independent work.

This is a paid internship, with the hours expected to be approximately 20 per week. For more information and the application information, visit our Loudoun Wildlife Nature Internship page.

Always remember to play after every storm.

- Matty

I watched an excellent NOVA program last night called The Lord of Ants.  It’s about the life of E.O.Wilson, one of my personal heroes and sources of inspiration. It’s called The Lord of Ants because of the research on ants that Wilson focused on but Wilson did more than just study ants, he made the linkage from ants to biosystems and teaches us about how life connects to life on our planet and the habitats that we have to protect. 

It’s recognized that we are currently going through a mass extinction and in this program he describes the impact (no, it’s not the end of the world, but the species and diversity of the world will change). With science, rather than emotion, E.O. Wilson makes a call for action in the hopes of saving diversity.

In addition to being really informative and inspiring, there are a couple of things that I especially liked about this program. First, it’s told by him in the present day so it’s current and real. The second is that the program weaves together not only stories that he tells about past research but also present day research that links the past with the present.  He then takes that to the next dimension: turning data into action, turning information into a discussion around the need to protect and preserve habitats. This is something that we strive to do through Loudoun Wildlife Conservancy so I especially grooved on that.

Another part of the program that I really loved was where he points out how you and I can get involved here at the local level. Environmental monitoring programs and activities like a BioBlitz that we do here locally are shown to connect into this big picture tying education and monitoring to conservation. He also talks about the Encyclopedia of Life, which I did a blog post on a week or so ago, and his vision for that.

E.O. Wilson is certainly one of the greatest naturalists of our modern days. I encourage you to check out this NOVA program next time it’s on or watch it online through the link above (it’s just an hour and is not dry at all) and pick up a book or two of his – they are both fascinating and often poetic.