Loudoun Wildlife Conservancy

Have you been hearing it?  Kon-ka-reeeee!  That’s our Red-winged Blackbird and what a great sign of spring! I started hearing the call in the last few days of February but more recently have had a few come to our platform feeder for sunflower seeds.

You can listen to their calls here.

The Red-winged Blackbird is occasionally seen here in Loudoun in winter but really returns as spring starts winding up.

They’re often found in marshy wetland areas and soggy fields. That kon-ka-reeeee call is the male’s song which it will profess from the highest perch it can find.  Females are, as is often in the bird world, less showy, making small chit calls as they hunker down in cattails and reeds.

In the springtime, the males start their territorial displays and calls as soon as they arrive at the breeding habitats. In the photo shown here, the male is doing what is called a “songspread”. This behavior is done when establishing territory. When the females arrive, there’s a lot of chasing around through the habitat until they settle down.

Territories are established starting in March with courtship occurring through April and May. The pairs then focus on nesting from late April into June, creating secret nests among reeds and grasses, often hung in mid-air from vertical supports.

When you watch the males, be sure to catch a glimpse of that red wing bar they they are so aptly named for. It’s quite stunning against their jet black feathers.

This is an excerpt from the Brooklyn Botanic Garden Book series, “Bird Gardens.”  I came across it through the National Wildlife Federation’s Habitat Steward Program and it’s such a nice succinct checklist that I wanted to share it with you. I’ll also add my own commentary in brackets next to each tip, I just can’t resist.

As we head into spring, this is a great time to run through this checklist – both to refresh existing backyard habitat elements that you already have and to consider new ones for the coming year:

• Re-create the multiple layers of plant growth found in natural areas. [Take a look around your neighborhood where development has not yet occurred and see what the original habitat looked like and included. This will give ideas for creating what our native species need to thrive]

• Select plants to provide nutritional foods during different seasons. [Thinking through each season is important – whether it’s flowers from March through October or fruits from summer through winter, take a look at what your plantings offer different species through the year]

• Plant shrubs and small trees in same-species clumps for adequate pollination of fruits. [This is especially important for holly plants and others that require a male and female plant]

• Provide at least one clump of evergreens. [With the winter snows we got this year, you can see how important evergreens can be. They provide a nice shelter for wildlife during harsh weather. Additionally, they provide nice nesting sites for birds that can be well hidden]

• Leave dead trees, standing or fallen, to provide nesting and foraging sites. Consider topping dead trees rather than removing the whole tree if safety is an issue. [Snags play such an important role in our ecosystem. The insects that work to decompose them provide great food for various birds and they provide the right sort of wood for woodpeckers to make cavities that are used both by them and secondary users for nest sites]

• Leave vines, or plant native additions. [Vines like the Virginia Creeper, Trumpet Vine and yes, even Poison Ivy, provide great food sources for birds through the fall migration]

• Limit the size of your lawn for less mowing, less fertilizing, less watering, and less pollution. [Lawns have an interesting history in our culture and I’ll do a whole blog post on that at some point but for now, just a note that lawns are actually a wasteland when it comes to wildlife benefit and in fact because of all the things we do to make them look as they “should,” we pollute our environment and waste water]

• Avoid invasive exotic (non-native) plants. [Plants and animals evolve together and the introduction of non-natives impacts that web of life]

• Supply a source of water – dripping or running water is a better attractant than still water. [Bird baths and backyard ponds are wonderful features – the sound of running water is irresistible to many animals because it sounds so fresh and good]

• Provide and monitor nest boxes of various types. [This is a great way to learn more about our resident birds as you get to watch them use the habitat around them in raising their brood]

• Leave some leaf litter on the ground. [Leaf litter is excellent – both for overwintering butterflies and other insects that need to get through the winter. In addition, as leaves decompose they provide rich nutrients that enrich the soil and make a healthier habitat in general. Birds will forage through leaf litter in search for food]

• Stop using pesticides in your yard. [Pesticides disrupt the balance in nature, harm other animals and get into our groundwater]

• Use only organic, slow release fertilizers, preferably your own compost, if needed. [Similar to pesticides, fertilizers do far more harm than good – leaf litter and other natural compost is the best remedy if you need to fertilize]

Restoring habitat in our backyard is a great way to draw in wildlife and get to learn more about them. I saved a pdf version of this checklist here so you can download it and use it: Checklist for Creating a Bird Friendly Yard.

You can also find more resources for backyard gardening and creating backyard wildlife habitat on our Habitat Restoration page of the website.

I stopped by the viewing spot along Loudoun County Parkway last weekend to check on the Great Blue Herons. 

This is a great time to view the roost because the trees have not leafed out yet and you can see the birds finely silhouetted against the sky.

Along the different tree clusters, I counted around 50 nests – some looking smaller than in the past, possibly due to storm damage from the snows and others perhaps just being built.  The greatest thing to see though is the pairs as they stand together on the nests, nuzzling each other, bringing in sticks to add to the nests, and other courtship activities.

In coming weeks they’ll lay their eggs and then they’ll be busy through the spring raising their chicks. We’ll continue to pop by to watch them, staying far back from the rookery and using the spotting scope so not to disturb their important activities of the season.

I LOVE this time of year!  Our amphibians are waking up, tree sap starts to run, groundhogs start to stir, and birds are on the MOVE!  It’s so exciting! So alive!  and yet still the signs are subtle for now, and then in a few weeks, Whoooooosh – the full chorus of Spring is singing and all the dancers are on the stage! Oh how I love it!

Ok, so what inspired me to write this morning is that I just got the first email of the season about the Chimney Swifts and even though it will be few weeks before they get here, I love knowing that they’re on their way! They’re part of this amazing dance of life and hearing that they’re gosh, about half way here already sets my heart a flutter! While we were digging out from the snow, something in them sparked and said, it’s time to FLY! and off they went!

The whole migration “thing” simply amazes me – actually, nature in general just amazes me – it’s such an incredible and beautiful dance of life through time and space, like some complex waltz with partners handing off partners to other partners, a nod and curtsy here and there yet no instructions needed. Just beautiful.

So, back to the point, here’s the news: the first Chimney Swifts of the season have been sighted on the Gulf Coast returning from their wintering grounds in South America. As in past years Driftwood Wildlife Center will be plotting the swifts’ movements northward over the next few months. We won’t see them for a few more weeks but you can watch their movement as fellow naturalists south of us post their sightings at: WWW.CHIMNEYSWIFTS.ORG

There’s a really neat Bald Eagle project going on right now in Fauquier and Loudoun Counties and it’s just too cool not to tell you about! Furthermore, our own Liam McGranaghan and Laura Weidner will be involved in this as they help monitor sites, 3 of which are located in Loudoun.

Basically what they do is identify areas that are likely to attract eagles and then ask landowners if they’d mind having a dead deer carcass in their yard to attract the birds. So far they’ve had a lot of support from people they’ve approached – hey, it’s just another form of bird feeding, right ?

The property owners keep a journal of the eagles that show up throughout the day and email it in to the project lead. With the data in hand, the project team, trained in handling eagles, returns to the property, traps the birds, collects the data needed and immediately releases the birds.

The goal of this Eagle Project is to develop a better understanding of the Bald Eagle population in the area as well as migratory patterns, health of the birds and information on the age distribution of the birds.

The project is led through the Virginia Inland Eagle Project under the auspices of the Virginia Department of Game and Inland Fisheries and is planned to go on for 10 years to gather the trend data needed to draw strong conclusions about the population.

For more information and an excellent story told from the perspective of one of the property owners, you can read the article online here or download our clipping from the paper here.

Just a quick reminder that we have this great program coming up on Sunday.

The Birds of Loudoun County― Sunday, February 28, 2:00 p.m. at the Purcellville Library. With Loudoun County’s wide variety of natural areas, including rich and large wet forests along the Potomac River, extensive farms and meadows, and large upland forests along the Blue Ridge that rise to more than 1,900 feet in elevation, bird life is abundant. 

Over 100 species of birds nest and raise their young here, and at least another 150 species migrate through each year.  Thousands of hawks and eagles migrate through every fall; ducks flock on the Potomac and Shenandoah in early winter and late spring; and warblers and other songbirds show up in May, sometimes for only a brief visit and sometimes to stay for a couple of months while they raise their young. 

Joe Coleman, president of the Loudoun Wildlife Conservancy and avid naturalist and birder, will discuss and show slides of the birds of Loudoun County and identify the best spots to find them. Questions: contact Joe Coleman at 540-554-2542 or jcoleman@loudounwildlife.org.

For more details you can download our program flier.

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.