Tag Archives | cavity nesting birds

Ash-throated Flycatcher, a Bird for our Time

By Dan Greaney on June 27, 2020 in BirdWords

Ash-throated Flycatcher with Praying Mantis

G-r-rick! G-r-rick! The woodland call of the ash-throated flycatcher manages to sound both dry and optimistic, and this bird has reason to feel both. It is well adapted to the summer conditions of the arid west.

Although it sports a hipster beanie and jaunty colors–a sulphur-yellow belly, burnt orange in the wing, and a red-brown tail–you are apt to hear the bird before you see it. From a perch or in flight, its frequent calls abound in our north state woods.

These birds are up from coastal Mexico, reversing the summer vacation travels of many pre-Covid Americans. But of course they are here not to vacation but to raise their families on the abundant insects of the season. Unlike many kinds of flycatchers, they rarely capture their meals out of the air. Rather they perch in the understory, study the foliage and bark near them, and then hover to pick their insect prey from the plant.

Ash-throated Flycatcher at Natural Cavity

Gleaning insects is a service that should not go unrewarded, and trees, particularly oaks, generously provide cavities that the birds use as nest sites. Along with oak-rot hollows, ash-throated flycatchers readily nest in cacti cavities, woodpecker holes, nesting boxes, drain pipes, or the deep pocket of a jacket left hanging over the back fence.

Ash-throated Flycatcher with Nesting Material

Both parents build the nest of various plant fibers. The mother bird incubates her handful of eggs for two weeks, and both parents feed the young about sixteen days more, as their offspring grow from naked to feathered to feeding themselves. Though just the size of grocery-story zucchinis, they develop the mesomorphic form of strong flyers–big-breasted due to powerful flight muscles.

Ash-throated Flycatcher Eggs

Beginning as soon as July and lasting into early fall, those muscles will propel the birds on a fifteen-hundred mile migration. The North State insect populations wane, and the flycatchers head for buggier turf to power their next month-long phase of life–shedding their worn feathers and growing new ones.

Ash-throated Flycatcher Nestlings

Several qualities feed the optimism that ash-throated flycatchers warrant. Their ready adoption of human artifacts for nesting sites serves them well. Also, they usually line their nests with mammal fur, which is soft for the nestlings but less insulating than feathers and so may reduce overheating that feathers could cause as the seasons warm. Further, ash-throated flycatchers do not need to drink water; like some other desert dwellers, they manufacture enough for themselves in the process of digesting their food. In this warming arc of the world, ash-throated flycatcher populations have grown about 1% per year over the last fifty years.

Listen for a Nasal Beeping in Your Neighborhood Trees

By Dan Greaney on August 10, 2019 in BirdWords

White-breasted Nuthatch

In the bird world of the North State, there’s little that’s more common than a nuthatch. You’ll find more avian tonnage in winter refuges and flooded fields, and you’ll find brighter plumages and louder songsters. But nuthatches are year-round decorations in our native trees.

Red-breasted Nuthatch

You can scarcely go for a walk up in the fir belt without hearing the tiny red-breasted nuthatches. These little cuties may be tough to see as they pick small insects from high-up in the conifers, but their quick, nasal ankh-ankh-ankh-ankh-ankh calls can be relentless and ubiquitous as they keep in touch with one another.

Down in the oak woodlands, the larger, teacup-sized white-breasted nuthatches fill the woods with calls that are similar but a touch more mellow, slower and lower.

White-breasted Nuthatch

The white-breasteds are often easily viewable, as they usually forage not in twig-tip foliage but on the open expanse of exposed trunks and large limbs. Also helpful for viewing, the oaks are shorter than firs, and many will later lose their leaves. With their regular calling and white faces that stand out against dark trunks, white-breasted nuthatches are one of the most visible little birds in the trees. When flying away, they may flash more white at the corners of their tails. You may be able to see their blue-gray backs, and, in the males, their nape and crown darkened to a rich blue-black.

White-breasted Nuthatch

But it is nuthatch behavior that really stands out. Most birds are like us–our feet are down and our heads are up. But nuthatches give the world a different look. Their regular habit is to fly high and work their way down a trunk. They pick for insects in bark fissures, and the down-trunk approach gives them a view into crevices that woodpeckers and other gleaners miss. Perhaps that less common world view helps lead to their success. These nuthatches are widespread across North America.

Pygmy Nuthatch

Their visibility can be enhanced in your own yard, especially if nearby you have some of the big old oaks they favor. Nuthatches will frequent feeders, especially those offering sunflower seeds. Unlike finches and sparrows, they dine take-out style. They will select a seed and fly away with it. If you can follow their flight, you may see them wedge the seed into some bark, either for later consumption or to hold it there as they bang at it with their bills to “hatch the nut” out! They will nest in cavities of old limbs or in nesting boxes that you can place in your yard.

White-breasted Nuthatch Nestlings in Nest Box

Nuthatches lay a half dozen or more eggs each spring, and their populations have increased over the last fifty years. They are expected to remain regular winter residents of the North State, but are likely to move north for breeding as they deal with climate change.

New Bluebird Trail Goes Up In Redding

By Larry Jordan on March 21, 2018 in Birds, Conservation, In the News

Girl Scout Troop 70173

March 6th we were contacted by Heather McNeal, the leader of local Girl Scout Troop 71073, to help with creation of a new Western Bluebird Trail in the Redding area. Heather had already done the groundwork for the project and simply needed some help with the specifics of how to construct the nest boxes and where to place them. We were happy to help!

Girl Scouts Installing Bluebird Boxes

There are fifteen enthusiastic girls in troop 71073 and each girl, with a little help from some handy adults, put together fifteen quality nest boxes that were ready to install on Saint Patrick’s Day, March 17th.

When these girls found out that cavity nesting birds needed help, they were all in on putting up birdhouses on the Sacramento River Trail.

Girl Scouts Installing Bluebird Boxes

The troop did a great job installing the fifteen new nest boxes and will now begin monitoring the trail for nesting birds. We are excited about the addition of these birdhouses and the variety of species they will help. These nest boxes can be used by:

Western Bluebird
Oak Titmouse
Tree Swallow
Violet-green Swallow
White-breasted Nuthatch
Ash-throated Flycatcher
House Wren

Stay tuned for updates!

The Plight of Cavity Nesting Birds

By Larry Jordan on July 1, 2015 in BirdWords

Western Bluebird Nestlings Day 1

Some eighty-five species of North American birds excavate nesting holes (primary cavity nesters), use cavities resulting from decay, or use holes created by other species (secondary cavity nesters) in dead or deteriorating trees. Over half of those species may be encountered here in Northern California.

These deteriorating trees, commonly called snags, have often been considered undesirable by forest and recreation managers because they are not esthetically pleasing, conflict with other forest management practices, may harbor forest insect pests, or may be fire or safety hazards. In the past such dead trees were often eliminated from the forest during a timber harvest. As a result, in some areas few nesting sites were left for cavity-nesting birds.

Purple Martin Pair at Nest Cavity

Many species of cavity-nesting birds have declined because of habitat reduction. In the eastern United States, where primeval forests are gone, Purple Martins depend almost entirely on man-made nesting structures. In the southeast the Red-cockaded Woodpecker is currently listed as near threatened (NT), primarily as a result of habitat destruction, and the Ivory-billed Woodpecker is listed as critically endangered (CR) and thought by many to be extinct. The wood duck was also very scarce in many portions of its range – at least in part for the same reason – and probably owes its present status to provision of nest boxes and protection from overhunting.

As early as the 1930’s people noticed that the Eastern Bluebird was fast disappearing from their fields, their backyards and their lives. Dwindling sightings of these most endearing of North American birds encouraged several bluebird enthusiasts to sound the alarm concerning their plight. In addition to nesting sites for bluebirds being lost to deforestation and snag removal, competition for the remaining sites was brought about by the increasing populations of two non-native species, the English (House) Sparrow

House Sparrow Male

and the European Starling.

European Starling at Nest Cavity

After decades of alerting people to the plummeting bluebird problem, Dr. Lawrence Zeleny, a retired agricultural biochemist living in Maryland, with the help of several supporters from National Audubon Society chapters and the Audubon Naturalist Society, founded the North American Bluebird Society (NABS) in 1978.

The North American Bluebird Society is a non-profit education, conservation and research organization that promotes the recovery of bluebirds and other native cavity-nesting bird species in North America. An affiliate of the NABS here in California is the California Bluebird Recovery Program (CBRP). Both of these groups promote placing and monitoring nest boxes (birdhouses) in optimal locations for cavity nesting birds. Because of these programs and hundreds of thousands of nest boxes put up across North America, cavity nesting birds are on the rebound!

If you have birdhouses in your yard and want to learn how to monitor them and add your nesting statistics to the CBRP database, or you are interested in information on how to build, place and monitor nest boxes, our Wintu Audubon webmaster, Larry Jordan can help. He is the Shasta County coordinator for the CBRP and you can contact him by email at webmaster@WintuAudubon.org

You can also find lots of information about birdhouses and attracting birds on our “Attracting Birds” page.