How many types of nests do our local breeding birds make? Where are you most likely to discover them? Find out by joining us on this search for breeding bird behaviors and their nests. We usually see between 30 and 36 bird species around the Sundial Bridge. Meet at the Turtle Bay Redding Boat Launch, located behind the Redding Civic Auditorium for a leisurely two-hour stroll on accessible paved and gravel trails along the Sacramento River. Bathrooms can be found at several locations along the way. Binoculars are available to borrow, and instructions will be provided for their use. Rain will cancel. Contact Tricia Ford at triciathebirdnerd@gmail.com for more information.
I was mixing gallons of sugar water with Anna’s Hummingbirds sucking it up as fast as I could make it just a few weeks ago. Where did they all go?
They went back to nature!
The local Manzanitas are blooming this time of year and, of course, the hummers prefer the real thing to sugar water.
During the spring and summer months, there are many native plants offering food for hungry hummers. Here are just a few.
California Thistle (Cirsium occidentale)
Female Anna’s Hummingbird at California Thistle
Red Yucca (Hesperaloe parviflora)
Juvenile Male Anna’s Hummingbird at Red Yucca
Autumn Sage (Salvia greggii)
Female Anna’s Hummingbird at Autumn Sage
Hummingbird Sage (Salvia spathacea)
Female Anna’s Hummingbird at Hummingbird Sage
and my favorite, Woolly Blue Curls (Trichostema lanatum)
Female Anna’s Hummingbird at Wooly Blue Curls
You may have noticed a few other behaviors regarding the Anna’s Hummingbirds. In April, I had several instances of females landing in my graveled driveway and apparently consuming small particles of sand or other minerals from the gravel. According to Cornell’s “Birds of the World,” they are probably acquiring minerals for egg laying.
Getting back to the present, if you are lucky, you might find female Anna’s Hummingbirds gathering nesting material now, maybe in your yard or while out on a bird walk.
You can also provide natural cotton nesting material for them yourself, available at several outlets.
Again from Cornell Lab on the nest building. The inner cup is lined loosely with downy material (plant, feathers, hair). The walls are made of downy material including cattail (Typha), willow, underside of sycamore leaves, thistle, eucalyptus flowers, velvet groundsel (Senecio petasites), and small feathers. Binding materials are mostly spider webs and insect cocoon fibers, but also fibrous plant material and rodent hairs. Usually ornamented on the outside with bits of lichens, mosses, and dead leaves; occasionally bark, algae (Protococcus) or other plant materials, and paint chips. Nest materials are often stolen from another hummingbird’s nest. This is what the completed nest looks like, found at Turtle Bay Arboretum
Anna’s Hummingbird in the Nest at Turtle Bay Arboretum.
Obviously, if female hummers are gathering nesting material, it’s breeding time! Just last Saturday, on our outing to Lema Ranch, we observed the male’s incredible mating flight! This video is incredible! Isn’t nature amazing?
If you have entered the world of the conifers above the Central Valley, or throughout most of North America for that matter, you stand a good chance of having heard an ongoing, nasal ankh, ankh, ankh, ankh. It is the song of the red-breasted nuthatches, elfin birds of our pines and firs.
They are harder to see than hear; they don’t seem shy, but they are small, and much of their living happens far over our heads. Nuthatches are built for prying insects from the bark of trees. Their bill is slightly dished up and stout enough to shovel bugs from crevice hide-aways. Their shoulders are broad, relatively speaking, and provide the heft to wield their strong bills. Their long hind toe is used, uniquely in the bird world, to hold them in place while they hunt face-down on a tree trunk or branch. Their tails are stiff, allowing them to prop against a tree as they pound against it.
And what do they pound? In addition to picking insects from cracks in tree trunks, these nuthatches gather seeds from cones at branch-tips. They often wedge hard pine-nuts into crannies in the bark and then crack them open with hammer blows from their bills. Also, these versatile gymnasts, like woodpeckers, carve out their own cavities for nesting. No fools, they prefer the softer wood of dead limbs and snags for their home-building.
Males often begin several nesting holes as part of their courting. A female takes over and shapes the chosen cavity to her liking, taking about two weeks to complete the excavation. Both adults apply sap to the hole entrance–he on the exterior, she on the interior. The tiny nuthatches dive right through the hole without getting gummed up, but predators, from owls to ants, can be deterred by the sticky goo.
He begins feeding the female, and she lays a handful of eggs in their nest. The young hatch, naked and blind, after two weeks of incubation. Another two weeks and, having been fed and protected by both parents, the young fledge into the world.
There, if you enter that world of the conifers, you may be able to see them. A little luck and a decent pair of binoculars will let you enjoy the red-breasted nuthatch’s gray-blue back, chestnut underside, and black eyeline under a white eyebrow. Otherwise, at least you may enjoy their ubiquitous song–ankh, ankh, ankh…
A large island in the Sacramento River caused a small branch of the river to flow by some residential homes and has enabled Harvey and Jeannette Carroll to observe and enjoy a large variety of birdlife, especially waterfowl.
Early every spring a large number of Wood Ducks began visiting the channel below their house and often flew up into the oak trees apparently looking for a large enough hole for a nest.
Wood Ducks are cavity nesters. Harvey got a pattern and made several Wood Duck nest boxes which were soon inhabited and Wood Ducklings were successfully raised. Each year the Carrolls learned a bit more about making the nest boxes safe, but a friend loaned Harvey a “Nestcam” which was hooked up to a small television set and much information was available about the ducks habits.
The Carrolls will show their Wood Duck photos and tell us about their nestbox adventures at our April 14th, 7:00 PM Zoom presentation.
As several groups are doing, we are pre- registering everyone for our upcoming presentations.
This is a very simple procedure. Just go to this link https://bit.ly/3biUhBi and fill out the simple form. You will receive an email confirming your registration. The link for the presentation will be emailed to you on March 8th. We suggest you make a reminder for yourself when you get the email link.
You can also scan the QR code below to fill out the form.
When you login to our Zoom meetings you will be placed into a waiting room until the meeting begins. Participants are muted upon entry but are welcome to unmute themselves before the meeting begins. Once the presentation begins, you can raise your hand to ask questions. A moderator will control the order of your questions.
Hydroelectric production in the Lake Almanor basin continues to threaten our beloved grebes, Aechmophorus clarkii and Aechmophorus occidentalis. Western and Clark’s grebes are interbreeding colonial nesters that have historically nested at Lake Almanor numbering in the thousands. While adult populations are still found in the thousands, reproductive success has been hindered as the bird’s floating aquatic nests are continually beached as a result of reservoir operations. This presentation focuses on the water management decisions and the subsequent effects on grebe reproductive success.
Lindsay wood is an alumnus of Chico State and has ten years of environmental consulting experience with a special interest in water policy. She is a wildlife biologist and has conducted fisheries, avian, and herptile research throughout the Sacramento River watershed. Lindsay began studying Aechmophorus grebes in 2014 as a part of the Altacal Audubon’s project on Thermalito Afterbay in her hometown of Oroville. Since working with Plumas Audubon Society, she has observed the colony abandonment at Lake Almanor for the past three breeding seasons and is the primary author of Plumas Audubon Society’s 10 year report, “A multi-year analysis of Aechmophorus grebe breeding populations at four Northern California Lakes.
