Pileated Woodpecker

Pileated Woodpecker - Our Largest Woodpecker

Pileated Woodpecker - Adult Female

Imagine you are walking peacefully in our forest and a loud, high-pitched 'kuk kuk keekeekeekeekeekeekuk kuk' sound bursts forth from the trees near you.  It makes the hair stand up on the back of your neck but soon you see the beautiful creature making the song.  A large crow-sized blackish bird lands on a dead tree near you.  You now see our largest and, in some ways, most beautiful woodpecker.   It is not ver wary of humans and usually goes about feeding while you watch.

The Pileated Woodpecker (Dryocopus pileatus) is 42 cm (16 in) long and is immediately recognizable as a large blackish woodpecker with a crest on its head.  It is loud, boisterous and flamboyant.  It is usually seen on dead and dying trees and stumps chipping off large pieces of wood looking for its favourite food, ants, insect larvae and beetles.

Pileated Woodpecker - Adult Female

The Pileated Woodpecker is North America's largest woodpecker except for the extinct or nearly-extinct Ivory-billed Woodpecker.  It is mostly black with a dark gray bill.  Most noticeable is its scarlet red crest.  The red on the crest extends down to the bill in males but stops on the forehead in females as shown in the top photo above.  Males also have a red malar stripe (from the edge to the bill onto the side of the throat).  This malar stripe is black in the female.  The Pileated Woodpecker has a white chin and a large white stripe running from the bill across the face and down the neck to the side of the breast.  The wings have a large white patch at the base of the primary feathers and a large amount of white under the wings.  The white at the base of the primary feathers shows as a large white patch in flight.  The feet, legs and tail are black.  The two photos above show adult females.  Below see a male feeding his offspring.

Pileated Woodpecker - Adult Male [Internet Photo]

The Pileated Woodpecker is found over much of Canada except the far north and the prairie area of southern Alberta, Saskatchewan and Manitoba.  It is also found in the eastern United States.  It is a non-migratory species so we can see it year round.

Like other woodpeckers these woodpeckers drum on hollow trees to claim territory.  Their drumming is loud and rather slow at about 15 beats per second.  The Downy and Hairy Woodpeckers beat at about 17 to 25 beats per second (Sibley).  Pileated Woodpeckers build their nests in tree cavities where they lay 3 to 8 white eggs.  Both adults tend to the incubation and rearing of the young.

According to iBirdPro, Pileated Woodpeckers make extra holes leading from their nest cavities to allow escape from predators.  They also claim that this species pecks the bark around the entrance to their nest cavities to make the sticky sap running from the pecked bark deter some predators such as snakes.  Our balsam fir trees would be good for that!  It would be interesting to see what percentage of Pileated Woodpecker nests here are in balsam firs.

I hope you see a Pileated Woodpecker the next time you go for a walk in the woods.  If you do, you will be truly blessed.

Northern cardinal, eating holly berries

A bright male northern cardinal, its plumage rivaling that of the colorful winterberry holly (Ilex verticillata) drupes that it sits among. As stated in the previous post, the holly garden at Dawes Arboretum can be a fantastic place to drum up showy bird images.

Eastern bluebird, eating holly berries

A male eastern bluebird plunders the fruit of an American holly, Ilex opaca, in the ornamental holly garden at Dawes Arboretum. The numerous hollies are richly fruited, and frugivorous (fruit-eating)birds flock to them in winter. This is a wonderful place to try for showy bird images.

The light was not pleasing on this day - leaden skies and low light - forcing me to shoot wide open and with a slower shutter speed that I would have preferred. Thus there were some misses, but this one was a keeper. Canon 5D IV and Canon 500mm f/4 II with 1.4x III teleconverter (=700mm), at f/5.6, ISO 500, 1/500, +0.3 exposure compensation. Single focus point, striking on bird's head, and as always with bird photography, back-button focus.

If you would like an opportunity-rich, easy and fun immersion into bird photography, consider joining Debbie DiCarlo and I on THIS PHOTOGRAPHY WORKSHOP in sunny warm Florida, February 18-23, 2019.

Midwinter 2018

On Friday 21 December

it was the Winter Soltice, also known as Midwinter.

The next day was a full moon although the sky was not clear enough for me to see it.

It's also the time of the year when candlelight brings in a warming cosy atmosphere

and there is a wish to decorate with delicate seasonal things.

This tiny crystal snowflake is perfect!

This festive red candle represents the return of light which has just begun

with each day increasing by a few seconds!

The reflection can be seen in my window against the night sky!

The same window in the daytime brings in softness created by the winter's sky.

There have been rainy days and sunny ones and even snow flurries which didn't settle for long.

A few leaves hang on and make pretty silhouettes against the sky.

Like fingers which hold

fuzzy balls against the sky

touching tenderness.

Whenever the weather is dry and not too blustery, I go walking to be

amazed by nature in this wintry season.

These catkins tell me that spring will follow in good time.

I take one of the dried hydrangea flowers from my plant on the balcony.

It remains beautiful even as in this state of maturity.

Now we're leading up to Christmas which can be a little overwhelming

with the stores pushing us to buy and then buy some more

with lights that are a little over the top and a bit too bright!

I do love to keep things rather simple and really liked this elegant balsam wood

hanging decoration with a shiny crystal ball.

The night sky shows up the details the best.

I saw them at the Christmas Market in Lucerne when I visited at the beginning of  December.

You can see it here

A Christmas tree bauble speaks of Christmas which will be in two days' time.

It's a time when families like to be all together.

This year, I made a Christmas garland to hang up in my living room!

It looks very festive!

You can see them better here.

The different patterns have been collected over time from different sources.

The four blue snowflakes on the bottom row are a smaller version of the one here:

Anabelia Craft Design

The yellow stars are from here:

Cherry Heart

Remember,

whatever this present moment holds for you, embrace it,

enjoy it or learn from it.

As often as you can, keep smiling - it can make someone's day

and it embellishes our whole attitude to life

and the world around us!

***

Note:

Please click on each photo to enlarge them so they fill the screen!

Fredericton Christmas Bird Count

Fredericton CBC - Douglas Sector

Hairy Woodpecker

The Fredericton Christmas Bird Count took place on Sunday, December 16.  The weather was sunny and plus 3º which made for a wonderful day outside.  We do the Douglas sector, covering an area from upper Nashwaaksis to approximately Grand Pass on the St. John River with all the side roads and subdivisions in between.  It takes a full day to cover this area adequately.  

We set out just after sunrise and spent the next 2 hours covering the open water patches on the river.  Most of the waterfowl was at Grand Pass and below.  Before we got out of the car we could hear the geese.  The sight that awaited us was astounding, one we had never seen on a CBC before.  There were geese everywhere, on the water, on the land and in the air.  Some were feeding, some were sleeping.  Mixed in with the geese were ducks.  

Counting the geese was difficult but with practice one learns how.  We counted 400 geese there that morning.  Mixed in with the flock and also in flocks nearby were about 100 ducks, both American Black Ducks and Mallards.  I checked the flock of geese over at least 3 times searching for something other than our familiar Canada Goose.  Sometimes these flocks contain White-fronted Geese or other rarer species.  This flock was all Canadas.  

Rusty Blackbird

This year there has been an influx of winter finches and the count revealed some of them.  We had Pine Grosbeaks, Evening Grosbeaks, Bohemian Waxwings, Dark-eyed Juncos and a single of each American Tree Sparrow and Common Redpoll.  The Pine Grosbeaks and the Waxwings were feeding on the abundance of fruit still on the trees in the area.  At one place we found 3 Pine Grosbeaks, 4 Bohemian Waxwings and 8 American Robins feeding in the trees and on the ground on crabs and grapes.  What a wonderful sight that was!

Gray Catbird

Occasionally on a count we find something rare.  In this case 'rare' means it is most unusual to find this species here in winter.  On this count we were lucky to find 2 rare species at one stop.  We were standing on the river bank counting waterfowl and the local chickadees and suddenly a larger bird showed itself from the tangle of bushes.  It looked like a blackbird and on closer examination I could see it was a Rusty Blackbird.  But wait, there was another bird there, too.  That one we followed as it moved from bush to bush.  A catbird!  Wow!  Never in 50 years of doing Christmas bird counts have I seen a catbird on a count!  But there it was.  We could see the black cap and watched awhile to see the cinnamon patch on the vent to totally confirm the species.  Unfortunately, it did not 'meow' at us which it normally would do in summer.  See photos above of a Rusty Blackbird and a Gray Catbird.

We had our normal number of woodpeckers, Downy and Hairy.  But at one point we were driving along slowly and I spied movement at the side of the road.  An abrupt stop showed a Pileated Woodpecker on a tree stump immediately beside the road.  It was pecking on the stump and paused long enough for a good look before it moved to nearby trees.  Doing bird counts often offers wonderful treats like that.  On this count we saw 991 individual birds from 30 species.  That is a good day's count!

Bird counters usually also count mammals on their routes.  We saw 21 white-tailed deer.  That is a very high number.  At one place there were 11 deer!  These animals are raiding bird feeders constantly.  They were so tame they were stamping their feet, defying me to come close to the feeders.  How do they get the food out of the feeders?  Easy for them!  They just hook the feeders with their antlers or bump them with their noses and thus dump the seed on the ground.  

The Christmas Count Period runs from Dec. 14 to Jan. 5.  We are interested in recording any new species that were not found on count day.  If you see anything that is not listed here, please contact me by commenting on this post.  Many thanks.  See below for a list of the birds we saw on count day. 

Canada Goose   400
American Black Duck 28
Mallard               94
Common Goldeneye      24
Hooded Merganser       8
Common Merganser      27
Bald Eagle            3
Rock Pigeon        23
Mourning Dove   32
Downy Woodpecker      6
Hairy Woodpecker      6
Pileated Woodpecker        1
Northern Shrike     1
Blue Jay               12
American Crow    39
Common Raven                3
Black-capped Chickadee     121
White-breasted Nuthatch  7
Red-breasted Nuthatch  3
American Robin  10
European Starling  3
Bohemian Waxwing  4
American Tree Sparrow  1
Dark-eyed Junco  14
Pine Grosbeak  19
Common Redpoll  1
American Goldfinch  83
Evening Grosbeak  16
Rusty Blackbird  1
Gray Catbird  1

Lucerne in December: Part 2

Let's look through the glass door to discover more of Lucerne's

lovely festive atmosphere in December in the Hotel Wilden Mann.

This double doorway is the entrance to the hotel's breakfast room

It's so welcoming!

So is the decorated tree next to the breakfast buffet.

As soon as you get out of the lift to go and have breakfast,

you walk past these beautifully decorated rooms

like these little 'salons' (sitting rooms).

This one has another lovely Christmas tree.

The warm lighting and attention to detail

makes it a joy to walk through every morning.

Being an early bird, I can take a photo of the breakfast room 

before other guests arrive.

But now it's time to go outside again and enjoy the town itself,

especially as we were blessed with blue skies on this particular day.

The jagged edge on the upper left is the overhanging roof

of the Chapel Bridge from where I took this photo.

The immense charm of Lucerne is the River Reuss which is a beautiful setting

whatever the weather.

Though I have to admit that blue skies and night-time shots are  especially beautiful.

Two buildings seem to stand out among all others.

One of them is the City Hall with clock tower

and the other is the Jesuit Church with twin spires on the preceding photo.

On the hill against the horizon,

there is a rather grand looking light-coloured building called

Château Gütsch which is another well-known landmark of Lucerne.

This is a luxury hotel and has a spectacular view over the historic city of Lucerne,

the Vierwaldstätter Lake and the mountains.

It would be nice to go up there on the hill just for the view,

but that can be for another visit!

The River Reusse running all through the town creates gorgeous reflections

even when the sky is grey.

The bridges join one part of the old town to the next.

Many of the trees are cobbled so I was glad of my comfortable walking shoes.

I especially loved this beautifully decorated house.

This view shows the bottom half of the church on the left

and a small pedestrian street which leads to our hotel.

In the late afternoon.

the atmosphere changes and the reflections deepen.

Lucerne is a town that I am planning on visiting again in the warmer months of the year,

it will look very different without all the beautiful Christmas lights and decorations,

but there will be further afield to discover and a cruise on the lake to look forward to!

Nature: Songbird northern shrike possesses homicidal tendencies

A young northern shrike on the hunt in Muskingum County/Jim McCormac

Columbus Dispatch

December 16, 2018

NATURE
Jim McCormac

Vlad III ruled the medieval kingdom of Wallachia, since subsumed into Romania, multiple times between the mid- to late 1400s. His nom de guerre was Vlad the Impaler, which hints explicitly at his ferocity. Vlad’s modus operandi was to impale enemies on tall poles, which tended to intimidate other would-be attackers.
I recently saw a feathered Vlad, a diabolically fierce songbird known as the northern shrike. A common nickname is “butcher bird,” and like Vlad the Impaler, the shrike has earned its homicidal sobriquet.

While trolling a country road near the Wilds in Muskingum County recently, I was pleased to spot a northern shrike teed up atop a young black locust. It paid me little heed, allowing for close approach and photos, one of which accompanies this column.

Northern shrikes breed in tundra and taiga regions far to our north — the closest nesters are 700 miles away. This species occurs in Ohio only as a rare winter visitor, with most records in the northern tier of counties. Muskingum County is at the southern limit of their range, but shrikes have been found annually in the region’s vast reclaimed strip mines for many years now.

The bird I discovered was a pale brownish juvenile, born last summer. Most northern shrikes that occur here are adults, with sleek black, gray and white plumage. The face is accented with a rakish black mask, a la Zorro. Perhaps most notable is the bird’s thick, hooked raptor-like bill.

Although a northern shrike is slightly smaller than a robin, it packs a brutal punch. Nothing its size or smaller is safe. A hunting shrike scans for any movement, and if it spies a mouse, songbird or, in season, large insect, its reign of terror commences.

An attacking shrike quickly drops from its perch and flies rapidly toward its victim. Once there, it engulfs the prey in a fury of feathers, seizing it with powerful feet and bill. The coup de grace is a strong bite to the neck, which severs the cervical vertebrae.

Shrikes are capable of chasing down flying birds, sometimes notably larger species such as blue jays. Perhaps the largest documented kill was a rock pigeon, which weighs more than four times as much as the shrike. A particularly savage shrike was once documented chasing a mallard duck, a bird that outmasses it by a factor of 17! This is more extreme than Peewee Herman chasing Mike Tyson, with their personas switched, of course.
Victims are typically taken to a thorny locust, barbed-wire fence or similar spiky object. The prey is unceremoniously impaled, after which the shrike commences to tear it asunder, typically starting with the head.

Sometimes prey is wedged into the forks of shrub branches rather than impaled, faint consolation for the victim, I’m sure. I once saw a shrike that had just captured a chunky rodent known as a meadow vole. It was an amazing spectacle to watch the bird aerially trundle along with mammal, which matched it in weight. It tucked the dead vole into a shrub and set out again, to return later to consume its furry cache.

As homicidal as shrikes seem, we shouldn’t judge them like we would a human Vlad the Impaler. Should you be lucky enough to spot one, relish the opportunity to witness the rare songbird.

Naturalist Jim McCormac writes a column for The Dispatch on the first, third and fifth Sundays of the month. He also writes about nature at www.jimmccormac.blogspot.com.

At a glance

‒ Glen Apseloff of Powell has produced his second book about the feathered tribe, “Backyard Birds and More: Looking Through the Glass.” It offers synopses of dozens of species of birds that commonly visit yards, peppered with excellent photos. Common mammals and insects are also included. The book, $12.95, can be obtained from Ohio Distinctive Publishing: www.ohio-distinctive.com/books.html or by emailing books@ohio-distinctive.com.






























































































































































































































































































































































































































































































































































































































































































At a glance


‒ Glen Apseloff of Powell has produced his second book about the feathered tribe, “Backyard Birds and More: Looking Through the Glass.” It offers synopses of dozens of species of birds that commonly visit yards, peppered with excellent photos. Common mammals and insects are also included. The book, $12.95, can be obtained from Ohio Distinctive Publishing: www.ohio-distinctive.com/books.html or by emailing books@ohio-distinctive.com.

Brown Creeper

Brown Creeper - More Common Than You Think

Brown Creeper

The Brown Creeper (Certhia americana) is the only member of the Certhiidae family found in the Americas.  Members of the family are found in forested areas around the Northern Hemisphere.  Recent DNA studies have shown that they are closely related to nuthatches, chickadees, wrens and gnatcatchers.  

The Brown Creeper is a small (13 cm or 5.3 in long), streamlined bird which is brown streaked on top and white below with a long tail.  It has a long decurved bill and long toes.  It is always seen clinging to tree bark propping itself with its tail.  It gleans insects and arachnids from under bark while spiralling up the tree trunk and large branches.  When finished one tree it flies to another and lands at the base of the tree to again spiral upwards. 

The Brown Creeper seems uncommon in occurrence because we don't often see it due to its good camouflage and seeming quietness.  It actually vocalizes but it is so high-pitched many people cannot hear it.  The high-pitched 'tseee, tseee' is made while it feeds and flies from tree to tree.  It does have a song that can be heard in breeding season.  Many birders do not recognize this song.  It is a variable warbling which consists of several notes.  Sibley depicts it as 'seee seeedsee sideeu'.  I remember how amazed I was to finally authenticate that song as coming from the Brown Creeper.

Brown Creeper [Internet Photo]

The Creeper nest is interesting.  It is built against a tree trunk under a large slab of bark.  It is made of shredded bark, feathers, sticks and moss.  It often has two openings, an entrance and an exit.  The 4 to 8 white eggs are marked with reddish brown.  

The Brown Creeper population is thought to have declined in late years due to habitat destruction. Fortunately here in New Brunswick they are fairly common.  This species does show some variation in populations across the Americas.  Regional variation shows as birds that are grayer or more reddish brown.  In addition, the species manifests in 3 morphological forms: reddish, brown and gray morphs.  The only morphs I have seen here are reddish brown.  The song varies somewhat across the continent as well. 

The Brown Creeper is considered a permanent resident here.  That is generally the case throughout its range in the Americas except in the northern parts of Quebec, Ontario, Manitoba and Saskatchewan.  However, it is thought that some of our population migrates in winter to warmer climes.  None of our birders have reported flocks of migrating Brown Creepers so I expect the migration would be very limited, perhaps from northern NB to southern NB or into Maine.

Lucerne in December: Part 1

There's something very special about windows

especially warm and welcoming ones like this.

The Christmas lights are artfully arranged behind the sheer curtains

and that is perfect for my first photo of this blog entry.

A birthday gift from my daughter was a voucher for an Historic Hotel

in Switzerland this year!

What a great idea!

I chose the lakeside town of Lucerne as I hadn't been there for many years.

There is a very charming old part of town with paved streets

and many interesting and beautiful buildings.

This is the hotel called 'Wilden Mann',

Here is the outside sign.

Lucerne's most famous landmark is certainly the Chapel Bridge

or the Kapellbrücke as it's called in this German-speaking part of Switzerland.

This bridge stretches across the River Reuss and is almost 203 metres.

It was built in 1365 and is the oldest covered wooden bridge, still standing, 

in Europe.

Here is a different capture after the mist cleared,

to show the mountains behind above the lake.

The Christmas market stands were already open.

Some of them had lovely hand-crafted gifts.

I bought a few for Christmas presents.

My usual travelling companion was celebrating a birthday at the beginning of the month,

so it seemed perfect to spend a few days away to coincide with that celebration.

We travelled by train to our destination

and on the very first evening, there were lovely traditional celebrations

which started in the afternoon and went on till the evening.

The photo above shows a procession of cow-bell ringers!

There was also St.Nicholas walking round the streets with gifts for the children.

It rained at the start of our stay, but luckily not all the time

and we were able to walk in the streets and enjoy the architecture.

Here's one of the other bridges and we crossed several different ones

just for the fun of it!

The Christmas lights looked lovely as the evening came in.

Here is the Jesuit church of St. Francis Xavier

which is in the Baroque style.

The river shows off the reflections so prettily.

I took so many photographs, that I didn't quite know where to begin.

So here are the first ones and I will be showing you more in a few days!

A gray day trip to the Moonville Tunnel

The legendary Moonville Tunnel, carved through a remote wooded hillside in southeastern Ohio's Vinton County.

Occasionally I get the yen to photograph WEIRD THINGS and November 30th (2018) was just such a day. The day dawned damp, cold, and foggy - perfect for my mission. I hit the road long before dawn, and arrived at my destination around daybreak. My target, the Moonville Tunnel, abounds with tales of ghostly lore, so I didn't want to shoot it on a bright sunny day as that'd take the edge off the place's alleged creepiness. So the misty dim light of the wooded Raccoon Creek valley in which the tunnel lies was perfect.

The brick "Moonville" name above the tunnel is falling apart, as it is on the other entrance. The decrepitude is understandable. The tunnel was blasted out in the mid-1850's to facilitate a railroad line that was decommissioned in 1988. The nearby town of Moonville is long gone, its remnants nothing but obscure foundational rubble, overgrown by forest.

A marker carved into the tunnel's stone commemorates the tunnel's 1903 refurbishing. Unfortunately, graffiti (this is NOT art, at least in this case) vandals have severely defaced the tunnel, spraying their gunk the length of the passage, as well as on the outside entrances.

Tales of ghosts are frequent here. CLICK THIS for more on the supernatural. I had the place to myself on this dark foggy morning, and spent over an hour in and around the tunnel, mostly within. Didn't pick up so much as a ghostly vibe. The tunnel is MUCH darker than this photo suggests. To bring out the architecture and interesting staining on the bricks - and unfortunately the atrocious graffiti - I took five successive exposures covering at least five stops of light, and fused them as a High Dynamic Range (HDR) image.

The young successional forest outside one of the tunnel's entrances. The dim foggy morning lent a bit of a Blair Witch Project feel to the overall ambience - perfect for this sort of subject matter.

I passed by this long-abandoned country chapel on the way to the Moonville Tunnel, and resolved to stop on the return journey and make some images. There is, I think, great symbolism here but I will leave that to you to ponder.

The long disused doors dangle ajar. Probably the only regular occupants these days are occasional opossums, raccoons, and black rat snakes. The nameplate was so faded and overgrown with trumpet-creeper vines that I couldn't make out the first part of the chapel's name.

Beautiful Raccoon Creek, which carved the valley in which the Moonville Tunnel sits. Once severely impacted by acid mine drainage, the stream is and continues to be an ever-improving environmental success story. Its reclamation has largely been shepherded by the Raccoon Creek Partnership, and thanks to their hard work the creek's water quality is far better these days.
 

After roaming about Zaleski State Forest for a while, making various photographs and wildlife observations, I stopped at the Nature Center in the midst of Lake Hope State Park before heading home. I hadn't gotten both feet out of the Jeep when I heard the chuckling rattles of red-headed woodpeckers! Yes! A real bonus!

The open oak woods around the center is full of the crimson-headed beasts, and what was there to do but attempt some imagery? Several family units were in the area, and the pugnacious woodpeckers were glaringly conspicuous as they grabbed and cached acorns. Above, a stunning adult props itself on a white oak.

Plenty of dapple-headed juvenile woodpeckers were present, such as this one who has chosen a nontraditional perch. I only had about an hour to work with the woodpeckers, but look forward to a return trip and the chance to attempt more photos of these amazing birds.