These are troubling times. I can use neither my front porch nor my rear deck. Eastern phoebes have taken over the front of the house. Mourning doves have wrested control of the rear. Their nest is directly over my favorite chair. To make matters worse, bat dung is collecting next to my front steps beneath a crevice in the eaves. I am running an apartment house for wildlife, and they’re making babies.
Meanwhile, the woods are getting quiet. From mid-May through June, migrants flood back into the state, establish territories, attract mates and begin an intense period of reproduction. This all involves singing.
I’m a lazy birder. During singing season, I merely walk the trails and let the birds tell me where they are. That season is about over and I now have to pay more attention. Fortunately, there’s a lot of chatter going on. Many birds are reluctant to reveal the location of their nests. The parents come and go silently. However, when the parent arrives at the nest with a morsel, the kids make a lot of squeaks while begging.
Some birds don’t care about the racket they are making. Woodpeckers are notoriously raucous. Most songbird nestlings go silent except when being fed. But woodpecker babies keep up a din even while the parents are out foraging. It mystifies a lot of hikers when they come across loud, disembodied chattering. When traced to the source, invariably the hubbub is coming from inside a nest cavity.
Nor are the woodpecker parents shy. Most call as they are coming in, stirring up the kids before they arrive at the hole. I’ve been watching a family of rare black-backed woodpeckers up near Chamberlain Lake for the last two months. The parents have worn themselves to a frazzle while feeding their voracious offspring. The parents call to each other regularly, letting each other know their whereabouts. They call coming into the nest, and call again upon departure. Meanwhile, the kids keep up the chatter while they’re gone.
Even the silent songbirds become a little chatty once the kids are off the nest. Fledglings follow parents, begging constantly. Parents respond with tiny call notes, keeping the family together even while foraging through the forest. When out birding this time of year, I just listen for the chatter, and investigate. Since parents are particularly alert to threats while the kids are vulnerable, a few squeaks of my own often provokes an appearance. Usually I just leave them in peace, content to observe whatever they allow me. Lately, I’ve been trying to learn the chatter notes, hoping to improve my birding-by-ear skills. I’m weirdly compulsive that way.
Precocial birds are particularly amusing. These are nestlings that are well developed on the day they hatch. They emerge from the egg covered in down, eyes wide open. Within two days, they are out of the nest and foraging on their own, staying near mom only for protection. I don’t know how they do it, but a ruffed grouse chick can fly shortly after leaving the nest, even before they have flight feathers. Many times I have accidentally surprised a grouse family and marveled at how the tiny chicks could flutter to treetop safety. It’s like watching a sudden flight of yellow ping pong balls.
The opposite of precocial is altricial. Most songbirds exit the egg featherless, looking like something a cat would cough up. Eyes remain closed for days. They cannot maintain body heat and, even after hatching, they require incubation for up to two weeks. My phoebes and doves are like that, and the brooding moms have been giving me reproachful looks every time I walk out the door.
The life of a young bird is often short. Survival is a learned skill. All year, we marvel at crows on the highway as they dash into the travel lane for a bite of roadkill, then skip to the side when traffic comes. It’s not that they are supernaturally smart. It’s because the dumb ones have been weeded out. Over the next month, take note of how many dead crows you see along I-95. They’re all youngsters that did not learn the lessons about traffic quickly enough. By September, only the savvy crows remain.
Enjoy it while you can — the twitter of youngsters chasing parents and the wing-waggle of their begging displays. Enjoy ducklings following moms. Enjoy baby barn swallows lined up together on a telephone wire. They grow up so fast.
Bob Duchesne serves as vice president of Maine Audubon’s Penobscot Valley Chapter. He developed the Maine Birding Trail, with information at mainebirdingtrail.com. He can be reached at duchesne@midmaine.com.