Turning Over a New (old) Leaf

Change is fine; but how about those amazing things we can always count on?

The enthusiastic sound of children's voices during afternoon soccer practice floated over from across the slowly moving Underwood Creek on this particularly warm, after work, October Thursday afternoon.  The deliciously stuffed peppers Barbara was preparing would be ready around 6:00 PM, so I had time for some quick bird-watching on my way home.

Fall watching success is always harder to anticipate.  Birds are reversing course at this time of year merely passing through this particular zip code with the basic intent of staying warm over the winter.  Tree leaves are mostly still stuck on their branches and soughing on intermittently blowing breezes; making movement-based sightings tricky.  Temperatures fluctuate and unpredictable precipitation causes annual migratory patterns to speed up and/or retard according to the weather "upstream" of avian flyways.  In years when you could nearly set your watch by the clockwork comings and goings of certain species; there are just as many times when all bets are off.

One of the more steadfast of annual avian, natural occurrences seems to be well underway; American Robin Mania has indeed descended Milwaukee County.  This is the time of year when the robins all congregate prior to the majority of their masses leaving for warmer points south.  That's not to say that ALL robins leave a particular area; just most.  Some robins retreat all the way to southern Texas and Florida, but others winter as far north as they can find berries. So robins have an enormous winter range.

In late summer and early fall robins prepare for migration by eating a lot of fruit and insects as well as worms. Dozens of them will stand in open areas of forest floor that has been littered with now brown and yellow elm and birch leaves.  Using their large and pointy beaks, they will "flip" each leaf over looking for bugs to fill their hungry stomachs. The way that these birds cock their heads to the ground has (over time) hatched ill-founded belief that they are "listening" to worms, when indeed their keen eyesight is more efficiently in play with this signature head-tilt.  Flip, flip, flip...PECK!

While feeding, the more robins there are, the more likely that at least one of them will notice a predator and warn the rest. This particular day while standing still on the edge of the river watching a group of robins bathing; I heard the distinctive cry of a nearby Cooper's hawk. The birds quickly and warily retreated to the cover of the overhanging trees along the bank.  During migratory flights, hawks have trouble singling out one robin to strike when faced with their fast-moving, tight migratory flocks. With a large flock, some individuals may be more familiar with an area than others, and the experienced birds will show the others the best places for feeding and roosting. Since the robins are all moving together, no individual will know all the best places, and most of the flock members will both help and benefit from flock membership.

I don't know about you, but watching these magnificent birds painstakingly gathering their meal from under the remnants of discarded vegetation reminds me of the well-known phrase, "turning over a new leaf."  It is doubtful that it originated due to the eating behavior of our red-breasted, feathered friends; however in this crazy world of uncertainty, it's somehow comforting to imagine finding something good, under something discarded - if one merely looks beneath.

Signs of Spring

We’ve all got certain ones that send the message.

Whether you live in the sunny climes of the south and west, or the frigid cold of the north and east; we all have our “seasons.” And with those changing seasons certain cues which herald them in. Some are quite obvious, yet most are subtle and quite personal. Think about what ushers the changes for you. Is it earlier/later sunrises, warmer/colder temperatures, or is it simply the TV program line-up? Perhaps you” know” it’s fall when football season begins, or spring when the talk is of March Madness. Since our seasons are truly climatologically anchored, it makes sense that the natural world often provides the many of these cues. For the purposes of this entry; let’s focus on spring. (…hey, it’s MY blog and I have a memory to share)

What is a “season” anyway? I found this very informative website HERE, if you want more a comprehensive study. However suffice it to say that the season of winter = slightly less than 89 days, and spring is about 92+3/4 days. Now that’s all relative to your geographical location, and mindset. If you are trapped in a basement office with no windows, for your work day (like I am) the comings and goings of Daylight Saving time compounding the effects of SAD; you scarcely see the sun anyway. So any chance you get to interact with the natural (outdoor) world is sacred – any sign of spring a blessed occasion. Come on Punxsutawney Phil…you can DO it!

To put you (dear reader) into the proper mindset, allow me to regale you with a collection of wintry regional, meteorological data. Wisconsin climate is typically continental with some modification by Lakes Michigan and Superior. The average annual temperature varies from 39 F in the north to about 50 F in the south. The lowest temperature on record was minus 55 F, reported from Couderay on both February 2 and February 4, 1996. During more than one-half of the winters, temperatures fall to minus 40 F or lower, and almost every winter temperatures of minus 30 or colder are reported from northern counties. The greatest August to July snowfall total for northern Wisconsin from the years 1908-2006, belongs to Lac Vieux Desert at 161.5 inches. Between March 4-5, 1976 – Wisconsin was hit with a devastating ice storm - One of the worst natural disasters to hit Wisconsin in history. This incredible ice storm completely snapped hundreds of utility poles, downed thousands of power and telephone lines and totally destroyed many trees. Some ice accumulations ranged up to a phenomenal five inches in diameter on wires and limbs of trees. The excessive ice accumulations were in part caused by thunderstorms that rapidly built up the ice. High winds gusting to 60 mph made a horrible situation even worse. Up to 600,000 residences were directly affected by the ice storm and up to 100,000 people were without power during the height of the storm. Some rural areas were without power for over 10 days. The following counties were declared federal disaster areas due to the ice storm: Calumet, Columbia, Crawford, Dane, Dodge, Fond du Lac, Grant, Green, Iowa, Jefferson, Lafayette, Manitowoc, Ozaukee, Richland, Rock, Sauk, Sheboygan, Vernon, Walworth, Washington and Waukesha.

In my immediate neck of the woods on March 2-4, 1881 there was a blizzard which dropped between 2 to 4 feet of snow. Drifts piled to 20 feet. Milwaukee reported 28.5 inches. Between February 24 and March 20, 1881, Milwaukee received 63.7 inches of snow! On February 4-5, 1924 another Blizzard gifted some 20.3 inches at Milwaukee / 10 foot drifts. This event still ranks as Milwaukee's heaviest snowfall in 24 hours. Between January 3-4, 1982, a blizzard of 8 to 16 inches pounded the northwest suburbs of Milwaukee had 16 inches. Madison reported 8 inches. December 14-15, 1987 a blizzard (gusts to 73 mph) - Madison and Milwaukee had 13 inches of snow….had enough? Let me tell you, by March 21st I have, and am eagerly looking for my own personal signs of spring…groundhog or no groundhog!

My mother and I shared a common sign of spring. When the robins could be seen and heard singing their “spring songs” it was very close - even if the calendar said otherwise. When I was in her zip code many years ago as a younger person, the first one to see and hear that wonderful harbinger would immediately alert the other. When I had later relocated some 225 miles southward, the same sure sign was relayed via telephone. Since my proximity to the equator was just that much more of an advantage; I would usually be the one to make that call. This always seemed to brighten her spirits and give her hope. For me, among other positive things, I could finally take the rope down from the garage rafters. (just kidding…but it surely felt like that)

Little did I know that in the spring of 2007, my phone call northward, cheerily announcing, “We’ve got robins Mom!” would have been my last opportunity; for on Groundhog Day 2008 (what irony) Mom passed away…taking any chance of spring with her for that year.

Yesterday, just after 6:00 AM as I was walking the snow-covered path from the grocery store near my home on a mission for a few things; it happened. My hands full of plastic bags, my step taking me back to the house, I trained my ear ahead to catch a faint and growing sound. Surely it was much too early?  I scanned the landscape for what I longed to see.  There, in the bare maple tree a bit farther up the street stood a single American Robin, singing…singing, and singing its Cheerily, cheeriup, cheerio, cheeriup song.  For some reason, hearing this magical (ordinary) sound on this cold February morning caused my heart to soar, and my eyes to weep; but it was time nonetheless. Without hesitation, I tilted my head upward and to the heavens above and emotionally whispered, “We’ve got robins Mom...we've got robins.”

I was (finally) spring.

...and Now for This Brief Interlude...

I ♥ ROBINS!

What can I say...

Whistle While You...

At times a quest for knowledge can take you a bit off the beaten path. (Right Church, Wrong Pew)

Whistling Robins. That's where it all started. I wanted to find out who knew what about this most perplexing of subjects and discovered way more than I ever wished for. As you know, if you are reading this, my absolute favorite bird is the American Robin; Turdus Migratorius. You probably even know why too, but that's not the focus of my ramblings today. What I wanted to know is why do some Robins whistle? (That was my first mistake)

If you know me, I like to dig too. No, not in the soft fertile soil, or the hard-packed clay (however that too is true) but I mean "dig" in the sense that I turn over things until I find the answer I am looking for. I also love the Internet as a tool for helping me do this. It is emotionless, patient, thorough, and does not ask me to repeat myself for mumbling. For all of its good points, it has one not-so-good one that must be dealt with and considered; it is very literal.

My case in point today will be my quest for knowledge related to my whistling Robin question. Did you know that if you Google the phrase "Robin Whistle" you'll discover a very sexy woman's sandal design from the people at FarylRobin named the "Whistle?" (Warning if you click on the FarylRobin site HERE, the site loads slower than the proverbial Second Coming) If your interest has been sufficiently piqued regarding the Whistle sandal and what it looks like, click HERE instead. (Disclaimer: Birdstud is not a salesman for FarylRobin, nor is any of his family affiliated with the company in any way )

So Googling onward, my next stop was a happy little (not) 12-line poem written in 1920 by Sara Teasdale entitled, "There Will Come Soft Rains."

There will come soft rains and the smell of the ground,

And swallows circling with their shimmering sound;

And frogs in the pool singing at night,

And wild plum trees in tremulous white;

Robins will wear their feathery fire,

Whistling their whims on a low fence-wire;

And not one will know of the war, not one

Will care at last when it is done.

Not one would mind, neither bird nor tree,

If mankind perished utterly;

And Spring herself when she woke at dawn

Would scarcely know that we were gone.

After reading that uplifting bit of prose, I felt like I needed to apologize to someone for some reason...hmmm, I wonder what that was about. Anyway, my next stop along the road less traveled was a grainy, blurry YouTube site that featured a kid named "Robin" who learned to "whistle" in an extremely pathetic way. Of course I watched it (and all the subsequent attempts) with the same fascination that one has while watching a slow-moving train wreck...I couldn't NOT watch it, you know? Perhaps I somehow "wished" that whistle-challenged Robin would STOP whistling long enough to provide me with the answer to my question? Nope...so I moved on with a heavy heart to one of the MANY references to a curious bit of "whistling" associated with a short-lived forgetful BBC series dealing with the life and times of "Robin" Hood. Some "artist" with a copy of Audacity and Windows Movie Maker had apparently sifted through hours of gritty, entertaining footage from the ill-fated show, pairing it with the "whistling" theme from the Disney animated film of the same name. (HERE) Note: This is NOT entertaining in the slightest, but the whistling is kind of amusing for 20-30 seconds.

Can you believe that someone out there actually had the cajones to criticize Mary Poppins and it's "factual faux pas" in purposefully casting an "American Robin" singing IE: "whistling" from Mary's finger and windowsill, and not the far more believable "British Robin?" (Was this a "union" thing, or was the American Robin, too pricey?) Perhaps that same critical individual failed to notice the utter fantasy involved with a woman who can fly with a standard bumbershoot? (and don't even THINK of Googling "bumbershoot" or you'll get the Seattle Music and Arts festival)

So far you must think me mad or (at least) horribly off track. Not so dear reader, for I had a breakthrough during my next series of word reordering; what was a "whistle" to me, was in fact a "seet" to the most amazing bird audiologist on the planet; Donald Kroodsma! What I was missing from my frantic Googling attempts was this important distinction, and when you are as accomplished and respected as Mr. Kroodsma is, you can call it like YOU hear it. In his book, "The Singing Life of Birds" he gets around to addressing the subject of my quest. I say "gets around" because this book, while technically unmatched, is just not a summer light reading escape. It is jam-packed with technical jargon, graphs and sonagrams that would take a scientist to appreciate and is quite tedious in that regard, however I do own the book and like the pictures. No really, the CD that's attached is well worth having, so if you think you'd like to take a shot at wading through the pages and pages of techno-jumble, then by all means pick it up (for the CD anyway). Me, I'm a kinesthetic learner anyway (and make no apologies for that) so it stands to reason that I just want the Cliffs Notes version and to be shown the door so I can go out and play...but I digress. From Donald Kroodsma to several old-time .PDFs interspersed around the "seet-ing robin" world, I finally found my answer! Robins can sound a warning (aerial alarm) when a predator (namely another meat-eating bird) raptor is in the neighborhood. That makes perfect sense to me now. The time I have heard their high pitched (often subtle) "seet" calls in my own city neighborhood were when there actually might have been a Cooper's Hawk in the vicinity. There are PLENTY of those frightening predators in the area and I can imagine that the robins saw them first, sounding out their warning to all who had the good sense to heed it. It must be noted that many birds sound alerts for various reasons, lurking hawks and eagles among them, however the robin's whistling "seet" call is quite unique (at least to my ear).

Certain alarm calls can even relate information as precise as the predator type and risk level. How individuals respond to these calls may depend on both the intensity of the call as well as the age of the responder. Scientists have investigated the aerial alarm call of the American robin and specifically examined how call rate (reflecting intensity) and age affect the anti-predator behaviors of responders. Both juveniles and adults significantly altered their behavior upon hearing recorded playbacks of "seet" calls; they foraged less and increased vigilance and other anti-predator behaviors. Adult robins were also able to distinguish between low intensity and high intensity calls; skygazing, an important behaviour that allows robins to scan for raptors, increased with call rate. Juveniles, on the other hand, skygazed less and there was a trend for juveniles to spend more time alert than adults suggesting that some learning may be involved. When a robin hears an alarm "seet" call, they most often repeat the call and stop moving so as to "hide."

Yes, the robin's whistling "seets" are truly an important evolutionary development in this fascinating species, and one that provides an important service for fellow avians. For humans, it is another in a long list of natural wonders that causes us to ponder, investigate, record and speculate...and nowadays, finally Googling for the "truest" answer to our questions. Now I know for sure and so do you. Kinda' gives you that clean as a whistle feeling don't it?

Seet choo later dear reader! - Birdstud