Birdwatching with Phyllis Yochem
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Tuesday, June 6, 2000

Reproduction season is serious business to birds, strange to observing humans

Birds are running into glass windows and ignoring oncoming cars as they gather nesting materials in the street

 

There's many a slip twixt the egg and the chick ... to coin a phrase.
   Hummingbird expert Nancy Newfield, in her column in the May issue of Nature Society News, wrote a great truth, "Each egg is just a hope for the future, not a promise.''
   Jimmy Swartz told me a funny, sad little story last week. The Swartz's live on a steep bank beside the Nueces River in Calallen. Many unusual birds come to their feeders, including green jays and olive sparrows.
   Patty Swartz noticing an olive sparrow at the feeder outside her window, saw it fly rather awkwardly to another feeder halfway down the hill where it perched in the tray, resting its head on the side. When it continued in that position, she began to worry that it was injured or sick. She called her son, Glenn, to investigate. When he approached the bird, it flew. Looking in the feeder, Glenn saw that she had laid an egg. They speculated that she was young and inexperienced at the egg laying business.
   Olive sparrows are secretive birds, difficult to see, rare and resident. They look like small, pale versions of green-tailed towhees, olive above and with a reddish brown stripe on each side of the crown. Sexes look the same. Their accelerating, single note call is distinctive. Listen for them in Hazel Bazemore County Park.
   Unusual behavior
   Spring could be called the silly season for birds if it were not so deadly serious. Mating, nesting and nurturing are all, for a species, part of a process which insures that life goes on. Sometimes birds do not behave sensibly during this season.
   I have received a number of calls from worried people whose windows were being battered by cardinals. They were afraid the handsome red birds would injure themselves (a distinct possibility).
   Probably, I told them, it was a matter of defending a territory. The birds perceived their own reflections as another bird trying to take over their yard. Soon they would figure out their mistake and realize that the stranger was no threat.
   In the meantime the householder could try to make the window less reflective by putting rumpled cardboard or tape behind it, or a soap mark across it. Mockingbirds often become downright belligerent when nesting. Cats, dogs or even people in the vicinity of their nests will be prosecuted. Angry, loudly scolding birds will attack the unwelcome intruder which is perceived as a danger to the nest.
   Watch for babies
   Adult birds are tired, overworked and become careless, darting in front of cars or into plate glass windows that look like open spaces. Birds gathering nesting material in the street are not as alert as they should be to get out of the way of oncoming traffic. If you are driving a car, cut them a little slack.
   Baby birds sometimes fall, or are blown from the nest. If you find one, the best thing to do is return it to the nest. If this is not possible, place it in a box and put the box in the shade in the tree near the nest so that the adult birds will find it and care for it. Parents are the safest and best caregivers for baby birds.
   If no parents come after half a day, take the foundling to a bird rehabilitator who will know how to feed and care for it. One such rehabilitator is Rachel Wilkin, a bird's Angel of Mercy. She can be reached at 852-7008. If you can afford to leave a small contribution when you take the bird to Rachel, it will be put to good use.
  
  

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Phyllis Yochem, a Corpus Christi resident, has studied birds of Texas since 1960.

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