Barn Swallow

Proudly posing for pictures, the Barn Swallow is at home around people. The "Barn" in their name probably was given to them when they began nesting in barns. An estimated 98% of Barn Swallows now live in or around human habitation. Why they came to choose man-made structures over caves and cliffs to raise their young is not fully understood. Barns and building are relatively new to a bird that evolved well before modern structures.

This male Barn Swallow is on the Horicon Marsh Auto Trail near Waupun, Wisconsin. It's a driving tour of the north end of this 32,000 acre marsh. The trail provides close-up access to birds that would quickly fly away if they knew there was a human in each car.

Washed in rusty colors below and deep blues above, the Barn Swallow is common in North and South America in alternating seasons. Males and females look similar, although the male's colors stand out more.

He glides over the water, heading for his private patch of territory on the marsh's viewing platform.

Food is gathered on the wing. Skimming along the surface of the water she grabs insects that flutter in fear. Those insects account for nearly all of the Barn Swallow's dietary needs.

Barn Swallows won't visit your bird feeder, but they could be encouraged to nest nearby if you have a source of water for insects, mud for their nest, and a suitable structure to build upon. They build a mud nest which could look a bit untidy depending on location.

Raising  young is a demanding and
all-consuming task. As a member of a colony of birds protection of the young becomes a shared duty.

Many eyes watch for danger. Gulls, grackles and hawks prey on Barn Swallow young.
A coordinated response by the Barn Swallows often repel threats as they mob their attackers.

Additionally, non-breeding juveniles may help parents in rearing the young by providing food and protection for the next generation of hatchlings.

This communal approach to raising young insures a higher degree of success and undoubtedly contributed to the classification of the Barn Swallow being listed as a species of Least Concern by the IUCN*

(click any picture to enlarge)

Allan

Credit: Cornell Lab of Ornithology, All About Birds and *IUCN-International Union for the Conservation of Nature

Sandhill Crane Colt

All the photographs in this story were taken by my good friend Fred Thorne. He found two adult Sandhill Cranes on the edge of a marsh...their preferred habitat.  Fred returned several times afterward to record their progress in raising their new colt (young Sandhill Cranes are called colts). He told me their location and I checked them out, too, but my pictures weren't nearly as good as his, so that's why I'm using these with his permission.

It's early July and this young Sandhill Crane is making his debut into the sunlight.  Still protected by watchful parents, he is getting his first taste of a greater world.  Food is of utmost importance.
What to eat and where to find it is the lesson today.

This may be good...try it!

The colt investigates.
A parent points out a seed or maybe a snail. Sandhill Cranes eat from a big table of larva, lizards, insects, grains, berries and tubers. Introducing the colt to what is edible and what is not will continue for the next 8-9 months. There is a lot to learn if s/he is to reach adulthood. Their favorite foods exist mainly in marshes. Sandhill Cranes need these areas to breed and raise their young.

Sandhill Cranes typically lay two eggs, but it's uncommon for more than one to survive to adulthood. Colts are capable of walking within eight hours of hatching, unlike nesting birds which require a period of time in the nest to grow and fledge. The adults keep their colt hidden in six-foot tall grass for protection. Raccoons, foxes and coyotes are an ever present danger, so it's risky to venture far from deep cover.

Adult Sandhill Cranes are not defenseless when it comes to protecting their flightless young. With a six and a half foot wingspan, a sharp bill and the ability to deliver a kick with powerful legs, land predators are given good reasons to be cautious when taking on cranes.

Ariel predators, such as eagles, are met with an ariel jump and a swift kick.

Growing up quickly on the good diet provided by mindful parents, this colt presents a muscleman pose to impress them.

Sandhill Crane populations are stable, despite only one chick surviving per year. Sandhill Cranes mate for life and the oldest on record lived 36 years and 7 months.

New feathers are replacing the downy warm fuzz he has worn since hatching.

The family will migrate again this fall, along well traveled routes to New Mexico and Texas. You may be fortunate enough to see a Sandhill Crane while it's still small...even get a good picture if you're very lucky.

I wasn't so lucky...Fred was!

Or maybe it's Fred's perseverance and skill that provides the magic in his photographs.

Allan

Credit: Cornell Lab of Ornithology, All About Birds
Credit: All photographs, Fred Thorne

Trogons, Costa Rica

Two hungry, tired Collared Trogon babies sprang to life when 'Dad' arrived...only to be presented with a stick.

It seems a cruel trick to bring a stick to hungry chicks instead of food.

The chicks were confused.
I was confused, too.
How was a stick to be appreciated?







(Click any picture to enlarge.)

Twenty feet high in the crumbling remains of a Costa Rican tree, two young Collared Trogons wait once again to be fed. They were born into this tree...it's home...no matter its structural failings.

Trogons live in mountainous areas where old abandoned woodpecker holes are plentiful.

Too young to fly and totally dependent on their parents, they can only wait for their next meal to arrive.

There is plenty of food in the forest. Now, the male Collared Trogon has captured an insect. He holds it delicately, but firmly in his bill. He isn't eating it...it's intended solely for his growing family. Trogons raise their young on spiders, insects and berries. He remained a discrete distance away to make sure he didn't reveal the nest's location.

It is always a concern when photographing birds at nesting sites...Are you disturbing them? Does your presence affect their behavior? Could my presence cause them to abandon the area...nest...chicks?

We had positioned ourselves well up-slope from the nest. That gave me an eye level view into the dark nest hole while remaining well back.

When other birders stopped to join us, this additional activity may have disturbed the male. That might explain the male's hesitation in making a food delivery.

As the others birders lost interest in this waiting game and drifted away one by one, 'Dad' once again visited the chicks. (Photo right: Mark Laux)

                Trogons are rather stocky rounded birds with a square tipped tail and a stout bill.

                     The female Collared Trogon is almost as colorful as her male companion.

This Black-throated Trogon shares a similar body style and equally colorful plumage.

I found him on the Pacific side of Costa Rica resting overhead ...unconcerned with a stranger walking beneath him.

Costa Rica can boast of having ten different trogons in their small country, where as the United States only gets one...the Elegant Trogon.

The Elegant Trogon's reach into the United States barely makes it into southern Arizona.

I found this one in April of 2012 in the Santa Rita Mountains just 50 miles north of the Mexican border.

You can read about this Elegant Trogon by entering Elegant Trogon into the search box above.

Allan

Credit: The Birds of Costa Rica by 
              Richard Garrigues and Robert Dean
Credit: Cornell Lab of Ornithology, All About Birds

Scarlet Macaws, Costa Rica

These two Scarlet Macaws were wildly excited about each other. Hanging upside down, directly overhead, they nuzzled in the treetops along a crowded Pacific Coast beach in Costa Rica.

They payed no mind to the dozens and dozens of people walking below them. They were engrossed in themselves and nothing else mattered.

Scarlet Macaws are huge birds...as tree dwelling birds go...35 inches from tip to tail.

They form strong pair bonds and stay together a long time.

Not much in known about their private lives in the wild. They live in remote rainforests.



(Click on any picture to enlarge.)

The illegal pet trade has reduced their numbers dramatically. These two are showing us they can thrive in the wild, if humanity allows it.

The Cuban Macaw became extinct in the 1800's because of a misplaced need to possess one.

It's strangely understandable why a person would want to own such a beautiful bird, is spite of it bordering on cruelty for the bird.

They seem so well adjusted in life's wide open spaces...stretching out and hang around wherever they please.

Hanging head-down, watching the people below, the world must look quite different from a Scarlet Macaw's prospective...if only we knew.

Allan

Credit: Cornell Lab of Ornithology, All About Birds
Credit: The Birds of Costa Rica, Richard Garrigues & Robert Dean

Hummingbird Babies

A female Rufous-tailed Hummingbird sits motionless on her eggs only inches above people passing underneath her.

The ecotourists on their way to dinner at La Salva Lodge, Costa Rica, don't notice her just off the canopied trail in the rain.

Broad leaves conceal and protect her as she patiently incubates her eggs. Keeping her eggs warm and dry during the frequent rains will require 15-17 days of attention.

To go unnoticed for that long she needs to be discretely feathered. Her rufous tail is her only showy feature. Yet still, most of her tail is hidden.  

A few miles away at the La Selve Biological Station, a Band-tailed Barbthroat Hummingbird rests on her nest. She too, wove it herself.

Shaped from twigs and other plant matter, woven with spider's silk, she hangs suspended over a pond. The leaf provides her with protection from the rain.

She looks wary, but if she felt threatened by our passing she would have flown off. She didn't.

It is safe to assume she is incubating eggs, too.

A new generation of Rufous-tailed Hummingbirds has hatched at Savegre Lodge in the Talamanca Cordillera mountains of Costa Rica.

Having hatched from an egg smaller than a green pea and now still only the size of a peanut shell, the pair rests defenselessly.

Remaining motionless, eyes closed, they wait for their mother's return.

Mother rufous-tailed drops to the edge of the nest and immediately freezes to avoid attracting attention.

But, the hungry babies can't wait and give away their location...three feet high in a four foot bush.

Consisting of mashed-up midges and gnats combined with nectar, these feedings will continue for weeks at the nest, still longer after they fledge.

The feedings take place deep down the throat.      

It seems unfair that the male hummingbirds get all the attention, while the female does most of the work of raising the next generation, but it works out that way. By necessity female birds are less colorful. How and why it evolved this way I can't explain, other than to say female birds choose the most colorful males more often. Color may be an indicator of health and strength in the female's mind.

A male Magnificent Hummingbird rests on an equally beautifully adorned branch. Always wary, but faster than his enemies, he glows in the late morning sun. Common to the mountainous reaches of Costa Rica, although reaching into Southeastern Arizona, too, the Magnificent Hummingbird is a rare find in the USA.

Allan

Credit: Cornell Lab of Ornithology, All About Birds
Credit: The Sibley Guide to Birds
Credit: The Birds of Costa Rica, Richard Garrigues & Robert Dean

Resplendent Quetzal

The people of Central America can be rightly proud of their Resplendent Quetzal.

When shortened to just quetzal (pronounced: KETS' al), he still has the ability to impress.

Together the male and female Resplendent Quetzals are elegantly feathered in shades of blues, green, red, yellow and white.

The male sports a long tail-like feather, which isn't an actual tail feather, rather just a look-alike one. His tail is white on the underside and is largely hidden.

The female is similar in shape and size, but lacks the helmet-like head feathers and the red breast of the male.

This pair was building a home in what may have been a woodpecker hole in the past, but it wasn't quite roomy enough for them, so they were remodeling.

Diving head first into the hole, with only his long tail dangling outside, the male excavates wood chips mouthful by mouthful.

The female was just watching for now, but she too took a turn at enlarging the hole.

You could call the mountain highlands where the Resplendent Quetzals lives remote, but it is easily accessible by car or truck.

Tourists make the trip often and there are businesses and shops throughout the small Talamanca Mountain village of San Gerardo de Dota.

A specie's chances of survival is mainly dependent on the survival of its habitat. To that extent, Costa Rica has a good record of maintaining its bird populations by maintaining the habitats of lush rainforests, deserts, sandy beaches and cloud forests.

The small West Virginia-sized country of Costa Rica has more bird species than all of North America...more than 830 species.  

It was confusing to me why the female quetzal suddenly started to make a hole on the opposite side of their nest tree.

Could this be a backdoor?

The male quetzal watched in amazement as she hammered her stout bill into the old dead tree. For all her work she was making little progress while exerting much effort.

If her mate could look confused, he looked confused to me. Starting this new hole when there was a perfectly good hole on the other side of the tree seemed odd.

He didn't help her.  He just watched.

It didn't take long before she abandoned that project and the work continued on the first hole. Whatever the outcome of the nest building project, the Resplendent Quetzals will be raising their family living in a beautiful place...on a mountain side...in a forest...in Costa Rica.

Allan

Credit: Cornell Lab of Ornithology, All About Birds
Credit: The Birds of Costa Rica, Richard Garrigues and Robert Dean
Credit: Wikipedia  

Green Honeycreeper, Costa Rica

A Green Honeycreeper watches anxiously.  Having scored a prize bunch of bananas hanging at a local restaurant only to lose it to a larger Clay-colored Thrush, the Green Honeycreeper can only watch and wait.

A Clay Colored Thrush, the ubiquitous national bird of Costa Rica, laid claimed the bananas and felt no need to share.

The bananas hang in an opening where a window would be, if the Neotropical Costa Rican restaurant needed a window.

An abundance of birds populate the trees surrounding the restaurant, but only the bravest birds will fly inside.

A badly bruised banana reveals the fruit's soft insides. Today, the Clay-colored Thrush is being served first at the Rancho Magallanes Restaurant, Chilamate, Costa Rica. The reward went to the strongest.

While waiting to be served, the Green Honeycreeper grabs a little protein to go with the carbohydrates of the banana. A bee will do nicely. Seed and nectar eating birds commonly catch insects to supply protein for themselves and their nestlings.

Eventually the Green Honeycreeper gets a turn at the banana, too.

For a country smaller than West Virginia, Costa Rica is rich in bird life. With 850-900 bird species depending on whose data you choose, even the brilliant Green Honeycreeper barely stands out in a country with so many beautiful birds.

In Costa Rica even if you don't actually go looking for birds...they're all around you.

While enjoying a soup 'n sandwich at a roadside open-air restaurant the birds entertained us for nearly an hour.

Allan

Credit: The Birds of Costa Rica, Richard Garrigues and Robert Dean