Learning some of Wisconsin's trees by bark

As I mentioned in my last post, I have been spending the last few weeks learning trees! It has been a bit difficult since some of the trees are still just leafing out. Fortunately, there are a few trees that are easy to learn, just by looking at the bark.

The White Ash has bark that forms a weaving pattern, creating little nooks.

Yellowbud Hickory (also known as Bitternut Hickory) has a similar weaving pattern, except the bark looks like it has been sanded down.

The Black Cherry Tree has bark that is peeling off in the shape of burnt potato chips.

Mature Aspen trees have deeply grooved bark at the base that becomes lighter colored and almost birch-like near the top. Seen above and below. This is Big-toothed Aspen.


Some more Wisconsin trees that can be easily identified by bark are Yellow Birch, Paper Birch, and Shagbark Hickory. Some of the other more common species, Maples, Oaks and Elms can be a little more difficult. Fortunately, their leaves make things much simpler! More on that later...

Spring Migration 2010

Instead of heading south for the summer like I did last year, this year I decided to head north along with the migratory birds. Last week I drove up to Wilton, WI, just 2 hours north of Madison and nearby the cities of Tomah and Sparta. I'm now relaxing at the lovely farm house we're renting for the spring after a long day in the field (Thanks to our amazing hostess, Donna!!).

My new job is to collect data for Eric, a Ph.D. candidate at the University of Wisconsin Madison. Basically, we are surveying migratory birds using the forests and savannas of Fort McCoy in Tomah and the woods of Kickapoo Valley Reserve in La Farge, WI. The focus is on wood warblers, especially those that have flown all the way here from Central and South America. So far a lot of early migrants have shown up at Kickapoo Valley where we have been collecting data on the vegetation, like Blue-headed Vireos, Yellow-rumped Warblers, Ruby-crowned Kinglets and Hermit Thrushes. However, we're still waiting for the warbler flood gates to crack open.

First things first though, and we have a lot of data to collect in the woods of Wisconsin. I don't think I ever mentioned it in my previous posts, but almost always when you do studies on birds you have to look at their environment and what kind of resources they are using. So that means we have been trawling the woods and identifying trees like mad for the past two weeks. I am definitely not a botanist, so it has been a bit grueling at times, but I'm learning a ton. Some of the really common trees here are White Oak, Red Oak, Basswood, Yellowbud (or Bitternut) Hickory, Red Maple and Sugar Maple. Some are nearly impossible to identify just by bark or shape alone. But fortunately, the oaks are just starting to leaf out now and some of the maples are almost in full summer plumage (hmmm.. ok maybe that's not the right word to describe it!) With the warm weather we've been having, the trees seem to be upping their usual pace, and in turn having an affect on insect populations. Will these factors influence the livelihood of our colorful spring warblers? I guess we have some research work that needs to be done.

Anyway here's a glimpse at our farm house where we're staying and an early spring migrant found in our yard.


Our home in the country

White-throated Sparrow - just stopping by on his way to Canada

A Red-tailed Hawk nest in view from our front porch

urban hawk banding

Today I got the chance to meet up with Loren, one of the coordinators of the Raptor banding workshop I did in Stevens Point. He's also licensed to trap and band raptors and luckily lives here in town, so we thought we'd try trapping hawks today and see what we could get. It's been several months since I've gotten to handle birds, so maybe I had my expectations set a little high, but I was not disappointed!

We started out the morning with a Rough-legged Hawk spotted just down the road from our starting point. Not even 5 minutes after baiting the Roughie with deer mice, he was on the trap. Poor guy was clearly hungry, like many birds are in winter. I must admit, I'm more of a songbird birder than a raptor watcher. So, I'm still in the process of learning my local birds of prey! I don't believe I've ever gotten such a good glimpse of a Rough-legged Hawk before, and now he was here in my hand. He was quite stunning, a little bit smaller than a Red-tailed hawk, but with longer wings and a dark brown front. Rough-leggeds are only in Wisconsin for the winter, so they are a little bit more of a rarity compared to Red-tails, which are absolutely everywhere.

Close-up with a Rough-legged Hawk

Loren with our first catch of the day

Moments after banding our first bird, we were out setting traps after another Rough-legged and an adult Red-tailed hawk perching in the same tree. Unfortunately they were too far out. We had to walk the traps out to get closer to the birds and may have raised their suspicions. They weren't falling for it. Meanwhile, we caught sightings of a skunk walking around in the daylight and three flocks of Tundra Swans!

Our next catch was an immature Red-tailed Hawk, another easy catch that flew directly for our trap. We banded him right outside the Lussier Family Heritage Center near a popular walking trail, raising a few strange looks from passersby.

After releasing the young Red-tail, he stuck around for awhile perched atop the building before flying away.


After catching two hawks, we took a break for lunch. Alas we should have looked around more for hawks before sitting down! This red-tailed hawk caught it's own lunch just outside the window while we were grabbing sandwiches.

After catching an immature Red-tail, I suppose the goal now was to get an adult. We tried and failed to catch the red-tail pictured below. He went after the trap, but broke loose! Here in the picture, you can see how the mice are safely contained in the trap. The microfilaments attached to the top of the Bal-chatri Trap work as tiny nooses that catch on the raptor's feet.


Just as we were about to wrap up the day, we got a good spot on two Red-tails just down the road again from where we got our Rough-legged. We succeeded in getting one of the pair! Loren though it may be the male, judging by its smallish size, and the other may hawk have been its mate. Our adult red-tail still weighed in over 1100 grams. Pretty big, considering most of the birds I'm used to banding weigh around 10 grams!

So end of the day, we got 3 hawks. And I got to band all of them.. well with a little help of course.


Those sure are some "rough" legs.. I guess? A Rough-legged Hawk with some feathery feet!

backyard hawk watch

This weekend I heard a bang on the glass sliding door. I ran to go look and see if a bird had tried to fly into our kitchen and saw a quite large bluish bird flying away from the porch. Not what I was expecting to see. What's big and blue.. but definitely not a Blue Jay..

The bird settled on the ground a few feet away from my window. It was a beautiful adult accipiter! I'm guessing the hawk was not the one who flew into the window, but its unfortunate victim. I'm sorry that the Robin tried to seek shelter in our kitchen and was quite unlucky in that regard. But on the other hand, I think it is still pretty cool to see a beautiful predator in action!

When it comes to accipters, I am still learning my fieldmarks. The differences between the Cooper's Hawk and Sharp-shinned Hawk are not always very clear. They have almost identical colorations and even their sizes can overlap. When it comes to birds of prey, the male is usually smaller, giving it an advantage when doing aerial displays to impress the larger female. Cooper's Hawks are generally larger than Sharp-shinned (Crow sized vs. Jay sized), but the male Cooper's Hawk can sometimes be similar in size to the female Sharp-shinned (or sharpie)! I am starting to get a better "feel" for Sharpie vs. Coop's, so I decided my backyard predator was a Sharpie.


See if you can tell for yourself..
WARNING: Upcoming photo not suited for all animal lovers and/or Robin enthusiasts





See how this hawk is not even that much bigger than its prey? And the head looks small compared to its body. These are important features I used to decide this is indeed a Sharp-shinned Hawk.

The next day I saw more feathers on my porch. Bluish brown. One with black spots. Definitely not Robin.. Signs point to Mourning Dove. It seems like our predator has found a pretty decent meal-zone. Maybe I will see the sharpie again!

halloween raven

Happy Halloween!

Common Ravens at Petrified Forest National Park in Arizona

friend on my doorstep

I moved this month and although I'm still in suburbia of Madison, we do have a few nice birdy visitors every once in awhile. Yesterday I saw some big flocks of Cedar Waxwings and a few late migrating Red-winged Blackbirds just in our front yard. I was surprised to hear the blackbird "o-ke-lee" song that I definitely only would associate with summer. We have a nice little courtyard that is visited by a whole host of Juncos now. When it's junco season, you know it's winter. But birds are definitely still migrating. I've seen a few Ruby-crowned Kinglets in our yard and right now, there is a little thrush on the porch! He seems pretty content just sitting on the concrete slab, but hopefully he is finding food too.

ZOOM in!

Tail looks more reddish & contrasting with body plumage, plus the thin eye-ring + lack of the noticeable "buffy spectacles" over the bill are all leading me to believe it is a Hermit Thrush, but otherwise possibly Swainson's. They are tricky ones to ID.


(Update: he did eventually find a tasty bug to eat and flew away.. but was sitting on the porch for maybe an hour)

Madison migrants

The last few weeks in Madison have been dreary and wet. Not the best weather to go birding. But the migrating birds are definitely flowing through right now.

A few weeks ago I was able to do some banding at Biocore Prairie again. The fall colors were just beautiful because of all the late blooming prairie plants.

We got quite a few migrants and young birds like this juvenile Red-eyed Vireo. It was neat to see the difference in eye color with the young vireos. Their eyes are dark brown and will turn red next year.


We caught this little guy, a Tennessee Warbler which can be very easily confused with another bird that we catch a lot of. Below is a picture of a female Common Yellowthroat. You can see how the Tennessee and the Yellowthroat both have whitish to buffy eyerings and yellow bellies! The biggest difference here though is size. The Tennessee Warbler is a very tiny warbler whereas the Yellowthroat is a bit more robust. It's too bad we didn't catch these two at the same time so I could have gotten a side-by-side comparison. But you'll also notice that the Tennessee has yellow all the way down its breast while the Yellowthroat has more yellow on the throat (surprise!) and is whiteish below.

Female Common Yellowthroat

Oh yes, we got another confusing Empidonax Flycatcher, similar to all the ones we were catching in Texas. Based on our many measurements, this guy ended up being a Traill's Flycatcher. The Traill's Flycatcher does not count as its own species, but it refers to both the Willow and the Alder Flycatcher. Apparently, there is just not enough information out there to completely tell the difference between these two in the hand. It is kind of scary how similar this guy looked to the Least Flycatchers I had banded before. There were differences in size though, with this one being a little bit too big to be a Least. Also this empidonax flycatcher had a less visible eyering, which is something to look for in the Traill's flycatcher.