Today’s story revolves around an observation that is surprisingly common among birdwatchers. It isn’t common because of the species involved, but rather because anyone who spends time observing wildlife will recognize the familiar situation that I am about to describe. I think it’s just the way things go when you invest yourself in making observations of the natural world.
I spend hours and hours of my free time sitting and watching the birds at my feeders. One result of all of this effort is that I have established a list of “regulars” that live in my yard. In the winter, such regulars would include black-capped chickadees, downy woodpeckers, American goldfinches, Northern cardinals, dark-eyed juncos and so on. In fairly short order, I can collect a list of 15-20 species that make an appearance on a daily basis.
The challenge comes in observing those species that are not common, daily visitors. Sometimes these are the extremely unusual appearances made by species that generally are not found in large numbers at any time of the year. A great example of this is a bird like a sandhill crane (Antigone canadensis). After decades of birdwatching, I have only seen one flock of four birds fly over my yard. Had I been doing anything other than intentionally searching the sky at that moment, I would not have known they were ever there. These are the species that I call “X-Factors.”
Then there are those birds that I know are living in my neighborhood, but for one reason or another, they just don’t show themselves very often. Wild turkeys (Meleagris gallopavo) are a great example. I see them every year, but their appearances are surprisingly irregular. I might see the same group of birds several times in one month, but then go without seeing them for months on end. I suppose this makes sense when you consider the nature of my activity. I’m watching birdfeeders, so I only see those species that come to birdfeeders. There was one extraordinary year when there was a wild turkey that would walk up the steps to my deck and search for any delicious morsels that might be offered there. But I think that was an idiosyncrasy of one particular bird. None of the local turkeys have done this in years.
And then there are those birds that are puzzlingly uncommon. The bird that I am speaking of today is the yellow-bellied sapsucker (Sphyrapicus varius). This is a species that is seasonally abundant in the summertime, but rather rare in the wintertime. The interesting thing about this bird is that I can hear it on a daily basis when the weather is warm, but actually catching sight of one is something of a special event. It isn’t a “shy” species, but it does happen to stick to the forest where it often remains up in the treetops.
So it was a very exciting morning when an adult female yellow-bellied sapsucker recently made a brief appearance at the feeders on my deck. Over the past five years or so, I have managed to catch sight of this species once per winter. The first few observations were of immature birds and this year I actually saw an adult while I had a camera in my hands. So very, very satisfying!
Modern cameras record the date of every image taken, so I can say with authority that the bird you see today was only visible to me for a total of three minutes. In that time, I managed to take her picture 182 times. Of those 182 photos, there was a handful that I would consider “keepers.”
The photo collection starts with this bird resting on the branches of a dead tree. The bird then moved down to the cylindrical wire feeder that I fill with peanuts, where I watched her extract a morsel or two. Finally, she moved to a suet feeder that is basically a flat wire box into which you can place square blocks of suet, which is various seeds held together by melted beef fat. Then, she flew away and I am sorry to say that history suggests that I will not see her again.
So now I am left with an agonizing decision: Which photo do I share with you? Many of the images are what I would call “classic field guide photos.” The bird is sitting in perfect profile and all of the diagnostic field marks are plain to see. These photos are very valuable for identification purposes, but they also tend to be rather “flat,” — photos that don’t convey the feeling of the moment or the personality of the bird in question. Other photos show the more intimate details of an instant in time, but leave some details out. Which sort to pick?
Well, after several agonizing days, I finally made my choice. I went with the up-close-and-personal variety. This photo shows a small patch of red feathers on the bird’s forehead, but white feathers on her throat. If the bird were a male, then the throat would also be red. You can clearly see the cylindrical wire tube filled with peanuts where she made her first feeder stop. You can also see a concavity in the feathers at the top of her breast. Right where the black “bib” meets the lemon yellow feathers that give the species its name, you can see an indentation. This suggests to me that her crop is empty and that she is hungry.
Finally, I liked this particular photo because I feel it conveys a feeling of the weather of the day. It was cold out and this female woodpecker had her head pulled down into the warm feathers of her neck. Any one of us can reflect on a moment when we had a scarf around our neck and our shoulders lifted in an effort to cover our necks and ears. Well, this appears to be something that bids do too, and seeing it makes us feel a connection with one of our fellow creatures.
The days are already starting to get longer, but winter has only just begun. The regulars in my yard will show up every morning in the hopes that plentiful food will be available to them, and I shall make sure that this happens on weekdays so there is a large crowd that comes on weekends. You can do this as well and you will discover that you have your own collections of regulars. The fun comes when you compare your lists from month to month, or you compare your lists with the lists of other people doing the same thing.
Bill Danielson has been a professional writer and nature photographer for 28 years. He has worked for the National Park Service, the US Forest Service, the Nature Conservancy and the Massachusetts State Parks and he currently teaches high school biology and physics. For more information visit www.speakingofnature.com, Speaking of Nature on Facebook, or search for the Speaking of Nature Podcast.