New Blog photo by Dennis Paulson

I've finally found a photo that fits the space allotted to it.  And I love this picture of a female bushtit with real attitude!!   Thank you, Dennis Paulson, for sharing it with me!

Today in Portland

You may think that while I am on the east coast I don't know what my birds are doing in Portland.  But I actually do.....sort of.  Thanks (many, many thanks!) to two wonderful individuals who each happen to have a suet feeder in areas where I have banded birds (Reed College and Oaks Bottom Wildlife Refuge), I get intermittent and tantalizing reports of which birds are still around and who they are hanging out with.  And that keeps me going through the long, cold, snowy Maine winter.  

Just today I got a text about some of my Reed birds. Two of these birds are very interesting and have had at least a two year "friendship".......if you can call it that.....GYYX (Gikes) and LLRX (LollRex).  Both are males and for the last two years (and this coming year as well, I suspect) have been seen consistently together at the feeders all winter along with other banded and unbanded birds.   Last year they were always foraging together in a flock of about 20 right before dark even into April. 

[ Cute fact:  bushtits flock members huddle together at night to stay warm and then switch to sleeping in their nests when they are completed.]    

Today I will tell you some of LLRX's history which is a bit checkered.  He is, it seems, not the nicest of birds.  (And he wasn't in 2019 either.)

I caught and banded LLRX along with a female, PXPY (PixPee), early in the 2018 season and in the center of "the Canyon" on Reed campus.  I was certain they had a nest in the vicinity because every time I walked by, I heard them. And I was positive I would find it.  But the brush was thick and there was limited time with the number of nests we had to monitor already and so I soon abandoned the search and chalked it up to a failed nest (it happens) and/or birds that had gone AWOL (it also happens).

Later in the season, however, I happily found them again.  Both LLRX and PXPY were hanging out and bringing nesting material to a small nest [more on nests and how and why they vary in size later] in a pinyon pine near the vegetable garden at the western end of the canyon.  All seemed very domestic and boring at first.  But I soon found that when PXPY wasn't attending to the nest, she was being chased and "courted" by both an unbanded male and LLRX.  In fact, the unbanded male seemed far more attentive to her than LLRX, who would take off, leaving PXPY with the interloper(?) for long periods. 

Once incubation began, LLRX seemed like the doting father....taking turns incubating with PXPY.  At first.  The unbanded male was still around, but never entered the nest although several times I held my breath as he approached and then fluttered way. As incubation progressed, however, LLRX spent less and less time in his fatherly duties.  And then, one day soon after the nestlings had hatched, he disappeared entirely. 

By then, the unbanded male had also flown the coop (sic) and poor PXPY was left to raise the nestlings on her own.  She did so quite valiantly --- exhausting herself as the kids grew louder, bigger, and more insistent.  By the time they were close to fledging, she looked positively bedraggled.  LLRX was nowhere to be seen.  He had vanished.  I assumed he had died.  

But he hadn't.  That winter, he was happily foraging at the suet feeders --- with GYYX who had raised a successful brood himself that year.  PXPY, on the other hand, was never seen again.  I suspect she simply didn't have the reserves left to survive the winter after her labors.  Poor thing.  

But LLRX?   In 2019, he was at it again.....but that, more complicated, story remains to be told in another post!   

         

 

  

Wonderful photos!!

I was so surprised, gratified, and excited to get offers and copies of so many marvelous and adorable bushtit photos yesterday.   Thank you to everyone!   I'm planning to post them gradually over the next few months -- just one or two a day at most -- so we can all enjoy them.  And please keep them coming!  I love to watch my bushtits, but I am abysmal at remembering to make a photographic record of what I do.  A few students have been pretty good at it.  But not me.

I thought that today would be a good day to mention that my BNA (Birds of North America) bushtit chapter is a good source for basic bushtit information.  The behavioral descriptions are 99% from my own research in the Chiricahua Mountains of Arizona where the first 25 years of my research took place.  I'm currently working on the revision which will include many new Pacific NW bushtit idiosyncrasies.

BTW, Arizona bushtits (Psaltriparus minimus plumbeous) and  coastal Pacific NW bushtits (Psaltriparus minimus minimus) have many of the same quirky behavioral traits, but some very interesting differences which I will be talking about in this blog and detailing in my book.  What I don't know yet is if these are intrinsic subspecies differences or just the result of entirely different environments:  desert mountains vs wet coastal forests and brush, high predation rates vs low, etc.  

Time will tell.

 I chose these two photos generously provided by Russel Smith today because bushtits in Portland will soon be building nests.   Yes, they start in February-- sometimes as early as January.  In fact, one year in Seattle I had nestlings hatch in mid-February!!

Bushtit nests are made primarily of a combination of spider web and lichen as the two velcro together in a magical way.

The photo above is of a female (note the yellow eye) with lichen.  The photo to the right is a male (dark brown eye) with spider web.

Enjoy!

Thank you to Terri Vincent......

....for this beautiful photo of a female bushtit!   Now if I can just figure out how to get it to fit the screen..............

Arizona 1987: Dad as a decoy

[BOOK EXCERPT]

Against all odds,  PPLX and RYLX have recaptured their nest from the interlopers [future Blog entry on this!] and now have young nestlings in the nest they fought so hard for.  The nest itself, built while the oak was simultaneously shedding its old leaves and sending out catkins has proved to be elderly and now has leafed out only sparsely.  The result is that the nest is still quite exposed.  To make matters worse, the area is particularly ripe with jays who would make fast work of the nest and its contents if they were to find it.  In fact, I am quite surprised it has made it this far. 

On 11 April 1987, I arrive alone to do a routine feeding nestwatch.  I set up camp far enough from the nest to be inconspicuous to bushtits and jays alike:  shortened chair in a nice, shady spot, telescope set where I can use it easily, binocs for other observations, watch, and notebook with rapidograph ready for taking notes.   I worry less about disturbing the bushtits as they really don’t seem to care about me at all.  I could probably sit IN the nest tree and they’d just go about their business.  But I don’t want the Mexican Jays cuing in on the nest because of me.  I sometimes get the feeling they are secretly looking over my shoulder, thinking, in a sentient corvid kind of way “hmmmm….what’s she watching?  Oh look, a juicy little bushtit nest!”  I have no evidence they are doing this, but I want to take no chances.  Jay predation is high enough without my help.  

So I settle in for a very easy and pleasant nestwatch; given the openness of the nest I should have no trouble identifying the birds.  Sure enough, PPLX and RYLX are actively feeding about every 10-20 minutes, coming in with noisy spits and food, disappearing into the nest to deposit it into hungry baby bushtit mouths (as I can only imagine given that the nest is entirely enclosed), and then taking off together to find more food for the growing kids.  But I don’t hear the nestlings begging before the adults arrive, so they must be very young.

Then tragedy strikes…or so I think at first.  A Mexican Jay is in a pine tree near the nest and watches as the parents noisily arrive, feed the kids, and then together take off for more food. When the coast is clear and all is quiet, the jay cocks its head and slowly hops, branch by branch, to the bottom of the pine and then, in a single quiet swoop, launches and lands in the nest tree only 3 feet from the nest, eyes ominously glued on the nest itself.  Lunch.

I am paralyzed.  Do I interfere?  Do I stand and throw rocks and scream, as I so badly want to?  Or do I be the good, impartial scientist and let nature take its course?  There is a part of me that wants to actually see this, to see jay predation in action.  I never have.  I’ve only seen its sad conclusion:  the torn nest, the scattered feathers, and the silence of the empty nest.   And sometimes the confused parents spitting about the old nest, clearly wondering what has happened while they were happily collecting food for the nestlings that are no longer there.   

While I’m in this state of indecision, both parents return to the nest, and assessing the dire circumstances, begin mobbing the jay as best a bushtit can.  Without dropping their loads of caterpillars and whatnot, they somehow manage to spit madly at the intruder, diving at its head like a swarm of angry mosquitoes.  But sadly the jay seems unperturbed by the tiny assailants (who would be?) and creeps closer to the nest, clearly intent on an easy meal.  All seems lost.

But then something truly amazing happens.  As a last ditch effort, the male drops his load of caterpillars and perches next to the jay and opposite the nest.  He begins to utter a sound I have never heard from an adult bushtit:  the calls of a begging nestling.  Immediately, the jay swings its head away from the nest and toward the male, who is now begging loudly and fluttering his wings.  As soon as the jay’s attention is on him, PPLX hops to the top of the tree. The jay follows. Then into the pine.  The jay still follows.  Then they disappear.  Remarkably, the male has successfully used himself as a decoy to save the nest.  How smart and brave for such a little bird.  

I stay longer than I had planned to see what will happen and twenty minutes later both parents are nonchalantly feeding at the nest and the jay is nowhere to be seen.  Still, I think as I pack up to leave, this nest is doomed.  The jay clearly knows the nest is there.  And, as the nestlings get bigger and louder, they will become even more conspicuous.  Doomed.  Absolutely.  No doubt about it.  

But bushtits always have a way of surprising me.  In spite of high predation rates all over the study area, and in spite of the jays supposedly knowing where this nest is, the nest fledges successfully 10 days later, right on time.  And, even more surprising, the parents are back for yet another clutch just one week later.  

So much for corvid intelligence.  

Bushtits 1: jays zero.  

2018: Male joins at nest

One of the (many) unique characteristics of bushtits is that they have "helpers at the nest."  By helpers, I mean non-breeding birds (usually adult males) acting as parents by feeding the kids and defending the nest.  Over the years I have have had very little opportunity to observe exactly how that happens.  All that changed in 2018 with two nests.  I describe below how PYLX joined Nest 11 in 2018.  It was fascinating!  [This is an excerpt from my book still in progress]

SELLWOOD NEST 11 (2018)

By the time I find Nest 11 in late April, it’s a completed gray gourd, hanging like a ripe fruit from the outer middle branches of a tall pine on the edge of the open field that defines the southern boundary of Oaks Bottom Wildlife Refuge.  

The nest isn’t that easy to find even though it certainly isn’t cryptic.  It’s hung nestled in the drooping branches of a large pine that are so common here in Portland.  What makes it obvious, once I do find it, is that some of the vegetation is dead and so it stands out against the background of sky and hill.  But it’s still not obvious if you’re just passing by.  It’s the unbanded pair --- a male and a female --- now feeding at the nest,  that finally give it away.  Nestlings need to be fed and frequently.  It was a fairly simple matter to follow the adults eventually to the nest.  

And there it is.  A nice nest to watch with the entrance facing straight towards the open field where I can sit.  On the other hand, it is a bit far and at first I resort to a telescope to tell male from female by their eye color.  By the first week in May, I suspect there may be more than just a male and female here.  At one nestwatch, I am certain there are at least 3 bushtits in the area.  If so, it would be my first documented multibird nest in the Pacific NW.  But it’s not until Ellie and I band here that the slightly more complicated truth begins to reveal itself.  

We set up the net not far from the nest.  Since it’s so high up in the tree, I’m not afraid the calls I use to attract the parents will give the nest’s location away to the dastardly crows.  After setting up and playing the tape for just a few minutes we catch in quick succession, and surprisingly, 4 birds ….3 males (LYYX:Likes), PYLX:Piles), and PPRX:PopRocks) and only one female (GXGG:Geegee).  A fifth bird flits about the net, but never gets caught.  Still…..we have 4 birds banded and I am hoping we have caught all the attendants at Nest 11 and perhaps we have even more than three.  I am delighted and greatly anticipate my next nestwatch.  

Which is a dud.  Sort of.  The next day the nestwatch reveals that the female is not banded.  She must have been that slippery cookie that teased us the day before.  And disappointingly only one male, LYYX, is feeding and coming in with the unbanded female almost every single time.  I am disappointed.  No third bird.  

That same day I find GXGG, PPRX, and PYLX foraging merrily nearby in the undergrowth at the edge of the field, but not doing anything remotely nesty.  Just hanging out.  Oh well.

But the next nestwatch I do a couple of days later is far more interesting.  GXGG and PPRX are still lounging in nearby bushes snacking on bugs and having a quiet conversation of spits, but PYLX shows up at the nest a few times on his own.  At first he seems excited about his “discovery,” hopping about and peering in the nest a few times.  LYYX shows up at one point with food for the kids and pecks at PYLX, chasing him off temporarily.  But PYLX soon returns.  This time he’s carrying a bit of lichen….nesting material.  Not really appropriate for a nest full of nestlings.  The female arrives a minute later and he wing-flutters towards her as if trying to attract her attention.  When she leaves, he slips into the nest…with the lichen….and then exits….with the lichen, seemingly puzzled (if a bird can look puzzled.)  He enters a few more times, each time coming out with the lichen still in his beak.  The last time he emerges without it and flies off.  I can’t imagine what he did with it.  Did he convince one of the nestlings it was food?  Or, more likely, did he just leave it and give up?  

So PYLX is a “visitor.”   And he’s doing what I once saw in Washington, but never in Arizona:  bringing nesting material to a nest containing nestlings and wing fluttering towards the female.  What is he up to?  He is not what I would call an “attendant” or a “helper.”  He’s just visiting.  And he’s bringing inappropriate gifts.  

I have more nests to watch than just this one, so I don’t get back to Nest 11 for another few days. 

And by then things have changed in a big way.  Both LYYX and the unbanded female are feeding the nestlings. But now PYLX has joined them.  Instead of showing up with lichen, he’s carrying food.  And instead of chasing him off, LYYX seems to have accepted this new member of the family.  In fact, had I not observed the earlier lichen-carrying attempts of PYLX and LYYX’s annoyance at his presence, I might think this was just a big happy family made up of two males and a single female from day one.  True, PYLX is feeding separately from LYYX and the female who almost always show up in tandem with food.   And he’s feeding less often than they do.  But he is feeding and that now means he’s a “helper.” 

Nest 11 immediately becomes my favorite nest and we try to watch it daily.  As the nestlings grow and their demands increase, PYLX collects more food and shows up more often.  And now he often overlaps with LYYX who sometimes politely waits just inches away for PYLX to leave before he enters the nest with his offering of caterpillars and spiders and such.  By the time this first brood fledges, PYLX is a full-fledged (sic) member of the family.  In fact, had I found this nest now, I never would have known who was dad and who was the interloper.  They are indistinguishable.  Except by their bands, of course.

And fledging day does come with its usual mad  flurry of activity in the vicinity as the kids bolt from the nest, flying strongly, if not totally in control.  All three adults and a few neighbors are there to greet them. Mad spitting ensues.  Within 20 minutes, the newly fledged kids, short tails and all, have found each other and are perched in a tight little row high up in a small tree where LYYX, PYLX, and the unbanded female continue to feed them as if they had never left the confines of their swinging bed.  

Unlike in Arizona, where the fledglings move rather quickly over the next few days away from the nest area, these five kids along with both males and the female don’t move farther than 50 meters from home.  In ten days, I know  why.   Both LYYX and the female are  taking turns hanging out in the nest, obviously incubating a new batch of eggs that must have been begun just a few days after the next was vacated.  PYLX remains devoted to the first brood who are now mobile, long-tailed and a nuisance to their caretakers, chasing them with chittering begging calls and still being fed on occasion although they are now fully capable of foraging on their own.  I never see him incubating.  

But once the new brood hatches, PYLX joins in feeding at the nest as if he never stopped.  His contributions are indistinguishable from those of LYYX and the female. There is no way I can tell he’s the “second male.”   I do wonder (I always wonder) if he has some of his own kids in that nest this time around.  Did he and the female sneak off together at some point during egg laying for a quick liaison?  I never saw it.  But I rarely see mating anyway.  It’s possible.  In fact, I think it’s likely.    

How I tell Frank from Harry from Flo

First a very quick primer on how bushtits are "named" and how we refer to their names out loud.

Once caught (more on that in another post) or taken (briefly) from the nest (more details on that as well), each bushtit is given a unique combination of three colored plastic leg bands along the with the legally required aluminum USGS band that comes with a unique number as well as instructions about what to do if you find a banded bird.  [Note:  Catching, handling, and banding wild birds requires Federal and State permits at the very least!  It is otherwise illegal.)

Each color has a corresponding letter.  P is for  a pale purple (sometimes called mauve).  R is for red.  And so on.  I'll post the complete list as I refer to more birds.  Once banded, the color combos are read from top (closest to the bird) to bottom and from left to right as the bird is facing me.  In other words, the first band I read is really the bird's right leg.   Confused?  Well, that's how I was taught to do it and so I do.  Some ornithologists do the opposite.  It's really what you're used to doing.  As long as you're consistent!

Here are some real-life examples of banded birds and how I pronounce their names.  I've found over the years that it's easier to remember and more fun to give them "names" based on their band combos. My students and I do have some fun with that as you will see. By the way, males have brown eyes and females yellow or cream eyes, so telling male from female is not impossible, although if you are aware of how small a bushtit is, you can imagine it can be quite the challenge sometimes!

Here goes:
RXRG has a red over aluminum on his right leg (left-facing) and a red over avocado green on his left (right-facing) leg.  There are some loose rules about the pronunciation of each band combo and we often stretch those rules to end up with silly names.  But RXRG is "RexRug" and (as you will see in future post) he was quite the little cad in 2019.  Some other examples:

GXGG (a female) is GeeGee (although she could be GyxGog)
PYLX (a male) is Piles
PPRX (a male) is PopRocks  (see what I mean?......fun)
LYYX (a male) is Likes

I could go on....and on....and on........as I have banded over 2000 bushtits over the years.  Maybe even more.  I haven't counted recently.

So that's my primer on bushtit bands and names.  Stay tuned for some of the incredible stories these banded birds have told me about their complicated lives.

Portland, Oregon: 2019

In just a few weeks I'll be back out west to return to my beloved bushtits.  My research has moved to Portland, Oregon where bushtits are abundant and I can enjoy the company of my oldest daughter who has settled there for the time being.  

I migrated to Portland from Seattle in 2016 for variety of reasons (having nothing to do with my offspring!).   I found Discovery Park to be not particularly researcher friendly.  And bushtits seemed to prefer the surrounding suburbs for nesting rather than the park.  Finding nests became frustrating even though some of those that I did find were very interesting (see previous posts).  

I visited Portland in 2015 just for fun and was startled to find bushtits on every corner.   Quite literally.  Oaks Bottom Wildlife Refuge, in the south central part of Portland along the Willamette River, was a welcome respite from the city and the city was eager to host unobtrusive researchers.  Bushtits seem happy to nest in the refuge even though they still hung out in the surrounding city to visit suet feeders in the winter.  Other parks in the area and the Reed College campus were also brimming with the little gray sprites.  (In 2019, we found 94 nests!!)  And Portland itself is an amenable and interesting town.   Add to the mix:  my two daughters were there.   So I decided to make Portland my new bushtit home in 2016 and now, in 2020, I have a nice established population of banded birds to work with and even some local bird enthusiasts keeping track of banded birds and nests.  It's been a lovely place to work. 

This year I plan to keep daily log here of what is happening in the field.  Nestled within and around that diary will be stories and information about bushtit behavior that I have gleaned through the years.     For those of you not familiar with bushtits.....you are in for a big surprise.  These tiny birds, so common and adorable, have intricate and complex lives.

And that's what this blog is about:   the secret lives of bushtits.  Hang on to your hats and enjoy!  The meerkats, dolphins, and chimps have nothing on these guys.  Trust me.  Size does not matter.