The Networked Bird Observatory Blog

Identification challenges are fun, but observing behavior is even more fun.

I posted an item the other day about the Green Jay spreading its feathers out in the sun (see Odd jay behavior). I likened it to “anting” (the behavior where birds will spread their feathers on an anthill, or even pick up ants and rub them on themselves), but after a little googling of the subject I guess it would more properly be referred to as sunbathing. Lots of birds do it, perhaps to control mites and other parasites.

Here’s a shot that vanilla got today of a male Red-winged Blackbird sunbathing:

There was a comment of “poor thing” on the photo, but I think the bird is probably fine.

As long as we’re looking at redwings (and let’s face it; with CONE Welder we end up looking at redwings a lot), check out this shot that txbird got of three male redwings engaging in display behavior. Nice epaulettes, eh?

Birds aren’t the only things on the birdcam engaging in interesting behavior. The last few nights we’ve had fun watching this raccoon demonstrate his high-wire skills getting onto and off of the feeder. There are some occasional dicey moments, though, like in this shot by whereismyrobot:

Another behavior that users have been commenting on is the display posture that the male Great-tailed Grackles adopt when they’re trying to look impressive. Here’s a great shot that txbird got May 8 at 3:40 p.m.:

Three minutes later, vanilla got this shot of two males posing, with a female on the right side of the frame:

Actual mating is a behavior I don’t remember us ever getting a shot of during the seven months CONE SF was active, but earlier today thedevilbird and txbird both snapped the same shot of a pair of Inca Doves mating. Here it is:

According to the comments the male dove from that pair is the bird in this shot, taken shortly thereafter by robin54. You can barely make out what appears to be an orange band on the bird’s right leg:

Thanks to everyone for getting these amazing shots!

John Rappole, the scientist whose work on shifting bird breeding ranges forms the basis for the scientific goals of the CONE Welder installation, sent a few comments to an email thread with Ken Goldberg (the robotics researcher who is one of the main people behind the CONE project). I was lucky enough to be included on that thread, and John Rappole said it would be okay if I reposted his comments to the blog, so here they are:

Ken,

I checked out the blog. They got just the kind of shots that we had hoped for the Green Jay. Silver left, Green right and Silver left, Black right were both part of a group of six birds that were captured on 30 April at 0700h near the feeders. All six are probably non-breeders (unknown sex and age with no brood patch or cloacal protuberance), probably young of the year from last year. Time will tell. I am hoping that Solon Morse, who is on-site working on rapid range change documentation at Welder for me, will be able to catch one or more of the breeding jays in the vicinity.

It looks like the bloggers are having fun on their own, and their guesses are on target so far - Baltimore Oriole, Painted Bunting, Louisiana Waterthrush, Barn Swallow, Golden-fronted Woodpecker, American Robin, Northern Mockingbird, Indigo Bunting, Buff-bellied Hummingbird, and European Starling are all correct. The only one I would question is the photo shown above the Indigo Bunting entry, which I think is probably a robin rather than a starling - but it doesn’t really matter. I think I will just keep out of the blog, and let them do what they want to do. Responding to their questions could become a full time job!

Best,

John

So there you go. It sounds like what we’re doing is definitely proving useful, especially with the identification of banded birds. With that in mind, here are a few banded-bird shots from the last few days.

First is this shot that txbird took on May 5, showing a rain-soaked Green Jay with a silver band on each leg:

And here’s what I believe is probably a female Brown-headed Cowbird photographed by txbird on May 6, showing a silver band on the right leg (left leg not visible):

Keep those banded-bird shots coming!

I got a couple of good shots of two different Green Jays this morning, showing their leg bands. Both jays have a silver band on the left leg. One of them has a black band on the right leg, while the other has a green band on the right leg:

I assume it’s worth our keeping track of the banded birds we see, especially for species of interest in the shifting-breeding-range study (like the Green Jay).