June 10 and 11, OBBA2 work:

Those of you who really enjoy bird behavior, and don't just go birding to collect a long list, really should volunteer for OBBA2.

Yesterday, I watched a northern flicker chick fledge from his cavity home in a dead snag.  He floated down almost like a butterfly.  It took him two tries to get his feet under him - falling a few inches onto a larger branch in the shrub under his nest hole.  When he seemed to have it together, he became quite interested in his surroundings, and began pecking at things.  Not exactly a "cute" baby - still with fuzz around his head, the only give-away to his identity was his undertail and his bill.  That short but growing tail was an smaller version of his parents', complete with yellow "shafts".  And his bill was already looking very flicker-like.

Today, I watched three recently fledged American kestrels, under close supervision by parents, trying their wings at hunting from utility wires.  There were also little bobbing killdeer, with parents, teetering along a country road.  Now those are cute!

A male Baltimore oriole carried food to a nest, where he fed nestlings visible only by the movement of the nest.  They must be fairly large, because they caused the nest to bulge with their movement.

A song sparrow was feeding a fledged brown-headed cowbird.  This was the first time I had ever seen a host bird feeding a parasitic fledgling.

I had a second experience at watching a chat nest building.  I noticed last year that if I look low to the ground in the vicinity of a territorial male, I might catch the female at work. Sure enough, after a few minutes, I caught sight of her gathering materials and carrying them to the tree where the male was making his presence known.  The female was working in and out of the low scrubby plants, never getting more then two or three feet above the ground until she flew up into the tree with her building materials.  Even then, she flew close to the tree, in the cover, before she flew up.  She was very discrete, almost exactly like the female I watched last year from a deer stand for a couple of hours.

There are still a lot of priority blocks that need work.  Even if you can't commit to a full 25 hours, or don't choose to "own" a block, you can volunteer some time and submit your observations.  You never know what you will see.

Margaret Bowman
Licking Co., OH


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