May and June are prime months for birding…and if you are wondering just what that means, it is the practice of actively going out to see and hear birds of all kinds…sometimes for population monitoring, sometimes for adding to a “life list” (the list of bird species you have confirmed seeing in your lifetime), but mostly just for the joy of it. I’d hate to hazard a guess as to how many people “bird” across the globe. If you count casual observers who also feed birds, the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service estimated there were 47 million in the United States alone, who contribute $107 billion in “total industry output” and as much as $13 billion in tax revenue annually (U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service Report: Birding in the U.S: A Demographic and Economic Analysis – 2013). Here’s a link to Wikipedia if you’re interested in learning more about birding https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Birdwatching .
And while I am not trying to make a birder out of you through this blog post, I do hope many of you will find it interesting to learn a little more about some birds that share thickets, weeds and grasses with bobwhites. For those wishing to pursue their bird-ucation, try the Cornell Ornithology Lab site at this link: https://www.birds.cornell.edu/home/ .
Many years ago, when I was working towards my Master’s degree studying bobwhite quail in North Carolina’s coastal plain, a big part of that effort was trapping wild bobwhites. And for birds like quail that have little long range sense of smell, they can’t be attracted to traps with scent baits. In short, if you don’t figure out their loafing, hiding and feeding cover quickly, you won’t earn a degree. Sink or swim young student…here are 50 quail traps, now have at it. Well… we did use bird dogs to locate coveys, so I didn’t start from scratch, but it was in the trapping and the subsequent radio tracking of quail we’d placed transmitters on that I began to really learn their habits…and those of many of their cohorts.
For starters, I caught so many rufous sided towhees (now known as eastern towhees here), brown thrashers and cardinals that I lost count (all released unharmed quickly by simply flipping the cage traps over). If there was ever a thicket-loving trio, this is it. The towhee is known for the male’s “drink…your, teeeaaaaa” clearly whistled song. And while bobwhites nest on the ground and their young leave the nest and feed themselves within hours of hatching (precocial), towhees nest up in the shrubs and their young stay in the nest for as many as 10 to 12 days after hatching being fed by both parents (altricial). The brown thrasher is known to some as a mimic, and while it does mimic other bird calls, it has hundreds of its own variations of song, reported to have the largest repertoire of songs of any bird in North America at over 1,100.
If you can visualize a ping-pong ball as it first drops from a height onto a surface and then with each passing bounce the time between clicks decreases, you’ll have the cadence for the song of the field sparrow – which starts off with several well-spaced notes, only to end in a rapid whistled trill. Perhaps no other song bird is so closely associated with shrubby old field habitats as the field sparrow. It is not at all uncommon when listening for bobwhites in June to hear the field sparrow’s unmistakable song in close proximity. It also enjoys young clear-cuts like the bobwhite. Many of you may have already known the birds described so far, but the list of bobwhite “sympatrics” goes on.
One that many of you may not know is the white-eyed vireo. Unlike the four described so far, the white-eyed vireo is a migrant. One day each spring I’ll be sitting on my front porch and, subliminally at first, then for sure, realize the white-eyed vireos have returned from their neotropical winter range (usually in late April). Described as “often remaining in black-berry thickets, thick brushy tangles, thick forest undergrowth and forest edge,” its white iris is distinctive. And on a humorous note, its song is often described verbally as a quick and sharply stated “please-bring–the-beer-check!” Yes – birders do have to have an imagination – but once you hear it and see it, it will make perfect sense.
Another cool migratory bird often associated with quail habitat in the “piney woods” of the coastal plain is the prairie warbler. That’s right…the prairie warbler. While it does occur in prairie states, it prefers brushy old fields to prairies, and in our coastal plain, particularly on our Big Woods / Piney Grove quail focal area, we hear it often in the open, burned pines that red-cockaded woodpeckers favor. For those who have a hard time hearing high pitched sounds, you’ll have difficulty with the prairie warbler’s song which is a shrill ascending series of zzee-zzee-zzee-zzee-zzee that starts high and fast and goes higher and faster until its end. The prairie warbler is a beautifully colored bird that is a treat to see if you can get them to hold still long enough to find them in the binoculars.
One many of you have undoubtedly heard and seen but may not have known what it was is the yellow-breasted chat. The word “chat” in its name is an understatement. And if any bird could be described as obnoxious at times…it would be the chat. Its return from its Central American and Florida winter range is quickly noted by its loud song described as, “A clashing mixture of prattles, whistles, catlike sounds, clucking, screeching and caw notes both musical and harsh.” Chats love regenerating clear-cuts where some sapling growth has developed. It is one of the largest and least “warbler like” of the warblers, but it is in the warbler family, and is a beautiful bird well worth “watching.”
There are many more wonderful songsters that will benefit from quail habitat management. Hopefully these were enough to pique your interest. If you are out listening for quail this June, take your binoculars and spend a few extra minutes learning about and admiring these denizens of thickets, weeds and old fields. And if you have been managing your habitat for quail, take pride in the fact that you are helping dozens of wildlife species.
