This photo is worth at least 1,000 words: The first and only time Bill Danielson witnessed a ‘parasitic’ cowbird being fed by its ‘adoptive parent’ | Home-garden

[ad_1]

We’ve all heard the phrase, “A picture is worth a thousand words.” This suggests that if you can simply see something, then you can understand the situation perfectly. In my line of work, however, this is often a gross underestimate of the power of a photo.

Where can you find the gray hairstreak? Look for this beautiful, little butterfly among the clover

In many cases, one of my photos might be worth several thousand words because the photo needs to be explained in several different ways. So I am going to attempt to explain the significance of this week’s photo in 1,000 words or less. Here goes.

It was Aug. 22 and I was returning to my house after another successful visit to my Thinking Chair. During an epic 3-hour session that started at 5:55 a.m., I had managed to accomplish a feat that I had initially thought to be impossible. I had tied the seemingly unbreakable record of observing 64 species in my yard in the month of August. I was absolutely giddy with self-satisfaction.

It was no accident that I had tied the “unbreakable” record. I had certainly put in the time by making 13 visits to the Thinking Chair in 22 days. But time alone is not always going to produce results. You also need a lot of luck and possibly even a smidgen of divine intervention. For this, I rely upon Nikonus and Iso, the photo gods.

Nikonus is the god of timing and he is rather brutal. He will present you with a species, but you have to be quick enough to see it. Iso is the goddess of color and light. Far more compassionate, she dictates the conditions necessary for good photography. Together, they determine if I can take a photograph or not.

So there I was, walking out onto my deck after reaching an amazing milestone when all of a sudden I caught sight of a bird that simply didn’t fit the setting. From the far railing, this bird flies up and I am struck with the simple impression of a gray bird with long wings and a relatively short tail. I would have dismissed it as a mourning dove, but the tail was wrong.

My birder’s brain sent back a reactionary identification after this split second and imperfect view, but I needed to see the bird again to confirm. Nikonus had offered up a challenge, I had been in the right place at the right time and he was so pleased that he gave me an extra moment.

The bird was up in my cottonwood tree and I was able to find it and confirm my initial identification. It was a brown-headed cowbird (Molothrus ater) and it was the species that set a new record. I was elated, but there was also a note of disappointment because of the nature of the species in question. The brown-headed cowbird is a species that is described as a “nest parasite.” This means that female cowbirds will find the nests of other birds and then lay one of their own eggs into the nest of the unfortunate host. If things work out, then the host birds will raise the baby cowbirds as their own. At no point will cowbirds raise their own offspring.

This is often devastating to the host species for two reasons. First, the host loses an egg when the cowbird makes a deposit because the female will physically remove it. Second, the cowbird chick is so much larger than the host species that it crowds out the remaining chicks (causing their deaths) and occupies all of the feeding efforts of the adults. The eastern phoebes that nest by my front door are plagued by cowbirds and sometimes there are very few phoebe chicks to show for months of effort by the parent birds.

So, while delighted that I had broken the unbreakable record, I was also a little disappointed by the identity of the species involved. I went into the house, put down some of my gear and then made the decision to go back out onto the deck to get a photo that would prove that I had seen this particular species at this particular time. This is when the photo gods decided to reward me for my dedication. The cowbird flew down into a large bush just behind my house and perched on an exposed branch. I focused, snapped a few photos and grumbled slightly while doing it. Then I saw the cowbird’s wings begin to flutter in a manner that has a distinct and unmistakable meaning, “Feed me.”

This could only mean that the cowbird’s host parent was nearby and the cowbird expected an imminent delivery of food. Stunned, I kept my eyes peeled on the young bird in anticipation of the arrival of the parent, and I was rewarded for my dedication when a female Common Yellowthroat (Geothlypis trichas) appeared with a green insect in her beak. She quickly shoved the food into the gaping mouth of the young cowbird and then zipped off to find yet another morsel for “her” baby.

In all of my years of wildlife observation, this was the first (and only) time that I had ever witnessed a parasitized species feeding the offspring of a nest parasite. I had not seen a cowbird in my yard in weeks and the only reason that I saw this particular bird in it that particular moment was the female yellowthroat had wandered up out of the meadow into the tall grasses and forbs of my backyard in search of food for the behemoth that she was trying to feed. The cowbird was following its mother and disappeared soon after. Had I not been in that particular place at that particular time, I would have been totally unaware of the entire event.


As summer comes to a close, our backyard birds are quiet as they prepare for migration or hunker down for winter

Well, that was 870 words and I have only managed to scratch the surface of this story. Unanswered questions are: How did it come to pass that cowbirds developed this breeding strategy? Why do other birds fall for this trick? Are there any species that are not as easily fooled? When did I first detect the presence of Nikonus and Iso? These are all questions that would require other columns to answer, but I am out of space for this week.

I end with the same message that I try to deliver every week. Keep your eyes open and make sure you look out a window from time to time. Amazing things are happening out in nature every day and sometimes they are happening in your very own backyard. If you tear your eyes away from the myriad screens that surround you every day and take a peek outside, then perhaps Nikonus and Iso with reward you with something amazing to see.

Bill Danielson has been a professional writer and nature photographer for 26 years.  He has worked for the National Park Service, the U.S. Forest Service, the Nature Conservancy and the Massachusetts State Parks and has taught biology and physics at Pittsfield High School for 20 years. For more information, visit his website at speakingofnature.com. 



[ad_2]

The Recorder – Speaking of Nature: Examining the rules of nature photography

[ad_1]

The world of wildlife photography is an interesting one. First, there are the difficulties associated with actually taking the photographs. In the days when I first got started (back at the end of the 20th century) the difficulties were almost beyond imagination. Imagine a scenario in which there was no such thing as a digital camera. Imagine a scenario in which you may wait for hours until a species or an event finally happens, you take a photo of this species or event, but you don’t know if you “got it” for several days. Such was the case back in the days of film cameras.

Today, with digital cameras, you can take a photo and know almost instantly if you “got it,” or not. Regardless of the wait time (seconds or days) there is still the spirit-crushing anguish associated with the knowledge that the event you attempted to capture on film may not occur again for another year, or even worse, never. Missing a photo can be devastating.

There is also this notion of “authenticity.” What are the rules that govern a photo’s acceptability in different publications? What are the taboos that should be avoided in the world of wildlife photography? Well, the first one (the big one) is pretty reasonable: No photos of wildlife in captivity. It doesn’t matter how beautiful the animal is, nor how “natural” the setting may appear, you just don’t do it. This suggests that the notion of “wildness” has to be respected and maintained by the people trying to represent it. Seems very reasonable, right?

Then there is the notion of background. Unless the content of the story with which a particular photo is associated specifically mentions the specifics of a particular photo’s qualities, it is usually desirable to avoid including certain manmade objects in the background. Again, there seems to be a certain chauvinism against humanity that is associated with the notion of wildness; the idea that somehow, if any trace of humanity is included in a photograph, then it is somehow tainted. Of course there are exceptions to every rule. A bird nest inside an old rusty mailbox might be more desirable than the bird nest by itself, if you know what I mean.

So this brings us to an examination of the photos that I provide with my columns. What sort of photos are acceptable and what sort are not? Are the rules different for me, compared to the rules that might be imposed on a photographer for National Geographic magazine? The inescapable reality to this question is a resounding yes. I can get away with things in this column that I could not get away with in most magazines and it all comes down to context.

The focus of my column has always been the nature that you can experience in your own neighborhood and your own back yard. Over the years this has included the theme of backyard birdfeeders and this is especially true when winter rolls around and the bustle around birdfeeders increases. I am allowed to take photos of birds at feeders because I am specifically trying to show you how to identify the birds that may come for food. And let’s face it, you could wander around in the woods for hours, days and weeks without seeing the sort of activity that you can observe at a backyard birdfeeder in an hour or two.

As a result, I can use photos that have obvious artifacts of human civilization in the background. The railing of my deck has been featured in my photos more times than I care to count. The different feeders that I use have also appeared so predictably that I have no idea of the actual numbers. But even I still endeavor to capture an image of a backyard bird that is taken in a more “natural” setting whenever possible. This week’s photo is a perfect example.

I was sitting in my Thinking Chair on that unusually warm weekend at the beginning of November and I was taking photos of all the birds that were gathering around me. The only reason that they were congregating in my vicinity was because I had put out food. In fact, I do this so regularly that the birds are often waiting for me before I even arrive. Once the food is out, the level of activity grows as the word spreads and it is always interesting to see how a group of chickadees can attract the attention of other birds.

So it was that a dark-eyed junco (Junco hyemalis) happened to appear on the fringes of the day’s crowd. Curious about all of the commotion, the bird quickly saw that there was food available and though it was understandably shy at first, it eventually joined in and got some breakfast. I happened to snap this photo of the bird as it sat and assessed the safety of the situation and in so doing I captured a wild bird in its wild habitat; perhaps the finest photo of a junco that I’ve taken in many years.

But here’s the thing … later in the winter this same bird may visit my deck to look for food. In fact, every day this same wild bird may spend hours of its life around the feeders on my deck as it tries to survive the winter. So doesn’t that make my deck the “natural” habitat of this wild bird living its wild life? Clearly the answer is yes, but there still remains a certain authenticity associated with a photo with a “natural” background. Fortunately, I think we all just want to see the birds wherever and whenever we can.

Bill Danielson has been a professional writer and nature photographer for 25 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 in formation visit his website at www.speakingofnature.com, or head over to Speaking of Nature on Facebook.



[ad_2]