Sandhill Nature Education

Warblers are beginning to return to northern Michigan. Over the next few weeks many of these brilliant little birds will pass through and some will stay to make their nests and raise young. Yellow Warblers, one of the summer residents, have begun to return the past few days. Listen for their soft repetitive song – “sweet, sweet, I am so sweet”. The male is a beautiful lemon yellow with red streaks on the breast. The female is greenish yellow and very plain.

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A Merlin is a small falcon. It’s just a little bit bigger than the American Kestrel.  A Kestrel in flight is buoyant and bouncy. In contrast a Merlin flies like a fighter jet. Merlins are known for going out of their way to harass other birds in the sky during migration. They hunt smaller birds, usually catching them on the wing.

The population of nesting Merlins in Northwestern Lower Michigan has expanded in recent years. Once a rare experience, now hearing the strident Ki-ki-ki-ki-ki-ki of a Merlin defending territory in early summer, or begging food from its parents in July has become much more common.

Merlins are currently beginning their nesting cycle. Most should now be incubating eggs.

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One of the most common songs outside my house in the mornings at this time of year are those of Song Sparrows. This small, striped, brown bird with a big voice is one of our most common breeding sparrows. They soon will be building grass nests on the ground, often under a juniper bush.

Note the dark spot in the center of it’s streaked breast and the dark stripes at the corners of its bill.

The Song Sparrow’s song begins with a few repeated notes, then a short jumble of syllables leading to a trilled climax then trailing off. There is a great deal of individual variation in Song Sparrows’ songs. Listen to it on the pheno-log tab of this website or at http://www.allaboutbirds.org/guide/Song_Sparrow/sounds .

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Great Lakes Piping Plovers are beginning to return!

Four individuals have been seen so far at Sleeping Bear Dunes National Lakeshore. Males are the first to return and set up territories.

BO:X,g has been among the first group back 4 out of the last 5 summers. He’s back on the territory he’s held since 2006. His mate, LX:OL was seen last winter in Louisiana where she’s known to spend her winters. Hopefully she’ll be on the beach at Platte soon.

Piping Plovers are very rare. They were added to the endangered species list in 1986. Last summer there were 60 pairs in all of the Great Lakes population. Because there are so few of them left they are closely monitored and protected.

I’ll post updates on their lives over the course of the summer.

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It’s nesting time for Bald Eagles in northern Michigan. One pair in Benzie County began incubation over the past week. They’ve been hanging around the nest for the past two months, bringing sticks and grasses to spruce it up. Now they’re taking turns keeping the egg(s) warm. (there’s no way to see how many) On a cold, windy day like today with sleet, hail and snow they can’t afford to leave the eggs uncovered. For some nest-watching fun there’s an eagle nest-cam at: http://www.ustream.tv/channel-popup/decorah-eagles . This pair in Decorah, Iowa  is nearly a month ahead of our local eagles. Two of their three eggs recently hatched.

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The snow and cold this week seem like winter but maple trees know that spring is on the way. This year sap began flowing in mid-February, and we began the yearly ritual of turning their sap into maple syrup. So far 2011 has brought several short sap flows, separated by cold spells, when no sap flows.

The first step in making maple syrup is to tap the trees. To do this a small hole is drilled into the tree and a spile, a hollow metal tube with a hook to hang a bucket, is pounded into it. A covered bucket is hung from the spile to collect the sap.

When the nights are cold and the days are warm and sunny sap moves up and down the tree from the roots to the branches. Some of the sap, with its dissolved sugars, drips out of the hole through the spile and into the bucket.

When enough sap is collected we begin the process of concentrating the sugars by boiling away the water in the sap. Approximately 40 gallons of sap must be boiled down to make 1 gallon of maple syrup.  It’s a time-consuming but welcome job as it is one of the first outdoor activities hearlding the coming spring and summer.

In a few weeks the buds will begin to swell, signaling the end of sap collection. With the swelling of buds the taste of the syrup changes and becomes unpleasant and we move on to other spring tasks.

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It’s a sure sign of spring — Male Red-winged Blackbirds have returned and are singing in area cattail marshes. They sing to declare their “ownership” of a section of land. In a few weeks the striped, brown females will return and choose nest sites. The male who has laid claim to the location she chooses for her nest will become her mate. Males with the best territories will host the most nesting females and produce the most offspring. It’s exciting to once again hear the familiar call– “oak-a-leeeeee”.

You can hear the song of the Red-winged Blackbird at any season at http://www.sandhillnature.com/phenolog or at http://www.allaboutbirds.org/guide/Red-winged_Blackbird/id .

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Our neighborhood Red-shouldered Hawks are back and fixing up their nest. I watched this week as one snapped a branch off a nearby tree and brought it to their nest. This pair has been using the same nest for over 5 years now. At the beginning of the breeding season Red-shouldered Hawks decorate the edge of their nests with greenery.  Our neighborhood hawks use branches from the Hemlock near their nest. Red-shouldered Hawks prey on small mammals, frogs and snakes. They’re a Michigan threatened species. This means that in our state their population is low or declining, and without protection they may become endangered.

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