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Bird's-Eye View - Bird Stories: First owl spotting; indigo buntings in Danbury
Donna Cenedella Photo
"Ollie" the barred owl was seen near Peace Haven Road.
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Published: June 19, 2009
The first day of summer is just a couple of days away, and the activity of birds is at its peak. Spring migration is past for most species, but the breeding season is in full swing.
Both year-round residents and birds that spend winters far to the south but breed here have settled into their summer homes, selected mates and are busy building nests, incubating eggs and raising babies. A few readers have been sharing their bird stories.
□ Donna Cenedella was driving to work in Winston Salem in early May. As she pulled into her employer's driveway just off Peace Haven Road, a barred owl landed in a nearby tree.
Although she is not a birder -- she had never even seen an owl before -- she loves taking pictures. She took this photo from her car. The bird caused such a stir that Cenedella and her co-workers even gave it a name. Ollie the owl has been seen several times this spring.
□ Earlier this month, Phil Dickinson's column featured a beautiful summer resident, the indigo bunting. Skip and Leslie Staples of Danbury wrote to say that they have several of these gorgeous little birds each day, some even visiting their feeders.
□ The ovenbird is a warbler that gets its name from the architecture of its nest, which resembles a domed-earthen oven sometimes used for outdoor baking. On a recent field trip to Rockingham County with Ken Bridle, the stewardship director of the Piedmont Land Conservancy, Rosemary Wheeler and others were treated to the ovenbird's song -- teacher, teacher, TEACHER, TEACHER! -- the calls growing more emphatic with each phrase.
But Wheeler fancies wildflowers more than birds. She had been admiring the abundant ferns and wildflowers along a woodland trail when a small brown bird flushed from under her feet. The ovenbird feigned injury as it tried to draw the interlopers away. Careful searching of the forest floor revealed a bird's nest with four newly hatched babies.
□ Cedar waxwings are common in our area in the winter and spring when they can often be seen in flocks numbering from a few birds to 60 or more.
Named for the bright red waxy tips to some of their flight feathers, these birds are attracted to the flowers of tuliptrees and the ripe berries of pyracantha shrubs.
I was thrilled in early May to see several small flocks -- about 90 -- of these lovely birds at Tangelwood Park in Clemmons. But later in the month, I was very impressed when Larry Laxton wrote to tell us of his sighting of a very large flock of 200 waxwings.
□ Edith Eubanks and her husband live in Ardmore where, she said, "We have lots of birds from red-tailed hawks to hummingbirds and everything in between."
But an unfamiliar bird threw them for a loop in early May. Yellow-crowned night herons are usually found in coastal areas where they dine largely on crabs. Since crabs tend to be pretty scarce in this area, you wouldn't expect this bird to show up here.
But yellow-crowned night herons do occasionally nest well inland where their diet switches mainly to crayfish. Indeed, a small colony has nested in Miller Park for several years. The Eubanks live just a mile south of the park and a small creek flows through the woods in their backyard.
It is likely that the heron that the Eubanks saw lives in Miller Park. She says it wasn't eating crabs, or even crayfish, but worms.
Many thanks to these and other readers for their feedback on the column and for sharing stories of their bird sightings.
■ Bird's-Eye View is a joint column by Ron Morris and Phil Dickinson. Today's column was written by Morris. Morris retired after 24 years as curator at the N.C. Zoo. He has studied birds around the world and is currently the vice president of the Audubon Society of Forsyth County. Dickinson is a legal writer. He has been an active birder for 15 years, and is a past president of the Audubon Society of Forsyth County and chairs the conservation committee. If you have a birding question or story idea, write to Bird's-Eye View in care of Features, Winston-Salem Journal, P.O. Box 3159, Winston-Salem, N.C. 27101-3159, or send an e-mail to birding@wsjournal.com. Please type "birds" in the subject line.
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