November Almanac

Northern Shrike

Every month, the Vermont Center for Ecostudies publishes what we can expect to find outside in the month ahead. All November I meant to review what I have and have not found outside and finally today I have done so. I have found and documented more than I could find in my archives, though. I'm still reviewing thousands of photos. I've concocting a shoot list of stuff I need to do better or more completely.

Northern Shrikes

The Northern Shrike is a hoot. It is a carnivorous songbird. It is also well known by other birds. Whenever one would appear in the brush near the bird feeders, the chickadees sounded a very recognizable alarm and all the birds would disappear. Then the shrike would sit in the feeder tree and wait. I never saw it kill a bird, thank goodness.

Keystone plants and soft landings
Heather Holm

Soft Landings

I never knew how important this is, even though I know the life cycle of lepidoptera. I don't have any oaks on my land, but I have acres of soft landings!

American Mink

Weasels

Well, it's not. It's an American Mink, which I see quite often winter and summer. I've only managed to poorly capture one in brown coat, although I have seen it in white more times than in brown. 

Snowshoe hare tracks

Snowshoe Hares

There are no rabbits in northern Vermont. We only have hares. I've seen quite a few, including a few that live with me here. Photos of them? Forget about it!

Chanterelle

Chanterelles 

John cooking up his chanterelles.

Chanterelles

John loved these. We went out hunting for them and he would cook them up. I never developed a taste for them and don't understand people's excitement about them. 

Green turkey tails

Blue turkey tails

Orange and brown turkey tails

Blue and brown turkey tails

A tree covered in turkey tails

Turkey Tails

These are very common fungi in the woods that I love to find. You never know what color you'll discover. These are the only colors I have found.

Christmas Fern sori

Christmas Fern

I have no idea why I only took photos of Christmas fern spores, but I definitely have to get out and take photos of this common and beautiful evergreen fern.

Rock Polypody

Rock Polypody

Another lovely common evergreen fern that grows on rocks and hillsides. So that's where I find it: on the cliffs above the house.

Oriental Bittersweet

Oriental Bittersweet

Beware! This is quarantined in Vermont and New Hampshire (the only states I have looked at). It is extremely invasive and chokes trees to death. I should have taken a context photo to show you what this looked like in New Hampshire where I found it. I have only seen it once in Vermont: at a friend's farm! I scolded him roundly for it. He had brought it from Massachusetts because it is "beautiful."  He even gave it away in Christmas wreaths that he made and distributed to people who did not know what it was. I don't know how, or if, you can get rid of it. If you have it, research and destroy it if possible. Plant American bittersweet instead. 

December comes this week. Whew, the year went by quickly. I promise myself to do the December post this week as soon as VTEcostudies publishes their almanac. Donna Long has already published her December almanac for Pennsylvania here.

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Butcher Bird

Northern Shrikes are called butcher birds because of the way they hang their kills on thorns. They are the only predatory songbird. My shrike often visits during squalls. I laughed when it shook the snow off of itself.


Technorati Tags: Northern Shrike, Lanius excubitor, butcher bird
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Wordless Wednesday: Northern Shrike

Before the shrike.

Three views of the shrike.

After the shrike.

Birding at my bird feeder tree is over because of this robin-sized predator. Everyone has disappeared. The snow is unbroken now. No silly squirrels, no chattering chickadees, not even a sad mourning dove or brassy woodpecker, redpoll or blue jay. They know how bad this little bird is. He appeared on Monday. See my Northern Shrike post for more information.

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Technorati Tags: Northern Shrike, Lanius excubitor
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Be Careful What You Wish For? A Northern Shrike

A Northern Shrike showed up this afternoon. It just sat in the bird tree all by its lonesome. All other birds and squirrels had run away (no doubt screaming). Why? The shrike is a predator songbird and it eats little birds and mice and hangs their dead bodies in the trees for snack time.

I have to thank Gilliam of Blossoms and Birdsong in Ottawa for her confirmation of my identification of this bird. Her comment can be read in the comments. She has also sent me an article, "Oh, No, There's a Hawk At My Feeder", which gives valuable information on what to do if a predator stops by.

According to the Cornell Lab of Ornithology site, All About Birds, "The Latin species name of the Northern Shrike, Lanius excubitor, means 'Butcher watchman.' " Very descriptive. The shrike is such a pretty bird and yet is a butcher.

I took these photos from across the living room. I was afraid to get close to the window immediately because some birds (like mourning doves and unlike chickadees) will fly away when they see you at the window. Or when the camera's green light focuses on them. I did not know how the new bird would react, so as I crept across the living room floor towards the window, I kept snapping photos. When I finally reached the window, it flew to the other side of the tree and then flew away.

The sun set soon after the shrike flew away. The only animal to return was a mouse who appeared from a tunnel in the snow to eat the seeds scattered by the morning's birds. My photos of the mouse did not come out well at all.

I am wondering if tomorrow anybody shows up. The blue jay might return, the mourning doves probably. But not the chickadees or squirrels. They know. And exactly how do they know? Can they recognize the shrike immediately? Have they had bad experiences with shrikes? I have never seen one before.

I hope my nightmare, of little dead chickadee, mice and squirrel bodies hanging from the bird tree, does not come true.

Be careful what you wish for. I had wanted new birds to show up in the bird tree because the delightful chickadees, woodpeckers, mourning doves and red squirrels were becoming boring. I didn't know that a predatory songbird would show up.

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Technorati Tags: Northern Shrike, Lanius excubitor
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