Baby birds are everywhere!

Tips for enjoying Post-Migration-Sadness Month.

Welcome to Owl My Children, a monthly newsletter where I recount my exciting bird moments from the past month and introduce a controversial opinion about Big Bird.

Happy almost June, or as it’s known in other circles, Post-Migration-Sadness Month! The migrating birds have come and gone, taking with them my manic sense of urgency and replacing it with a seasonal melancholy. I’m also, I admit, kind of relieved that it’s over. I no longer have to roll out of bed every morning in the dark, hoping that today will be the Big Day.

This year, there was never really a Big Day; there were lots of little days with bursts of excitement mixed in, like the day I got to see a yellow-breasted chat as well as a cerulean warbler (both of which were hard to find back in Madison!), or the day Michael and I took a lovely walk in Frick Park after a rainstorm and saw 54 species. There was never a day where warblers fell from the sky and into my lap, but it sounds like that was true in lots of places. It seems to be an issue of timing: warmer springs mean that the leaves come in sooner, which messes with the birds’ food sources as they migrate. (There’s a scary article about this trend here.)

I missed a few birds I wanted to see this spring, including Wilson’s warblers, mourning warblers, and an elusive golden-winged warbler that a bunch of folks saw on an outing that I refused to join because I wanted to bird alone. Oh well! There’s always fall. You can check out my Flickr here for photos from the spring.

I did get to visit Madison this month to celebrate my friend Judy’s retirement (she’s the one who introduced me to the Madison birding community, and happens to be Michael’s PhD advisor), and while there weren’t a lot of exciting birds to see, I was so happy to spend time with so many friends that weekend at so many beloved parks! Plus, I got to see sandhill cranes! I’d missed them so much.

So what now?

I recognize that I sometimes neglect my local birds in favor of the special migratory ones, but one exciting thing about late May and early June is that this is the time for baby birds!

Since I have a mission to learn everything there is to learn about birds, I’m now a volunteer at a local wildlife rehabilitation clinic, where I get to take care of baby birds and other baby mammals (like opossums). Some of these babies are at the clinic because they were not being taken care of by their parents—usually because a human did something to interfere with those parents, such as trapping and releasing them without realizing they had babies. Also, lots of well-meaning humans think a baby has been abandoned, or fallen out of a nest, when it hasn’t, and they unintentionally separate the baby from its parents. Here’s a helpful guide about what to do when you find a baby bird (hint: most of the time, you should leave it where it is!).

One thing I’ve learned about baby birds is that they are HUNGRY. It’s called “gaping” when a baby bird opens its mouth and begs for food, and they are CONSTANTLY gaping. It’s a ton of work to feed baby birds! Volunteering there has really put into perspective how hard bird parents have to work in the wild to ensure that all their chicks are fed.

Now that I’m attuned to gaping babies, I feel like I see them everywhere. It’s become a daily routine to look for nests and babies around the neighborhood. (One funny thing about birds: usually when a bird leaves its nest, it can fly but it still has no clue how to feed itself. So it will follow its parents around and flap its wings and beg for food, usually while making an adorable frowny-angry face.)

Some fun terminology before I continue:

• Nestling: a baby bird that hasn’t left the nest yet.

• Fledgling: a baby bird that HAS left the nest.

• Incubation: when a parent sits on their eggs.

• Brooding: when a parent sits on their nestlings to keep them warm.

How to find nests

Nests can be tricky to find, depending on the species, but it’s super rewarding to discover an active nest and then track the chicks’ progress over the next few days or weeks.

There are some bird species that are way less subtle than others. I’ve had lots of success over the years finding house finch nests, for example, because house finches really thrive in urban environments, and they don’t mind building their nests in very public places. At my old apartment in Madison, you may remember that the house finches built their nests in decorative shrubs in the courtyard. In Pittsburgh, there is a thriving house finch colony on the solar-panel roof covering the parking lot of Frick Park. How did I find them? Easy: Baby birds scream all day! If you hear a high-pitched whining noise that seems to go on and on, stop and watch for movement. Usually an adult bird is close by, and they’ll fly to their nest before long so they can deliver yummy tidbits to their hungry hungry children.

[Baby house finches at Frick Park. Michael and I call them “Baby Einsteins” due to their silly hair / eyebrows. Photo by me.]

Another bird I often find nesting in urban areas is the American robin (Michael’s favorite bird!). Female robins are in charge of making the nests. They use their wrists to make a nice little cup out of grass, twigs, feathers, and other soft stuff. It’s a little unclear how they decide where to put a nest, and, I hate to say it, but sometimes I think they’re not very smart. For example, here’s a photo I took of a robin nest set into the ornamental carving above someone’s front door.

[Though we laughed at the robin as she built this nest, she did successfully lay eggs here, and several chicks fledged! Photo by me, taken in Madison in 2020.]

Michael and I spent the spring of 2020 walking around our neighborhood looking for robin nests, and we found a ton of them. They’re pretty conspicuous; my parents have one in the rhododendron right next to their front porch. If you happen to have a robin nest in a high-traffic area, I do recommend that you watch your back. I have been attacked by an angry robin parent while hiking with a friend—we didn’t realize we were too close to a robin fledgling who was hopping along the side of the trail.

This year I haven’t found many robin nests, but I HAVE seen a ton of robin fledglings. They’re the size and shape of a robin, but speckled. They’re like blurry versions of their parents. And they’re always yelling.

[Robin fledgling yelling at its dad for food. Photo by me.]

Fun robin fact: Fledglings usually follow their robin dad around, because their robin mom is too busy making another nest and incubating more eggs. Robins have several broods per season!

Other fun babies to look for

Woodpecker nestlings

If you live in an area with lots of trees, listen for high-pitched, never-ending whiny sounds and I bet you’ll find a woodpecker nest. You can’t actually see the nests because they’re inside cavities, but you can see the hole in the tree, and sometimes the nestlings stick their heads out of the holes and it’s the cutest thing in the whole world.

I don’t know what it is about woodpecker nestlings, but they NEVER stop yelling. Like, ever. It’s just a continuous stream of very high-pitched yelling. In fact, the yelling seems to get louder if they sense your presence. I think they might not know the difference between their parents and, well, anything else.

This season, I’ve found two hairy woodpecker nests, a downy woodpecker nest, a red-bellied woodpecker nest, and a northern flicker nest. That last one I literally found today, about two hours ago, as Michael and I walked to Starbucks for a half-off drink special. The nest was ten feet above my head, right over the sidewalk. A bunch of unsuspecting people walked by without bothering to look up! I didn’t have my camera, of course, but the babies were practically dangling out of the nest hole, screaming, to the point that I was worried they would fall out. I returned with my camera an hour later and the parent was nowhere in sight, but the babies were resting peacefully.

Since I never actually got eyes on the parent, I’m only 90 percent sure these are northern flickers—this is mostly based on the fact that the first time we walked by, there was a northern flicker calling from the tree while the babies screamed. (If anyone believes these are not northern flickers but rather an entirely different bird, please comment! I will not be offended! I’ve never seen flicker babies before!)

[There is a huge shelf mushroom right over this nest hole—the perfect, most adorable awning for any woodpecker babies! Photo by me.]

Grackle fledglings

Just about every common grackle in Pittsburgh seems to nest at Mellon Park, right down the street from my apartment. So Michael and I have made a habit of walking over there in the evenings, around 7 or 7:30 PM, and watching the parents feed their fledglings.

Common grackles are like robins in that you mostly see them looking for food on the ground, especially in grassy fields. And in the last week or so, all their silly fledglings have come out and follow their parents around like little pests, screaming that they are “SO HUNGRYYYY.”

[This poor grackle was hotly pursued by two grackle babies. Notice the parent’s nictitating membrane is down over its eye in the second image, maybe for protection, or maybe as a way to tune out these children for just one second. Photos by me.]

Goose and mallard fledglings

Who doesn’t love a baby goose? I think it’s nice that baby geese come out fluffy, yellow, and adorable, with tiny little T-rex wings, so that humans have a chance to appreciate them before they turn into hissing demons. I really love baby geese, and baby mallards, too. The easiest way to find them is to go to a park that has some water in it. A pond is great, especially a nasty one that you’d never expect anyone to actually enjoy, or a retention pond outside of a grocery store, or something along those lines. I’ve seen Canada geese in the weirdest places.

Something cool about geese and mallard babies is that they are precocial, which means that they can walk around pretty much as soon as they hatch and they already have feathers. The other birds I’ve described that stay in their nest until they’re big enough to fledge are considered altricial, which means they’re helpless at birth. Human babies are altricial! Now you have a new word to use in the Spelling Bee.

[Look at these adorable Canada goose fledglings walking around in sludge! This is right outside a sewage treatment facility. Photo by Michael]

Heroic story of the month: My Aunt Pam recently saved two mallard fledglings that had fallen into a storm drain! Their mother had been leading them from the nest, where they’d all just hatched, to a pond nearby. Luckily, Aunt Pam was watching them and saw the two babies fall, and she staged a rescue effort that involved going to the store for a butterfly net and also tracking down the local fire department, who came and removed the storm grate. The babies were saved! Nice job, Aunt Pam! This is a great example of why it’s good to watch birds. Not only is it fun, but it can also save lives!

One last note about nests

I would be remiss if I didn’t mention Big Bird in this newsletter. I am a fan of Sesame Street and muppet/puppet/monster-type characters. I love how nice Big Bird is. But he also SLEEPS IN HIS NEST. What kind of bird does that? See this video for a demonstration (I also have questions about Hoots the Owl, but that’s another issue).

To set the record straight: birds don’t actually sleep in nests unless there are eggs/chicks involved. Birds build nests as a safe place to raise their young, not as beds. Also, not all birds build nests—some, like vultures, plop their eggs on the ground and hope for the best.

I suppose this is a silly thing to get stuck on, given that Big Bird is 8’2” and talks. I guess I’m just bitter that for so much of my life, I really thought birds slept in nests! #BigBirdGate

Let me know if you find any cool nests this month! If you have any nests at your house, I recommend joining NestWatch, where you can record data about your nests for science! One day I’ll have a house, and that house will have a birdhouse, and that’s when I’ll know I’ve made it.

Okay, have a good month! Enjoy that BBL (Baby Bird Life),

Holly