Category Archives: Doves & Chickens

Lonesome Doves

March 13, 2018Doves & Chickens, VocalizationsKate St. John

Mourning dove cooing (screenshot from YouTube video by jkontrad)

What is that hooting? Is it an owl calling in the middle of the day?

In the spring, male mourning doves (Zenaida macroura) perch high, puff their throats and make the deepest loudest sound possible for a bird so small. The first rising note is lost in the distance, but the last two or three low notes carry far.

Last week at Moraine State Park I was momentarily transfixed when I heard “Hoooo Hoooo” across the valley. When I paused to listen I realized that the cadence didn’t match any local owl. Not the great horned owl. Not the barred owl. I heard only two notes but they were spaced like the mourning dove’s.

Listen as a mourning dove sings one rising note, then 3 or 2 low notes. Imagine you can hear only the last two notes. (Xeno-canto recording XC153652 by Paul Marvin at Moosehead NWR, Maine)

Now compare it to these two owls:

GREAT HORNED OWL recording by Ted Floyd, Boulder, CO at Xeno-canto XC344952

BARRED OWL recording by Tim Spahr, Ithaca, NY at Xeno-canto XC25239

Here’s a mourning dove trying to attract a mate (YouTube video by jkontrab).

Don’t be fooled when you hear this Hoooo-ing sound. It’s just a lonesome dove.

(screenshot from the YouTube video by jkontrab, audio from Xeno Canto; see the captions for media sources)

When Chickens First See Snow

January 30, 2018Bird Behavior, Doves & ChickensKate St. John

There’s snow on the ground — again — this morning. We’re used to it here in western Pennsylvania but in some places it’s unusual.

What happens the first time chickens see snow?

p.s. The background music is apt … the first two movements of Winter from Vivaldi’s Four Seasons.

(video by MrLotineGuy on YouTube)

Where’s Willow?

December 15, 2017Doves & ChickensKate St. John

White-tailed ptarmigan, Highwood Pass, Highway 40, Alberta, Canada, Nov 2017 (photo by Dan Arndt)

This photo looks odd until you see a bird in it.

White-tailed ptarmigans (Lagopus leucura) hide in plain sight by blending into the landscape. They’re speckled brown in summer and white as snow in winter. They virtually disappear when they close their eyes.

In late November Dan Arndt found these birds in the snow at Highwood Pass, Highway 40 in Alberta, Canada.

How many ptarmigans do you see?

Willow ptarmigans hide, too. Practice finding them in this 2010 article: Where’s Willow?

(photos by Dan Arndt)

Warned By A Feather

November 29, 2017Doves & Chickens, VocalizationsKate St. John

Birds use alarm calls to warn each other of danger but pigeons are generally silent. What sound could a pigeon make to signal danger? The crested pigeon (Ocyphaps lophotes) of Australia uses his 8th feather.

Crested pigeons make a whistling sound when they fly — a high note on the down stroke, a low note going up. Researchers found out that the eighth primary feather is the source of the high note and that the speed of the low-high modulation provides the warning.

When a bird flaps slowly the whistle repeats slowly, so other pigeons decide the bird is not afraid. When the sound repeats rapidly it sounds like the pigeon is fleeing, so the other birds do, too.

Watch the video or read about this discovery here in Science Magazine.

p.s. Mourning doves (Zenaida macroura) make a similar whistling sound when they fly. I wonder if it functions as a warning sound.

(video from Science Magazine)

Happy Thanksgiving

November 23, 2017Doves & ChickensKate St. John

How do you tell a wild turkey from a domestic one (ignoring the fact that they’re in a pen)?

In my experience, wild turkeys walk away from you. Domestic turkeys walk toward you and they try to get as close as they can.

And then they make you laugh. 😉

Happy Thanksgiving.

(YouTube credits: Produced in Cooperation with NasenNews Location: Turkey Farm in the wonderful Odenwald, Germany)

The Best Snood Wins

November 21, 2017Bird Anatomy, Doves & ChickensKate St. John

Wild turkeys displaying (photo by Cris Hamilton)

Here’s some trivia for Turkey Day.

Did you know you can determine a male turkey’s health and his success with the ladies by the length of his snood?

What’s a snood?

On humans it’s a large-mesh hairnet worn by women, or …

Women workers wearing snoods, 1942 (photo from Wikimedia Commons)

… a beard snood worn by men.

Beard snood sold by Creeds, UK (image from Creeds UK)

But on turkeys the snood is the piece of flesh that dangles from the male turkey’s forehead and droops over his beak.

Here’s a Wikipedia diagram of the male turkey’s anatomical ornaments:
1. Caruncles, 2. Snood, 3. Wattle (Dewlap), 4. Major caruncle, 5. Beard

Diagram of a turkey's head and chest ornaments (image from Wikimedia Commons) — Diagram of a turkey’s head and chest ornaments (image from Wikimedia Commons)

The two wild turkeys at top are displaying to females. Which one has the best snood? I can’t tell but the females can. Click here to see how the ladies reacted.

(photo credits: two wild turkeys by Cris Hamilton; women wearing snoods from Wikimedia Commons; man wearing a beard snood from sales page at Creeds UK; wild turkey diagram from Wikimedia Commons. click on the images to see the originals)

Could We Bring Them Back?

November 19, 2017Doves & Chickens, Musings & NewsKate St. John

Passenger pigeon specimens at Carnegie Museum of Natural History, 2016 (photo by Kate St. John)

A new DNA study of the passenger pigeon brings up an interesting question: Could we bring the species back from extinction?

Genetic engineering now makes it possible to transfer genes across species boundaries. Using these techniques a group named Revive and Restore is working to modify the genes of the passenger pigeon’s closest living relative, the band-tailed pigeon (Patagioenas fasciata), to make a new bird that resembles a passenger pigeon.

Band-tailed pigeon, Sonoma County, CA (photo by Ingrid Taylar on Wikimedia Commons)

If successful, they’ll release the new bird in the wild to repopulate eastern North America.

But a new study published this month in Science may throw a wrench in their plan.

Researchers gathered DNA from the toepads of passenger pigeon museum specimens and sequenced the full genomes of four birds. In doing so they discovered that passenger pigeons were extremely diverse at the ends of their chromosomes but had low diversity in the middle. Most animals, including the band-tailed pigeon, aren’t like that. Most animals are diverse all the way through.

This trait may indicate that the passenger pigeon in its final form had evolved to live in enormous flocks.

Ed Yong at The Atlantic interviewed the study’s author, Beth Shapiro, and writes:

So, why did this superspecies die out? Shapiro thinks it’s because the bird specifically evolved to live in mega-flocks, and developed adaptations that became costly when their numbers suddenly shrank at human hands. “Maybe they were simply not adapted to being in a small population, and didn’t have time to recover,” she says. Maybe they hit a tipping point when there were just too few of them to survive, regardless of whether they were being hunted.

Would a small population of passenger pigeons be possible in the wild? And could the birds survive in this century’s altered and deforested landscape? Revive and Restore believes the answer is yes.

Can humans bring back the passenger pigeon? Should we try?

(photo credits: Passenger pigeon specimens at Carnegie Museum of Natural History by Kate St. John. Band-tailed pigeon from Wikimedia Commons; click on the image to see the original)

Spruce Bruce

September 7, 2017Doves & Chickens, TravelKate St. John

Male spruce grouse, Boot Cove, Maine (photo by Jim Honeth)

On Throw Back Thursday:

Remembering an encounter with a spruce grouse …

Click here to read about Bruce the Fabulous

(photo by Jim Honeth)

Learn From Working Birds

September 4, 2017Bird Behavior, Doves & ChickensKate St. John

On Labor Day let’s take a look at some working birds.

Chickens were first domesticated about 9,000 years ago in both China and India but the idea didn’t really take off for another 2,000 to 4,000 years. Then it spread slowly westward to Persia (Iran), Egypt, Europe and Africa. Chickens are now the most numerous bird species on Earth because humans like to eat them and their eggs.

Because of our close relationship to chickens we tend to forget that they are birds and we can learn from their behavior.

What does a hen do when she wants to lay an egg? This video answers the question among a flock of free range chickens.

“What is my chicken telling me?”

(video by Plant Abundance on YouTube)

Count Turkeys In August

August 8, 2017Books & Events, Doves & ChickensKate St. John

Wild turkey with juveniles (photo from Wikimedia Commons)

Silent songbirds and hot weather make birding less interesting in August. Here’s a project to get you going in Pennsylvania: It’s time to count wild turkeys.

Every August the Pennsylvania Game Commission conducts a wild turkey survey to determine breeding success. Everyone from biologists to birders can help. Two factors add interest to the count:

Juvenile turkeys, called poults, are only half grown so you can tell (and count) the difference between adults and this year’s young.
You’ll also get practice identifying adult males versus females. (You can ignore the adult/juvenile tail-clue because juveniles are just plain small in August.)

How to sex and age wild turkeys by sight (screenshot of PGC poster)

The guidelines for the survey are pretty simple:

Record turkey sightings during the month of August.
Count “big birds” (adults) and “little birds” (poults).
Record the sex of all adults. Here’s the full size poster that describes the difference between males and females.
For adult females, separate the count “with young” and “without.”
Note where you see the birds. When you submit your observations (online here or download the app), click on the embedded map and the form will automatically fill in the location details.
Submit a separate report for each flock of turkeys observed, including those without poults, and lone turkeys.
Try NOT to report the SAME flock MULTIPLE times. Duplicate flocks bias the results.

Download the app to use in the field or click here for the Turkey Survey form.

Thanks to Mary Ann Pike for passing along this news.

(photo from Wikimedia Commons; click on the image to see the original)

p.s. Did you know you can sex turkeys by the shape of their droppings? Learn more at PGC’s Turkey Biology FAQ page.

Outside My Window

A Blog of Birds & Nature with Kate St. John