7 July 2020

For such a tiny shorebird, male piping plovers (Charadrius melodus) have an elaborate courtship dance. The best part of it — the “tattoo” — was tweeted last Friday by the Ontario Piping Plover Conservation Program.

You might hear about fancy mating dances done by birds in the tropics. Piping Plovers have one too! Goose stepping (tattooing) is a courtship dance done by the male right before copulation. The female rejects or accepts this dance! ? Video by Plover Lovers pic.twitter.com/0zyKH54fgW

— Ontario Piping Plover Conservation Program (@ontarioplovers) July 3, 2020

There’s more to the dance than that. In the run-up to copulation the male …

• Calls to his mate while scraping a nest in the sand, tossing away twigs and debris.
• Approaches her in a low gliding crouch with his head below the horizontal.
• Pauses near her, raises his head up high and beats a tattoo with his feet, faster and faster, closer and closer.
• When he’s ready he mounts, still moving his feet up and down while on her back. He may stay in this position without copulating for more than a minute.
• After or during copulation he may grab her by the nape of the neck. Though this looks vicious she doesn’t seem to mind.
• And then they walk away and preen.

You can see all of these behaviors in this longer video from Montrose Beach, Illinois.

If all goes well, the dance results in some very cute baby birds.

(photos from Wikimedia Commons; click on the captions to see the originals)

Across Pennsylvania breeding birds are hatching eggs and feeding young. As the nestlings grow the nests become crowded, a sure sign that the babies will leave soon.

Baby birds in hollow trees have an amazing way of leaving the nest: they climb up the inside of the hole and jump! This is true of chickadees, screech-owls, woodpeckers and wood ducks. But ducklings have no flight feathers and they jump away. That’s OK, they’re built for it.

This 3.5 minute PBS NATURE video shows a family of common mergansers (Mergus merganser) taking the plunge.

Though the video doesn’t show it, the ducklings waddle to the water where their mother calls and waits for them.

(screenshot and video from PBS NATURE)

Great blue herons nest colonially near creeks, rivers, lakes and wetlands. As soon as they return to Pennsylvania they gather at their rookeries, usually located in sycamores. We have at least three rookeries in or near Allegheny County.

Northeast of Pittsburgh: On 22 March Jim McCollum went to Barking Slopes to see the island rookery above Lock and Dam #3 on the Allegheny River. This island is so close to the dam that it’s inaccessible but the rookery is visible after a mile-long hike at Barking Slopes. A much easier place to view it is on the Cheswick side of the river from the Harmar House parking lot on Freeport Road. There are more than 40 nests at this site.

Northwest of Pittsburgh: On 6 April, Dick Rhoton and his wife visited a rookery near Sewickley, PA, described below with photos.

Last Monday Nellie and I made our almost yearly trip to see what was happening with the blue herons rookery north on the red belt from 65 (just past Sewickley (turn at the high tension wires and go until you see the cement plant on the left and the asphalt plant on the right- park here and then walk up the road for 1/4 mile or so). 

This year we counted 30 to 35 nests east of the road and almost all were occupied with sitting herons. 

— email from Dick Rhoton , 8 April 2020

South of Pittsburgh: There’s an easy-to-see rookery above a wetland between I-79 and the parking lot to the left of DDI headquarters on Washington Pike in Bridgeville, PA. Donna Foyle reports that at least 21 nests are visible from the I-79 edge of the parking lot.

If you decide to view a rookery remember to stand 6-feet away from other folks you encounter and, per Governor Wolf’s stay-at-home COVID-19 outdoor guidance, please limit your trip to a 15 minute drive from home. To make that possible, I’ve described locations in three directions.

p.s. The COVID-19 shutdown gives us an unparalleled opportunity to document spring in our own neighborhoods. In a “normal” spring I’d be traveling all over the place and ignoring the wonders of home. Instead I’m seeing changes in Schenley Park and visiting nearby hotspots such as Duck Hollow. This is a great time to keep a Nature Journal!

(photos by Jim McCollum and Dick Rhoton)