Fantastic Friday: A Little Tree Climbing, A Little Shakespeare

Yesterday was one of those rare days that I just didn't want to end. It started out on a good note right from the get go, when Eagle Eyes and I were able to re-find several important nests that we saw the week before in Baltimore. All week long we had been repeatedly thwarted in our attempts to check nests by various unknown forces working against us. We'd go to check a nest that was supposed to have almost-ready-to-fledge nestlings only to find it empty. Sometimes I think we misjudged the age of the nestlings early on, so that when we returned they had in fact just fledged. (In one case at a site near Foggy Bottom I am certain this is what happened as I could see the female feeding the fledgeling in a bush near the old nest-- oh that was such a letdown and so frustrating, the fledgeling just out of reach for weighing and banding). In other cases, I'm certain the nest was depredated as there is no way the young were old enough to fledge yet the nest was empty. Our site near Chevy Chase has been the worst for this. Time after time, I get my hopes up only to return to find a nest empty (crows? grackles? free roaming cats? there is no way to tell which predator is the culprit). In some cases, we couldn't even find the nest, it had disappeared completely over a period of time in which we got no rain (aliens? the heck if I know). The lesson here: don't get too emotionally involved in the outcome of individual nests, or you are pretty much guaranteed to be let down a whole lot. Most nests fail, period.

During our morning stint at Baltimore, I got to engage in some of my fun TGIF tree climbing antics (seems every Friday is a big day for tree climbing-- sorry no pictures this time). When I'm nervous, I giggle. When I'm terrified, I laugh (really, this isn't such an unusual response to stress, I've seen others laugh their heads off when about to get eaten by some aggressive animal in veterinary medicine). I got up into this tree, then realized I was in a bit over my head, so sat down on a branch and proceeded to laugh and laugh. I did finally get a view of the nest that was so high up in this tree. Meanwhile Eagle Eyes was patiently answering questions from a passer-by below, leaving me to negotiate coming down on my own. That was entertaining. ("So what is that strange woman doing laughing like a lunatic up in that tree? And why are the robins dive bombing her head?" I don't know, could she be temporarily stuck on a limb near their nest???) As a result of this incident, Eagle Eyes has nicknamed me Monkey Girl. An apt name, but I think I will keep posting as Hermit Thrush nonetheless.

After we were done at Baltimore, my advisor and I returned to the site near Chevy Chase to try to access a nest I had been unable to reach yesterday but was due to fledge at any moment. I learned a new trick-- when the ladder is in danger of sliding off unsturdy spindly branches or bamboo-like shoots you are using for support, tie the ladder to the supporting branches themselves. This enabled my advisor to finally reach the nest, which was very satisfying for me as it had been a rather hard find that took two days work and permission from two separate properties to get a really good view of. It's nice to end the work week on a positive note, with a difficult achievement.

Then it was off to see Hamlet in Rock Creek Park. What a perfect day to be outside, warm yet not too hot or humid. There is perhaps no better way to finish off a Friday in spring than with a picnic and a play. I sat in the amphitheater watching the sun go down, listening to the high pitched chirps of the chimney swifts overhead and trills of the wood thrushes in the forest, wishing the day would not end. I wanted the perfect weather, the wonderful feeling of having accomplished my goals at work and the relaxing atmosphere to last a few more hours.

And in fact, I did stay up into the next day, with good company, good music and a good time. If only every Friday could be so satisfying.

Disbelief And Astonishment: What Do You Mean There Is A Nest On My Property?

It's always interesting to me to see people's reactions when we knock on their door and ask for their permission to access a nest on their property. The vast majority of people are stunned that there is a nest on their land, and can't quite fathom how we figured out there was a nest there in the first place. They often ask, "How do you know there is a nest?" And, at a loss for words to answer what to me is so obvious, I will pause and then say, "From the birds' behavior."
I find it continually surprising that people do not see the nests right around them. For me, bird behavior has been an integral part of my life. They are often the first things I notice in my surroundings. Now that I'm working hard to learn the calls of the species in this area, the presence of wild birds is even more palpable to me. I can be walking down the street having a conversation with someone and hear a robin alarm call from just a few feet away and for that moment I am completely distracted by the robin's drama, and forget what my human companion might be saying.

I've come to realize that most people do not process the world in this way. For them, birds are background noise. It seems sad to me how much they are missing, the intrinsic beauty and day to day lives of so many creatures that co-exist with them right under their nose. I'm grateful that I am unconsciously attuned to bird behavior, and for my understanding of their language. I attribute my intuitive ability to read what is going on around me with wild animals to the years I spent watching birds in my youth, for no purpose other than pleasure and a strong sense of connection with wildlife. It is a love that has stayed strong throughout my life, and offered me joy in even the saddest times. I hope when I point out a nest to someone that I can share some of that sense of wonderment and maybe make them consider the rich, not so secret, lives of animals all around them.

My Hat's Off To Working Dogs

If I were a few years younger I might write, "I Heart Working Dogs." I'm still not too sure how to use that slang, sad to say.

I saw this working dog on the metro the other day, lying on the cool tile to beat the heat. It's finally getting warmer. Yay.

I miss my "fur fix." At least that is how my old co-worker Slow Feet sweetly describes most veterinary nurses' compulsive need to pet animals. Nest searching I do get to stop and pet people's dogs when they are out walking them.

Seeing this dog made me remember the one time I anesthetized a working dog. Of course, it was one of those labs that wouldn't go down to a surgical plane and then when it finally went down was way too deep. I turned off the gas because it wasn't breathing, and I wasn't breathing either! I kept thinking, "Crap! The woman who owns this dog depends on him, he can't die!" And he didn't die. I worried because he got so deep he might have suffered some lingering side effects and not been able to do his job as well, but from what I know that didn't come to pass either.

Guide dogs and working dogs are just amazing. Someday, besides rescuing pit bulls, I want to have a guide dog puppy that I raise and socialize. I would feel like I was really doing something special.

More Dissection: A Little Robin Embryology

The other day while out nest searching I decided to take the remaining egg from the depredated nest in the low blue spruce that originally had five eggs. I could see in the mirror that the egg was cracked, and when I took it out I could see the tiniest tuft of a feather sticking out. I was curious what was inside so I peeled away the shell to reveal the following findings:

I was really stunned when I took off the top of the shell to see an obviously formed beak and head. This embryo was well developed, on the verge of hatching when the nest got depredated.



Eventually, I came to the last remaining bit of the yolk sac.

Here you can see the blood vessels attaching the embryo to the egg yolk:


To show a comparison of size, I put the embryo next to a penny and then next to the body of a dead fledgeling we found outside our house (it was probably run over). It's incredible to me that a newly hatched nestling goes from such a small size (around 6 grams) to fully grown in just under a month. Just two weeks after hatching, at the time the nestling leaves the nest, it has grown from 6 g to about 50 g. That's a staggering growth curve. No wonder those parents are foraging so frantically, they have to provide their young with a whole lot of food.


I've always wanted to someday take a class in embryology. My favorite part of the Skulls exhibit at the California Academy of Science was the skulls of fetuses. Taking apart this egg that contained an almost fully formed embryo just convinced me further that I should take a class in embryology, preferably sooner rather than later.

(For those of you who are wondering, Eagle Eyes and I think it is strangely fitting that we have all these bodies of robins in various stages of development right outside our front door. The neighbors haven't said anything yet. Who knows what the other members of the bird crew think, but they haven't said anything either. My advisor did comment as we left for the concert tonight that it was a bit odd no one had scavenged the fledgeling yet but that something had eaten part of one of the other robin's eggs I left lying out there).

Folk: Edie Carey and Catie Curtis

Nostalgia, in a word. Tonight's gig at the Jammin' Java in Vienna, VA reminded me so much of all the hole in the wall coffee shops and bars I snuck out to in high school to hear Layman's Daughter, Kid Sister and Tracy Drach play at. That was a little over a decade ago, and I haven't thought about that time in a long time, but last night made me really miss those heady days when I first discovered there was a "folk scene," and the long, hot summers in North Carolina when I did nothing but run, hang out with my friends and explore music.

It was my first time seeing Edie Carey, and in her way too short set there was one song that summed up my winter: Hollywood Ending. She wrote it for a friend of hers who kept getting her/his heart broken over and over again by the same person. Sound familiar? Here's the lyrics that spoke to me:

Don't you just love a Hollywood ending
In the nick of time
she's gonna come through
You can spend your whole life pretending
It's gonna go that way for you, too

Cuz only you know her secret heart
She doesn't mean to be unkind
The waiting's not so hard
What's a little more time?

A lot of this winter and spring for me have been spent sifting through the smoke and mirrors to finally begin to see that so much of what I believed represented safety, security, and yes, even love, was just an illusion that I'd let dupe me. Coming to grips with the fact that some of the most important people in my life weren't going to suddenly, overnight magically metamorphosize into the kind, caring people I wanted them to be just because I wished for that to happen with all my being. It's hard (no that's an understatement, it's breathtakingly heartwrenching) to take off those rose colored glasses and see the harsh truth of reality, the substance abuse and lies. As Edie Carey says in closing that song, "You were my truest lie." It's painful to see that something was your truest lie, but on the other side of that pain is the freedom and happiness that come from not constantly having your heart broken and expectations dashed. I think I'm finally coming out on that other side, or at least beginning to emerge from the bleakness of a bad break-up and some other nasty let downs. Yes, I'm no longer waiting for my Hollywood ending, instead I'm living my life the way I want to. And even though I didn't have anyone write me a song to motivate me to move on with my life, I did have support, and that makes all the difference.

But, hey, if any of my friends ever want to write me a song for when I'm going through a bad time, feel free. Really. EBCBDB, or anyone else musical (sorry, you might be it, but if you can write a song to help you memorize the amino acids you can do anything). How cool is it that Edie Carey did that for her friend. Very, very cool. That kind of support is what friendship is all about.

Catie Curtis was OK. She played one song that also made me think of the last few years, called Everybody was Dancing. It had the line, "The silence in her own home begs the question, 'Why not be alone?'" Uh huh, yeah.

It was a fun night. Thanks to my advisor for getting me out. And I saw some familiar faces in the crowd. That makes the city feel way less big and impersonal and scary to me. I've been here a month, and I'm really enjoying myself. I can feel it's going to be a good weekend, and a good summer too.

A Capella: Sweet Honey In The Rock

Last night I went to a performance by Sweet Honey In The Rock at the Kennedy center on the Millenium stage. The Kennedy center has this program where they put on a free performance at 6 pm on the Millenium stage every night of the year. The next 10 days are all a cappella, which is one of my favorite genres thanks to the rockin' musicians I was exposed to in college (that means you, Molecule, if you are reading this).

Sweet Honey In The Rock gave a good show. Their voices are so rich and loud that it just amazes me. The harmonies are over my head. A lot of their songs and message was focused on children-- equal rights and opportunities for children all over the world. It's not something I think about a lot, or one of my main focuses so it was good for me to think about but at the same time I wish they had done some more political songs on themes of racism and civil liberties.

Overall I'm glad I went, but the commute was crazy. Over an hour and a half on the metro and walking for forty-five minutes of music!

Why Nest Searching Is Getting Harder-- Nests Are Not Only Higher But Better Hidden

Spring means more leaves. And that makes nest searching much harder. Even when I know from my notes where a nest is located, it doesn't always mean I can find it easily. Lately I find myself returning to check nests and becoming completely bewildered because everything looks so completely different now that the trees have filled out. The nest shown below always stumps me for a few minutes, even though I have visited it many times. The reason that it takes me awhile to find it is that it is not at all apparent as you approach the tree. Case in point:


If you focus in with your binoculars or camera this is what you see:


But I often find it too difficult from that point of view, so instead I stand underneath the tree in roughly the right vicinity, looking up until I spot the give-away clump of twigs:


The worst part about the whole thing in this particular case is that the female abandoned the nest this week. She had been sitting on three eggs for over three weeks, so they weren't fertile. A lot of wasted time for her, and us! Now I have to attempt to find her new nest when she re-nests in this area. It should be relatively simple if I can find her carrying twigs, mud or grass to the new site. But if I miss the brief nest building stage, which can be as short as 2-3 days for a second nest, it will sure be difficult to find just by inspecting the area.

Final View Of The Wreath Nest

This is the last view of the first wreath nest at Chevy Chase. They fledged over the weekend. I found another wreath in a nest yesterday at that site. Unfortunately it had cardinal eggs in it, not robin eggs. I miss the days when we could just walk up and reach into a nest to take out the young. (The last shot is actually Eagle Eyes putting one of the nestlings back).

From The Perspective Of A Bird: Caught In A Net

As a volunteer doing wildlife rehabilitation, I always tried to put myself in the shoes of the animals. I don't believe they knew we were trying to help. I think that mostly, if not entirely, they expected us to devour them at any moment. I think it is my experience doing wildlife rehabilitation that has made me wonder about mist netting from a bird's perspective.

I will never know what it is like to be a bird caught in a mist net, but my guess is that it is terrifying. The more you struggle, the tighter the net wraps around you until you can barely move at all and it may even be cutting into you in places. You are stuck, helpless. Time passes. What goes through the bird's head? I doubt that birds anticipate all the bad things that can happen to them the same way that people do. I think what makes certain situations so terrifying for me is the awareness of the potential for harm, and the anticipation of that coming to pass. That dread is often worse than what actually happens.

It is extremely frustrating to me that I will not ever know what the bird experiences, that I cannot get inside their heads. Kay Redfield Jamison wrote in her book Exuberance that there are hard limits to what one can know about oneself, other people and especially animals. That's not an exact quotation, but I remember that line so well even though it is not primarily a book about animals. J.M Coetzee wrote something very similar in the The Lives of Animals. He wrote that one can never really know what it is like to feel what another animal feels, for example the feeling of being a bat as it flies around. It makes me sad that I cannot find out what animals really feel (oddly, I don't think I'd want to know most of the time what is really going on in other people's heads, too much information).

Whatever they may be thinking or feeling before I show up, I am pretty sure that most of them think that I am going to eat them when I arrive on the scene. Although people do not usually prey on birds, we are still large and have the classic mark of a predator with both eyes facing forward. The birds usually act fearful, thrashing about in a last desperate attempt to get away and then sometimes fiercely fighting my attempts to free them (this can be irritating but I try to remember they don't know I am going to free them).

I'm not saying that we shouldn't mist net or band birds. I think it is possible to have a deep empathy for animals and still do research that is stressful, likely terrifying, for them. After all, the birds are set free unharmed and ultimately the research may benefit them. I actually think it's important to think about these things, it helps me work quietly and quickly with animals and always makes me think hard before prolonging a bird's handling just so I can get a photo.

I suspect that in terms of stress the event might be similar to being held hostage and then let go unscathed. However, just as I don't think birds have specific thoughts about future scenarios while they are trapped in the net, I don't think birds form memories that cause them future psychological trauma such as post-traumatic stress disorder. I think birds live much more in the moment, and so for them the experience of being caught in the net is likely intensely terrifying then mostly forgotten (they definitely remember where the net is though because very few fly in twice in one day). But the truth is I don't really know what they remember and what they don't and I never will. If I could, I think I would change shoes in an instant, just to know what it is like to be a bird, or a bat for that matter.

(I might add I'm both surprised and a little relieved that no one commented on the photos I posted of birds stuck in the net a little while ago. I was sure someone would find them objectionable as the birds are so incredibly tangled and they are very detailed, graphic you could almost say, photos. Oddly, most people who walk by our mist nets do not object either, so there must either be less wacky animal rights activists out there than I think or more people who understand the larger objectives of doing this type of research or maybe more people who just don't give a damn what is going on around them... the last being most likely. I did once have a group of construction workers in hard hats walk by a net in a Baltimore park and get very mad at me when I told them we were purposefully trapping the birds to get data on them for a research project. They protested, “That's not right!” It's not the group I would have picked to become outraged, but there was nothing I could say to soothe them. Lucky for me they did not try to take any birds out of our nets because without a little experience that only tends to make them more tangled and hard to undo later).

Pileated Woodpecker

This morning while I was nest searching I saw my first glimpse of a pileated woodpecker. I've wanted to see one for a long, long time.

What was even cooler than seeing it was that I knew it was in the area long before I saw it because I recognized its call, similar to a flicker's call but shorter. It is just one more sign to myself of my progress. When I started a month ago I couldn't identify any woodpecker calls. Now I can. All morning long I heard the beautiful gurgly call of the red-bellied woodpeckers which seem to be everywhere in that Chevy Chase neighborhood (it's the same place where I first caught red-bellieds in my mist net and posted pictures of them on this blog). The minute I heard the pileated woodpecker I tensed with excitement and began looking around. It flew into the yard I was in and landed on a tree for a minute only to disappear again. I was as excited as if I'd just seen an ivory billed woodpecker. I hope I get a better view later on, and I would be thrilled to have the experience of untangling one from a net.

I Voted Today

In California no less. By absentee ballot. I didn't get a cool sticker, but I mailed off the ballot at the post office today. It should be there by next Tuesday, election day.

You won't see me writing a lot about my political views on this blog, at least not for now. I guess I feel it's too private and too far off topic from the subject of my field research. But I do feel strongly about exercising my right to vote and participating in democracy. Even if I don't talk about my views, I care about who gets elected and the issues at stake. For all my friends back in CA, get out there and vote next week, K?

Mix It Up: Not The Same Old Sandwich Day After Day

This morning I finally cracked open my new jar of jalapeño peach jam and my new jar of crunchy, unsalted raw almond butter. It's time to mix things up. Gone are the days of sunflower seed butter and strawberry jam, at least temporarily.

Yes, I am proud of my creativeness in sandwich making. It might not seem like much to the rest of you, but with my food preparation abilities, anything new counts as an accomplishment.

And for my aunt, who says she wouldn't try jalapeño peach jam if I paid her, it is quite hot but oh my, yum. Hot is good. Yeah, I like to keep it interesting.

For those of you interested in nutrition, I was surprised to see that almond butter has half the saturated fat of sunflower seed butter. 2 Tbsp of almond butter only has 1g of saturated fat whereas 2 Tbsp of sunflower seed butter has 2g of saturated fat. I also find it more flavorful than the sunflower seed butter. Next up, cashew and macademia nut butter. That's when I finish the current jar of almond butter. I like to plan ahead.

Second Nests: A Tree Climbing Challenge (Nightmare?)

According to the books, robins' second nests are higher than their first nests. By second nest, I mean their second brood of the year. I'm not referring to re-nesting when prior attempts failed. Most robins do raise at least two successful broods in this area.

We wish that robins did not read. Last Friday, nest searching, I got to see just how much higher the second nests were than the first. Yeow! All three nests that I found in my two and a half hour search that morning were well above the roofs of the nearest houses, and all were relatively difficult to find and ultimately it was behavior that gave them away, they didn't just jump out at me as I strolled down the street.

The first nest I saw the female robin fly to several times before I became suspicious and trained my binoculars on her flight path, shocked to see a nest up so high:



By the time I got to looking for my second nest I was already pretty discouraged. I found it by following a female robin who flew into this tree and did not come back after several minutes, so I knew there was a nest there but it took me awhile to pinpoint where it was. In fact even after finding it, I still couldn't see it from the street:


But from below I finally found it:


Not convinced? Here it is up close. I showed it to my advisor (a.k.a Tarzan) today and he does not think it is accessible since it is so far out on such a flimsy little branch and there are no branches directly above it that one can use to take one's weight off the lower branch. That is saying a lot for him. He asks that we try to find some nests at this site that are a little lower. Yeah right, I joked that I would stop looking up and following the robins based on their behavior, and only check for nests by looking at shrubs and trees under ten feet. Sure.


The third nest I found when I heard a female robin giving the characteristic robin alarm call. I know this call painfully well because it is the call a female robin gives out when I go into a nest to remove nestlings to weigh and band them. I always feel bad for causing so much stress to the parents. Once I heard this call, I was pretty sure there was a nest in the tree it was coming from, though it took me awhile to spot it. I saw where there was a robin and several grackles and after looking there for a few minutes finally saw the nest. Again, it was really high up:


Really, see:


So far at this site the only nest that we know is active and that we can easily reach is in a small blue spruce in someone's front yard. I don't have any close-ups because we don't have permission yet to go onto their property (one more wrinkle in the challenges to accessing a nest). They don't answer their door-- please, please answer the door next time cause it's all we've got right now. I don't hold out a lot of hope for it though. The last nest in this neighborhood that was in a tiny blue spruce (the one that had five eggs that I posted a picture of with the post title "Overachiever!") we checked today to find only one egg and no female robin in sight. Nests that low are very vulnerable to predation by mammals as well as the usual suspects, the crows, blue jays and grackles. One active nest is not nearly enough so I'm sure we'll attempt climbing some of the other super high ones. I can't wait.

I Am A Raccoon (Not Really But I Love Watermelon)

Last night we had a refrigerator crisis: Mississippi Kite (nicknamed after his favorite bird from his days doing wildlife rehabilitation) bought more watermelon than would fit in the refrigerator. Lest the excess go to waste, I ate half a watermelon in one sitting. It was a lot of watermelon. I had some more tonight. One thing that I remember from wildlife rehabilitation is that raccoons really love watermelon. So I thought of them tonight as I walked down the street chomping on some watermelon. I'll eat as much watermelon as there is, and I bet I can eat more than a raccoon any day.

Some Observations On Robins' Nests

I've noticed a few patterns while doing all this nest searching.

1. Robins' nests are not distributed evenly over an area, but rather are clumpy, meaning that a few nests will be clustered close together in one location, and in other locations there may not be any nests at all. I suspect this is due to the availability of food, but at first it really surprised me. I didn't expect to find a three or four nests pretty much on top of each other. Now, when I find one nest I pay extra close attention to the surrounding trees and shrubs because I know there is a better than average chance I will find another nest nearby.

2. Robins seem to synchronize their nest building, egg laying, and fledging. Again, this is most likely due to the availability of food. For example, today at our site near Foggy bottom I saw three female robins, all nest building, and all within a block of each other.

3. When a nest fledges or fails, robins tend to re-nest right in the same area, usually within twenty feet of the last nest. Realizing this has proven quite useful, as the best place to start looking for a new nest is right where the old, depredated, parasitized or abandoned nest used to be. In one situation, a female robin rebuilt her new nest one branch above her old abandoned nest (the two nests were less than a foot apart), and I was thrilled to see this, but then she abandonned the second nest as well.

4. Although the books say that robins tend to nest in the forks of trees, this does not seem to hold true for our study sites. At least half, if not more than half, of the nests are located fairly far out on unbranched limbs, and not in a fork at all.

5. Also according to the literature, robins seem to prefer evergreens-- blue spruce and juniper in our area-- early in the spring and then deciduous trees later in the spring because they have more leaves then and thus provide better cover. This seems to have some truth in it, for about half or more of our nests early on were in evergreens, and it seems that less than half are in evergreens now. (More on this soon).

Orchard Oriole

When I was nest searching Friday, I caught sight of an orchard oriole. I was pleasantly surprised to see one, and particularly pleased that I could recognize it. The first time I nest-searched that site, about a month ago, I was with my advisor. That day he saw two orchard orioles and was very excited because it was the first time he had seen them in North America. When he pointed them out to me, I was able to see them, but I knew that if he hadn't been there I would have never noticed them that day. This time around, I was able to spot the orchard oriole for myself. For me, it is a small mark of improvement, a tangible measurement of how far I have come. And while, unlike most birders, I do not keep a lifetime list of birds I've seen (perhaps because I am more interested in ecology and disease than birding as a pastime or sport), it was exciting to see something I'd never seen on my own before and realize I could add it to a list if I had one.

(I went back Sunday morning to the place where I saw the orchard oriole to try to snap a photo but I couldn't re-sight it).

Views Of DC

While my aunt was in town visiting, we took advantage of the beautiful, mild spring weather to do some sightseeing. Here's a sampling of what we saw:

Washington Reagan National airport:

Possibly the President (there were two of these choppers flying together, but shouldn't he have been in church Sunday morning being so religious and all?)


The Washington harbor:


And lots and lots of beautiful fountains (we ate a nice lunch next to this one):

We Interrupt Our Regular Programming To Bring You...

A blue jay's nest:

Below is the first view that I got of it when I was nest searching. My first thought was-- "that tail is too blue to be a robin." My next thought was "Why would a robin line its nest with a blue jay's tail?" Thinking outside the box, maybe not my forte. On closer inspection, it was quite obvious it was a blue jay sitting on the nest and not a robin, and I felt quite silly.

If you are paying close attention, you can tell the nest is much more twiggy than a robin's nest. Robin's nest have three layers: sticks, mud and grass. They are very distinctive, and lucky for us, quite large. There is usually grass and sometimes string hanging down, and while there is string in this blue jay's nest it doesn't have the same look of having Spanish moss hanging down from it.


I was suprised the nest was right in the city, outside this hotel (or maybe it was a dorm), at our site near Foggy bottom. I didn't realize that blue jays would nest right in the city, but they do!


And here's a cardinal's nest at the site closest to our neighborhood. It is both smaller and more twiggy than a robin's nest. In addition, cardinals tend to nest lower than robins at about 6-8 ft.


It's the third cardinal's nest that I've seen this season. They don't have a very high success rate, according to my advisor only 10-15% of nests actually fledge young!

It's amazing when you spend several hours a week looking for nests how they will start to jump out at you everywhere. Eagle Eyes told me she was sitting on a bench at the botanical gardens with her boo and suddenly saw a robin's nest in the shrub right in front of them. I think he was probably impressed. I was definitely impressed when she told me later that she had been sitting at our kitchen table eating breakfast when she looked out the window and immediately noticed a robin's nest! Here's the view:


And here's a closer look at the female incubating:

Takoma Farmer's Market

Every Sunday that I'm in town I go to the Takoma farmer's market, which opens at ten o'clock sharp. It's a bit pricier than the supermarket, but I feel strongly about supporting local farmers, reducing the amount of fossil fuels used to get food on my table and buying certified organic. Back in California I looked into getting a Community Supported Agriculture (CSA) farm subscription but there was too much food for one person.

I usually get tomatoes, enough apples to have one every day I'm in the field, mixed greens and some treats-- chard, cucumbers, oats and honey bread or jellies. I know from my nutrition class this winter that jams, jellies and sweets should be consumed in moderation. But I have had a sunflower seed butter and jam sandwich for lunch every weekday since I arrived, so I buy specialty farmer's markets jams in order to mix it up. (PB&J seems to be the standard fare in the field for many of us).

Here are the jams I've sampled so far:

• Wild Dandelion Blossom jelly from Patterson Farms in Sabinsville, PA. Yum. I hear that in that area of Pennsylvania you can buy wild dandelion wine later in the summer, I'm hoping to somehow procure some. The guy who sells this also makes a wild violet jelly that is light purple/pink that I want to try.
• Gooseberry jam from Audia's Farm in Woodbine, MD. It was excellent.
• Hot Pepper jam from Audia's Farm. It was hot and I liked it a lot.

This morning I caved and bought Peach Jalapeño jam from D&S Farm in Charlotte Hall, MD. I can't wait to try it. I also still have a thimble sized jar of Persimmon jam from Audia's farms that I haven't opened. On my list to try later in the summer are Mint Pear jelly, Habañero jam and Rhubarb jam.

The Willard Room

Those of you who know me know that I am no epicure. However, this weekend I have a special relative in town and wanted to treat her to something memorable. After reading several reviews online I selected the Willard Room. It was much fancier than I expected, and we felt underdressed in just jeans (in fact, we had to get special permission to dine there since the dress code prohibits jeans). I didn't realize until we arrived and started reading the displays on the walls that the Willard Intercontinental Washington hotel is a historic site that many famous people have stayed at, among them Abraham Lincoln and Walt Whitman. The oak-paneling, stunning chandeliers and classy decor make the dining room incredibly elegant and gives a sense of the history of the establishment.

The concierge advised us to order items off the menu that had the symbol of two pieces of crossed silverware next to them because they would be served tableside. I had no idea what he was talking about and was too embarrassed to ask. It turns out tableside means the meal is prepared in front of you, just as the name suggests.

We had a Caesar salad served tableside, and while it was being made were entertained with a story about the history of the salad. According to one version, Cesar Cardini invented the salad when he ran out of ingredients for his regular dishes at his restaurant in Tijuana, Mexico on the fourth of July 1924. Presented with a large number of hungry customers, he threw together the salad using just the remaining scraps.

The salad was amazing, but best of all was the dessert. I had American Spice Cake and it had both a beautiful presentation and a divine taste. And I don't even usually like dessert.

I highly recommend this restaurant to anyone in the area looking for someplace with great atmosphere and food. I know my former co-worker Monkeybutt would have gotten a real kick out of it, the place made me think of her and the delicious dishes she concocted for those folk lucky enough to work at the emergency clinic with her. The interior of the restaurant, and the highbrow crowd also reminded me quite a bit of La Foret in San Jose, a four star French restaurant I was lucky enough to be wined and dined at more than once while I lived there. For those of you back in California, you can have a similar experience by dining there.

Tree Climbing Maniac

Here's how the story goes. There was this nest in a cherry tree that I thought was too high to reach. Eagle Eyes convinced me to give it a try. So I did. Here I am placing the nestling/borderline fledgeling robins back in their nest after weighing and banding them. Yes it was precarious (note the almost vertical position of the ladder, hence one hand holding onto a branch to prevent me from tipping over backwards).


(second photo deleted)

I have always liked climbing trees. Though to have that be part of your job at 30 is a bit unusual I'll admit. Last time I went out dancing the first question I got from my partner was, "How come your arms are all scratched up?" Um, remember the part I told you about how I climb trees to get to nests, yeah that's why.

But the real climbing award of the day goes to my advisor. He basically swung from one branch to another then perched in the canopy of a tree to examine a nest at our Baltimore site. Perhaps from now on I will refer to him as Tarzan.

The Word Of The Day Is Surreptitious

I think I'm finally getting the hang of nest searching. My advisor told me that it is a game of cat and mouse. Even though humans aren't the usual predators for birds, they know when you are watching them, so you have to walk a fine line between keeping the bird in your view and not getting close enough to seriously spook them. I'm finding that just like with restraint in the veterinary clinic, less is more though it isn't immediately apparent that it would work that way. This morning for the first time I found myself really getting into it. I'd see a robin foraging and back off to the point where the robin wasn't concerned about me, then watch until the robin flew off. I knew when a she went into a tree and didn't come back out for several minutes that I was onto something, and I'd hone in to nab the location of the nest. Nest searching is definitely growing on me. It is fun.

Red-bellied Woodpecker (Male)

I took this guy out of the net on Wednesday. He was just stunning. I like redheads, especially in the sun! He was also, of all the birds that I've handled so far, the most vigorous at trying to get free. He definitely pecked me:


If you can't tell already, the male has red extending from the end of its nostrils (nares) all the way down the back of his head, or nape as it is sometimes called. The female does not have a continuous streak of red from her nares to nape.

One way we sometimes sex birds when there is less clear sexual dimorphism is by looking for a brood patch or a cloacal protuberance. When the female is incubating eggs or has young in the nest she plucks a bunch of feathers from her breast so that she can make closer contact with the eggs or young in order to better keep them warm. The area on her breast lacking feathers is called a brood patch, and it is easy to see if you just blow gently on her breast. A cloacal protuberance is basically a swelling of the cloaca seen in reproductively active males (even though there is no penetration in bird sex, the male's cloaca is still larger than a female's typically in breeding season). It can be seen by blowing gently on the feathers near the tail. I checked this guy for a BP and CP, as they are known in banding lingo, and found a BP but no or very small CP. Confused, because he seemed so clearly to be a he by his coloration, I consulted Pyle's bible on identifying North American birds and it says these are not reliable indicators of sex in a red-bellied woodpecker. I wonder if this means that the male helps incubate and sit on the young, I'll have to look that up later too.

After I let this guy go, he immediately started searching the tree nearest to me for food. He was on a mission!

The City Surprises Me-- Adventures Of A Small Town Girl Out On The Town

On the metro today, on my way to dinner, a young woman started writing on one of the ads. I found this rather offensive, so I asked her why she felt compelled to write there. She responded that she felt the ad was promoting a distorted view of women's bodies because the artistic depiction of the woman in it was so thin. I told her that while I concurred with her sentiments, having read The Beauty Myth by Naomi Wolf and being a feminist, I wouldn't write on the metro because it was disrespectful and not a very effective way of reaching people. Much to my shock, a young man several seats over spoke up and seconded my sentiment. He said that he felt if you wanted to make a difference volunteer work was the way to go and that as an African American he was particularly concerned about HIV in the African-American community so he did volunteer work with a non-profit working on HIV education. I also suggested to the young woman that blogging about her feelings about the ad on the metro, and perhaps even posting a picture of the ad on the blog would be a way to potentially reach a lot of people if she could write well. The young man also agreed with this, saying she lived at a unique time where there was the means to reach many people just with your computer. I was really thrilled that he supported me, as I half expected to get in trouble for confronting the young women on the train, it's just I never have a good read on public situations and far too often open my mouth when I shouldn't.

Then, walking home from the metro quite late, the streets were deserted and I was feeling rather nervous. A car pulled over next to me and I felt afraid. I was definitely feeling vulnerable. The person in the car rolled down the window and it was a woman with her sister and a baby. She told me that it wasn't too bright an idea for me to be walking around alone at that hour (I had kind of figured that out a little too late) and that she would give me a ride to where I was going. I debated it briefly, then went with my gut instinct and got in. She drove me to my doorstep, for which I was very grateful.

I didn't expect the small kindness of the man speaking up for me on the train or the woman stopping to give me a ride. Either of those situations had the potential to turn out quite unpleasantly, but they didn't. This city surprises me, and it is quite a pleasant surprise to expect the worst and get the best. For those of you shaking your head at my adventures, I promise I won't keep pushing my luck. Next time someone is scrawling on the metro or putting up graffiti I'll bite my tongue. And I'll figure out how to get from the metro home in a safe way, possibly park the car at the metro or maybe get a bike... I thought I was fine but the fact that woman pulled over indicates to me that I should trust the feeling of uneasiness I had because she was obviously concerned for me.

Do You Think Earthworms Taste Good To Robins?

My advisor asked me that very question in the car the other day. Sometimes I wish I didn't have an advisor who did a bachelors in mechanical engineering and philosophy... maybe he wouldn't ask such hard to answer questions then... Actually, it's quite interesting to think about.

American robins eat predominately earthworms (referred to in the literature as invertebrates) in the spring and early summer, and then start to eat more fruit towards the end of the summer. They aren't picky eaters, dining on a wide variety of foods, so does that mean that they choose earthworms because they taste good to them? It's a widely known fact that birds do not smell well, but they do have limited taste.

Why do robins choose the foods they choose? I'm sure you could design some experiments to find out (such as flavoring earthworms differently and seeing if that affects choice-- I suspect that they are most attracted to earthworms' movement and squishy texture but that's just my hunch). It's possible they have evolved so earthworms taste good to them. They certainly don't look too tasty to us, which is what begs the question.

How Do We Catch Birds?

We catch them in mist nets:


This is the first mist net I set up this morning. I put it up in complete darkness without a hitch, so I was pretty pleased with myself.

Here are some other nets I set up:


And here are some nets with birds actually in them:



Setting up the nets is not one of my favorite parts of the project. It's usually pitch black, cold, and it's not always easy to get the poles in the ground (that's where the sledgehammer comes into play), though with all the rain the ground has been nice and soft so far. The worst part is that the nets are extremely easy to tangle. If you drop a line, get caught on something, flip the handles or just look at it funny it can become a gigantic nightmare of a knot. A ball of tangled yarn would be a piece of cake in comparison. My most frustrating moments by far have come in the wee hours of the morning, when I've placed my poles and simply can't get my net up. I know the sun is going to be coming up soon and the critical time to catch robins and some other species before it is really light will soon be past, but I still can't untangle the darn thing.

The fun part is getting the birds out of the net. We check the nets frequently, every few minutes, and every net run is like getting a surprise present since you never know what you'll find. It's a bit of a challenge to get some of the birds untangled, but it is a puzzle I enjoy. In fact, it is the best part of my day most days, it's like a new brain teaser every time.

Here's some photos of birds caught in our nets:
Female goldfinch.
Gray catbird.
Tufted titmouse.
Male house sparrow.

In case you are worried, shortly after taking each of these photos, I extricated the birds pictured from the nets without harming them. They were then weighed, bled, banded and set free. Here we are all this morning frantically processing birds (you can see how many we have hanging in bags on the tripod).



For the sake of completeness, I should mention there are a few other ways the field crew has used to catch birds in the past. On the mall, they sometimes scoop pigeons with nets. I don't know if I'll get a chance to try that, but my advisor says the onlookers usually cheer them on.

Research Roundup

While I've been in DC, I've been lucky enough to go to three talks by visiting scientist at the National Park Zoo. It's been awhile so I don't remember all the details, but I will try to summarize what I learned as best I can. (Please don't hold me to complete accuracy, but this should give you an idea of their research).

1. Jan Komdeur on Seychelles warblers. Komdeur has been studying the warblers on this tiny island (I think it is about one mile square) for over a decade. He has established that there are times when the female in a pair loses her place to a new female and yet remains on the territory as a helper grandparent of sorts (for more details see this article in the Proceedings of Biological Science). He has been able to determine these kinds of relationships because almost all the birds are banded and their individual lineage is known through observation and genetic testing. He also presented some data on the percentage of male and female offspring who leave their territories. Males tend to disperse farther since they are trying to avoid mating with their mother. Females do not go as far, in part, Komdeur believes, because many (almost half, in fact) females' territories are cuckolded (meaning a male other than the one the female is paired to is the biological father of the young), and so the odds of mating with her father is smaller.

The most interesting part of his research to me was evidence that there is selection for one sex in certain circumstances. I asked Komdeur if he had any thoughts on the mechanism for this selection, and if I remember correctly he thought it was environmentally determined and not influenced so much by the females' body. (There's an article on the topic here).

While all this was interesting, what I enjoyed most was hearing the story of how Komdeur got started. Before he got his PhD or was known as a researcher, he got a year long grant to go to the Seychelles. He related how at the time he didn't know where the Seychelles were and so after he accepted, he and his girlfriend went to the local bookstore and looked up where the Seychelles were because they didn't know and their friends that they asked had no idea either. (The Seychelles are in the Indian ocean, northeast of Madagascar). Komdeur wanted to know why the grant was for such a short period, and it turns out the study program had a high rate of attrition because so many couples split up during their stay on the tiny island. He says he wasn't too worried because he and his girlfriend grew up in the same neighborhood playing together and so they knew how to handle each other in close quarters. And they ended up getting married before he left for the Seychelles so that she could travel there with him, and are still married today.

2. Patricia Parker on diseases on the Galapagos islands. This was my favorite of the talks, being on disease ecology. I learned that the two introduced diseases to the Galapagos islands that are found in wild birds are avian pox and trichomonas. Newcastle disease, Marek's disease and avian mycoplasmosis have also been found in domestic chickens but are not to date a problem for wild birds. Parker talked a bit about the risk from domestic chickens. There are two main sources of chickens, those flown in daily as day old chicks and those that roam free on the island. The reason that the day old chicks are flown in is that it is cheaper for farmers to raise broiler chickens from chicks than eggs, and there is a large demand for chicken from the tourists dining on the island. Parker thinks this practice may change after her study. I forget the exact findings, however.

Avian pox is a disease that causes significant morbidity and mortality for several Galapagos species, the worst affected being the Galapagos mockingbird. Parker was able to show that avian pox did not come from domestic chickens on the island today but rather has been on the Galapagos for over a hundred years. She was able to show this in a really cool way-- she went to the California Academy of Sciences and looked at their collection of birds from the Galapagos from an expedition in the early 1900s. (Ironically, the expedition's aim was to collect birds in order to preserve them for posterity because the leaders of the expedition were convinced Galapagos birds would suffer high rates of extinction, yet this did not come to pass, and instead in a sad turn of events, the scientists' act of taking vast quantities of birds decimated several populations, which luckily have recovered since). It turns out these Galapagos birds preserved at the California Academy of Sciences have visible pox lesions on their feet and Parker got permission to take samples of these lesions from birds that were affected on both feet (that way the curators at the Academy reasoned, it was still obvious which specimens were affected since even if one foot was sampled, the other remained as proof of the pox affliction). Now for the really neat part: Parker sent these samples off to a veterinary pathologist who basically reconstituted them by soaking them in formalin, and then did histopathology that identified the lesions definitively as pox. She also did genetic analysis that showed the pox afflicting the Galapagos birds today is canarypox, not the fowlpox that is found in domestic chickens on the island (article in Journal of Wildlife Diseases). Together these findings indicate that the pox had been introduced to the island a long time ago, in the late 1800s or early 1900s.

Parker also talked a lot about genetics. In particular, I remember being intrigued that Swainson's hawks in the wild differ more from each other than they differ from Galapagos hawks as a species. Because there is so little genetic variation among Galapagos hawks, they carry more parasites, and it turns out the lice hold the key to their populations on different islands' evolutionary relationship to each other. Check out this article in Science Daily which explains it better than me.

Parker's research showed that the smaller the population of a species on an island, the less genetic variation, and the more susceptible the population was to disease. As a result, the Galapagos park service implemented more strict travel restrictions to the smaller islands. The Galapagos already has quite stringent precautions to prevent introduced disease-- all airplane holds are treated (I forget with what). They have a lot to preserve-- only a few species have gone extinct, and there are very few introduced, invasive species, so it is one of the best preserved island ecosystems on the planet.

For an extensive summary of her research, read this.

I would have liked to hear Parker talk more about her plan if avian malaria or West Nile virus is detected on the Galapagos. Both of these diseases would be very difficult to control or eradicate once found on the island, but having an effective plan would be getting one step ahead of the game.

3. Keith Hobson gave a talk on stable isotopes. He covered a lot of ground, and much of the terminology was beyond my knowledge. What I got out of this talk is that it is possible to use stable isotopes to get an idea of where an animal has been, such as a migratory bird, or even a person. However, there are many constraints that one must carefully consider in order to get meaningful data. I forget all the limitations, but there are at least half a dozen. It seems stable isotopes do not work particularly well for raptors, perhaps because they travel over a larger terrain or eat a wide variety of prey. No one really knows. For more reading on his research see this article and this one.

The New House

On my first blog post, I put up pictures of the decorations I put on the doorstep of the old house-- a robin's nest and egg. This is the doorstep to the new house. It has findings from field crews past-- a skull (fox?) and a turtle shell, as well as my more recent additions, a cowbird egg and two robin's eggs from a depredated nest.

The new house is nicer than the old house by most people's standards. It has furniture and a cozy, lived-in feel. But I still really miss the old place. I've been mulling it over trying to figure out why. I miss the feel of the neighborhood. Some people on the project find that neighborhood scary. But it felt friendly to me after a day or two. I think after being a veterinary nurse/technician for so many years I identify as working class. The old neighborhood was definitely working class, and felt less pretentious and ostentatious to me than the new one.

It's funny, when I was back in NC this past weekend I was struck by how wealthy the neighborhood I grew up in looks to me now. Every time I go back to visit I think the place looks more and more wealthy. I don't think the houses have changed, but my standard of living has gotten progressively lower over the past years. I don't mind, I like living more simply.

The other thing I miss about the old house is its proximity to restaurants. It was only two blocks from the nearest Ethiopian restaurant and corner markets, and not too far from some really good Mexican too.

(Addendum: How could I forget-- the old house is near fantastic trails in Rock Creek park and the new house is near the Sligo creek trail. Actually, Sligo creek isn't bad but I do miss trail running).

I guess I'll just have to make the hike over there more often, it's really not that far. In the meantime, I feel oddly out of place in this fancy neighborhood and house. I'll keep decorating, though, with odds and ends from the field.

What Science?

The very first comment on this blog came from my friend C, who was excited about following the research aspects of this project via my blog. I bet she is at least a little disappointed, for I haven't really written much about the underlying science of our research on West Nile virus. Mostly that has been because I honestly didn't understand enough about what was going on to write anything meaningful. Today, my boss and advisor took advantage of the rainy weather to give us a long talk that amounted to an overview of all the past research, ongoing research, and open questions he'd like to answer. So now I can start writing more about the science. There's one small caveat-- he's asked me not to write about certain things that are in progress and unpublished because he doesn't want someone to beat him to the punch. So I have to find out what's game and what's not, then I will start doing some posts that are more science than just pretty photos and commentary on nest searching. I'll tell you right now, the main thrust of the science of the crew I'm on is off bounds for writing about, sorry, but if you email me privately I'll answer any questions, I just can't put it up on the internet.

Red-bellied Woodpecker (Female)

Yesterday I caught my first two red-bellied woodpeckers. They are one of the easiest birds to hear for me, they have a beautiful, very loud call that sounds like gurgling water. There is a nest, a cavity high up in a dead tree, not too far from where I live, and I've seen then flying about but never had one in the hand until yesterday. I expected their bellies to be bright red from the name, but they are more orangish/yellow streaked:


(Yes, dad, that's me holding it in the photo on top and it is pecking at my fingers quite vigorously but it didn't hurt, I promise!)