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July 2000
The benefits of managing our backyard as wildlife habitat are increasingly in evidence. Gray catbirds, rose-breasted grosbeaks, purple finches, goldfinches, chickadees, cardinals, robins, blue jays, mourning doves, downy and hairy woodpeckers, northern flickers, white-breasted nuthatches, tufted titmice and ruby-throated hummingbirds are using our yard to satisfy all or some of their needs. Various hawks visit periodically. The migrants stopping briefly this spring included two male scarlet tanagers, a black-and-white warbler, and a male bobolink. Perhaps most astonishing to our neighbors and us was the calling, on three successive nights, of a whip-poor-will.
This year a pair of orchard orioles arrived with the northern orioles. After two weeks, the orchard orioles no longer appeared but the northern orioles have remained and are nesting. We are located at the northeastern edge of the orchard orioles' range.
Each autumn, the wind carries the leaves to the edges of the yard under the trees and shrubs where a good duff layer is accumulating. Rich in insects and other invertebrates, this feature has attracted chipping sparrows and song sparrows.
Chipping sparrows favor nest sites in evergreen shrubs common in our home landscapes. They glean insects and seeds from the ground and prefer feeding in areas with abundant weeds. Song sparrows nest on the ground in grasses or under a brush pile. They may raise the height of subsequent nests, as they often have two or three broods each season. Last year, they nested in our day lilies. Song sparrows need an elevated perch for singing. They eat insects, weed seeds and fruits, gleaned from the ground and vegetation.
A thrill came while I was working in the garden last weekend. I heard squawking and the hedge nearby was disturbed by unseen activity. A robin and another bird fell to the grass. The robin immediately flew to the grape trellis to squawk again, while the other bird remained in the grass for a few moments so I could see clearly that it was a wood thrush.
It was immensely satisfying to read that habitat of wood thrush, described as moist deciduous woodlands with a thick understory, includes well planted parks and gardens. The presence of the wood thrush implies that our yard is well planted!
This corner of the yard has a seep and a seasonal stream, fulfilling the requirement for moist woods. The trees are predominately deciduous. Our shrub thickets and the many maple saplings volunteering in the neighboring grove of trees create a dense understory. Some descriptions of this species mention that, on occasion, they are aggressive toward robins, blue jays and grackles. Perhaps this is the explanation for the scene I observed.
Wood thrushes eat mainly insects and fruit, gleaning them from leaf litter on the ground and from understory vegetation. They nest in dense shrubbery or saplings, and may have two broods in a season. It seems they also need a tree at least forty feet tall, perhaps for use as a song perch. It is often said that they have one of the loveliest songs of all the birds in North America. Henry David Thoreau (1817-1862) observed that when people hear the song of the wood thrush, "…it is a new world and a free country, and the gates of heaven are not shut against [them]." That is the way I feel when I hear the song of any bird.
By Nancy Coverstone (ncstone@umext.maine.edu), University of Maine Extension Educator in Androscoggin and Sagadahoc Counties
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