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Our Environment: “Migrating Birds” by Scott Turner

Sunday, May 19, 2019

Scott Turner, Environmental Columnist

Photo: Andy Reago & Chrissy McClarren https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Eastern_Kingbird_(34169907650).jpg

Sitting on the flowering branch of a tall white oak just a foot apart, the two Eastern kingbirds chattered intensely at one another. Each gray, white and black songbird flapped its wings, held its head high and crackled calls face-to-face and side-by-side.

Welcome to springtime in the breeding season: Kingbirds tussling over the same attractive breeding spot in an open park-like setting in Providence. Most likely one of these two rivals would eventually claim the territory, and the other bird would move on.

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When I observe birds, I start with song. In spring, almost all species that nest locally, or pass through, also sing and/or produce calls. First I hear them. Then, I try and spot them. I’m in no rush to check off my observation and move on. Rather, I like listening, watching, learning, and wondering what the experience means.

Such was the case a couple of mornings ago, listening to and glimpsing a sleek dark songbird chattering frenetically and hopping around the flowering twigs of a 20-feet tall oak.

When the bird finally popped out of the foliage I saw that it was a male Orchard oriole, the black-and-chestnut cousin to the more-common and more-orange Baltimore oriole. The Orchard oriole was, in fact, chasing a female of the same species. He seemed oblivious or unconcerned that I stood just 15 feet away. The duo flew across a paved path lined with mid-sized oaks in Providence.

Photo: Andy Reago & Chrissy McClarren https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Eastern_Kingbird_(34169907650).jpg

This behavior smacked of courtship, so I reached out to a contact, who works with the Rhode Island Bird Atlas. The atlas maps “the distribution and abundance of all breeding birds in the state” to better understand how birds use habitat, fit into the environment and are affected by environmental change.

What I learned was that for the past six years Orchard orioles had indeed bred where I observed them. What I encountered was the behavior of birds on a territory. For the rest of the spring and summer, I will leave the pair alone to “live and prosper.”

Sometimes what you see with birds isn’t what you get. Take, for example, the two agitated Northern waterthrushes that I observed along the bank of a river in Providence two days ago.

These unsettled creatures exchanged edgy metallic “chink” calls deep within the shoreline vegetation. The waterthrushes then flew at one another. This all appeared to me as a nesting habitat confrontation. But it occurred between an urban stretch of buildings and trash, and alongside the interstate.

When I reached out to my RI Bird Atlas source, she did not find any records of a Northern waterthrush breeding in that locale. Also, the habitat was much less than ideal.

Moreover, when I looked up the species in materials of the Cornell Laboratory of Ornithology, I read, “Most wintering and some migrating birds, especially males, are also territorial…” This was evidence that what I experienced was just the nature of the species and not a breeding-site tussle.

My moments with the waterthrushes came during a chilly, drizzly hour in which migrating songbirds moved north in trees just a few feet from the highway. What a joy it was to coexist, even for a few minutes, with this wildlife, the roar of traffic be damned. Nature, even in the city, is a source of wonder around us, if we take the time to listen, watch and absorb.

Scott Turner is a Providence-based writer and communications professional. For more than a decade he wrote for the Providence Journal and we welcome him to GoLocalProv.com.

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