#blue headed vireos and orange crowned/pine warblers

[a-swoop-of-swallows]

Going to do a poll for funsies

[scrumpyfan43]

My ABA Life List, as I wrote it down the other day

I’m being a bit conservative here because I’m going by memory, so I pretty much write off any birds that I can’t identify on the spot, unless they’re really common. So ducks, empids, shorebirds, gulls, drab warblers, and emberzids are probably all undercounted.

Common Loon 1

Snow Goose 2 Canada Goose 3 Mute Swan 4 Trumpeter Swan 5 Muscovy Duck 6 Wood Duck 7 American Wigeon 8 American Black Duck 9 Mallard 10 Blue Winged Teal 11 Northern Shoveler 12 Canvasback 13 Redhead 14 Ring-necked Duck 15 Lesser Scaup 16 Common Eider 17 Harlequin Duck 18 Bufflehead 19 Common Goldeneye 20 Hooded Merganser 21 Red-breasted Merganser 22 Ruddy Duck 23

Bobwhite 24 Chukar 25 Ring-necked Pheasant 26 Ruffed Grouse 27 Wild Turkey 28

Pied-billed grebe 29 One of those migratory grebes idk 30

Rock Pigeon 31 White-crowned Pigeon 32 White-winged Dove 33 Mourning Dove 34 Common Ground-dove 35

Yellow-billed Cuckoo, I think Mangrove too but not counting that 36

Common Nighthawk 37 Whip-poor-will (heard but not seen, because seriously) 38

Chimney Swift 39 Ruby-throated Hummingbird 40

King Rail 41 Common Gallinule 42 American Coot 43 Sandhill Crane 44

Killdeer 45 Sanderling 46 Pectoral Sandpiper 47 American Woodcock 48 Spotted Sandpiper 49 either Greater or Lesser Yellowlegs 50 probably more but none I could remember what they’re like

Laughing Gull 51 Ring-Billed Gull 52 Herring Gull 53 Caspian Tern 54 Common Tern 55 Royal Tern 56 Black Skimmer 57

Wood Stork 58

Magnificent Frigatebird 59 Double-crested Cormorant 60 Anhinga 61

American White Pelican 62 Brown Pelican 63 Great Blue Heron 64 Great Egret 65 Snowy Egret 66 Little Blue Heron 67 Cattle Egret 68 Green Heron 69 Black-crowned Night Heron 70 White Ibis 71 Roseate Spoonbill 72

Turkey Vulture 73 Osprey 74 Swallow-tailed Kite 75 Bald Eagle 76 Northern Harrier 77 Sharp-shinned Hawk 78 Cooper’s Hawk 79 Red-shouldered Hawk 80 Rough-legged Hawk 81 Red-tailed Hawk 82

Eastern Screech Owl 83 Great Horned Owl 84 Barred Owl 85

Belted Kingfisher 86

Red-headed Woodpecker 87 Red-bellied Woodpecker 88 Yellow-bellied Sapsucker 89 Downy Woodpecker 90 Hairy Woodpecker 91 Northern Flicker 92 Pileated Woodpecker 93

American Kestrel 94 Peregrine Falcon 95

Eastern Wood-pewee 96 Least Flycatcher 97 Eastern Phoebe 98 Great Crested Flycatcher 99 Eastern Kingbird 100 Gray Kingbird (if white-crowned pigeons count then so does this guy) 101

Loggerhead Shrike 102

White-eyed Vireo 103 Blue-headed Vireo 104 Warbling Vireo 105 Red-eyed Vireo 106

Blue Jay 107 Florida Scrub Jay 108 American Crow 109 Fish Crow 110 Common Raven 111

Horned Lark 112

Purple Martin 113 Tree Swallow 114 Bank Swallow 115 Cliff Swallow 116 Barn Swallow 117

Carolina Chickadee 118 Black-capped Chickadee 119 Boreal Chickadee 120 Tufted Titmouse 121

Red-breasted nuthatch 122 White-breasted Nuthatch 123 Brown Creeper 124

House Wren 125 Winter Wren 126 Carolina Wren 127

Blue-gray Gnatcatcher 128 Ruby-crowned Kinglet 129 Golden-crowned Kinglet 130

Eastern Bluebird 131 Veery 132 Hermit Thrush 133 Wood Thrush 134 American Robin 135

Gray Catbird 136 Northern Mockingbird 137 Brown Tthrasher 138

European Starling 139

Cedar Waxwing 140

House Sparrow 141

House Finch 142 I think I saw redpolls at the feeder once? 143 Pine Siskin 144 American Goldfinch 145

Snow Bunting 146

Ovenbird 147 Black-and-white Warbler 148 Prothonotary Warbler 149 Orange-crowned Warbler 150 Common Yellowthroat 151 American Redstart 152 Cape May Warbler 153 Cerulean Warbler 154 Northern Parula 155 Magnolia Warbler 156 Bay-breasted Warbler 157 Blackburnian Warbler 158 Yellow Warbler 159 Chestnut-sided Warbler 160 Blackpoll Warbler 161 Black-throated Blue Warbler 162 Palm Warbler 163 Pine Warbler 164 Yellow-rumped Warbler 165 Yellow-throated Warbler 166 Black-throated Green Warbler 167 Canada Warbler 168 Wilson’s Warbler 169 Yellow-breasted Chat 170

Eastern Towhee (you’ll always be rufous-sided in my heart) 171 American Tree Sparrow 172 Chipping Sparrow 173 Field Sparrow 174 Grasshopper Sparrow 175 Fox Sparrow 176 Song Sparrow 177 White-throated Sparrow 178 White-crowned Sparrow 179 Dark-eyed Junco 180

Summer Tanager 181 Scarlet Tanager 182 Northern Cardinal 183 Rose-breasted Grosbeak 184 Indigo Bunting 185

Bobolink 186 Red-winged Blackbird 187 Eastern Meadowlark 188 Rusty Blackbird 189 Common Grackle 190 Boat-tailed Grackle 191 Brown-headed Cowbird 192 Orchard Oriole 193 Baltimore Oriole 194

[kathleenseiber]

Some bird flocks are a lot like K-pop groups

Birds in flocks that include multiple species both cooperate with and compete against each other, a new study suggests.

In an analysis of nearly 100 North Florida flocks, Florida Museum of Natural History researchers found similar bird species were significantly more likely to flock together than hunt alone, working as a group to stay safe from predators while cruising the canopy in search of insects.

Species kept competition within the flock low, however, by differentiating their foraging technique, their choice of hunting spot, or the general distance they kept from a tree trunk.

In other words, think of flock dynamics like a K-pop band, says lead author Harrison Jones, a doctoral student in the University of Florida’s biology department.

The blue-headed vireo, Vireo solitarius, tend to be represented by a single bird in mixed flocks. Jones and his coauthors hypothesize that specialist species may actively ward other members of their species away from a flock. (Credit: Mitchell Walters)

“You have to be similar enough to the other members to get along as a group but specialized in some way: There’s the leader, the one who raps, the one who plays guitar,” says Jones.

“It’s the same with birds. They hang out together because they share things in common, but they can’t share too much. If you’re so similar that you’re eating each other’s lunch, then you have a serious problem.”

Birds flocking together

North Florida’s winter flocking community is “probably the most complex in North America,” Jones says, featuring dozens of migratory species and a bevy of foraging opportunities. Still, the researchers were surprised to see how specialized the birds’ foraging habits were—a feature more reminiscent of the Amazon than North America.

The study documented previously unknown foraging behaviors in Florida, including the yellow-throated warbler’s habit of hanging sideways or upside down on palm fronds to feed on insects. Orange-crowned warblers probe the interior of dead leaves while pine warblers comb through air plants.

“These are very tropical features—not something I expected to see in a subtropical environment like Florida,” says coauthor Scott Robinson, Florida Museum Ordway Eminent Scholar and Jones’ adviser. Robinson has studied tropical bird species since 1977, with a focus on Central and South America. “Palm trees are not easy to feed from. It takes a very specialized bird using a specialized technique.”

Species that pick insects off live leaves and nab them in the air—the most common foraging techniques—were relatively abundant in mixed flocks. These included ruby-crowned kinglets, blue-gray gnatcatchers, and pine warblers. But birds that hunt exclusively in harder-to-find material tended to be represented by a single member per flock. These specialists called repeatedly, as though to warn others of their kind “Hands off! This is my flock,” Jones says.

Some species, such as this eastern phoebe, Sayornis phoebe, prefer to hunt alone. (Credit: Mitchell Walters)

The diversity of Florida’s flocks ranged from three to 12 species and four to 36 individuals per flock. The researchers identified 14 species as regular participants in mixed flocks, with 10 species appearing in more than 80% of mixed flocks.

“We didn’t know birds were spending 80-90% of their time in these flocks,” Jones says. “It’s clear that this behavior is really important to their ecology and may explain why there’s so much partitioning of resources within the flock. They’re spending almost all their waking hours together.”

Team effort in mixed-species bird flocks

Mixed-species flocks only occur during winter, birds’ non-breeding season. Finding enough food in colder months is vital for birds, which must strike the right balance between putting on sufficient body fat to survive the night while staying lean enough to make a quick escape from a predator, Jones says.

Hunting insects as a group can be a life-saver. Flock members rely on sentinel species, which also direct the flock’s movements and pace, to sound the alarm if an owl or hawk swoops in. This allows the majority of birds in the flock to devote more attention to finding food. Traveling in numbers also lessens a bird’s chance of being the unlucky victim if a predator attacks.

In North Florida’s mixed-species flocks, tufted titmice and Carolina chickadees play the role of sentinels—”blabbermouth birds,” Jones says.

“They’re always giving little contact calls to one another as an ‘all clear,'” he says. “If they stop, everybody else is on edge. When they see a predator, they give an alarm call, and everybody in the flock will freeze.”

But these sentinel species don’t appear to be actively recruiting flock members, Jones says: “They’re just going about their business, and everyone else joins them.”

As with any good K-pop band, group choreography is key. Jones and his coauthor and birding partner Mitchell Walters, also a doctoral student in biology, noticed mixed flocks were dominated by small, swift birds. Larger insect-eating birds, such as woodpeckers, often couldn’t keep up, joining temporarily but dropping behind when the flock moved on.

Birds that foraged in the understory, such as thrushes, didn’t flock at all.

To piece together the story of Florida’s mixed flocks, Jones and Walters, both seasoned birders, spent many hours in Gainesville’s upland hammocks, developing cricks in their necks as they stared into the canopy through their binoculars.

“By the end of the study, we started to recognize how each of these species has its own way of moving and foraging, its own personality—something birders often talk about,” Jones says.

“In many ways, this study was inspired by talking to local birdwatchers and just going birding. They’ll say things like ‘Of course you only get one vireo per flock.’ And the science agreed.”

The research appears in The Auk: Ornithological Advances.

Source: University of Florida

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