The Red-tailed Hawk

The elegant bird of prey. Death on wings. Three pounds of feathers and talons ready to drop from the sky onto an unsuspecting rabbit out for an early morning munch of clover and tear its still-living flesh into bite-sized gobbets (and perhaps carry its carcass up to a convenient flat-topped sculpture for a leisurely dinner).

The Red-tailed Hawk is one of the most common birds of prey we may encounter in Iowa. They can be seen perched on signs on the interstate, or sitting atop telephone poles with a sharp eye scanning the ground for their preferred prey of small mammals. Or they may circle above a field, with slow, heavy wing-beats, broad rudder of a tail fanned out to steer first one way, then another as it surveys the landscape.

It is not an easy life. Though adult hawks have little to fear from other predators, winter cold and scarce prey can be deadly, as can more modern hazards such as automobiles and power lines. They may have to catch several chipmunks in a single day to fill up, or make a plump rabbit last a couple days. If it has young to feed, it must catch and share that much more each day (with monogamous pairs splitting the work: females on the nest and males bringing food to her and the young).

I don't imagine the hawk is prone to introspection, or that it feels anything more than anticipation of a full belly as it rips the fur and meat from its prey. I betray my own feelings about "Nature, red in tooth and claw" when I shrink from the brutality of the world around us as represented by the complex--and necessary--relationship between predator and prey. I always root for the hunted to make its escape, though it means the hunter goes hungry. Does that make me a bad naturalist? A lily-livered, bleeding-heart wimp who refuses to face the cold reality of the cruel world we inhabit?

Perhaps. I lead a comfortable life, with a kitchen full of food available whenever I care to eat and a warm, safe bed to hunker down in at night. Exertion is a choice, not a necessity, and the biggest threat to my physical well-being is an overabundance of calorie-rich foods. The odds of me ever being required to kill my own dinner are minuscule, so I will never feel a hunger that can only be eased by the death of something weaker than myself.

The hawk cannot change its nature to avoid killing any more than a rabbit can choose to live in the treetops. Humans, however, have the luxury of making choices. We can choose to make sacrifices, to minimize suffering and harm to the people, creatures, and landscape around us. Or we can choose to fill our bellies heedless of the effect our choices have on the world around us.

The Mourning Dove

Mourning doves on the Sycamore Greenway

The mourning dove is a widespread and charismatic bird in the human landscape. Found in Iowa year-round, they are common visitors to suburban backyard birdfeeders and their sweet coo-AH coo-ooo-ooo is easily (and sometimes incessantly) heard as males woo potential mates.

I remember as a little one chasing a chubby brown dove around my Granny's yard, thinking it was injured because it wouldn't fly...until it had enough of my antics and took off for a nearby roof. Later, I knew mourning doves as the dummies who nested in our gutter and regularly dropped their naked, pink babies onto the scorching wood surface of our deck (sometimes to be snaffled up by the dog before we could stop him, or--*shudder*--stepped on barefoot in a horrific incident that still makes my toes curl up decades later). They were bland, common birds that faded into the background, much like robins.

Now, I  recognize the simple elegance of their appearance and song. The smooth tawny feathers with simple black spots on the face and wings, and the bright orange legs. The males may have a subtle bluish cap and small iridescent patches on either side of their neck. Their narrow, pointed tails fan out when taking flight to reveal a wedge of white-tipped feathers that are normally hidden from sight. Young birds have feathers that are lighter at the edges, giving them a "scaly" appearance compared to the adults until their first molt.

Photographed in my backyard.

Mourning doves are far from dull! In fact, they feature a couple of unique adaptations. You have probably heard the distinctive whistle of a startled mourning dove taking flight, caused by the movement of air over feathers. This sound is believed to function as an alarm call, a cue to others to take off when danger approaches.

When it comes to drinking, mourning doves--like others in the pigeon family--use suction rather than the common "beak dip, then tilt the head back" method of other birds. You can watch doves at a birdbath hold their bills in the water continuously as they drink, while sparrows, robins, and other birds will have to pause and look up to swallow.

For nearly a century, hunting mourning doves was prohibited in Iowa, until a bit of legislative chicanery opened the door to establishing a season in 2011. Since 2013, over 100,000 doves have been killed annually in the state, contributing to a nationwide total of over 20 million killed each year. The mourning dove's adaptability to human environments and high rate of reproduction help mitigate the effects of hunting, though the thought provides little solace to those who hoped to maintain Iowa's humane tradition of protecting these lovely,  soft-spoken birds.

They may be ungainly on the ground, slow-moving and heavy (which may account for the reluctance to fly unless necessary that young me noted in Granny's yard that long-ago day), but once they explode into the air they are swift and maneuverable fliers--a fact I did not fully appreciate until attempting to photograph them on the Greenway! 

Sources/Additional Information:

• All About Birds: Mourning Dove 
• Audubon Field Guide: Mourning Dove 
• Birdwatcher's General Store: Dove Wing Whistle 
• Flights of fear: a mechanical wing whistle sounds the alarm in a flocking bird (not specific to mourning doves, but an interesting resource - sgf)

The Hazard of Nature Blindess

Common grackles hold a special place in my natural history. I remember distinctly one day in high school, while I was taking honors biology and having just started our unit on identifying birds, walking around town and seeing the most amazing bird sitting on a railing. It had a glossy, iridescent head, piercing yellow eyes, and a long, wedge-shaped tail. What was this gorgeous creature? Surely it must be a rare and lucky find.

 

A pair of common grackles (with the whimsical scientific
name of Quiscalus quiscula)

Of course, when I got home to a bird guide, my avian mystery it was easily identified as a common grackle. Not rare--"common" is right in its name, after all--and one of our more familiar suburban birds. It was my first realization of how we can be utterly blind to the life right outside our window. I knew other common birds: robins of course, and chickadees. I knew there were little brown birds happy to eat any french fries you happened to drop at the local Dairy Queen knock-off, but I had no idea what they were called. My granny had taught be how to whistle like a cardinal years earlier (though I couldn't whistle as well as her. Still can't...not even close). But that was about it as far as my knowledge of neighborhood birds went.

 

This nature blindness is not uncommon. Anyone who begins putting out a birdfeeder with some quality seed will soon be amazed at the assortment of feathered friends who will come out of the woodwork. Several types of woodpecker, nuthatches, titmice, and other otherwise invisible denizens of the trees. We may see them, and we certainly hear them, but we don't know them. So until we take the time to get to know them, they remain invisible.

 

Joe-Pye weed

If we can be so ignorant of the birds around, with their bright colors, noisy songs and quick movement, how can plants stand a chance? Plant blindness is pervasive. How many of the plants that you see daily can you name? How many do you even notice? Can you tell a cup plant from tall coreopsis? Would you recognize Joe-Pye weed if you ran into it on the trail? I certainly couldn't until last year. A lucky few are taught from childhood the names of those who share our world; the rest of us have to make the introductions ourselves.

 

It is important to get to know our neighbors. It is easier to care for something when you know its name, when it goes from being another stranger in a crowd to an individual with a name. No other bird swaggers so elegantly across a lawn as a grackle. Before I learned its name, the grackle was just another "blackbird," lumped together with starlings, crows, cowbirds, and any other bird with a vaguely similar appearance. But each species has its own life history, behavior, and niche. And each deserves to be known.

Further reading:

• How Do We Fight Nature Blindness?
• We Need a Cure for Plant Blindness
• Humans are blind to plants. Can we get over it?

Song Sparrow Surprise

I don't remember when I first learned the melodious warble of a song sparrow. It may have been in high school honors biology, my first introduction to birding. Or it could have been in a college ornithology class, with hours of field trips around the area that honestly seemed like too much fun to be of any academic value even as I picked up on the appearance and songs of dozens of birds seemingly through osmosis.

Regardless, once learned it was firmly lodged in my head: a set of high whistles followed by rhythmic trills and buzzes. Together with the "Oh sweet Canada Canada Canada" of the white-throated sparrow, the song occupied a middle zone of my memory between the familiar and firmly-entrenched tunes of cardinals and mourning doves, and the sounds of birds that were easy to identify visually--such as the common yellowthroat or American redstart--but whose songs, to me,  remained elusive as I learned them one year, only to lose them by the time the next spring came around.

Several weeks ago, the Greenway was awash in the sounds of a dozen different types of bird: woodpeckers and cardinals, chickadees and goldfinches. I picked out the song sparrow and stood motionless until I caught him flitting out of the cattails and across the trail into some twiggy shrubs. His nondescript "sparrowness"--brown feathers, streaky breast with a heavy dark spot--contrasted with the pretty and memorable sound emanating from his open bill.

I found myself wondering if the song sparrows were returning earlier and earlier in the season.* Was climate change wreaking havoc on their schedules? As soon as I got home I turned to the trusty Google to discover that...song sparrows are one of Iowa's most common year-round residents, along with that darling of state and license plates, the American goldfinch.

How had I overlooked the basic detail about the song sparrow's residence? How many years have I been able to recognize the sound of a song sparrow, yet neglected to notice it winter after winter? What else is happening right underneath my nose, in my backyard and along the Greenway?

The song sparrow is simply a very obvious (not to mention embarrassing) example of our blindness to the world right outside our doors. It is a humbling reminder that, as much as I have learned about the Sycamore Greenway and its inhabitants, there is still so much more to know.

We no longer live saturated in the natural world; we visit as children playing in fields, parks and around our neighborhoods, but very few of us grow up attuned to the rhythm of the seasons and the comings and goings of our wild neighbors. Many of us spend our adult lives trying to play catch-up and learn the things our ancestors knew simply by virtue of their lives as part of a larger world. They had to know which plants are good to eat, how to find fresh water, how to protect themselves from harsh weather or the occasional predator. They had to have the strength and skill to survive the same way that the birds, deer, foxes, and other animals did. We don't have any such requirements in our modern, screen-centered existence.

I know I will never reach a level of competence with regards to the natural world as a human living here 5000 years ago had, or even that of someone my age who devoted more of their early live to living wit nature than I. I will not become an expert on Iowa birds or mammals, and I will likely spend the rest of my life attempting to identify the most common of Iowa's plants and trees.

But each day I learn something new is a success, and each correction of a long-held error is a celebration. I am piecing together an ever-changing puzzle that will never be complete, but as all avid puzzle aficionados understand, the finished picture is not nearly as satisfying as the process of identifying the pieces and fitting them together one by one. My song sparrow friend is one piece, long overlooked, that has finally found its proper place in my mental field guide.

*Seasoned (and even casual) birders, please refrain from laughter.