Bird Behaviors that you would like to see/hear in-person

[ken_ohio]

I have heard that there is both bird banding (daytime) and owl banding (nighttime) at Kellys Island in Northwest Ohio. Here is the link. I have never made the trip myself.

https://kelleysislandnature.org/bird-banding/

[austin_ajit]

I’d like to see a sunbird nest. I’ve seen sunbirds stealing cobwebs from my house for nest building, so there must be a nest somewhere near.

[broacher]

About 10 years ago I sang with a mens chorus where we would break for the summer but have small casual practice/get-togethers in our backyards. ‘Bug and Beer’ we called these.

I’ll never forget going to one fella’s place where he had a whole bunch of dwarf fruit trees peppered throughout his yard. Before we started to sing, he took me around and pointed out several very tiny nests (with eggs) in these trees. He explained that it had taken a few years, but now their yard was a mecca for local hummingbirds.

What a strange (but magical) sensation it was to be singing in a small circle and having several of his curious hummers flitting all around us.

[oksanaetal]

Ooh, or prairie-chickens!

[martyndrabik]

Worth visiting to meet Master Bander Tom Bartlett, if nothing else. He is a hoot, excuse the pun. He has banded over a thousand saw-whet owls, and more than 100,000 birds.

[erin-816]

Wow, that’s a wonderful story, it does sound magical! I don’t think my husband would be willing to join a chorus, but I’m sure I can get him to sing solo for the birds! I had lots of dwarf fruit trees when I lived in California, I’ll have to get something suitable for this zone to give my visitors places to nest. Thanks for sharing your beautiful experience, and for the ideas to try out!

[jasonhernandez74]

Ooooo-kay, so, having done some reading up, I have found some behaviors I would like to see – in my Hispaniola area. Neither of these are lifer birds, because I have seen them numerous times, and one of them, I even already have an iNaturalist observation.

Smooth-billed Ani. On its Wikipedia page, I find, “A number of females lay their chalky blue eggs in the nest and then share incubation and feeding. Each female is capable of laying up to seven eggs, and nests have been found containing up to 29 eggs, but it is rare for more than ten to hatch.” I would like to find one of these shared nests and watch it over time. Unless the birds are banded, I might not be able to tell one individual from another, but it would still be cool to see them trading off, and to count the eggs and how many hatch.

In Spanish, these are called Garrapatero, which means tick-hunter. I would also like to see them hunting ticks on the backs of cattle and oxen. This is one of those species that has benefitted from deforestation, found in open pasture lands.

Broad-billed Tody or Narrow-billed Tody. Like other Coraciiformes, both of these excavate a burrow in a bank. In Spanish, they are called Barrancolí; a name clearly related to barranco, which means a ravine. I would like to be present for the process of excavating the burrow.

In my other area – North Carolina – is another Coraciiform, the Belted Kingfisher, which also nests in a burrow in a bank. This one also occurs in Hispaniola, but does not nest there, so building its burrow would be a behavior to observe in North Carolina.

[ken_ohio]

I would bet that you knew Gary Fowler. I was lucky enough to go to some bird banding sessions with him and his wife. They were very nice and very knowledgeable. The members of their banding team were always willing to point out things on the captured birds in their hands and explain things. (They used to let people release birds. I was able to briefly hold and release a hummingbird in Mill Stream Run one early morning. That was so cool!)

I remember when Gary and his team were trying to band saw whet owls. Some experts thought that a good place to capture them was downhill from the Canalway Center. They didn’t catch any owls but, they did catch a family of woodcocks. How/why the woodcocks flew up into the nets was a mystery.

[bluebird81]

When I went to the owl banding near Pittsburgh, PA, the ornithologist who was doing the banding estimated that he had personally banded somewhere around 300,000 birds in his lifetime (over several decades).