Talking with author Laura Erickson (“Into the Nest”) is like opening the door to the Avian Anecdote Room because she values watching more than just identifying.
“Watching bird behavior is the key to understanding the bird … I’ve been watching for so long that I have concluded that there is no normal (for all birds), that normal is unique for each species.”
Erickson recently won the American Birding Association’s prestigious Roger Tory Peterson Lifetime Achievement Award.
Her anecdotes flow from taking the time to watch rather than just identify.
While working at the Cornell Lab of Ornithology in Ithaca, New York, she observed a nearby courting pair of great blue herons. The male brought the female a stick for nest-building and she’d try to wedge it in a white oak but the tree was so weathered and smooth that she couldn’t get it to stay.
“He’d bring another one and she’d take it, both using the (stick transfer display), and she could not get that one to stick, either. They’d watch it drop into the water, literally leaning over and looking down. He was like, ‘Holy crap, here we go again,’ and fly off for another stick.”
Repeat that performance.
“Then they both went out for sticks and they fell into the water, too. It was fun to watch them attack the problem,” Erickson said.
Or take chickadees.
During courtships, the male wants to impress a female by singing but the female has a subtext to that behavior. She is judging him by the quality of the food he brings her.
She is going to pick a mate who can do a great job of feeding the babies. “He’s accustomed to bringing her the food and all of a sudden he’s giving it to the babies instead.”
Watching a pair of chickadees in her yard, Erickson discovered an unhappy female. “She got so indignant, he was flying right past her and taking the food to the nest. He was the best dad.”
How adults get food to their babies depends on the species.
“Herons have no talons so they have to eat the fish and throw up into the bills of the young in the nest,” Erickson said.
“I’ve watched great blue (heron) babies get bigger and need more and more food so there are more and more trips. At least when the babies are older, there’s not as much of a need to soften the food.
“One time when they were close to getting ready to fledge, dad returned. At the bottom of the stomach was a goldfish and it was still alive. After it was ejected into the nest, one baby tried to grab it and it flopped around. All the babies jumped back in shock,” she said.
“It was one of the funniest things I’d ever seen. Finally dad picked it up and dropped it. He dropped it one more time and the reassured bravest baby went and ate it.”
Puffins nest in burrows on islands.
“They fly quite a distance to get to a school of fish. Their small bodies can’t manage heavy, large fish but they’ve adapted. They catch 20 or more small fish in one trip.
“Their bills have serrations but the tongue is really cool with backward-facing barbs, and the corners of their beaks are stretchable. They grab one fish and hold it against the upper palette and catch the next fish and hold it and catch the next fish … while holding the others.”
Erickson and co-author Marie Read’s book is stocked with excellent photographs, most providing insight into behaviors. Particularly striking are the cutaway views of woodpecker eggs and featherless young in their nests.
Each of 25 sections focuses on pairing up, nesting, parenting, early childhood education and flight. It’s an “adult” book but good for sharing with young readers.
Columnist Sharon Wootton can be reached at 360-468-3964 or www.songandword.com.
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