Tag Archives: Seiurus aurocapilla

The beautiful “baker” bird

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Recently, I’ve had the good fortune to observe a small bird at close quarters that I had only seen in a couple glimpses in the past, the ovenbird (Seiurus aurocapilla). Like the ruby-crowned and golden-crowned kinglets, this little avian also has a stripe atop its head. Like the golden-crowned kinglet, the stripe is always visible and orange in color, blending in nicely with its other muted brownish and cream colors.

 

The ovenbird gets its name from the shape of its nest, which is built on the ground in a shape reminiscent of an outdoor or Hopi oven. It is domed and has a side entrance and can be difficult to see.

The ovenbirds spend the winters in the Caribbean region and Central America and then come North for the summer breeding season. My sightings of the singing male have been at our local nature reserve, Mason Farm Biological Reserve, where I volunteer as an invasive plant eradicator and sometime planter of native flowers.

 

The male sings a three- to-five note call in the spring as part of his courting behavior and the call varies among individuals. When males are in neighboring territories, they will sing together in duets and it can be difficult to know how many birds are singing.

   

The sound is so loud that you expect to see a much larger bird and his song inspired poet Robert Frost to dedicate a poem to him.

 

If he is sitting on a branch, you can eventually find him but it can be a challenge since they prefer to reside in forests with heavy canopy cover so that it is fairly dark.

 

   

Once you see him, you may be able to watch for a while as they don’t seem to be very wary of people. This individual let me observe as he groomed on a low tree branch, pausing now and again to let out a few notes.

  

   

These birds prefer areas with heavy leaf litter for their homes – the leaves provide cover for their ground nests and they blend in really, really well as they scurry about foraging in the leaves for insects, worms and snails to eat. Both the females and males participate in feeding the fledglings until they can fly at about 30 days.

When they emerge into a patch with a bit of sunlight filtering down through the leaves overhead, you have a bit better chance to see them. Otherwise, you may end up staring at ground cover until you catch a bit of movement and can zero in on the motion to see them.

 

Photographing the bird is a challenge since they spend their time in areas with so little direct light. My first photos were a bit dark, but then I increased the ISO on my camera considerably (a tip from fellow photographer, Mary – thanks!) and the photos were a bit better. Still, the somewhat darker photos reflect the environment in which you discover these little troubadour warblers. Now that I know where to look for them, I hope to see them more often in years to come.

Thrushes – speckles and spots, or not

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Learning to “bird” (i.e., spot birds and determine what species they are) is no easy matter. There are guides that have color-coded pages so you can begin by looking for birds that are primarily of the color of the one at which you happen to be looking, but then the females and males can differ greatly and the young can look very different from their parents, too.
Hermit thrush IMG_1357©Maria de Bruyn blogIf you can learn something about “families”, that will help you narrow down your search in other guides. So I began associating the family of thrushes with birds that have spotted breasts. I discovered that is true for some of the avian species that have the word thrush in their name, like the hermit thrush (Catharus guttatus) with its reddish tail and the wood thrush (Hylocichla mustelina, below right) with a really beautiful song.

Hermit thrush IMG_1359©Maria de Bruyn blogwood thrush IMG_5416©Maria de Bruyn blog

Wikipedia says that a characteristic of this bird family is that most species are of a gray or brown color, often with speckled under parts. But you can’t count on that being a definitive trait. For example, the large brown thrasher (Toxostoma rufum, below left) is not in the thrush family but its speckles and streaks are more than obvious. And the lovely little ovenbird (Seiurus aurocapilla, below right) with an orange stripe on its head looks similar to the hermit thrush but is actually a member of the warbler family.

brown thrasher IMG_8217©Maria de Bruyn resOvenbird IMG_0044© Maria de Bruyn blog

You can’t count on the name to help out either. The Louisiana waterthrush (Parkesia motacilla) is not a thrush at all but a somewhat larger warbler species that places its nest near water.

Louisiana waterthrush IMG_1260©Maria de Bruyn blog

American robin IMG_3049©Maria de Bruyn resOn the other hand, I was surprised to find out that American robins (Turdus migratorius) are thrushes. But then I saw that the young robins do have speckled breasts – very obvious on this one to the left.

And I learned that Eastern bluebirds (Sialia sialis) are a thrush species, too – those spots are also evident in the young!

 

 

Eastern bluebird IMG_6155©Maria de Bruyn resEastern bluebird IMG_5850©Maria de Bruyn

It turns out that Eurasian (common) blackbirds (Turdus merula) are thrushes, too. The males, like this one seen in Switzerland, are all black but the females show some spotting.

Eurasian blackbird male 6 MdB blogEurasian blackbird female 3 MdBblog

Nevertheless, speckling and spotting are no clear-cut clues to thrushes and common names can be confusing and deceiving. Perhaps I should give up on examining bird breasts to help figure out what species they are. Enjoying the birds, their behavior and their appearance is a much better birding experience for me than aiming to become an identification or birding expert!