Killdeer or Kill Dear?
Kill Dear? Not on my watch.
The killdeer is named for the way its call sounds like the bird is crying, “killdeer, killdeer.”
But, maybe the namers of birds got it wrong, and the name should be “kill, dear?”
As an exposed ground-nester, the killdeer will pretend to have a broken wing to lure approaching predators away from nests and young. Their plaintive calls accompany this distraction display. Given this context, the call sounds more like, “Kill, dear? Kill, dear?”
Please pay heed to local dog-leash rules designed to protect breeding birds. Suitable nesting habitat is already in short supply due to human development (and its many offending offshoots such as climate change and invasive species encroachment). There are plenty of places set aside for dogs to run and chase and get their wiggles out. I’m a huge fan of dogs running and chasing and getting their wiggles out, and I’m also a huge fan of giving birds some small speck of habitat where they have a chance to raise their young undisturbed by human (and human’s bff’s) disruptions.
Even if your dog only wants to play and wouldn’t intentionally hurt a flea, its unbounded presence around ground-nesting birds can have devastating consequences.
Getting chased around by a dog wastes a lot of valuable energy. Are you a parent? After a long day of caring for your child, would you have the energy to deal with an exuberant dog chasing you or your child in circles around a field? Would running around pretending to have a broken arm feel like a good use of your time and energy? What if you knew if a dog found your baby your baby would get chomped?
I don’t have kids of my own, but I hear parenting is an active verb. Parents have limited energy reserves that require more worthy applications than dog avoidance. Every calorie a bird expends on your dog is a calorie that could have gone towards producing more healthy babies that grow into healthy adults that have more healthy babies. Beyond the energy expenditure a bird undergoes every time it’s flushed from the nest, the commotion caused by a dog near a nest alerts more adept predators to the nest location.
Thanks for hearing my PSA for protecting nesting birds from our favorite, most enthusiastic fur friends. And next time you hear the call of a killdeer, know that you’ve stumbled upon a very cool bird. Killdeer that nest in Wisconsin overwinter as far south as Central, America. They return north when there’s enough exposed, thawed ground to provide access to a steady food supply (of mostly invertabrates). Fun fact, killdeer do most of their foraging at night when their meals of worms and other subterranean critters move closer to the soil’s surface. Yum, yum, yum. You can find killdeer by day or night frequenting agricultural fields, prairies, shorelines, and large open lawns like those found on golf courses or at sports complexes.
Tufted Titmouse
Hooray! The tufted titmouse is here to give us a chance to practice the identification skills we picked up earlier in the guide. Like with many birds, the easiest way to identify titmouse vocalizations is by comparing them to other birds. The titmouse conveniently sounds like a cross between a black-capped chickadee and a blue jay on drugs (no surprise there, blue jay).
The Titmouse and the Babysitter’s BF
The tufted titmouse, although unfortunately named, thinks he’s a cool guy. Still, nobody could be as cool as his babysitter’s boyfriend. Little Tufted Tit reminds the couple they are there most exclusively to watch his cousin, Chickadee, who is already tucked into bed like a little baby. Tufted titmouse insists he gets to stay up late. To sound impressive, he imitates the cool babysitter’s boyfriend, Blue Jay. Remember, Jay often shrieks,
“Jay! Jay! Jay!”
Tufted Titmouse gives this a try. He calls out his own name— sort of. Tufted Titmouse rightly hates his given name, and insists others call him Peter.
“Peter! Peter! Peter!”
He calls in a voice that sounds similar to the jay’s clownish cop whistle impression. Titmouse is trying for anything but clownish. He takes himself most seriously.
Jay shows no interest, only mild irritation. Titmouse wants to stay up late with the big kids. He tries another tac. He knows about jay’s little hobby. He announces this knowledge to the world, hoping jay will be impressed,
“Weeder! Weeder! Weeder!”
That’s the 6th grader word for what the upper levels are doing when they skip class at Tufted Titmouse Academy. Neither the babysitter nor her boyfriend are impressed. Titmouse tries again— acts like the others are missing the joke,
“Neener! Neener! Neener!”
He won’t quit. He sings out his poor imitation of the blue jay’s whistle even after the babysitter threatens she’ll tell Grandma EVERYTHING.
A Brief Anecdote on Chickadee’s Rivalry with Cousin Titmouse (and Grandma’s Bias)
By day, Tufted Titmouse really does feel like a cool guy. He can tell his cousin, the black-capped chickadee, envies him for his size, his crest, his golden fringed vest, his big city accent. Chickadee does envy him, but takes solace in the knowledge that no one will ever grace Grandma’s walls like he does. Titmouse may be cool, but chickadee is beloved.
Despite the Name, Let’s Get Serious
The tufted titmouse is in fact cousin to the chickadee. Chickadees and titmice reside in the family Paridae. The titmouse is larger and more aggressive than the chickadee, but the cousins can be found foraging in the same flocks. They share many physical and behavioral traits, but the titmouse is larger and often more aggressive.
If you hear something that sounds like it could be a chickadee’s cousin with a big city accent, check it out. Titmice often repeat the “dee-dee-dee” part that’s familiar from the chickadee call. When they say it, it’s buzzier, messier, and often louder.
During breeding season, if you hear that call interspersed with a song that sounds like a chemically impared jay doing its traffic cop clownish whistle, you may be on the trail of a titmouse.
The titmouse insistently repeats its two syllable song. Like chickadees, titmice remain relatively (relatively!— everyone has boundaries that should be honored!) unperturbed by the presence of people, meaning if you are respectful about it, you can poke around and track them down without scaring them away. Like chickadees, they’re cavity nesters that travel in mixed winter flocks. If you’re catching sight of a titmouse in winter, keep your eyes and ears peeled for chickadees, nuthatches, and woodpeckers. If you are hearing a lot from them in spring, keep on the lookout for promising nesting cavities. What could be more adorable than a baby titmouse?
Around southern Wisconsin anyhow, titmice are less common than chickadees. With their fancy crest and sleek plummage (that is just the absolute most fun and perfect color to paint with watercolor), they are a true gem of a bird. Catching a glimpse of one of these guys is always a treat.
Titmouse song sounds a lot like the jay’s whistle but always made of two notes repeated.
Titmouse call demonstrates their relation to chickadees with the repeated “Dee-dee-dee.”
American Robin
Robins are the literal early bird that gets the worm. As the dawn chorus’s opening act, robins start to sing well before sunrise.
Like a good yard sale, the robin speaks to the suburban experience. On a summer day look out at any lawn, and you’re likely to see a robin. Watch telephone wires, treetops, clotheslines, anyplace with a foothold and a prominent view, and you’ll eventually catch sight of a robin. Because they are ubiquitous, robins are a good “early bird” for practicing identification as a beginning birder.
Robin songs are easily identified through temporal cues. They are among the first birds to sing each morning. Robin song dominates the earliest half-hour or so of the dawn chorus. When I worked as a songbird survey technician, it was my job to wake up before sunrise to get out when birds are most vocally active in the wee morning hours. I associate robin song with those moments in bed just after my alarm has sounded but before I’ve gotten the gumption to rise and make my way out to the field. It’s still pitch-black outside, but the robins are already at it, singing their lilting melodies. For me, their song conjures that feeling of resistance the body makes when its begging to press snooze but forced into action. The robins were their own sort of alarm clock, telling me I’d reached beyond the realm of snooze.
Above: The robin’s song consists of a flowing melody that sounds as if it’s pulling loopy-di-loops on itself. Many species sound similar to robins, but theirs is the only call to fray into nearly inaudible high notes.
Above: Cheaps appear as isolated spikes
Robins must love good deals, the way they’re always yelling, “Cheap, cheap, cheap.” Maybe they are excited about yardsale deals, but more likely they are feeling territorial. Robins often nest near human activity, and in doing so, they put themselves and their nests in our paths. When we cross those paths, robins often scold us with relentless, close-range cheaps. Since it’s so common, novice birders will do well to pay attention and learn to describe the call. Some useful descriptors might include: loud, sharp, and insistent. Think about how the call rates next to other things you hear around the yard, on your walk to work, in the parking lot, wherever. If you learn the topography of the robin’s call, you can later employ it as a baseline of comparison for other species.
I also associate robins with rain, with that feeling of stepping with bare feet onto a steaming sidewalk after a passing summer shower. Robins break into song after rain as if they are celebrating the return of the sun. It’s a jovial song with lots of ups and downs, most often sung in a chorus (individual robins chiming in across the land), so that the song of the robin adds its own color to the ornate tapestry of this Midwestern landscape.
Recently fledged robins appear a bit clownish with their speckled bellies and overlarge beaks. Through peak yard sale season, watch them hop their ways towards the day when they grow their big-kid feathers and fly away..
Robins also make a high pitched, sometimes barely audible alarm call that goes something like, “sssssp.” Alarm calls across species are often high-pitched, consisting of frequencies that are hard for predators (like people) to track. If you think you hear a robin’s alarm call, take a second to stand still and scan the ground and low branches for birds. It’s good practice for your ears to follow sounds to their source, and it’s good practice to take a cue to pause and re-attune yourself to your surroundings. If the day is going along as usual and everyone seems to be calmly going about their business before you hear a sudden flurry of “ssssssps,” take the chance to look for the source of the robin’s alarm. Tuning into alarm calls is a great way to catch rare glimpses of more elusive wildlife.
That’s what’s great about robins. They are so common, they offer us a thread that’s always within reach and sturdy enough to keep us connected to the natural world. Wherever we are, however busy or distracted, there’s a robin doing its robin thing, singing its robin song, reminding us that there’s a whole world out there ready and waiting for us to take notice.
Northern Cardinal
Cardinals are one of the first singers of the year. They belt out their crooner crossed with car alarm tunes starting around Valentine’s Day. How romantic. As one of the first species to break into song each spring they offer us an exciting marker for the end of winter, and they give beginning birders a great opportunity to learn the cardinal’s song when they are still working solo acts. In mid-Febuary, not a lot of other songs are out there to compete for our attention or confuse things.
Male cardinals do the majority of the singing, and those males are bright red. In the Midwest if there’s snow on the ground, cardinals are the only bright red bird you’re going to see. (In the summer, various tanagers can compete for the brightest of red birds, but they would be a rare and exciting spots, whereas cardinals, although always exciting, are rarely— well— rare.) As a common bird with a loud voice who solos for several weeks before other birds start competing for airplay, cardinals are a great place to start if you’re hoping to build a foundation around which to build your bird identification practice.
The cardinal song is a mix of extended yet seperated downward notes followed by a super slow trill that sounds like a car alarm. Jump to about 0:19 to get the full cardinal effect.
What do you think? Does the cardinal sound a little like comeback-era Elvis? The males boast the style of Elvis circa an off-night version of Viva Las Vegas. They sport the high pompador (called a crest in elite birding communities), their guady red attire outshines even a bejeweled jumpsuit.
Do you hear the crooner crossed with car alarm? Compared to other regional species, the cardinal’s song can be called melodic. It occupies a songbird middleground as neither complex nor simple. Like a car alarm, it’s loud and repetetive.
In another shout out to Cornell Labs, check out the Macaulay Library. In this treasure-trove of recordings, you can explore what feels like a limitless collection of audio files for species around the world. The recordings play along with a real-time visual readout of the audio. The visual lends a physical shape to the song’s construction giving cues for pitch, tempo, pauses, and patterns.
I find this to be the coolest resource. I love having access to this extra level of context. We’ve come a long way from when I was learning to identify birdsongs in large part by reading the song descriptions in my field guide. My Sibley Guide (duct-taped along the spine from overuse) writes out the cardinal song as soundling like “slurred whistles woit, woit, woit, chew chew chew chew chew.” The above text in the car alarm image is equally vague. It’s hard to describe sounds using words. Speaking of which, as a way to afford your practice even more context, it can be helpful to try to explain the song to someone else or use your field journal as a place to describe what you hear. Use whatever works to trigger your memory and help you assoiate this crimson crooning car alarm with the Northern Cardinal.
But wait… the ladies!
Female birds often get overlooked when birders are first beginning to practice identification. Birds are commonly sexually dimorphic, meaning males and females of a species differ in physical characteristics. Females are often drabber in coloration and not as vocally active as males. That means females demonstrate fewer quick and ready markers for identification.
Females in general are rad there’s no doubt. If I overlook females here, it’s because you must first learn the obvious before you have the capacity to recognize the subtle. In birds and many species, males trend towards the obvious.
Anyhow, female cardinals are subtly beautiful with sandy coloration augmented with orange highlights and a saturated orange bill. All cardinals like to visit backyard feeders, so feeding stations are a place where you’re likely to see cardinals in all their forms. Back to the lounge act— cardinals tend to linger at feeders late into the evening. Think of them like groupies lingering at the lounge long after the less audacious birds have flittered off to bed.