baby birds: an intimate look inside the nest, with julie zickefoose
IT’S NESTING SEASON, and what better time to talk “Baby Birds”? That’s the title of wildlife rehabilitator and artist Julie Zickefoose’s newest book, and she shared with me some of what she saw, and learned, in creating it.
You’ll hear me say “wow” and “oh!” and “that’s crazy” and “amazing” a lot in the audio version of this interview—because it all is.
I see a lot of birds in my garden, but my experience their offspring is limited, frankly. This year’s phoebe is incubating her clutch on the back porch, atop a stereo speaker as every spring, and when pruning a white pine out back I came upon a mourning dove nest holding two big eggs. Tree swallows have laid claim to two nest boxes, and hairy woodpeckers picked a tree near the compost heap, so my frequent comings and goings over that way elicit much disapproving comment. But I don’t often dare peek into nests at hatchlings and see fledglings—especially not the way Julie does.
In “Baby Birds: An Artist Looks Into the Nest,” she uses more than 400 watercolor paintings and the stories of her intimate encounters to bring the unseen to light, illuminating the survival strategies and developmental stages of 17 species. Amazing.
Read along as you listen to the May 9, 2016 edition of my public-radio show and podcast using the player below. You can subscribe to all future editions on iTunes or Stitcher (and browse my archive of podcasts here).
my q&a on baby birds, with julie zickefoose
Q. I made a promise to myself that this would be the year that I really noticed who’s nesting where and got to know not just the adult birds of the garden but also more of the babies. So your new book “Baby Birds: An Artist Looks Into the Nest” came at just the right time–thank you!
A. It’s a time when a lot of people are waking up to birds, and how wonderful they really are.
Q. How did the book come together? I mentioned that you are a wildlife rehabilitator and an artist.
A. It’s a natural outgrowth of how I’ve lived and drawn and thought and written all my life. I have from a very early age kept journals, and illustrated them. It was only natural for me to want to share the miracles I saw in the bluebird boxes I was checking all summer long.
Since I have a good array of birds nesting in those boxes—not just bluebirds, but Carolina chickadees, tufted titmice, tree swallows, bluebirds, Carolina wrens—right there I had six subjects. They were well-protected in my boxes, which were baffled against predations; nothing could climb up to them because there was a stovepipe baffle on the pile mount. So it was there for the picking.
As a wildlife rehabilitator it was legal for me to handle and feed and care for them, so it was natural for me to start drawing them, and it was very, very exciting.
Q. So you just said, “predation.” To use your words from a previous conversation we had, baby birds are “a sitting buffet” for predators. That reality has influenced how they have evolved how they nest, hatch and fledge. Let’s talk about the process and the triggers—and maybe first: some of the glossary of great words involved with this, about baby birds and the condition they’re born in.
A. There are altricial birds [above], and most birds we’re familiar with, songbirds, are altricial. They lie in the nest cup helpless, and their parents feed them. Their eyes may not even open for a week or so. Then there are precocial birds—like ruffed grouse, turkeys, pheasants, chickens, shore birds, sandpipers—that get up with wide-open beady bright eyes and follow their parents right away after hatching.
There is really a lot of difference between the two, and all the birds that I studied were essentially altricial—helpless at birth, though some were less helpless than others.
Q. If people have looked into a familiar nest like a robin’s, they’re like little naked things.
A. Right. They’re almost formless; they look like little blobs of pink protoplasm. To see this thing start sprouting feathers and growing up is just the most compelling thing. And it’s even more wonderful to draw it.
Q. And they’re growing up quickly, because there is no time to waste—it’s too dangerous to hang around, right?
A. The nest is the most dangerous place that a bird will ever be, because they’re rooted in one place for as long as it takes them to grow feathers and to get the strength to climb out of the nest.
The open-cup nesters like robins, song sparrows, chipping sparrows, indigo buntings, cardinals—they leave the nest as fast as possible. That results in some baby birds that fledge as early as Day 7 to Day 9.
Q. Wow. Days 7 to 9 they’re taking their first flight—leaving the nest, or just hopping out on a branch, maybe?
A. Yes, calling it a first flight is a bit kind. [Laughter.]
Q. I thought I got a little over-ambitious there.
A. Some of them can. A baby cuckoo can fly a bit at Day 8, a yellow-billed cuckoo. But most of them, say an indigo bunting or a cardinal that fledges at Day 9, they still have big parts of their body that isn’t covered with feathers. They are sort of half-naked, and have almost no tail at all and really short, stubby wings. They don’t look ready for primetime. But all they really have to do is be able to cling to a branch, clamber or flutter a little ways, and their parents will find them in the shrubbery to feed.
They keep in touch with their parents with these little contact calls, or chippering calls, so that their parents can come and find them, whenever they are.
Q. It’s pretty wonderful—a real privilege to see a baby bird, and I have to say I don’t see enough of them. Though I know the parents, I wouldn’t necessarily recognize their babies. So your book—the pictures—really helps.
Occasionally I’ll find a nestling on the ground so I’ll learn one species—like a phoebe last year, one who was sitting in the grass, having left the nest on the back porch. As you say, Mom was talking to it across the yard. But I didn’t know what a baby phoebe looked like until then.
A. They can look quite different. Like a baby bluebird [above] is all-over gray and spangled with white, and has just a hint of blue in the wing and tail, so you can sometimes guess. But they often look quite different from the parents.
Q. As we speak and tape this on the last days of April I’m waiting for the arrival of indigo buntings. Is the fact that your home is called Indigo Hill a coincidence or do you enjoy that vivid little bird, too?
A. We named it on purpose. My husband Bill and I were trying to think of a name for our then-40-acre farm (we have since expanded it to 80) that didn’t sound pretentious, or too hoity-toity.
One evening we were bantering about names on the back deck, and an indigo bunting flew over in flight song, which is something they do all summer long and is fantastic. I just looked at Bill and said, “Indigo Hill.” That’s all there is to it. It came naturally. They’re abundant on our place and nest on the borders of the old meadows. They like sumac, they like young shrubs growing up. And they also like wide-open fields because they feed on weed seeds.
Q. I didn’t know that, and I don’t know where they nest here. I read in the book that it took some time for you to find the nest that you write about.
A. They’re very clever. I found this little female that I named Mrs. Piper, and I knew this pair for three years.
Q. Oh!
A. I knew the husband—husband! [laughter]—because he sang every morning around 5 AM on a farm bell right outside my bedroom window. So I named him Piper, from “Wind in the Willows.” Piper at the Gates of Dawn. I saw his mate gathering coco fiber from one of my hanging baskets. I saw her carrying this toward the garage, but it took me quite a bit more time before I spooked her off the nest, and she was almost done incubating three eggs.
It was total happenstance that I found it, and I was so honored to be able to draw the hatching of their young, and the fledging and post-fledging period.
Q. I loved the fact you mentioned in the book about why male doesn’t feed incubating mate—as you say, Mrs. Piper, not that we anthropomorphize or anything, Julie [laughter]—you should hear me talking to this particular squirrel I have known for three seasons now, because he’s black instead of gray and was wounded when he was young and has a bare patch on his back—not mange, thankfully. I confess: We have a conversation everyday, too.
So why doesn’t the male indigo bunting feed his mate when she’s incubating the eggs, or his young?
A. Well, he’s the color of a piece of blue tarpaulin—the brightest color you’ve ever seen. It’s not a good idea for him to keep coming to the nest. Indigo bunting male’s job is to breed with the female, and protect the territory from interlopers, protect his mate from others who might mate with her.
Indigo buntings are birds of very flexible moral character.
Q. [Laughter.] Philanderers did you say they are?
A. Yes. Both sexes. The females will sneak off and mate with other males, and the males will sneak into other males’ territories and mate with their mates. So he has a job to do, and that’s basically singing all day—fending off rivals, and keeping them away from his mate and his territory.
He would draw attention to the nest by visiting it, and so he has no attachment to the young; it’s all up to her, and she’s cryptically colored, a soft cocoa brown. She just takes care of everything.
One of the things I speculate about, is why indigo buntings breed so late in the season. One of the reasons is probably that the weeds seeds they need to eat come up then, and they feed crickets and grasshoppers to their young, and caterpillars, and all that food is abundant then.
But the other thing that occurred to me is that if she is going to raise the young [above] herself, and have to leave and forage and get food herself, it had better be hot, so she can leave those young alone in the nest—without having to worry about keeping them warm.
Q. You remind me when you say breeding late, I never understood until many years into knowing something about birds that goldfinches also nest rather late.
A. Very late—you’ll see them nesting in July and August. You’ll see them feeding young in September on birch seeds. They’ll sit right up in our birch trees and feed them birch seeds.
Each species is delicately timed to the food abundances that it needs, and it’s not going to commence breeding until it’s sure it has a good, reliable food supply.
Q. At milkweed time—do the goldfinch use that floss?
A. They’re more closely associated with thistles.
Q. Thistles—excuse me, yes. In my head I am visualizing what it looks like. At that time of year I will see them come take spider webs from the corners of my windows—not that I am not the best housekeeper outside [laughter]—but I’m lucky and have a lot of spiders.
They will come and gather the spider webs, and it’s the most magical thing.
A. What a wonderful thing to see. I’ve seen hummingbirds collecting cobwebs, but I don’t think I’ve seen goldfinches.
Goldfinch nests are beautiful. They’re made of plant down—thistle down—bound with cobwebs and they’re just a wonderful little creation.
Q. I have also seen the great crested flycatcher—that’s a tongue twister if you say it too quickly—does it live in the Midwest?
A. Oh, yes.
Q. I’ve seen it hunt in the stone walls where I have a lot of snakes that use the warm stones to slough off their old skins. The great crested flycatcher comes and looks and carries away snakeskins.
A. You’ve been lucky.
Q. If you sit and stare out the window long enough [laughter]…
A. ….looking for inspiration.
Q. ….what you see. That’s another potential nest material I didn’t know about.
A. Great crested flycatchers use them almost for ornament.
Q. Oh!
A. They trail the snakeskins out the hole. They’re cavity nesters, and in fact it’s one of my favorite nature quizzes. If I’m walking by the hole and see that, I say, “Now how did that snakeskin get 30 feet up in a tree?”
They trail the snakeskin out of the hole, and there is lots of speculation about that. The thought is perhaps a predatory bird might not want to go near a place where a snake had just gone in, shedding its skin as it went.
Q. Smart stuff.
A. Kind of neat stuff. Although I had a pair in Virginia use a piece of angel-hair insulation instead of a snakeskin and trail that out of the hole.
Q. Ugh.
A. Yes.
Q. There is a chapter in the book about mourning doves, and I know you have a special affection for them. I think they’re underappreciated.
A. Agreed.
Q. An individual always sits on the peak of my roof and sings most afternoons this time of year, and in summer as well. I don’t know what it is about that spot, but it looks like a hood ornament. And I love their crazy-colorful little legs and the way they waddle around, and the distinctive sound when they take flight. I like that, too.
A. Yes, pretty wonderful, isn’t it? I love mourning doves [above], and I think people don’t give them enough credit for being smart . They’re actually really fascinating birds. They were especially interesting to me because I was intrigued by the question of how a bird that subsists entirely on a vegetarian diet manages to fledge its baby fully feathered and flying pretty well at Day 12.
So these things hatch—there are always two; it’s an obligate clutch of two—and they are flying and out of the nest by Day 12, which is extremely fast to grow a big bird like that. Looking into it, I knew they fed their young by regurgitation, and they make a certain curdlike substance in their crop called crop milk, or pigeon milk.
They are unique among birds with the flamingos and the penguins in being able to produce food in their crop that has nothing to do with the food they have ingested. It’s almost like lactating.
Q. Wow.
A. Basically it’s the epithelial lining of the crop, which is an enlargement of the esophagus; it sloughs off in response to the hormone prolactin, which is the same hormone that makes us lactate…
Q. Wow.
A. …yeah, and they create this stuff that has this amazing nutritional content to it. It’s extremely high in fat and protein. The dry analysis reveals a composition of 57 percent protein and 34 percent fat and no carbohydrate.
Q. Isn’t that insane? How can that be?
A. Isn’t that neat? I know, I know. They’re basically almost lactating; that’s really all I can explain. They feed this for about the first five or six days, and these babies just grow exponentially. The babies just grow like nothing you’ve ever seen.
That’s one of the really fun things about this book—that you get to look inside the nest and learn things you had no idea happened.
Q. In a way, when I turned some of the pages, I though like, “Oh, I shouldn’t be looking!” It’s such a secret place; it has been hidden from me. I know a lot of birds—but I don’t know them at this stage in their life.
A. Yes, it’s certainly a “don’t try this at home” thing [laughter]. Some people are sort of appalled that I have been handling baby birds and taking them out of the nest and painting them and then putting them back in. But I make sure that I am not going to compromise their safety by doing that.
I have to have absolutely secure situations, like baffled boxes or nests that I can access without attracting predators. This is why it took me 13 years to amass the species that I studied in this book.
But yes, it’s a privileged view. Because I knew how to feed them and care for them while I was doing this, I could do this without compromising them at all. In fact, there were several nests that only made it because I was there to ward off predatory snakes and that kind of thing. Because I was watching the nest, there were several babies who were saved from death by strangling on nest materials and things like that. All kinds of stuff—I think people who watch nest cams know that all kinds of weird stuff goes on in birds’ nests. [Laughter.]
Q. One of the things you said about touching them: You make clear in the beginning of the book that what people think is a conventional wisdom—that if the mother bird smells human touch on them, she’ll abandon them—is not true, right?
A. That’s not the case. Songbirds have no sense of smell that we can discern, and they also are very strongly bonded to their young, and don’t desert them just because they have seen a human being near them. They really have a lot of interest in taking care of their young.
But it’s a good thing that people stay out of their nests, and that we think we shouldn’t touch baby birds, because we shouldn’t.
Q. What was the one that broke your heart—the one that when you saw inside the nest was just “beyond?’”
A. Yes, I’d say the yellow-billed cuckoo is the bird that’s so strange and so wonderful that I was absolutely on fire to paint them, because they leave the nest at Day 7.
Q. That’s crazy.
A. And not only that, they’re fully feathered at Day 8, and they develop so quickly and they are so bizarre to look at and paint that it didn’t really break my heart, but it set me on fire is all I can say. [Above, cuckoos at Day 2.]
And finding out something about the nesting cycle of a bird that is completed from the laying of the first egg to the fledging of the young in only 17 days. The egg incubates for only 11 days, and the baby is in the nest for only a week.
Q. What’s the craziest-looking nest you saw? The one with the snakeskin hanging out of it sounds a little crazy. [Laughter.]
A. The house sparrow nest in my yard was pretty funny, because it was full of feathers from my macaw, and cardinal feathers, and bits of trash and candy wrappers—whatever they can find. Cellophane they really like. They’re kind of the junkmeisters. I describe them as the lame North American bowerbird.
Q. Maybe we should call it tramp art to elevate it. [Laughter.]
A. That would work; they are little tramps.
Q. So sparrow nests were all gussied up. I’m always shocked when I seen an oriole nest, because that seems preposterous, doesn’t it, hanging like that?
A. I’ve got an oriole nest that someone gave me that’s constructed entirely of plastic fibers they pulled from an old tarp—that cellophane-looking plastic fiber. Beautifully woven of plastic.
I’ve also seen a city pigeon nest—a rock pigeon’s—made up entirely from the curls of a metal lathe. And a raven nest made entirely of barbed wire—the little piece that the rancher went and clipped off
Q. And it went and collected them? It’s amazing.
julie’s website and books
FIND Julie Zickefoose’s blog at this link; her other books include “The Bluebird Effect” (all her books on Amazon are on her author page).
enter to win a copy of ‘baby birds’
Who’s nesting in your garden, or who usually does?
No answer, or feeling shy? Just say something like, “Count me in,” and I will, but a reply is even better. I’ll pick a random winner after entries close at midnight Sunday, May 15, 2016. US only; good luck to all.
prefer the podcast version of the show?
MY WEEKLY public-radio show, rated a “top-5 garden podcast” by “The Guardian” newspaper in the UK, began its seventh year in March 2016. In 2016, the show won three silver medals for excellence from the Garden Writers Association. It’s produced at Robin Hood Radio, the smallest NPR station in the nation. Listen locally in the Hudson Valley (NY)-Berkshires (MA)-Litchfield Hills (CT) Mondays at 8:30 AM Eastern, rerun at 8:30 Saturdays. Or play the May 9, 2016 show right here. You can subscribe to all future editions on iTunes or Stitcher (and browse my archive of podcasts here).
(All illustrations copyright Julie Zickefoose, from “Baby Birds.” Used with permission. Disclosure: Purchases from Amazon affiliate links yield a small commission.)
When we were young, my mom would find birds nests and show us the eggs and the babies. I would love the book. The art is so beautiful.
My father-in-law loves watching and photographing bird. He would enjoy this book. I hope to win it for him.
My yard is filled with migratory birds every year, nests built in trees, bushes and boxes by those who stick around for a while. I would be over the moon to win this book.
Recently moved back to Pennsylvania from Florida. All fresh birdlife.
We love feeding the birds especially golfinches. They love sunflowers.
We placed a dried gourd in the backyard and treeswallows are building a nest. We’re thrilled!
We tried to attract bluebirds with our mealyworm mix and found out the Robins just love them too.
So happy my husband is getting involved in this hobby as we are new retirees.
We read everyday new ways to attract these darling cheerful creatures.
Would love to get a copy of your new book.
As a child I quickly learned how to find baby red-winged blackbirds near a small wetland near my house. The louder and more frantically the parents birds flew over my head the closer I knew I was to finding the young. Out of concern for the poor parents, I never stayed in the area too long after making my observations.
I have a variety of animals nesting in my garden. These include a woodpecker. In the early morning I enjoyed the pecking of the hole in the dead branch of a tree in my backyard. I have a variety of bluebirds and swallows nesting in various nests located on trees, a barn and in housed in my back yard. I recently had a Mallard duck that nested and gave birth to five wonderful children. I have another Mallard mother that is dutifully keeping her eggs safe and warm in anticipation of a wonderful new family. Add to this two squirrel nests that exist in trees and I have a great collection of wonderful animals that make my morning before work and my evening after work such enjoyment. The visual impact of seeing families at work to create and protect new life and hearing their communication sounds relieves the stresses of my daily life. It certainly puts things in perspective.
We actually got some rain this year and the bird population is booming. I have California Towhees nesting in the Jasmine around the garage door. One fledgling left the nest last night. Black Phoebes have built their incredibly messy nest on the security light over that door. And bluebirds are nesting in one of my boxes. It’s quite noisey around here with all the cheeping and chirping.
What birds prefer to build their nests under an elevated deck?
Our wrens are back and chattering away as they go in and out of their house on our front porch. My favorite time of the year)
Love the painting of the cuckoo!!!
I never watched birds, but this year I found a nest. 2 beautiful naked little cardinal babies. I never knew that mom and dad cardinal both fed the babies. I took a gorgeous picture of the two of them with their mouths wide open waiting…..I actually sent it to friends for Mother’s Day saying “they’ll always need us”. They couldn’t possibly be ready to leave the nest, they had no substantial feathers from what I could tell. And then, the day after mothers day I waited and waited. Mid-afternoon I looked at the nest. They were gone. I hate to think it was a cat or an animal that took the babies away, but would love to know if there’s anything I can do in case they come back next year. I know nature has its way, but this broke my heart.
The cardinals are always around and very welcome. I never have seen the nesting babies but when they fly, I see them regularly. They are vocal and beauties to admire so I don’t mind their presence. It’s the blue jays and the crows that are another story!
We had a huge willow tree in our yard in northwest NJ, on Lake Hopatcong. A Willow tree’s life expectancy is 25-30 years, it was dying, it looked “haunted” and the roots were clogging a storm drain, so it had to go. We cut it down in the fall. The next spring, lots of beautiful bright Goldfinches came “home”….it was heartbreaking to see them circling around the tree stump, wondering where their home was! Now, for the past 5 years, we’ve had a starling, or some dark bird who always nests in the broken part of the eave of our house. I assume this bird was one of a nest of birds that were born there the previous summer? The eave should be repaired, and the hole closed up, but we always seem to put it off until there is another new family started–then we say “next spring we’ll do it”! Julie Zickefoose’s book would be a good book to enjoy with my grandkids. It would increase their awareness and appreciation of Mother Nature–mine too!
Here in Southern California, we have Towhees, Hooded Orioles, Lesser Goldfinches, and House Sparrows which certainly have nests in our immediate yard or surrounding areas. The biggest find, this year, however, is the nest high in the center of a huge pine tree around the corner where we’ve seen and heard a Cooper’s Hawk pair coming and going from the nest site. If there were a way to get way up into that tree (a bird nest viewing drone anyone?) I’m certain we would see some eggs. It’s exciting to hear the adults’ calls and know that there’s a lot going on unseen up there so high above our neighborhood. We’re anticipating hearing and ultimately seeing the babies and hope we get lucky enough to watch them fledge.
My 84-yr-old Mother is a dedicated bird lover and this book would be a wonderful gift for her.
Love the beautiful watercolor illustrations! Every year, my backyard baby birds are such a treat to see and now my goal is to be able to identify more of them.
Cardinals, Bluebirds, and Eurasian Ring neck Doves
When we lived in New England, for many years we had bluebird next boxes in our yard. More often than not, sparrows claimed them. The advice we found was to clear out the sparrow nests, but we could not bring ourselves to do so: who are we to choose which baby bird lives and which dies? Now we live in Philadelphia, and have noticed some bluebirds in the neighborhood. Perhaps we’ll try again…
Every year we put up a wren house near our bay window. It’s so much fun to watch as they bring small sticks back and try to figure out how to maneuver them into the small hole. As the babies grow we love to watch them poke their heads out of the hole, looking around at the world, before they fledge.
I have a mixed variety here in NC but the ones most noticed are the male cardinals that for the last several years fly into 2 of my windows sometimes 20 times a day!! I’ve even put the reflective decals on the windows but the are determined & continue doing it! I’ve even stood at the window & filmed it. I have a collection of 8 bird feeders & a bird bath near my kitchen window that gives me a daily show:)
I love knowing I have lots of nests in my yard, and seeing the parents feeding the babies from seed on my deck. It’s such a special time of the year!
We love-love-love our birds and all their surprises here in Elgin, Illinois-about 45 miles west of Chicago. We have had the good fortune of regular Daily visits from three types of woodpeckers-the Downy, Hairy, and red bellied. Cardinals and Robins, Blue Jays and all sorts of blackbirds, Sparrows and colorful finches are the norm. Hummingbirds have just arrived in the past week, and have been attracting Oreos for several years now with great success. Our neighbors still scratch their head about how much we invest in bagged oranges and jars of grape jelly but we enjoy it tremendously. This week the Rose breasted grosbeak and Scarlet Tanager also appeared-but they don’t tend to stick around for the summer. The same is true for indigo Bunting & Cedar Waxwing. Information in this book looks amazing!
I’ve never stopped to see what birds are in backyard, but I will definitely start to look out for them! Please count me in for the contest!
I placed lots of bluebird boxes on the fence surrounding my vegetable garden. The tree swallows love the boxes and I enjoy their company. The bluebirds try nesting in other parts of the field and I do get to see them. On several occasions I have discovered a sparrow (never firmly identified) nesting in a clump of grass in a quiet part of the garden. Other birds nesting near by are flickers, morning doves, song, chipping and house sparrows, orchard and Baltimore orioles, titmouse, towhees, catbirds, downy woodpecker, Carolina wren, gold and house finches, kingbird, cardinal, rose breasted grosbeak, and robins. I probably missed a few other nesters. For all the bird activity I rarely see or find nests. Except for robins, wrens and phoebes or orioles most birds do a good job of hiding nests from me.
We always have had Cardinals nesting somewhere in our yard or near by. Not so much these past years. This spring I have only seen a couple of males…so far….still early. I tend to think the abundance of squirrels have been
keeping them away. ? don’t know if that’s why. The sight I caught the other day was a male Cardinal pulling up a worn in our front lawn !! Didn’t know they did that.
Lots of birds in my back woods. Last year I got to see yellow shafted northern flickers mating. Would love this book.