Ruth's New Tenants

Yesterday's banding at Niagara Boat Launch yielded about 40 birds with a nice variety of species. For once though, we didn't get any new species in the net. Still, the day was quite eventful. Around 3 PM Morgan and I followed Ruth, my landlady, to her country house about 30 miles east of Erie. We were part of a group of seven people who'd driven out there to take a look at her outhouse.

It's a very nice outhouse, with a great view, but that's not why we were there. Ruth is a very considerate person. She's provided me with a very nice apartment during my stay in Erie at a very reasonable price. She also volunteers at the banding station, taking birds from the nets and making sure that I record all the data on each bird we process. So when she was mowing the lawn at her country house to get it ready to put on the market, she was surprised to see someone leave her outhouse. The door had fallen off the structure during the winter and they'd taken up residence there. She took some photographs and showed them to several people the following day. Everyone was amazed and rather amused by her discovery.

Here's what she found.

Two large white eggs with some black spotting, laid on the ground without any hint of a nest. Ruth's new tenants are a pair of Turkey Vultures.

Turkey Vultures usually nest in caves, under overhangs, or in hollow logs. Given the opportunity, they will raise their young in abandoned buildings, or in this case, temporarily unused structures. Because they are one of the few species of birds known to have a good sense of smell, one wonders whether there were other factors that led them to choose this site. No matter the reason, they're still incubating the eggs (a bird flew off as we approached the nest) and will probably stay and raise their young. Ruth has delayed putting the house up for sale until they're done, as it'd be hard to explain the presence of sub-lettors that will regurgitate roadkill if disturbed. I hope the eggs hatch within the next week or so, because I really want to see the chicks before I leave in June.

Sad but true, spring migration is drawing to a close. Today Morgan and I spent much of the day birding out on the peninsula. It was one of the best days of spring migration birding I've ever experienced. Birds were everywhere, with at least 15 species of warblers, 3 vireo species and much more. The variety was great, but the abundance of the birds was fantastic. Birding Fry's Landing we did nothing but go from bird to bird for close to an hour. And this was between 10:30 and 11:30 in the morning on a hot and sunny day. I must have seen 30+ Blackpolls and 20 or more Bay-breasted Warblers within a 2 acre area. We had fun.

Tomorrow we're banding at Erie Bluffs, so it'll be interesting to see whether the numbers are still around.