Land Between Two Rivers; 301; Right in My Backyard

The following program is made possible through a grant from the Kenny Lindstrom foundation incorporated a charitable trust Mason City Iowa. On. Welcome truth and I didn't change his corner well Iowa I'm John Madsen that troll is an author. I'll be your host for this third season of the land between two rivers. I hope you'll enjoy the shows as much as we enjoyed making them. Iowa. Is quite an interesting place to study because we are all a couple of major flooding so we get the the full. Brunt of the migration of the birds going through the cell for those states to Canada. No other candidate. In the. Group to them.

Sure the stove was there the transitional zone between Eastern I'll. Never force the western eye wall was through this and so regularly that. A nice rich diversity of life we get the woodland species the Ripper will that. The true will of the species in the eastern part in the western part we get. Want to open up a species like that you know helping the sandpipers.

Well I definitely say get your binoculars get your bird book and get out there because you miss an awful lot of the world around you. If you don't partake of that opportunity and it's an opportunity that you can put as much or as little into as you want if you want to go out in the morning and set on a back porch with a cup of coffee and your binoculars and watch you have that opportunity almost anywhere. I've seen a not quite a number of species in my own back yard in town if you want to go farther than that go to a park in the early mornings especially in May and some of these other times when the birds are moving through and observe a tremendous number of species in a morning or at least trying to figure out what those species are. If you can get someone in the Nice to have a pet capture a bird or have him show him this. The beauty of this bird. That's how you convince them that they should be interested in these things. This person here can catch the bird. Have at their hand. Show them the tremendously rapid heartbeat the intricacy of the feathers then when you start convincing people they should be more concerned about the natural world.

Being roos and Doug Reeves have already gotten out their binoculars in search of our fine feathered friends. In fact they're old hands at this expert ornithologist and one of their favorite habitats is do these pastures. Present location a good place to spot unusual birds when much of Iowa was prairie like this one of the things pioneer women missed was the songbirds of their eastern woodlands but is trees followed settlement out onto the prairie. So did many of those woodland birds and one of the most common and beloved is the robin on our front lawns. The robin is one of the species which has adapted very well. Commands that. Really don't have very many. Real good examples of that. There are. Probably more robberies in the North American now. Than there was a Hundred Twenty years ago.

Because of all of the things that man has created for the rather than asked him why don't they come from a family that is is very important to us. This. The. The French family. And they have near relatives like the Bluebird. The hermit's Rice. The wood thrush the olive backrest the robin is a migrating species found around the world. It feeds on insects worms snails berries and fruit. Robins are recognized by their gray backs and brick red breasts in the mail overhead in tailor blackish when the female gray or young robins there are speckled breasts. Robins have adapted to a niche created primarily by humans. Our town's Rons farmland open forests and stream sides. But when the trash family comes up in the conversation of bird watchers one point is always made.

Their summer are most beautiful songsters them for this family they have pure notes if you record. The number of the car or the song of a robin or a wood thrush for a holiday. Right in prayer if it's a good recording you can slow them down to have a speed that it will be just as beautiful. You can scroll down to half again and it's it's a very very beautiful beach. Well that is just pure. I should say because you're happy I hate that answer but one time on a test I went into great detail the question of why you are the same thing. I went into great detail about territoriality and I got like a little bit of credit. The guy said makes me put down because you're happy he got full credit and that he's kind of kind of

crossing me a little bit. Then I could leave it there. Niggas can't help themselves they're saying in response to hormonal levels in their blood. And that's the way the length of day. Stimulates your pituitary to. Secrete testosterone and the male just almost can't help but feel something. They do have a rather than upholding instinct I can take. Birds. Of a male Robin 12 miles away from a theft and a day later it was back around is now. It's just that no one can explain that Iowa State University graduate student Iris Yan is observing the nesting habits of robins in order to collect data for a thesis. Robins traditionally build a mud wall grass lined bowl usually in a creek but proximity to humans is modified to materials used in construction. Robins will use

bits of paper bits of string and other human debris to make their nests. Yeah. See how that tank. This is the for the. Day they try to build a nest and the first nest they spend more times to build it and the interesting thing is I found she made two sides and one friend. The first side she was just kind of chews it and then maybe the second day is just thought. This is not very good. So here's another side just because to be the friend where the first side and when it's time to come back when the trick to the first I should put the trick in the nest and it should go to the medicine and try to sit him herself and try to adjust whether this is good enough or bad then.

OK should go away. She's trying to get the class to. Know. She grew up. To. Try to do really good. Can. All. You. All. First double.

Mother get another near miracle of nature this bird who has never done this before. This is Robin who is might be a year old a master for he is never. Billed in this before and that nest turns out to look exactly like every other rather than just in the head and you know. It has to be the save of her body. Her tail sticking over the edge and her head is over the other side so that it has just the be the link over the body itself. Iris yen conducts her studies in the early morning hours on the campus of Iowa State University. In this way she can observe the robins before move to her fellow students are up and about this study has given her the chance of seeing the fascinating developmental stages of the robin.

They always almost always lay for more pay and these are very specific very characteristic coloring the fact that we call them right out of the eggs. Robin egg blue that color. And there's another the color like it we reproduce it with paints and people use that there is a good question why why have I been the why of rotten eggs turned out to be blue and that you I think the answer is and other people think the answer is some other people think the answer is that it's race. It's in response to covered prayers it is the comedy isn't there. Robin is very seldom if ever a person dies like Albert eggs now. Well if you lay a bright blue way for a bright blue and there's a little brown egg in there you can tell immediately and you can take it and throw it out and that's what the robins probably did. I don't want too much time. Solely for a girl

most always for exams. In about 12 or 14 days and at that point the. The male. Still continues this thing but he begins to feed and help PDA. That has the young. Grow. And. Mature they used to require just progressively more food and so both parents are pretty busy. He'll graduate.

To. Ted service so Sam can't really. Yes OK. You can see through the skin X-ray all this. While. The older skin. Chancellor said. Yes. They were so beautiful. Robin's new liver a warning call to invaders this election of their burgeoning challenges included is to be aware. Robins are good parents with a nail in the female feed but there are tensions did not end there. He's been a great deal of time preening the young and cleaning them of mites but always feed me should tension comes to hold when young robins leave the nest. It's tf

really threw them for about two weeks and then they were a little bit more and get all excited in this this nest is so crowded with the young steps of events who just cannot hold them and so. You will see them. Sitting on the edge of the nasty reluctantly that now that's all they've ever known. But at this point the robins their spy their their breasts are spotted. And. Now they have a little stirred stubby tail. This is run they jump from the nest. And. They will follow their parents around begging to be free to be fed. And. So did the roof. They'll even chased their parents tell the parents to try to fly over. Oh they'll be crying at their parents calling this this food being cold and. Then after a round. Or week or so that the. Ruling to fly them and. Then there are immature parents where the hunt for word of the zone and then the food of the

hour. Where are the parents. Maybe you were there for that affair with one parent or take another maybe they start looking for another pair. And they start to leave so. They are less the second time say late mid-June than maybe a third time in July. Robins are easily seen in our neighborhoods but we are always at home when we're looking for something new or rest or attention. Consider the many hours we all spend driving on Interstate highways. Do you often get bored or wonder how to keep the kids entertained. Well wonder no longer. There is an exciting bird a falcon now begin encouraged to inhabit our roadside ditches. It's the American Kestrel. Is sometimes called a sparrow hawk. This project has actually been going on for about five years. We've only had our route along the Interstate Highway 35 for the last three years. But Ronnie Andrews had his started up there two years previous to that and was the one that was responsible for showing

that it worked out so well. It was his project was just a pilot project to see what they could get done up there and showing some success and then having it happen again the next year allow the avenue to be open then to pursue it with the Department of Transportation that we go into a more extensive project that way. And that's when we got involved here in Storey and Hamilton counties and where we've also expanded into some other counties now in an attempt to get them to nest over much of much of the state. I mean I think it's a really novel idea and I think it's a great idea it's worked out tremendously well because what you have there is a habitat that has every component that's necessary for that species except a nest site and when you saw that's the limiting factor if you will you stick that nest site in there and boom you know it's it's instantaneous habitat for the species and it has worked very well. The Castros are common in North and South America. They are aged two hours with

forage in open country prairies farmland freshly rude bitches. Right now there's only Falcon that nests here and I think that's a very important thing also to keep in mind they're a bird of prey and you know in that respect they're similar to all the other hawks and owls and so on but Falcons are there that streamlined type of burden or just something that people like to think about as gives you a little warm spot I guess when you start thinking about the Falcon and that lives in Iowa and the other things that are good about Castro's that people like as having special attributes anyway because they are a very pretty bird especially the males have kind of the blue gray wings and and they have that little sideburns mark on them and they're kind of a rusty colored back and they are very pretty birds. Birds that we have had in the nest boxes have virtually produced almost every egg develops into a little Kestrel it seems like. What's really amazing I guess is when you look at many other species of birds you often find that one bad egg

in a clutch Your you'll certainly find them in a you know a large number of them you'll find a certain percentage of them that's either infertile or don't hatch or for one reason or another don't develop into birds. But was the kestrels what we're finding is that most of the eggs are hatching out and most of the young are developing up and eventually fledging out of the boxes. Basically what you find five eggs in a clutch it seems like you've got five little kestrels fledging out of there. During the first few days after they have hatched these little Castros will be just little white fuzzy chicks fairly helpless looking and not having a lot of muscular control. Later on as they grow up they'll come through. A kind of a half fuzzy. Half. Sledgehammer half feathered stage I should say in which you will start to notice differences among the sexes in coloration. They'll be a lot more able to set up and have a lot better muscle control. And then finally right before they get ready to go out of the

box you will just be able to notice or feel a little tuft of down or that fuzzy white down still on them and they will look very much like an adult Castro except their tail feathers will be quite short. But there is a lot more room in a kestrel nest box even though the Castros are fairly good sized they're not all that much bigger than a robin. And there is more room in the box for the young ones so there's a little bit more space for them to have. One each or have an individual space and I guess that's what you would expect with them being a predatory bird as opposed to something like a robin which is not going to have the aggression that you would generally see in a predator. Watch for the Kestrel hoovering almost motionless in the air. Unique Christian should legally alert you if you're threatening their news. They might even today they had tests. Well I guess we have two goals. The first goal is I guess kind of our private golden non-game program that is to show the country that Iowa has something here that's quite

important in that we feel pretty good about it. And in order to do that what I'd like to see us do in our visual goal is to have a kestrel box every. Reasonable distance along the entire length of I-35 in Iowa I had the idea of calling out the Iowa Kestrel trail. The other goal is to get as many people involved in the conservation of the Kestrel and other wildlife as we can. And it's working out real well also. Several County conservation boards now have taken the Kestrel box program have kind of studied it over and are taking the lead on it now to where they've got private individuals who are involved with it. The Corps of Engineers has a couple of places where they'll they have some major Kestrel routes where they've got 15 20 30 boxes up. And I think you're going to see more and more of the gentleman farmer putting up a kestrel box on the back of his barn or out on a light pole somewhere and that sort of thing. So the secondary goal I guess is just to

see how many people we can get involved and have them interested in the project more cannot. See before. Homelessness is about six steps. Well he's already learned quite a little about the birds in that he can already tell what sex they are by picking them up and you heard him say you know right out of the box there. This one is a male This one is a female and that's going a little. And in addition he's had you know the opportunity to see how long it's taken him to develop to this point. Hand has probably observed them when they were just little white fuzz balls all the way through up to where they are right now and I think that's that's a great opportunity as an opportunity a lot of people don't have our lives don't take advantage of a lot of people and I want to have the OPP have the advantage or have that opportunity but they just don't make the best of it I guess.

Not so I. Think you might be using you this information Jeremy. Yeah. How. Make up your mind to do that all. Of the stuff that pretty good I think that's pretty good training for yourself. What sort of things again are about having a life. Heard anybody blow the last day in sex life. Small animals but the fellowship couple I. Met deserted lodge crowded with Kissel's knew your home is not really deserted. Look closely and see a small yellow bird with black wings darting back and forth particularly in the late summer months. This is Iowa state bird. The Goldfinch dashing about foraging for thistle seeds to eat

the American or common goldfinch nests later than most birds. It times the nest to coincide with his old maturity so the seeds could be fed to the young typically. Lasting will occur during August and early September. The compact nasty usually built in the bush or creek between three and six pale blue eggs are laid as hedging time grows near the female will seldom leave the nest. In fact it's common for the male to feed her during his time kids for money got interested in it when he loads them in the backyard. Here is a very common bird in the state of Iowa one that we see every day. I entice them into my backyard through the thistle seed feeders this type of thing. And. The banding project kind of began with oh I wonder. During the peak of the summertime just how many. Goldfinches are hitting that feed. Because the seed was sure going down

mighty fast. And so I spread my mist nets starting in the middle of July of one year. And. By the middle of September. We're talking of a two month period of time I had banned it approximately 65 goldfinches individual goldfinches here in my backyard goldfinches in their nesting then we're asked to use the crotchet for both us so many times and build a nest and they usually use fine hairs grasses. And the down from them to lie. It's a very small cup like type of nest. Playing usually 5 eggs. Can. Range from four to six eggs. The eggs are. Whitish. Possibly with a dark blue blotched

incubation is 10 to 12 days and then from the time the egg hatches it's a matter of depending on individual cases but very quickly. 10 days 12 days. The young are gone from the nest of. The Goldfinch nests. Again. Peak is probably mid August late August the younger hatched September early September their fledging. Then the cycle of nature. This is Late late late late in the goldfinches timing as it is depending on that seed the seed harvest to feed to feed its young. Therefore the growth rate is going to be tremendous. And they have to so-called push it. Cold weather is. Upon them almost like an early September. And so they're really

less spectacular growing bird when it comes to raising their young. It's a very fast reproduction so. The out of doors is a fantastic place. There are. Many secrets many mysteries and here we have a common little bird the merry cheery cheerful type bird in the state of our state and I'm just simply curious as to finding out a little bit more. Right in my backyard. And if I can be. Cute enough for. My observations. I can learn some of the secrets. Because Iowa is part open invite would cross my natural fly ways.

It is blessed with a great diversity and variety of birds. By becoming aware of these neighbors living right in our backyard we can actively enjoy a fascinating natural heritage of Iowa. You're new to me and you're just so just so. Just so. As not to lose them. We. Do know the name.

You. Mean to Me. You. Mean. To me. This program was made possible through a grant from the Kenny Lindstrom foundation incorporated a charitable trust Mason City Iowa.