ALLAN BOVEE - PHOTOGRAPHY
ADVENTURES IN NATURE PHOTOGRAPHY
MAY 2004
Please see my recently published photos at my Published Photos page.
Two of my popular prints at art shows are photos of a red-eyed vireo and of a blue-gray gnatcatcher. People ask me where did I find these birds and how did I go about photographing them. They are amazed when I tell them that these species are two of the most common birds to be found in southeast Michigan.
When I take a walk of a mile or so in the woods around my area in the late Spring or Summer, I may hear or see these two species ten or fifteen times. Because the two species don't come to bird feeders or visit our backyards, they require a little more effort to see and hear them. Figuring two birds per territory, these birds are more common than blue jays or robins, birds that most people consider to be very common.
Red-eyed
vireos sing from the tops of the trees and do so incessantly all day giving the
bird the nickname "the preacher bird". Their nests are much closer to the ground
and it is thought that the males constant calling gives the female the security
to build her nest and lay and incubate the eggs. The nest always hangs between a
fork in a branch of a lower tree or shrub and consists of a weaved structure
with which she fastens birch bark to the outside.
I have found many nests of the red-eyed vireo over the years. Most are serendipitous but I have also learned a call the bird gives which is similar to the veery's "veer" which indicates you are near their nest. A thorough search then often leads to the beautiful creations they build for raising young. My photo of the adult offering its three young a green stink bug couldn't have been a better pose if I had asked the young to cooperate with me.
Blue-gray gnatcatchers are always heard before they are seen. Their call is a high inquisitive-sounding "pwee?" and they continue to call allowing one to search for them with binoculars in the tree tops. Making a "psshh" sound with your lips often attracts them to come closer. Oddly, making a psshh sound does no good in Florida where they are not nesting or territorial in the Winter.
The first blue-gray nest I found was about 40 feet off the ground. The nest is a work of art, it is cup shaped composition of plant down bound to the tree branch with spider webs and shingled with lichens. When I returned a few days later the nest was gone. I have read where the birds, upon discovery of their nest, will move it to another location by grabbing beakfulls of material. This I find hard to believe, more likely a predator like a squirrel ripped it apart searching for more eggs to eat.
In the next couple of years I found several more nests but couldn't photograph them for one reason or another. Finally, I decided to go all out and make the blue-gray gnatcatcher my number one bird. I read all I could on the bird in the scientific journals at the University of Michigan. I spent every available moment in the woods looking for the bird's nests.
In
Highland Recreational Area I spotted a blue-gray gnatcatcher fluttering around a
spider web and figured the bird was eating spiders or trapped insects. But to my
amazement the bird flew up to a nearby tree and deposited the spider silk on a
horizontal branch. Could this be the start of a nest? I returned a week later to
find a completed nest with two eggs in the exact spot. I had witnessed the very
first step in building their complicated nest structure. So much for the theory
that the birds move their nests when discovered. The birds laid two more eggs
and after hatching I moved twenty feet of scaffolding and my blind for
photography, but unfortunately the night before I was to move in a predator
found the nest and devoured the young. Two other gnatcatcher nests I found that
year were taken by predators as well.
The next year I worked at Pontiac Lake Recreational Area. By now I was getting good at finding blue-gray gnatcatcher nests. The birds show excitement when around their nest area and the intensity and pitch of their calls change. Once I recognize this behavior it is just a matter of keeping the binoculars on the bird for eventually he or she will go to the nest. I found a total of nine blue-gray nests that year including a personal record of four nests in four hours one day. Most nests are twenty to forty feet in the trees but one was much lower in the fork of a flowering dogwood which I assumed would be taken first by predators. But as it turned out, one by one the nests were all plundered by predators except the one in the dogwood. Despite these losses the blue-grays will quickly rebuild a new nest and try again, eventually succeeding in raising their young. When the eggs hatched, I quickly moved blind and scaffolding in for photography.
On
the cool day I photographed, the female kept returning to the nest to brood her
three young while the very active male kept bringing insects for them to eat. I
didn't realize the male can be told by a slight dark line over the eye that is
lacking in the female.
Last winter in Florida I had blue-grays singing all day by my campsite where they spend the Winter. Just yesterday while hiking in Highland and taking a survey of the birds I concluded all the summer birds are back and most of the migrating birds that nest north of us are past. I probably saw twelve or so blue-gray gnatcatchers which all responded to my "psshhing" indicating they are on territory. I also spotted a few red-eyed vireos singing as well gleaning the new leaves in the trees for insects. I suggest a walk in the woods to visit the homes of these common Michigan birds.
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Date this page was edited: May 14, 2004 (Brother Tom's Birthday).