EXPLORING NATURE: SPRING BIRDS

It may be hard to believe, what with the recent cold temperatures, but I do believe spring may be on the way. I’m keeping an eye out for a totally new cast of birds and even hoping for a returning hummingbird.

Purple martin scouts started showing up in late February and a dribble of martins will turn into a flood during March and April. If you are a purple martin landlord, make sure your houses are cleared of sparrow nests and are all ready for new occupants.

American Indians hung hollow gourds with carved-out holes to attract martins. These beneficial birds not only eat mosquitoes on the wing, they also eat several pesky insects that devour farm crops.

I don’t have a martin house, but I do have a hanging suet block which is attracting my first warblers, including the little “butter-butt” yellowrumped warbler.

Some lucky folks have hummingbirds at their places on a year-round basis. But most of us will see our first hummers arriving in mid-March and April.

Early arriving hummingbirds will find weather still frigid at night, but they know how to go into a state of torpor and slow down their metabolism to survive.

In fact, there is one hummingbird that can be described as the coolest in the world. That’s the black metaltail, a tiny bird that lives at high elevations in the Peruvian Andes and is able to lower its night-time body temperature to an astounding 38 degrees Fahrenheit, the lowest body temperature ever recorded in any bird.

The metaltail can lower its body temperature to just one degree above the surrounding air temperature and survive during sustained frigid weather. Wow.

What a plucky little bird. I get cold just thinking about it.