Bird watching: If you know what you're looking for, this activity can

By Roger Martin

Special to The Capital-Journal

My yard is scarred by an ugly brown patch, a place where the grass was killed off last winter. One recent morning I discovered the greater good the patch serves. A robin plucked some dead grass from it, then flew off with a bundle. I ain't Mr. Natural, but even I got the message: The little guy was building a nest --- proof positive of bird breeding behavior.

Bill Busby, an associate scientist at The University of Kansas Biological Survey, knows all the signs and subtleties of such behavior. He's one of two editors, along with John Zimmerman, of the newly published Kansas Breeding Bird Atlas. The atlas tells birdwatchers where to find the 203 species of birds that breed and nest in the state.

Birdwatchers actually helped make this book. All over the state they scoured blocks of land 3 miles square, looking for signs of breeding behavior --- singing, fancy flying, play-acting of various kinds.

Now when a single male bird sings that's only possible evidence of breeding.

As birds fly north, many sing at every stop only because of hormones, not because they're breeding.

On the other hand, a flight display is a probable breeding indicator. The common nighthawk, for example, flies upward then swoops down suddenly, producing a roaring noise with its wings as it recovers.

What sorts of behavior confirm that breeding is going on? Besides nest-building, Busby cites what's called a "distraction display." A killdeer, for example, drops a wing and pretends it's broken to get you to follow it away from its nest.

Breeding behavior can be quite dramatic. A raft of prairie chicken males will gather on a hilltop where the vegetation is short and, in the early morning hours, dance and whoop it up.

The arrival of the females is quite another matter. They walk around, evaluate and mate --- maybe. If pickings are slim at one party, they may scoot along to another gathering a couple of miles off.

After looking at the atlas, I really had birds on the brain. I marveled that we set out feeders for them, build houses for their comfort and honor them with poems.

I know one birdwatcher who haunts Burcham Park in Lawrence. Matter of fact, he calls himself the King of Burcham Park. He's out there to make contact with birds he can't even see; the foliage is too dense. Under these circumstances, he says, "You learn to observe birds by listening."

Every year in early May, he and the migrating birds meet again at the park.

He says that the world seems to him, at times, too artificial and too tightly wound. The ritual of the return comforts him.

One of the effects of scanning the atlas was that I started seeing birds all over the place. Out my windows at home, at the office, as I drove the turnpike. I think we cross paths with them more frequently than with any other wild creature. We just have to wake up to it.

But birds are amazing for reasons other than sheer numbers. Though many of us would trade places for a day with an elephant --- to know its massive power --- or with a cheetah --- to realize incredible speeds --- I think even more of us envy birds their ability to fly.

What better escape, after all, from a world in which gravity tugs at every step and in which ticking clocks keep us wound too tightly?

Roger Martin is communications coordinator for the KU Center for Research and editor of Explore:, a KU webzine at www.research.ukans.edu/explore/.

Copyright 2001
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