The Wisconsin School of the Air
presents Robert S.
Ellerson, University of Wisconsin
Extension Specialist in Wildlife
Management in The Wonderful World
of Nature.
This series of programs designed for
in-school viewing by children in
grades five through nine is
televised each Monday afternoon at
two o'clock by University of
Wisconsin Television.
Now Robert Ellerson and The
Wonderful World of nature.
Hi, boys and girls.
Today, we're going to be talking
about some of our winter birds.
You'll recall that during the past
several weeks, we've been talking
about mammals and how
important the habitat was
to these mammals.
By habitat, of course, we meant the
place where the mammals lived or
their environments, in other words,
we used for habitat.
Now, we are going to see today
whether winter birds need special
habitats too.
I wonder if any of you have ever
thought about the marvel of
birds living in our very
cold winter climate all
winter long with us in temperatures
down below zero in
cold and sleet and snow.
And these little feathered
creatures, some of them weighing not
more than just a couple pennies
are able to live successfully
in this winter
climate that we have here.
Wisconsin.
Certainly this is one of the great
wonders and marvels of nature.
Now what birds do we have with
us here in the wintertime?
We all know that birds
are not as numerous in Wisconsin in
the Wintertime as they are in
the summertime.
Many of the common birds such as
the Robin and the Bluebird and the
Kildare and the Blackbirds all
go south in the wintertime and
they're not found here at this time
of the year.
But there are
a certain number of birds which
spend their winters with us.
Now, what birds are these?
Some of these birds are birds that
we call permanent residents.
In other words, they're birds that
live here in Wisconsin the year
around.
Things like the blue jay,
the crow, the chickadee,
nuthatch are all birds which
live in Wisconsin, the
year round.
Some of the birds that have here in
the winter time are birds we call
winter. residents.
In other words, they're birds that
are found here only in the
wintertime.
Mostly they are birds that make
their summer homes in the lands
lying north of Wisconsin and
come down and spend their
winters with us.
Now this brings us to one of the
very important differences between
birds and mammals.
Most mammals do not have
the ability to travel very
or very fast.
Birds on the other hand have the
power of flight.
and so are much more mobile
creatures than are
mammals.
And you recall that
certain mammal ranges,
mammals such as the pocket
gopher and the mole, and even the
cottontail rabbit had
very small home
ranges.
The cottontale has a home range of
just a couple of acres.
And the home range even of a mammal
like the Mole may
not be more than 75
or 100 yards across
at the very most.
Now, any bird can fly
across an area of this size
in a matter of a
fraction of a second, of a
fraction of minute.
But does
this great mobility make
any difference as far as the bird's
habitat is concerned?
Let's take a look at some
of the places Thank you.
where birds are found in
the wintertime.
One of the places, one of the
habitats of winterbirds are
the woodlands or the
marshland areas.
And in this picture, we
can see a winter scene
with shrubs and
trees in the background.
In the foreground, the snowy
foreground, is actually a lake
shore.
And the picture was taken from out
on the ice.
But you see in the wintertime
There is really no such thing
as a wetland habitat because
these areas
are all frozen over.
As far as birds are concerned,
really there are only two types
of habitat in the wintertime.
There is the areas that are
covered with brush or with
trees, in other words the wooded
habitats, and those areas
which lack brush or trees or
the open areas.
Now let's get back to our woodlands.
and take a look at some of the birds
which are commonly found
in the woodlands.
In the picture that you will see,
we have a
number of common winter
birds.
Up at the top of the picture,
the two birds that are being pointed
at now, two now,
are chickadees.
These black-capped chickadee are
some of our very common
winter birds.
They are permanent residents, found
here the year around.
And I'm sure that any of you
that are familiar with this bird are
familiar, with its cheery little
song, the little chickadee dee
de, chickadeedee dee, the
little song that gives the bird its
name, Chickadee.
Now, immediately below the
Chickadees are two other birds,
which are very common winter
birds. These are nuthatches.
They, too, are permanent residence.
they have a kind of a nasal
yank. yank, yank call,
and we see them upside down
and crawling around,
hopping around on the tree branches,
finding the eggs of insect and the
dormant insects that
they use as food.
Over on the left of the picture are
two little red-breasted
nuthatches.
These birds are not very common in
Wisconsin in the wintertime,
although we occasionally do
see them.
In the winter time, birds are
mostly rather sociable creatures,
and we find flocks of them
traveling about the
countryside.
As a matter of fact, sometimes we
find mixed flocks in
these birds in the woodland,
flocks made up of chickadees,
nuthatches, and some of
the wood land woodpeckers.
And, of course, all
woodpeckers are more or less closely
associated with wood.
And here in Wisconsin, we have
two woodpeckers that are very
common in the wintertime.
And this picture shows these
common winter woodpecker.
Over on the right are two
rather small little woodpeccers
that are called downy woodpeccer.
They have very tiny, thin little
beaks.
On the left is a larger woodpegger
that colored almost identically
with the downy peckers
and this larger woodpecker.
is called a hairy woodpecker.
We have here a mounted
specimen of a
hairy woodpeckers and
you can see
that this bird has rather
a large bill for
a bird of its size
and the
males of both the downy and
the hairy wood pecker have a
little red cap on
the back of their head.
The females lack this
red coloration.
These birds of course feed on
the insects and other
life that they find
beneath the bark of
trees.
uh...
Another very common
woodland bird
is this large
hawk that I have right here.
This is a Cooper's hawk.
It is a bird which
is more or less restricted to
woodlands.
In the wintertime we see
some hawks out in the open,
but most frequently we find
the Cooper's Hawk right in
the forest. The Cooper's
Hawk is a very fast-flying hawk.
And its
food consists largely
of other birds.
Along with the Cooper's hawk in the
woodlands, we also find
certain owls, the
barred owl and the horned
owl, the screech owl, and
occasionally the tiny little
saw-whet owl.
Now, these are
just a few of the birds, which
are dependent on woodlands
for their habitat.
Now, what about the other types
of habitat
that are available to
birds in the wintertime?
The next type
of habitat that we'd like to talk
about are the open fields.
And here we see a picture
of a Wisconsin countryside in
the wintertime.
showing the open, snow-covered
fields with a farmstead in the
background.
Notice that there is very little
cover in this picture,
woody cover.
There are really very, very few
birds to be found in these open
farmland, open field types
of situations.
As a matter of fact, sometimes you
can drive for many miles through the
countryside in the wintertime
without seeing birds of
any kind. However, there
is one bird.
which is always found in
this open country.
It is a bird that
winters in Wisconsin occasionally.
There's a bird we call the horned
lark.
And this picture shows a
group of these horned Larks.
You notice that they have little
tiny horns on their heads,
their feathers of course.
And these birds are found
only in the open country,
just the other week I drove into
Milwaukee and
both on the way in and
coming back.
I saw over 50 of these
little birds along the roadsides
in small
flocks.
There is still another
type of bird which is
not associated with any particular
type of habitat here in Wisconsin
in the wintertime, and
this group of birds
I call the wandering birds.
We're apt to see them in quite a
variety of situations.
We may see them out in the open,
we may see along the edges of
woods, or sometimes right
in the woods themselves.
Two of the very common
birds in this group are the
tree sparrow and the slate-colored
junko.
The tree sparrel here is
shown on the left and
the junkos on the
right of this picture.
The junko is a little slate- colored
bird with the white outer
tail feathers, which I'm
sure many of you are familiar with.
The tree sparrows has a little
reddish cap and a
black spot right in the middle of
an otherwise clear gray
breast.
very easy birds to identify.
These birds are always found in
little flocks, both
of these birds are winter
residents. In other words, they make
their homes north of Wisconsin
in the summertime and just come down
and spend their winters with us.
They both belong
to the sparrow family and
their food consists largely
of the seeds of
weeds.
Still another bird which we
had could classify as a
wanderer is the common crow
and I'm sure that all of you have
seen crows out around
in open fields feeding
on crop residues and
certainly all of have seen
Crows in trees and
in the woods.
So it too is a bird that is not
confined to any particular type
of habitat in the
wintertime.
Now there is our last group of birds
are the birds which are more or less
closely associated with
man and man's buildings.
And two birds which I know,
all of you know that
belong to this group, are the
common starling and the English
sparrow.
These two birds, neither
of them are native Wisconsin birds.
Both of them are European birds that
were introduced here.
And wherever we see them, we can
always be sure that we're near
some works of man.
If we're out in the country, we
commonly see them around farm
buildings, and we commonly
see them in around cities.
Now one of our native birds, which
is very common around
cities, particularly in the winter
time, is the cardinal.
And this picture.
And this picture
of the cardinal here
shows this very
beautiful bird with
the bright red color,
the bright-red beak, the crest
on its head.
And the cardinals is one of
the very first birds
to start singing in
the spring of the year.
As a matter of fact, they usually
their song in
the latter part of January.
And by February,
you can hear Cardinal singing almost
every day.
So we can see
that, have seen that
birds do have
definite habitat preferences.
They, some
birds prefer woodlands.
while other birds prefer the
open fields.
And still others are
wandering birds which use both
the woody cover and
the open field.
Now next week, boys and girls,
we're going to be talking about some
of the adaptations of birds.
And birds are particularly
adapted to feeding
on particular types of
food. And the things that have
been adapted, as far as the birds
are concerned,
the adaptations are to be found
largely in the bills and
in the feet of birds.
So next week, we'll talk about these
adaptations to
particular food habits.
So until then, so long.
Each Monday afternoon at 2 o'clock,
the Wisconsin School of the Air
presents Robert S.
Ellerson, University of Wisconsin
Specialist in Wildlife Management,
in The Wonderful World of Nature.
This series of programs is designed
for in-school viewing by children
in grades 5 through 9.
Next Monday at 2 O'clock our
television classroom will again view
The Wonderful World of nature,
and we invite you to join us then.