Birds Of The Woodlands

[Music] [Applause] [Music] when we walk along a Woodland Trail we realize that all parts of the woods are occupied by birds here in the Deep Woods we come upon a bird that lives primarily among the lower branches a female red start is building her nest she gathers cobwebs and using her bill sticks them to the nest to make the sides firm again she returns webs it takes her about 6 days pays no attention to her work she molds The Nest to soo the size and shape of her body by pressing down with wings tail and feet when the nest is completed the female lays one egg each day for 3 days once the eggs are laid the female patiently sits on them for 12 days she leaves the nest only for short periods her mate sings Merrily on in the vicinity paying very little attention either to her or to the nest the male red start song is weak and high- pitched difficult to recognize because individual male birds sing differently one of the handsomest members of the warbler family the red start is widely known because it nests throughout the United States and Southern Canada in the fall it Journeys to Northern South America like many other Woodland warblers red stars live largely on insects found in trees when the eggs finally hatch the male begins to take a strong interest in nesting Affairs here the strikingly colored father arrives with food but he doesn't seem to know what to do with it sometimes however a male red start may take over entirely the care of the young here is another nest for example where the male is doing all the feeding the female never makes an appearance there happens to be only one young bird in this Nest a nestling Cowbird the male red start is taking care of it as devotedly as if it were his own offspring he brings food about once every 10 minutes although there were once two young red starts in this Nest they were starved to death for the greedy Cowbird managed to obtain all of the food the Cowbird is a social parasite and the only bird in this country which develops at the expense of other birds adult cow Birds never build nests but lay their eggs in the nests of other birds the birds which are the victims of the cow birds are like the red start much smaller in size notice how this young Cowbird although only half grown nearly filled the red star's Nest he's a lucky little bird for he has all the food to himself and plenty of it the purple finch is a bird of the Treetops on her nest the sparrow colored female Broods her newly hatched young every now and then she stands up to check on her Offspring below the purple fch is a member of the sparrow family the largest of all bird families there are about 12200 kinds of sparrows and they are found in all parts of the world except Australia purple frenches almost always nest in evergreen trees this one has chosen the top of a 40ft pine for a nesting Place although the purple finch enjoys food such as Buds and Blossoms and numerous kinds of insects it eats primarily seeds of many varieties the bird uses its Big cone-shaped Bill for cracking them and is a valuable destroyer of weed seeds such as the much hated ragweed a few birds live on the forest floor sometimes among such Majestic flowers as the showy lady slipper they nest either on the surface of the ground or on stumps and small saplings the oven Bird's odd Nest is marvelously concealed could you find this one the bird is named oven bird bird because its nest is Dome shaped with an opening in one side like an old style oven the only bright color on the oven bird is the golden brown stripe on the crown both male and female have it the oven bird like the red St is another wood warbler but instead of being a dweller among the lower branches of the woodlands the oven bird lives on or near the ground although it occasionally hops about jerkily in the manner of other warblers it usually walks smoothly with slow deliberate strides for a warbler the oven bird is soberly colored the black stripes on its breast might make you mistake this bird for a thrush or a sparrow the Northern Flicker is a very useful bird for like other woodpeckers it eats grub that damage trees chisling them out with its strong sharp beak it uses this beak also in digging out its nest a large hole in the tree this flicker is conscious of being watched it is cautious about entering its nest making up its mind slowly the flicker long tongue is characteristic of wood peckers the tongue is used for pulling the grubs out of the holes which the bird has chiseled nearly all kinds of insects of the woodlands are eaten by one kind of bird or another but a few like this caterpillar of the swallow tail butterfly are let alone to birds this creature has an unpleasant odor and fearsome appearance it requires a close inspection to find many of the small animals which live on the trunks of Woodland trees this tree frog for example is colored to resemble the bark on which it spends much of its time only when you are quite close to the tree frog can you tell it from the bark even the eyes are deceptively colored built at the edge of the Woodland where the trees are low and there's more sunlight the Cuckoo's Nest is a simple platform of sticks and leaves sloppily put together cucko are dull colored rather slow-moving birds so they are not very easily seen they are much more often heard they're called being long drawn out cow cow sounds many times repeated our American cucko don't speak their name is Du the European cucko whose call is imitated by the cuckoo clock nessing cuckoo have white pads on the roofs of their mouths when being fed the young birds use these white pads for holding out to the parents bill at the same time they beg for more food by fluttering their wings when about half grown the cuckoo nestling is oddly pin feathered young cucko are often too eager to leave the nest even before they are well feathered these birds have left home too soon trouble is sure to follow in The Woodlands we have found certain kinds of birds living in the lower branches and others in the trops a few live on the Woodland floor some in the Deep Woods and on Tree Trunks and some are seen only near the Woodland borders [Music] [Applause]