Beauty of Earth Blog

Much of what we experience in nature is fleeting. Right now, in northern Illinois, the first hints of leaves are emerging on the deciduous trees. I love that look. The new leaves display a bright mint-green shade that is like a blush of vivid fresh color on the branches. I also appreciate that the leaves, still so small, aren’t obscuring my view of birds singing on the trees’ limbs. Charming patches of wild violets are gracing our yard with their heart-shaped leaves, white petals and violet centers. I admire these early bloomers so much we delay starting our seasonal lawn mowing until they begin to fade away. Today it rained, and few scents are as recognizable as the organic, musty aroma of the ground after a shower. It seems as though you can smell the teeming life rising up from the earth. Yet none of those glories enchanted me as much as seeing tree swallows over the Fox River this past week.

Never before had I witnessed a flock of migrating tree swallows feeding over water. The first species of the swallow family to head north to their nesting grounds in North America, they arrive here having made a long trek from as far south as Central or South America. Although our area is well within their breeding range, the flocks I watched were clearly migrants, spending part of the day over the river to gorge on flying insects before continuing their northbound journey.

Many people view the arrival of migrating tree swallows a wonderful harbinger of the season of renewal, and now I know why. They travel in large flocks and will stop to refuel, often near or over water where insect life abounds. Here’s what makes seeing them so exciting: they catch insects in the air while in flight. Think about that. Bugs are flitting all around in wildly unpredictable patterns, sometimes directly above the surface of the water, and they have to catch them in their beak in midair. It’s a tall order, which is why swallows are considered among the most agile fliers of the bird kingdom.

The first day I witnessed them, I approached the pedestrian bridge to cross the river and became aware of a sizable number of small birds over the water. I positioned myself in the middle of the bridge and watched countless birds, probably hundreds of them visible from where I stood, flying over the river in dizzying, erratic motion at high speed. My perspective from the bridge enabled me easily to identify the birds as tree swallows. Looking down on them as they swept over the river’s surface, I could easily see the gorgeous, striking blue-green color of their heads and backs flashing their iridescence in the sunshine, along with the brilliant pure white of their undersides as they abruptly turned or streaked overhead. These birds are built for aerial agility. Sporting slender, streamlined bodies and long, pointed wings, the swallows have an aerodynamic shape that enables them to catch insects while on the wing. Their midair feeding is aided by their ability to open their small beaks wider than many other songbirds. Their flying prowess also gives them a fighting chance to escape predators; unlike many songbirds, the swallows migrate during the day, rather than at night.

To describe what they were doing simply as “flying” seems like a major understatement. Verbs like swooping, careening, zooming, diving, gliding, darting, speeding, skimming, circling, plummeting, zipping, whirling, flashing – in combination – begin to describe their movements in flight. It was like watching an elaborate, complicated aerial ballet, but with no discernible pattern to the figures. I was amazed that none of them slammed into each other as they executed their highly acrobatic maneuvers. As they zoomed both over and under the bridge, I was occasionally startled when one of them would whoosh right by me, very close to my head. I wanted to fix my gaze on one bird to follow its intricate movements, but they were moving so fast it was hard to do. When I finally succeeded, I observed my chosen swallow make a wide arc over the water, plummet down close to the water’s surface before sweeping back upward just in time and making a sharp 180-degree turn in one direction or another. Here is a short video to give you a ground-level view of a flock of swallows feeding while airborne.

I observed a second flock taking its meal break over the Fox River two days later, spending another 30 minutes watching them, captivated, do their aerial dancing from my viewing spot on the bridge. Since then, some days have gone by, and no other flocks have appeared. I suspect they have moved on to points north.

Many of nature’s gifts are as fleeting as the swallows’ flight. While it would be impossible for me to remember all of the intricate details of what I witnessed those two days, I will long recall my feelings of awe and delight as I watched the tree swallows freely sharing their gifts with me.

“Swallows” by Leonora Speyer

They dip their wings in the sunset,
They dash against the air
As if to break themselves upon its stillness:
In every movement, too swift to count,
Is a revelry of indecision,
A furtive delight in trees they do not desire
And in grasses that shall not know their weight.

They hover and lean toward the meadow
With little edged cries;
And then,
As if frightened at the earth’s nearness,
They seek the high austerity of evening sky
And swirl into its depth.

“Oh, it’s just a gull,” said my husband Steve as he identified the flying bird that had caught his eye out our front window. “Just a gull.” How often I’ve said something dismissive when my hopes of identifying a rare or eye-catching bird were dashed when I realized it was a common or visually dull species. After the day Steve made that comment, we had an experience with gulls that taught me to look more closely at the ordinary. Never again will I say, “Just a gull.”

Last month, on a sunny day when the ice was breaking up on the Fox River, Steve and I decided to grab some take-out lunch and park along the river to eat it and check out the bird life there. With any luck, maybe we’d see one of the bald eagles that spend the winter in our area or observe some goldeneye ducks practicing their synchronous diving. As we munched on our carryout chicken, we saw nothing exciting, just some Canada geese, mallard ducks and, mostly, a group of herring gulls, the most common gull species in North America. Flying, swimming and hanging out closest to us, the gulls were the easiest to observe, so we focused our attention on them. The first thing that caught our eyes was the spectacle of two gulls that had hitched a ride on a small piece of dislodged ice, being carried merrily along by a very swift current. They looked completely at ease, taking in the sights as they floated by. Wheeeee!

The next thing we observed was a hunting display, as two gulls dove for fish. As we watched, I realized I had never observed gulls fishing before, and it was an impressive sight. After flying around scanning the water for prey, they suddenly dropped down to within eight or ten feet above the surface and briefly hovered there, like a helicopter. They then flipped their body to the upside-down position before plunging in head first, like a dive bomber. For a moment, before they arose and took off again, only the tips of their wings were visible above the surface. This short video will give you the idea. We watched one gull make numerous attempts with no success. When it finally cleared the water with a small fish in its mouth, the real fun began.

Gulls are hunters, as we had witnessed, but they are also scavengers and thieves. Anyone who has tried to eat french fries at a gull-inhabited beach might be well aware of that fact. Having seen that gull’s many unsuccessful attempts, I understand the logic in trying to steal prey from another gull. As soon as that gull was airborn with a small, silvery fish dangling from its beak, another gull snatched it out of its mouth and took off. Immediately, two other gulls followed in hot pursuit. The chase was on! At top speed, the thief tried every possible maneuver to lose his pursuers, including sudden 90-degree turns, rapid ascents and downward plunges. Amazingly, the followers matched the leader’s every move, staying right on the thief’s tail. If they had been trying to win an acrobatic flying contest, it couldn’t have been any more amazing. We were unable to see the resolution of the chase, as they made their way too far downriver to view the outcome. But we were more than satisfied, having observed gulls displaying spectacular feats of flight.

Our lively and memorable gull experience that day piqued my interest in these birds. I learned they are far from ordinary. While gulls are not visually striking, with plumage that is some combination of white, black and shades of gray, they have other attibutes of interest. My exploration yielded some fascinating facts about gulls, a few of which I will share. There are some 20 species around the world, some of which spend long periods of time over open water. To hydrate themselves while at sea, they can drink salt water, having an extra gland above their eyes that secretes excess salt. Highly intelligent birds, they have developed clever ways to support their feeding efforts. In addition to dropping clam shells onto hard surfaces to break them open, they entice earthworms above the earth by stamping their feet in a fast rhythm to simulate the sound of rain hitting the ground. Here’s a video of a gull performing its worm-dance routine, and it’s rewarded for its efforts. If you find their thievery disturbing, it’s worth noting that it’s a behavior common to a number of bird species, including our majestic national symbol. Many years ago I watched a bald eagle over a Minnesota lake snatch a just-caught fish in midair from an unsuspecting osprey.

From our observations on that February day and my information gathering, I learned that what is commonplace in numbers or relatively dull in appearance may not be ordinary at all. While they lack the brilliant plumage of orioles or the charming personality of chickadees, they have individual gifts and talents that deserve our admiration and respect. They also reminded me to take the time to watch. I have seen gulls my entire life, but before that day I had never really seen them. What wonderful rewards can be gained by paying close attention to creatures in nature, even to what seems, at first glance, to be ordinary.

“Seagull from Afar,” by Dejan Stojanovic

Lie on the ground and listen to the grass,
Hear the silent signals from outer space,
Dream by making and make by dreaming,
Feel what the trees bathed in sunlight feel,
Gaze far to see the seagull emerging from the sea,
Imagine that today is the birth of the world and greet it,
Greet the old bird.

In these pandemic days, I have craved tales of triumph over adversity. The true story of Starr, Valor I and Valor II has served that purpose perfectly. This trio of bald eagles has successfully bred and raised eaglets over the last several years. This grouping of two males and one female is rare but not unprecedented. Apparently, nontraditional families also occur in the bird world.

I found the eagle trio last March, not long after Illinois went into lockdown. That year, I hadn’t seen the bald eagles that usually spend their winter along the Fox River in our town, West Dundee. I missed them terribly. In true pandemic fashion, I went virtual. I searched for active bald eagle webcams on the Internet and found the eagle trio in a site run by the dedicated folks at the nonprofit Stewards of the Upper Mississippi River Refuge. The trio’s nest is along the river’s backwaters in northwest Illinois in the Upper Mississippi River National Wildlife and Fish Refuge, a vast tract of protected land that runs 261 miles along the river’s shores in Iowa, Illinois, Wisconsin and Minnesota. The webcam was situated above the nest, giving viewers a real-time view of the activity there.

For the uninitiated, nature cams abound on the Internet. You can watch creatures of countless varieties, ranging from hummingbirds to whales to butterflies. Some cams are situated in zoos and wildlife parks, but I prefer those that let you observe the creatures in their natural habitat. Through the spring months last year when the trio was incubating the eggs and raising the eaglets, I checked the eagle trio webcam several times each day. It gave me a fascinating daily dose of nature viewing.

Like any good TV drama, the eagle trio has a compelling backstory. The original eagle trio formed in 2013, after the first female, Hope, became frustrated with the poor parenting skills of her mate, Valor I, the year before. His failure to do his share of the egg incubation and feeding of their two eaglets in 2012 likely contributed to the eaglets’ demise shortly after hatching. In the spring of 2013, Hope and Valor I were still together, but she was also courted by a second male, Valor II. Normally, individual males compete for breeding rights with a female. For whatever reason, Hope accepted Valor II, and Valor I was allowed to stick around. The trio was formed. For several years the three stayed together and successfully raised offspring, with Valor I in a more passive parenting role. It wasn’t until 2016 that observers documented that Valor I was doing his fair share of the parental duties. In both 2015 and 2016, the trio together raised eaglet broods. Apparently, Valor I needed a mentor to learn how to be a good dad.

In 2017, tragedy struck. After two eaglets hatched, the nest was attacked multiple times by two adult eagles, in what was likely a fight for the territory. Hope disappeared and was never seen again. Undaunted, Valor I and Valor II bravely fended off further attacks, protected the eaglets and diligently continued feeding their young. They and their two babies survived, and the eaglets left the nest (called fledging) in May.

Eagles mate for life. If their mate dies, they actively seek a replacement. By September 2017, Valor I and Valor II had found her: Starr. She joined the two males on their nest and, together, the current trio has cooperatively bred and raised at least one or more eaglets to fledging each year through the 2020 breeding season.  To learn more about their story, I recommend this 2019 article from Audubon magazine. Here’s Starr with the trio’s three eaglets in 2019:

In late March 2020 I joined thousands of trio webcam viewers from around the world as the eagles were busy incubating two eggs. I watched, transfixed, as the eaglets hatched in the order they were laid and then were fed by all three adults. Watching the eagles raise their young was the perfect antidote to our limited pandemic lifestyle, and, knowing their dramatic backstory, it was reassuring to witness their mundane activities like eating and housekeeping (although at first there was nothing mundane about seeing the adults tearing into a waterfowl or large, just-caught fish).

Just like our daily lives, theirs are punctuated by occasional bursts of drama. The siblings squabbled over food and, as they grew, pushed each other around. The adults became impatient with one another as they competed for increasingly limited space on the nest. I saw the trio fend off unwanted eagle visitors, altercations that can lead to the death of one or more adults and the unhatched eggs. I also enjoyed the hearing the lively mixed chorus of quacking ducks, squawking geese, tapping woodpeckers and red winged blackbirds making their signature onk-a-REE call.

As the immature eagles prepared to fledge, they diligently practiced spreading their wings and testing them by half-hopping and -flying to a nearby branch. One day they were ready and flew away from the nest for the first time. I wasn’t fortunate enough to see that event live, but, having watched them grow up over almost three months, it was incredibly exciting knowing they had embarked on their journey toward surviving on their own.

Like a TV watcher anticipating the new season of a favorite show, I visited the webcam in late January this year to see how the trio was faring. I wondered: Are they all alive and together? Are they preparing their nest for their next family? Will their new eaglets fledge? I was shocked when I learned that, in the massive, destructive windstorm that swept through the Midwest last summer, their nest was blown down. Fortunately, the eagles, which are generally off the nest by that time of year, were unharmed.

When their nest is destroyed, eagles will typically build a nest close by. Sure enough, the trio is still together and built a new nest in a tree near the original spot. (By the way, building a new nest is no small task. An average-sized bald eagle nest is four to five feet wide and two to four feet deep and weighs hundreds of pounds.) A working camera on the original tree enables you to see the nest from a profile view; here is a link to the live stream. (Unfortunately, the team can’t mount a camera above the new nest until after the nesting season is over.) Here are images of the new nest: an early-stage view in October 2020 and a video screen capture from late January, with Starr proudly guarding their new home:

The cycle of life has begun again. On Valentine’s Day, Starr laid her first egg, and the trio is diligently taking turns incubating at least one egg. 

As models of resilience and perseverance in the face of tremendous adversity, the eagle trio has given me strength and instilled hope during our own turbulent times.