(grouse drumming)
>> To photograph the family life of birds,
a photographer must know enough about bird behavior
to be at the right place at the right time.
He must also hide himself and his camera in a blind.
This blind consists of fabric over a collapsible frame.
When camouflaged with vegetation to break up the outline,
it blends into the surrounding cover.
If there is no movement of the blind, then birds pay no attention to it
or to the photographer working inside.
Many songs and sounds of birds are associated with courting,
nesting, and other facets of family life.
Recording these is part of the complete picture.
After setting up the microphone, the sound technician of the team
checks the recorder to make sure it's registering properly.
A microphone set up in the leafless spring woods
is ready to record the courtship sounds of the roughed grouse.
The male's song is a drumming sound
made by the concussion of air
following powerful strokes of the wings.
(drumming sounds)
>> He doesn't go around drumming just anywhere,
he selects a special log from which to broadcast his courting call.
(drumming sounds)
>> If the woods doesn't have the right kind of drumming logs,
grouse will not live there.
(drumming sounds)
>> In a blind on the open prairie,
our photographers check their cameras
and test the recording range of their directional microphone.
(prairie chicken sounds)
>> As the curtain of dawn lifts on the prairie,
the actors in the drama of prairie chicken courtship
stage their ancient rituals.
The prairie chicken is another kind of grouse, pinnated grouse.
Although a close relative of the solitary woodland drummer,
the courtship antics are different.
Male prairie chickens gather in groups which are visited by hens.
Males utter a booming sound
which resounds in the inflated orange air sacks
and perform a kind of dance.
(prairie chicken sounds)
>> Birds carry out their courtship in many other kinds of places.
The mourning dove prefers to call from trees around homes
or along forest edges.
(mourning dove sounds)
>> For part of his courting display, the male dove
takes to the air and performs a special flight with a long glide.
After a mate is attracted by the cooing and flight displays,
the pair gets better acquainted
by caressing each other with their bills.
Farm country has another familiar call.
(bobwhite call)
>> In late winter and early spring marshes and waterways
become the setting for the courting activities of mallards.
Long before their migration to northern breeding grounds
mallards begin to select their mates.
A female singles out a drake by swimming near him
and giving a special call.
Drakes gather in groups and give a peculiar grunt or whistle.
(duck sounds)
>> When ducks have gone north and spring greens the marshes
red-winged blackbirds begin to display.
Now the marsh is alive with their color and sound.
(red-winged blackbird sounds)
>> After courtship comes nesting.
And this is another busy season for photography.
Birds build their nests in many different places
and in many different ways.
Drilling a nest cavity into a tree trunk looks hard,
but this pileated woodpecker gets the job done easily.
All woodpeckers chisel out cavities for nests.
The Red-headed Woodpecker often selects dead wood for his.
A slender pointed bill and strong neck muscles
help this Hairy Woodpecker to drill effectively.
Yellow-shafted Flickers also bore their nest cavities in trees.
Some hole nesters, like this little house wren,
take over another bird's site
by throwing out the previous tenant's nest, eggs and all.
Sparrowhawks use an existing cavity formed by other birds or by decay.
The cavity must be roomy enough to hold the brood,
but not so deep the young birds have trouble getting in and out.
Once a young sparrowhawk leaves the nest,
it captures its own grasshoppers and other insects to feed upon.
Wood ducks nest in natural tree cavities
but will also use a manmade nesting box.
They usually select a nesting site over water.
This gives protection from enemies.
Water also makes a soft landing place for youngsters
when they leave the nest later.
Probably the nests most people know
are those constructed in the open on some support.
The male dove selects the nest's material, mostly small twigs,
and takes it to the female
who carries out the actual nest construction.
Doves usual a variety of sites, usually a forked limb of a shrub
or tree, but may be the deserted nest of another bird.
Doves spend a lot of time on the ground
where they find most of their food.
In treeless country they may even nest here.
Red-tailed hawks are large birds and they build a bulky nest
of small branches and twigs high off the ground.
It takes a large, strong nest
to hold the lusty one or more youngsters.
At the other extreme the red-winged black bird's nest
is a dainty cup, woven low over water in cat tails or rushes.
While the tern's nest is a soggy platform, barely out of the water.
Ground nesting birds likewise have a variety of nests.
The wood cock doesn't build much of a nest,
relying mostly on its own camouflage for protection.
For the whippoorwill an oak leaf or two serve as a cradle.
The killdeer's eggs and simple nest are hard to see
in the same colored gravel, but the parent knows where they are.
Feigning a broken wing, the adult attracts attention to itself
and lures any would be enemy away from the nest.
Prairies have their special nesters too.
A prairie chicken nest is visible only when the female is away feeding.
Also a ground nester,
the quail's coloration protects herself and her eggs.
The sora chooses wet meadows building a firm cup for her eggs
in a strong clump of grass.
The variety of habitat in the uplands
offers other nesting places.
In the meadows, the meadowlark builds a roofed nest
sheltering the young against sun, rain, and enemies.
The mallard duck nests in the northern prairies,
sometimes far from water.
She builds her nest in concealing vegetation
and lines it with down from her own breast.
But regardless of the kind or location of nests,
all eggs develop in much the same way in all species.
After two days and nights of incubation
the embryo's heart begins to beat
and the duckling has a good start in life.
At about four days the main body parts begin to show.
After about three weeks the fully formed youngster
is ready to break out into the world.
He pecks away at the shell with his beak
until a line is chipped all around the egg.
Then, heaving and shoving and pushing,
the baby bird forces the shell open.
An awful lot of bird came out of this small egg.
(chick chirping)
After hatching the wet down has to dry
so the hen broods the chicks for a few hours.
She also waits for the remaining eggs to hatch.
Most of the ducklings will hatch the same day
because incubation started with laying of the last egg.
When the young are dry, the mallard hen heads for water
which may be as much as a mile or two away.
Like the young of many species,
ducklings are ready to walk and feed right after hatching.
There is a name for young birds like this: precocial young.
They will still need the hen's warmth and protection,
and she must teach them how to find food.
But she doesn't need to teach them to swim.
Young quail are precocial too.
Like ducks, quail produce a large number of eggs and young.
Unlike mallards though, both the female and male quail
share the duties of raising the young.
Part of the family may be with either parent
or they may all stay together.
Quail are seed eaters most of the year, but for the young
insects are a fine source of body building proteins.
Quail obtain some of their moisture from dew.
The chicks grow fast.
These birds are about two weeks old.
They are already beginning to develop feathers.
By fall the young are nearly as large as adults
and resemble them closely in plumage.
The sexes are distinguished by their coloration.
Unlike quail and ducks, some species, such as doves,
have helpless young which must remain in the nest
and be cared for by the parents.
There's a name for the young of these birds too: altricial young.
Doves feed their young with a milky fluid called pigeon milk
which they secrete in their crops.
These two and three day old squabs
get this predigested food by probing into the parent's bill.
The adults take turns at brooding and feeding the squabs.
Here the female takes over the job,
relieving the male who is now free to feed and rest.
The two young are not the same age.
Dove eggs are laid a day apart and so hatch a day apart.
At five and six days,
the young are beginning to develop pin feathers.
At 11 and 12 days they are well feathered
but they are still fed in the nest by the parents.
At 14 days of age young doves are ready to be on their own.
Robins also have altricial young.
Parents with nestlings spend a lot of time searching
for the youngsters' food.
Juicy worms provide a ready source of moisture
as well as nutritious food for the always hungry babies.
After leaving the nest, the youngsters are still fed
by the parents but within a few days become independent.
Whippoorwill young,
although altricial like the robin and dove, have no nest.
They can move about some after hatching
but still must be fed and brooded by a parent.
After the breeding season is over
bird families continue to live in different ways.
The photographer still uses his blind to conceal himself
and his equipment as he follows bird life during the fall
and winter months.
In many species, like these dowagers,
the bird families gather together in flocks.
In some, like Canada geese, family ties are strong.
Many families combine to form a flock,
but each family stays together as a unit within the flock.
Blue and snow geese are two color phases of one species.
As with Canada geese,
their families may enter or leave the flock, but do so as a unit.
In other species, like ducks, family ties are lost
and the individuals of different families combine
at random into flocks.
The members of a flock migrate, feed, and rest together.
This flock of Purple Martins is composed of all ages and sexes,
but not family groups.
Sometimes a flock is composed of different species,
like this large congregation.
Here blackbirds, starlings, and grackles
use the same roosting and feeding areas and migrate together.
Such a flock may number into the thousands.
In contrast to many species that migrate,
some birds, like quail, stay the year
around in the neighborhood where they were raised.
A quail covey is an especially close-knit kind of flock,
composed of a family or parts of a few families.
Not all birds however stay in families or flocks.
The independent little screech owl goes his way alone.
But the solitary part of life is short.
Soon courting, nesting,
and the rearing of families will begin anew.