29 April: Barn Swallow, Common Tern, Green Heron

28 April: Black-throated Green Warbler
 

24 April: Nashville Warbler, Blue-gray Gnatcatcher, and House Wren

23 April: Non-bird news: A shrew party!

22 April: Northern Harrier and Rusty Blackbird 21 April: Brown Thrasher, Swamp Sparrow

17 April: A Common Snipe was seen winnowing over the old field on the evening of 15 April.  Today the season's first Northern Rough-winged Swallow was at Fairlane Lake.

15 April:  This month has seen all the expected arrivals, including both kinglets, Yellow-rumped Warbler, Eastern Phoebe, Yellow-bellied Sapsucker, Hermit Thrush, White-throated Sparrow, and Eastern Towhee.  One 1 April, Field and Fox Sparrows were seen, as well as a Chipping Sparrow (this was a new early arrival date for that species).  Three American Woodcock have been displaying for over a week.  The White-winged Crossbills continue at Orin Gelderloos' west Dearborn feeder.  There have been 4 males and 2 females; two of the males were seen today.  A male Blue-winged Teal was on Fairlane Lake today.

As I stood contemplating my discovery, more shrews appeared. After a moment, I found myself standing amid at least 20 energetic shrews.  They covered an area about 20 sqaure feet, and ran chasing each other under leaves, over logs, around my feet, in and out of dappled sunlight.  And they were all squeaking at each other in high,
whistled voices (some species are echolocators, and most communicate through vocalization). Despite their quick, zig-zagging actions, their activity did not seem frantic, but vigorous and spirited.

The final thing that made this event even more interesting to me was that I knew shrews are generally solitary animals, territorial, and aggressive towards their own kind.  They are primarily carnivorous, eating mainly small insects but taking on just about anything they can manage, including other shrews.  With metabolism higher than rodents of similar size, they are required to eat large amounts of food and have an incredible appetite.

What I experienced was a "shrew party," the annual spring mating ritual of (apparently) several species of shrew.  There's not much written about it, but I've talked to a couple of people who have seen this phenomena.  My co-worker Rick Simek has seen water shrews do this. That Least Shrews, the most sociable of our shrews, had a "party" is perhaps not surprising, but nonetheless a rare, delightful insight into the lives of these secretive animals.

I led several people (including my lucky banders) back to the area to watch the shrews, who were not distubed by giants in their mating arena.  Today the place was silent, shrews dispersed to raise their families.  How did they know to meet in this place?  How did they know when?  How could these furtive, thumb-sized mammals carry on
their spring rites, fearless of the tremors of footsteps and the not-so-quiet presence of huge humans?

Just when the job becomes work, I witness some marvelous aspect of the natural world that I hadn't even known existed.  It is truly a humbling experience to be made to feel like such a small part of the universe by a creature as modest as a Least Shrew.
-- Julie Craves