The Curious Eastern Phoebe

One of my goals, and joys, in gardening is to choose plants that produce nectar, berries, seeds, shelter and nesting places that attract birds.

I love listening to them as they sing. I especially enjoy taking a break and opening the Merlin Bird ID app on my phone and watching as it identifies birds it hears singing in the wooded ravine in the back of our property.

I find it relaxing to stand at the kitchen sink and watch birds come to the peanut, black sunflower and niger feeders and the hummingbird feeder in spring and summer. I love anticipating what birds will pass through in different seasons.

But I never anticipated what has been happening recently.

A little grayish, brownish bird with a white-yellow breast and belly has been following me around the garden. Whether I am in the front sun garden or the back high shade garden, he (she?) finds me. And when he finds me, after intently studying me he zooms over my head, sometimes grazing my garden hat. Other times, he glances off my shoulder. Occasionally, he flies straight into my glasses.

That is too much! I only have one eye, and sometimes I have to go into the house to escape him. Even then he finds me. I've seen him hovering outside the bedroom window and perching on tree branches or porch rails as he watches me while I'm in the library writing or in the sitting area off the kitchen reading newspapers on my iPad.

He's so nondescript, I wasn't sure what species he might be. To find out, I called Fernbank Science Center in Atlanta for help in identifying him.

"May I speak with an ornithologist?" I asked the receptionist.

"Do you have a message I can give him?" she asked.

"Yes," I replied. "A bird is following me around the garden. I am hoping he can tell me what it is. And, oh by the way, I am not crazy!"

She chuckled, and transferred me to the ornithologist. I left a message because the ornithologist was doing what ornithologists do. He was out in the field studying birds. A few days later Chris Showalter called me back, saying that he was Fernbank's "bird guy."

After telling him a bird was following me around my garden, I launched into a description of it. "It's a little gray bird, I think it's a junco. It's a little bit bigger than a sparrow, gray, sort of a whitish, yellow underbelly. And it will follow me around my garden. My whole yard is a garden, and it doesn't matter whether I'm in the front or back of the house, it will find me and follow me around, and it will..."

"I already know what it is," said Showalter.

"Tell me," I pleaded.

"That is going to be an Eastern Phoebe," he answered. "They are ridiculously curious birds. I have people (tell me of) literally having the bird land on them in their garden."

Curious indeed! My new best friend, I told Showalter, hasn't landed on me. But it has done other things, I said, explaining how it zooms around me and flies into my face.

"That is exactly the behavior that I would expect from a Phoebe," he replied. Then he told me how he has personally experienced similar behavior from an Eastern Phoebe (Sayornis phoebe).

"So, I was one day at my home removing a dead pine tree that had fallen in my yard. I was using a gas-powered chainsaw, and I had a phoebe literally land on the log that I was cutting. It was just watching me. So I stopped, and I sat down on the log, and that bird just stayed there with me for a few minutes. It kept hopping a little closer, and I'm just sitting really still, and then that bird eventually hopped right up on my shoulder. It was amazing! And I've had other people report this with Eastern Phoebes. So just from the behavior you're describing, I'm almost certain that's what it is."

Now, I am too!

Phoebes, Showalter explained, have become year-round residents in the Atlanta area. "They have the same nesting season as our local birds. In winter, they just kind of disperse into feeding and move around the area where they nest. The most common place for them to build their nest is on top of a porch light. And so when you come in and out of a door, it'll spook them, but they won't abandon their nest. I can't tell you why they have acclimated so well to human presence, but they have adapted quite well to suburban, urban life."

In a followup email, he told me something else I did not know.

"Most people are unaware that it is illegal to disturb the nesting process of any native bird, even if the nest is literally on your house. The Migratory Bird Treaty Act of 1918 and several amendments thereafter make it illegal to possess any part of a native bird (feathers, eggs etc.) or their nest without proper permits. It is even illegal to keep a feather you find laying on the ground! However, a 'feather police' to enforce the law does not really exist. The original intent of the law was to curb poaching, which was rampant in the early 20th century." Phoebes, he added, in addition to building nests on top of porch lights will also build them "under deck ledges or any place around a house that has a ledge under some cover."

Phoebes are fly catchers. They like to sit on a perch and dart out and snatch insects such as bees, beetles, flies, grasshoppers, and other insects out of the air. "Others," thankfully, includes mosquitoes! They are also known to eat insects such as spiders and ticks. In winter, when insects are less prevalent, they'll eat small fruits and berries, which is another good reason to plant berry-producing winter shrubs. They are known for twitching their tail while they perch and singing fee-bee, fee-bee, from which they get their name.

If you, like me, think one of the goals of gardening is to invite birds into your garden, then look no further than the Eastern Phoebe. Just be sure that when you tell friends and family about your new gardening BFF to add that, "I'm not crazy!"

Last Thursday afternoon when I was in the high shade garden transplanting some hydrangeas, I heard the unmistakable sound of migrating Sandhill Cranes (Grus canadensis). I love watching and hearing them as they fly over Atlanta. There's a good chance these cranes were heading to the Platte River Valley in Nebraska.

In communicating about the Eastern Phoebe, Showalter said in an email that the cranes start moving north in mid-February. Here's more from that email:

"Most of the cranes coming from southern states — the current estimate is that ~80% of the cranes from southern states will likely stop over in Nebraska. They begin arriving in February. Numbers, close to a million, peak in March, then by the first week or two of April ... a mass exodus to the breeding grounds. As they migrate north, they will stop briefly in what are called staging areas in northern states and southern Canada. Stopover locations tend to be of a longer duration (like a month); staging areas tend to be shorter (a week or less ... sometimes just a day). There are other stop-over locations in Texas, Oklahoma, and Kansas, but Nebraska is the most famous. Many bird watchers make the pilgrimage to Nebraska to see the massive flock (called a siege) of cranes."

Not all Sandhill Cranes are migratory, says Showalter. Some live year-round in Florida and Cuba.

I always hear them before I see them. The sound, to my untrained ear, is like a muffled gurgling that reminds me of pigeons cooing. Once you hear it, you'll never forget it ... nor the sight of the migrating flocks. Assuming you can find them high in the sky!