It is known that over 100 species of birds nest in the Midwest. Many more fly through during spring and fall migration. Lots of smaller and colorful bird species are broadly named in birding publications as neotropical, specifically because their winter homes are in locations such as Central and South America, Mexico or even regions of the Caribbean. Then they make the long journey across North America, both the USA and Canada, to places suitable for raising a new generation.

The theme for WMBD during 2023 is “Water: Sustaining Bird Life.” Since water is a huge part of biological life in many different aspects, from the individual cellular level to daily intake by drinking water or obtaining moisture from food sources, or both, it is imperative that sources of water in bogs, wetlands, marshes, ponds, lakes, or rivers provide clean water.

Water sources are a big part of the habitat picture. In Iowa, many birds rely on watery habitats to the tune of at least 90 species that call wetlands and riverine habitats home.

Examples include Blue-winged Teal, a small waterfowl species, to the Trumpeter Swan, the largest bodied waterfowl that need to nest on or over water. Waterfowl nest in the grasslands relatively close to water.

Others nest on floating mats of accumulated vegetation on the water itself. Numerous small birds like the Marsh Wren, Yellow-headed Blackbird and Red-Winged Blackbird build nests on the erect stems of cattails or other aquatic vegetation above the waterline.

Great-blue Herons have nesting colonies called rookeries very close to water sources. The list gets very long for birds on or near water during their day-to-day lives.

Bird adaptations to water are numerous. Long legged birds wade in the shallows as they look for susceptible prey.

Short legged birds may walk the shoreline or water’s edge to seek out invertebrate animals to eat. Other birds such as Bank Swallows and Purple Martins feed while flying, spotting flying insects and then chasing the bugs or intercepting them mid air for lunch on the go. This is a great definition for ‘fast food.’

Birds need water to drink. They will bathe in it to help dislodge mites and just to clean their feathers, or cool down on hot summer days.

Clean water is a good thing for all living things. We as humans within the landscapes of this Earth need to keep striving for those practical and economically proven methods to keep water as clean as possible.

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The Baltimore Orioles (Icterus galbula) and the Orchard Oriole (Icterus spurius) summer habitats are quite similar. Leafy deciduous trees along open woodlands, forest edges, river banks and small groves of trees are desired.

Food are mostly insects, fruits and nectar. Insects are a favorite of both orioles as the protein within is excellent food for nestlings.

Orioles are good at detecting and gleaning foliage of bushes and trees to find ants, parasitic wasps, bugs, caterpillars, grasshoppers, crickets, beetles, flies, mayflies, moths and spiders. As fall season approaches, food preferences will switch to fruits for the energy they provide for migration.

Oriole nests are a unique signature for these species. All summer long one can look for the nest and never see it.

Come fall when tree leaves fall off, the hanging basket of dried long bladed grasses will be observed drooping from the fork of stout tree branches. Females do most of the actual nest building.

She winds the grass blades around and around, and then pokes additional materials into the mix so as to make the appearance of actually weaving a nest basket. Weaving is not really what she accomplishes, but what she does works.

A basic nest basket will get lined with finer blade grasses, plant down, animal hair or wool fragments, and fine feathers. The nest basket will be about four inches wide and three inches deep.

The inner cup is about 2.5 inches deep by two inches wide. It will hold the eggs, usually three to maybe six, which hatch after about 11 to 14 days of incubation.

After another 14 days, the young have grown enough to fly away. Feeding of the young will still take place by the parent birds. Only one brood of young will be raised each year.

Orioles, like many other neotropical birds we will see this summer, may be rather early departures as cooler air temperatures settle in, and like lots of birds, the bulk of their migration time takes place at night. Radar scopes at weather forecasting centers see ‘clouds’ of image static on their screens. Experience has shown these reflections to be masses of birds leaving day roosts or habitats to take to the airways.

I hope you get the chance this spring and summer to see both the Baltimore and the Orchard Oriole. They are cousins with subtle contrasts in their feathered finery.

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Locked antlers on white-tailed deer are not common, but it does happen just often enough to become a unique situation. At the receptionist’s area of the Nature Center at the Grimes Farm, a set of interlocked deer antlers have been cleaned and set up on a display stand.

Those antlers came from the Iowa River downstream from Timmons Grove about one mile. The dead deer were lodged into a log jam. Cutting their heads off was accomplished by Conservation Officer Jeremy King who was serving in this area at that time.

This scribe has also seen a few taxidermist mounts made with the head and shoulders areas of two deer locked in their inevitable mortal combat. The force of their battle caused those antlers to spring apart or lodge in just the right way that it became impossible for the deer to break free from each other.

Death to each animal was the end result, and sometimes people, a hunter or mushroomers, or just casual hikers, will come upon the scene and discover these natural artifacts.

Well, this Idaho story has a similar twist, so I am sharing it with you today to add another piece to the puzzles of Mother Nature’s happenings. In the fall of 2022, at a remote small lake at 8,000 feet above sea level, two moose bulls got in a shoving and pushing match.

Being members of the deer family, this subspecies of moose called Shiras’ share the same desire to test each other for dominance. Most moose fights and moose antler clashes do not result in locked antlers, but this time the antlers did get locked. And they stayed that way.

In fact, a later discovery showed that one antler tine had been thrust into the jaw area of the other and it had lodged there and broke off. The configuration of the antler masses was such that the way they became entangled did not allow the animals to separate.

They eventually fought to exhaustion, and being near a lake, were in the water a lot. Speculation by biologists was that one moose died first by drowning. The other moose also could not extricate itself from the dual and ended up in a similar situation. He also drowned.

A report of the dead moose reached a local resident, who likes to hunt moose, but did not have a permit for that area. After checking with authorities, he was free to collect the moose antlers since the animals were already dead of natural causes.

His problem, however, was how was he going to remove the skulls from each carcass and leave the locked antlers locked. The moose bodies were bloated and lying in about three feet of water depth. He would need a boat and help from friends.

As it turned out, his best friend was his 15-year-old daughter who wanted to help. The mighty duo set off with a small boat, chest waders, knives and bone saws.

Trying as best they could, the task was daunting, stinky, and very tough. To make this long story short, the skulls of each bull were eventually cut off of each respective body.

The exhausted father and daughter brought the locked skulls home, then to a taxidermist, and on to a process to clean the skulls with dermestid beetles. Plans are to have the locked moose antlers be a display in their home.

The Boone and Crockett Club is a conservation organization and big game record keeping entity. They do have a category for ‘Found or Picked Up’ animal skulls/antlers, and there are specific rules the collector must adhere to in order to claim ownership and get the animals scored for the record books.

The reason B&C has such a special category, different from animals legally taken by hunters, is that these animals still represent mature males that grew antlers under normal conditions that year. Their death unfortunately was via a natural cause, moose territorial and breeding rights conflict, that resulted in locked antlers and subsequent death. Data from these deceased bull moose is still valid information of what the land was capable of producing.

The antlers were scored by an official B&C measurer. It took three hours to run the tapes with the interlocked difficulty still in place.

One bull moose had antlers measuring 143 and �…�, and the other was noted at 188 and �…�.. It turns out that the larger moose antlers, when compared to all moose data entries for Shiras’ moose, was the fourth largest recorded for Idaho and would rank number 16 in the all-time listing.

So there you have it. Bull moose get into battles with other bull moose each fall, usually in September, and the majority of the time the loser just runs away.

The winner claims his reward, but antlers entangled and locked happen rarely, a Mother Nature special chapter in her book of life lessons in the wilderness.

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Garry Brandenburg is a graduate of Iowa State University with BS degree in Fish & Wildlife Biology. He is the retired director of the Marshall County Conservation Board. Contact him at PO Box 96, Albion, IA 50005.

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