Archive for May, 2008
Beautiful Night
Posted by: | CommentsEight of us set out this evening for an Aimophila Adventures owl workshop, starting in Tucson and ending at a crowded and noisy campground a vertical mile above the city. The owls were reticent–we heard only Flammulated and Whiskered Screech-Owls–but the owling was fine, with good company and temperatures eventually 30 degrees F lower than what we had started with in the lowlands.
The highlight for me was the Mexican Whip-poor-will concert in Bear Canyon, as many as four of the burry buzzers chanting at once from the pines. A close second: a ringtail disappearing ‘neath the guardrail as we came back down in the dark–the only way I’ve ever seen this mammal has been by owling the Catalinas in May!
What On Earth…
Posted by: | Comments… is this?
Photo Darlene Smyth
This morning’s IBA survey was pleasant enough, but it was obvious that summer has arrived in southeast Arizona: in nearly two hours we saw not a single bird that was certainly a migrant. Of course, no reason to complain when the breeding residents include such fancies as Northern Beardless-Tyrannulet and Broad-billed Hummingbird.
Our strangest find, though, was the stone object in the photograph above. Ideas, please?
Washington: Usk
Posted by: | CommentsUsk, Washington, has never meant more to me than an amusing roadsign, but this noon, following the hint in the Lane/ABA bird-finding guide, I checked out a spot along the Pend Oreille River there, finding it every bit as pleasant and as birdful as promised.
Kings Lake Road (called, inscrutably, “Fifth” in the bfg) leads across the river and onto the Kalispell Indian Reservation; an immediate turn north takes you to the reservation’s powwow grounds, whence there is access to a good-quality gravel road leading north a mile or so along the river. Ospreys and their nests line the road, and the stands at the arena harbor an impressively large colony of Cliff Swallows. The road starts in grassy flowered fields, making for a delightful combination of Wood Ducks and Double-crested Cormorants on the river side, Savannah Sparrows and Bobolinks on the land side.
Soon the landscape changes, swampy woods replacing the hayfields and Tree Swallows replacing the cliffies; Yellow Warblers and Song Sparrows sing from the willow thickets. The potential for migrants looks good, with a single male Western Tanager perhaps still on his way to the ponderosa-clad slopes above the floodplain.
Just where the road turns uphill and away from the river, a fine set of little oxbow marshes harbored a few waterfowl, among them a pair of Ring-necked Ducks and a pair of Redheads. An Eastern Kingbird fussed and fluttered over the water, too, and I’m sure that a morning visit would turn up other “east slope” species.
Best of all, though, were the Black-billed Magpies, a dozen or so adults scattered all along the road. It’s not easy being a magpie, I think. Like their larger relatives the American Crows and Common Ravens, the lovely black-and-whites are drawn to the area by the abundance of eggs and chicks, no doubt, but their milk is spoiled and their honey embittered by the vigilance of passerine parents: everything, and I mean everything, was mobbing them, from Eastern Kingbirds to Yellow Warblers. Can’t a pie enjoy a meal in peace?
Canada: A Squirrel and a Flower
Posted by: | CommentsYes, if I weren’t a birder I’d be a squirreler, and Columbia ground-squirrel has long been a favorite. They love trashy, newly disturbed roadsides and construction sites–almost as much as they love fresh leaves.
This one was laying on spring fat at the Castlegar airport on Saturday.
And here, for Memorial Day, a lovely flower from the banks of the Columbia River.
Canada: Waldie Island Trail
Posted by: | CommentsAlison and I spent yesterday’s midday on a damp and chilly Saturday at the Waldie Island Trail, a relatively new preserve established along the Columbia River near Castlegar, British Columbia.
It wasn’t the optimal time of day, but birding was still pleasant, with the full suite of riparian singers singing riparianly: among them Warbling Vireo, Yellow Warbler, and Spotted Towhee. The quiet backwaters were inhabited by the usual Mallards, Wood Ducks, and Canada Geese (with chubby yellow goslings), and Alison of the sharp eye discovered a lone female Common Goldeneye. The most abundant, or at least the most conspicuous, among the passerines was Song Sparrow, fine dark reddish birds with sparse markings above and sweet, deep voices.
Bald Eagles soared overhead, and Common Ravens and American Crows croaked and cawed through the pines. The prize, though, of the entire walk was a splendid “red” Ruffed Grouse, shy in her huckleberry thicket, but all the same giving me some of the best views I’ve ever had of that species.










