Archive for April, 2009
A Madera Morning
Posted by: | CommentsI hadn’t been to Madera Canyon for what felt like ages, and so–even though a fine warm Saturday in April might not be the best time to return–Darlene and I spent a wonderful morning there this weekend.
We started at Madera Picnic Area, just barely into the wide, lush canyon, at an elevation where the oaks have asserted their dominance. There was a great little mixed flock of Audubon’s (and a single Myrtle) Warblers, Painted Redstarts, Pine Siskins, Ruby-crowned Kinglets, and other common passerines, while Acorn Woodpeckers and Mexican Jays churred and chwinked through the trees. But as always, it was the Bridled Titmouses that stole the show, some, like the one above, scouring the ground at our feet for picnic leavings and, I suspect, the insects they drew.
Arizona Woodpecker is often chancy in the canyon, but this was one of those days when they were everywhere, their loud, sharp chips and stuttering whinnies conspicuous everywhere from the picnic area to the upper parking lot. We had particularly good views at the Kubo, where at least two were coming to the feeders, which also hosted the usual–the usual!–Black-headed Grosbeaks, Hooded and Scott’s Orioles, and masses of hungry Pine Siskins.
No rare Piranga (yet?), but Western and Hepatic Tanagers performed beautifully, one male Hepatic emulating the titmice in its careful survey of the ground.
You can often gauge a birding day by when the “best” bird arrives: if it’s too early, the day doesn’t feel quite as good as when the highlight pops up toward this end. But Saturday felt great. We had decided to take a quick walk up the Carrie Nation trail in search of trogons and migrants, but by then it was picnic time and there wasn’t a single space in the uppermost parking lot. So we turned around–and in the course of that maneuver heard a loud cackle and looked out the window to see an adult Northern Goshawk flashing down canyon. Bird of the day, and no reason to stay any longer!
Rabbit Control
Posted by: | CommentsSomehow I don’t think I’m going to have to complain about the cottontails for much longer.
We don’t often see rattlesnakes in the neighborhood, and this is the biggest and scariest one by far that’s strayed into our yard. As I watched from inside, it methodically checked out every crack and crevice and corner. The birds kept an equally careful eye on the snake.
The Gambel’s Quail and White-winged Doves simply gathered around, but the Mourning Doves were, to my surprise, bravest of all, approaching quite close and raising their wings like gray-feathered matadors in the bullring.
My new resolve: never to go outside barefoot after dark again!
The same rocks, this time with a yardstick
White-winged Acrobats
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They take their time getting back, but there comes a morning each spring when the trickle of White-winged Doves bursts into full flood, and suddenly they’re everywhere.
I can’t get enough of this bird, with its handsome face, its sad and beautiful song, its faintly ridiculous elegance on the ground. And they can’t get enough of our birdseed.
I’m generous, I think, with what I spread on the ground for them, but it’s never enough, given that their gluttony competes with that of the Gambel’s Quail, Mourning Doves, Abert’s Towhees, and every other bird that’s figured out where it can find a free lunch.
And so the White-wings attack the feeders directly. Guess I should feel sorry for them as they balance and teeter on the cage feeder, but their efforts produce some breathtakingly beautiful poses.
No Stone Unturned
Posted by: | CommentsIt’s great to be energetic, and great to be confident; but the combination can be a little overwhelming when both characteristics are found in a single bird.
Especially when that bird’s a Cactus Wren.
I don’t know why Arizona selected that species as its state bird, rejecting any number of obvious alternatives. Absent the kooky charisma of a roadrunner, the elegance of Gambel’s Quail, the cheerful beauty of Lesser Goldfinch, maybe it was precisely the wren’s feistiness that so endeared it to the schoolchildren and legislators who made the choice.
There’s no place a Cactus Wren won’t go: open doors are an invitation, closed windows a challenge. They’re inveterate thieves of string, paper, plastic, anything they think might find a place in their bulky nests; and at the feeders they chase any bird smaller, and most birds larger, than they are.
They’re great!
Sinister rustlings in the corner of our garage almost always turn out to be a Cactus Wren, as do the tiny billows of dust and rock that regularly erupt in the yard.
Having watched them now for these past five years, I don’t think that their spinning and delving turns up much in the edible range. But it’s something to do, and that seems to be the primary goal of every Cactus Wren activity–channeling that boundless energy, that limitless self-confidence, and that endearing feistiness.
Fiery Crookbills
Posted by: | CommentsIs it snobbery, elitism, lack of imagination? I’ve always wondered why we persist in using the funny Greek names for some of our birds when English would do just fine, thank you.
These beautiful Pyrrhuloxias, for example, slumming it with House Sparrows and Mourning Doves on our front walk, could as easily be called (and so much more easily spelled) “Gray Cardinals.”
Of course, if you have even a little Latin and less Greek, the tongue-twisting syllables have a certain poetry to them, I suppose. Everybody knows that “Phainopepla” means “shining coat,” and it’s a short leap from there to understand that Callipepla, the genus name of Gambel’s Quail, refers, fittingly enough, to that species’ “beautiful raiment.”
“Pyrrhuloxia” is nice, too, if you think about it: “fiery crookbill,” a great description of the male with his crimson accents. And the Casaubon in me can’t help noting that the first part of the compound is a classic illustration of the shift from Indo-Germanic p to Germanic f: “pyrrhos” > “fire.”
