Author Archive
Hungry
Posted by: | Comments
This fancy adult Cooper’s Hawk gave the little birds fits when it came up off the trail in Jericho Park Tuesday morning–but they lost interest when they saw that it was carrying a fat brown mammal.
Even for a Cooper’s Hawk, this one was unusually bold, dining on his branch just a few feet above the dogs and baby strollers and birders beneath. I never did see exactly what he was eating, but it must have been good.
Jericho in the Sunshine
Posted by: | Comments
I arrived at Jericho Park way too late on this beautiful autumn morning, but in spite of my tardiness, there were still birds waiting for me. The bright sun had wakened insects all over the park, and so the flocks were not as concentrated as they had been yesterday, but I still ran across a nice batch or two of migrant parulids, including Black-throated Gray, Yellow, and Orange-crowned Warblers. I’ve been interested these past few days to see just how gray-headed most of the orange-crowns are; I assume that even the most obviously hooded birds are “just” of one the western races, as I think celata moves pretty strongly east on its southward journey.
Sparrows seem to be building, too, with Lincoln’s Sparrow far the commonest today. And a chuckle and a flash of yellow revealed a female Western Tanager trying to hide in a flock of White-crowned Sparrows. Tomorrow may be another exciting day–for those who can get there early, at least!
Thompson: Identifying and Feeding Birds
Posted by: | CommentsThis charmingly written and handsomely illustrated book purports to be for the “backyard birder”–but I doubt very much that any reader will be a “backyard birder” once she’s done. Bill Thompson does a great job here of communicating many of the basic facts about attracting and identifying the birds of suburb and farm, but even better, he reveals to the uninitiated the excitement and enjoyment to be had from going further, learning more, doing more with birds.
As the title suggests, the book has two main sections, the first a guide to creating the conditions that will make your immediate environment appealing to as many birds as possible. Feeders help, of course, and Thompson offers a thorough review of the types of food and food receptacles most likely to attract birds; but the book makes the point repeatedly and clearly that nothing makes a landscape as attractive as native plants, which can create a habitat, complete with brush piles, irresistible to the most appealing of the birds we all hope to draw to our yards.
Following a useful question-and-answer chapter, the second part of the book deals in greater detail with attracting, housing, and identifying 125 of those yard visitors. The photos, many of them stretching nearly margin to gutter, are spectacularly beautiful, and almost all well chosen; some readers may wonder, though, why there is no image of a female Purple Martin, or why an eastern, heavily spotted Downy Woodpecker is compared to a western, black-winged Hairy. One of the two photos of Yellow-rumped Warbler could profitably have been an Audubon’s, rather than devoting both to Myrtle.
It’s the responsibility of a reviewer to second-guess an author, of course, and I enjoyed leafing through the 125 “common backyard birds” to see where I might have made a different choice–not necessarily better in every case, but different. I think Turkey Vulture is a bit of a stretch, particularly given the omission of Red-tailed Hawk; Merlin, included here, is much less common as a feeder visitor in most parts of the country than is American Kestrel, barely mentioned in the text. Another little raptor, Northern Shrike, is surely more common at feeders nowadays than Loggerhead–yet the latter is given full treatment and the former not mentioned.
Band-tailed Pigeon certainly belongs in this selection, but a note should have been added that it visits backyards and feeders chiefly on the coast; this is a shy bird of high-elevation wilderness in most of its interior range. A similar note could have been given for Western Scrub-Jay, a reluctant feeder visitor inland but a voracious gobbler of seed and suet in California.
Greater Roadrunners are welcome guests in many southwestern yards, but I wish the text mentioned the dangers of feeding them meat and dog food: young birds are said to require bones and skin and feathers and scales to grow properly, which their parents can harvest just fine at the thistle feeder.
There’s no reason not to mention Western Screech-Owl along with its eastern counterpart; I’ve had far better luck luring westerns to my boxes than I ever have with easterns. Speaking again as an adoptive Arizonan, I am surprised to find the uncommonish and local Golden-fronted Woodpecker given a full page and the abundant, noisy, and relatively widespread Gila Woodpecker unmentioned. Lazuli Bunting is another obvious omission, far more frequently seen at feeders and over far longer periods of the year than Painted Bunting.
Sparrows are the highlight of any winter feeder. I envy anyone who regularly has Field Sparrows visiting, and wonder how many American Tree Sparrows–a standby at feeders across the northern tier of states but not included among the choice 125–will be misidentified this coming season as Field or Chipping. It would have been instructive to describe and to illustrate more than just Slate-colored Junco; the other juncos are dismissed here as “mostly in the West,” hardly an informative comment for a birder wondering what those black-hooded, orange-backed birds are at the millet pile.
None of those small lapses is fatal; most readers will quickly move on anyway to more comprehensive field guides. And that more than anything else is the measure of the value of this book, one that is sure to inspire its readers and to help their birds.
A Bad Day to Be a Worm
Posted by: | CommentsIt finally stopped raining, so after Gellert’s quick swim at Acadia Beach (complete with Pileated Woodpecker), we headed back to Jericho to see if anything was astir at that birdiest of Vancouver parks.
The first pond has been let down for some reason, so the abundant Mallards of dubious provenance were shoving themselves through the muck like feathered icebreakers on a suddenly thawed sea: not a pretty sight. Two Belted Kingfishers rattled their disapproval from the pond-side willows before flashing off to find deeper fish-filled waters elsewhere.
Once those noisy visitors were gone, I could start to listen in earnest–and immediately there were chips and lisps coming down from the trees. Black-capped Chickadees and Bushtits were the most abundant members of the flock, as expected at just about any time of year in the park, but they were joined by Western Warbling-Vireos, a Hammond’s Flycatcher, a couple of Western Wood-Pewees, Golden-crowned and Ruby-crowned Kinglets, and Wilson’s, Yellow, Orange-crowned, and a good eight or ten Black-throated Gray Warblers.
Migration! And it was like that all along all three of the ponds, Warbling Vireos and Yellow Warblers almost never out of sight, small gangs of Spotted Towhees and Lincoln’s and White-crowned Sparrows popping in and out of the brambles, Anna’s Hummingbirds buzzing through the remaining flowers. Will it be like this again tomorrow?
And With a Vengeance!
Posted by: | CommentsHere in English-speaking North America, Labor Day marks the end of recreational, if not of astronomical, summer. And when summer ends in coastal British Columbia, does it ever. What a drizmal day it was out there!
Two dozen birders joined me late this afternoon for a high-tide walk at Iona Beach; it was billed as a shorebird trip, and we all felt more than a bit limicolous ourselves by the time we dragged our chilled sogginesses back out of the ponds at the end of it. But we had a good time anyway, I think, and I’m already looking forward to my next shorebird tour at Iona, scheduled for October 2. Can you say sharptail…?
Today’s walk didn’t find all that many shorebirds, alas: lots of Western and Least Sandpipers, a few Lesser and a Greater Yellowlegs or two, and a few Semipalmated Plovers. Once again I learned just how little value “scouting” has for a shorebird walk: on the days before our trip, I’d seen Semipalmated and Baird’s Sandpipers and Long-billed Dowitchers on the ponds, but no luck with any of those today.
But there were compensations. Thanks to the hordes of Barn Swallows, we learned a bit about hirundinid flight styles (and how rain and fog can make small birds look big). Caspian Terns were chasing high overhead, and a beautifully marked, still fresh juvenile joined the loafing Ring-billed Gulls on the pond to give us great looks (and some of us their first looks) at this attractive plumage. But the real excitement was provided by an adult Peregrine Falcon that flashed in to haze the roosting birds before swooping to a commanding perch atop one of the light poles.
The day’s second high tide is moving deeper into darkness now, so it may be a few days before I can check Iona again. And maybe next time it will be a bit drier!
