Can’t resist posting this swell picture by E of a Wrentit (Chamaea fasciata), a veritable Dinky Dude not of the Desert, but of West Coast scrub and inland chaparral.

(left, Wrentit, photo E. Shock)

It may have subdued plumage, but how can anyone not like a skulking, big-headed, tiny bird with white eyes, who is the only North American representative of the bird family called Babblers (Timaliidae)?

We had crippling views of several of these dinky dudes on our recent Oregon coast trip.  I saw more Wrentits in a weekend of casual birding in moist coastal forests than during years of birding in California.  This one was dinking around in thick brambles and undergrowth at the top of the headland at the Cape Meares Lighthouse observation platform, in the company of a couple of obliging Winter wrens, another bird I’m not used to seeing so easily (in Arizona, the presence of Winter wrens is practically mythical).

Wrentits are common in their range and habitat, but their skulking habits can make them hard to see.  According to the Cornell Lab of Ornithology, Wrentits…

…may be the most sedentary bird species in north America, with an average dispersal distance from natal nest to breeding spot of about 400 m (1300 ft).

This Dinky Dude is also a homebody.

Listen to its trilling call here.

By the way, please note that the fabulous Ed Bustya figured out the snag in my photo publishing, so please be sure to click on photos posted here to see larger images.  Thanks, Ed!

Although the days are still hot here in the Phoenix area, there are signs that summer is sliding into fall: migrating Red-tailed hawks soaring over the park this morning, and over Papago Buttes a couple of accipiters (probably Cooper’s hawks) swirling through a cloud of White-throated swifts, hoping for a quick fistful of breakfast on the wing; also, cooler nights and a less intense light from the sun not rising quite so high in the sky.  It’s about time for our wintering ducks to start arriving at desert lakes, both genuine and artificial, in both wild and suburban settings.  The Phoenix Zoo is a great place to see wintering waterfowl: here’s a picture of a Ring-necked duck on the entrance pond.

Ring-necked ducks confuse people who have just met them: Looking at the obviously ringed bill pattern, they often ask: Why aren’t they called Ring-billed ducks?  This white ring around the end of the bill is visible at a distance, in nearly all light conditions.  The eponymous ring around the neck is much less frequently seen, but it shows in this un-enhanced photo: a deep chestnut almost iridescent maroon band between the chin and the breast of this natty adult bird.

(Photo: E.Shock)

The Telegraph website of the UK has posted a short column hastily summarizing a research paper concluding that Birding Is Not Green, especially competitive birding and twitching.  The Telegraph article is not very in-depth, refers mostly to Britain (although the issues are largely common to the US as well, and the primary author is at University of Illinois, and is a birder himself) and takes a bit of a snarky tone — you birders aren’t as green as you think — but it’s still worth a glance.

The author of the study points out that while chasing rarities, twitchers (the mostly British term for avid birders who mainly are interested in checking off bird species from their lists) log many gasoline-hogging hours in their vehicles, or taking long flights to see hard-to-find species or vagrants. A case in point from my own experience: many years ago a pinkish Ross’s Gull — usually an arctic bird — showed up near the Alton Lock and Dam on the Mississippi River north of St. Louis.  People were coming from places as far away as Italy and South Africa to see that bird, because it was closer and easier to get to than the high arctic.  And local birders made the drive twice or more, to log the bird in two separate years (it was at the New Year), and in two separate states, since it was at times visible from both the Missouri and Illinois side of the river!  A much more recent Ross’s gull at the Salton Sea created a similar scene.

(The photo above of the Salton Sea Ross’s Gull is by Henry Detweiler from the Southwest Birders website.  I’ve used it here because it’s a very nice photo of a ROGU, not because Southwest Birders are involved in any way that I know of in the debate about greenness and birding.)

These Ross’s Gulls chases would be cited as examples of fuel being used profligately, although the opposite argument could be made as well: visiting the Salton Sea or Alton, Illinois — closer and less pristine habitats than, say, Churchill Manitoba — actually represents a greener way of seeing the gull. In addition, the Telegraph article leaves out the fact that many birders (in the States, at least), regularly carpool to spot their targets.  Also ignored is that some eco-tours offer carbon offset opportunities for their trips.  And that many “birdwatchers” bird greenly in their yards, or nearby hotspots they access on foot or by bike.  Gilbert Water Ranch in Phoenix is a great place to bird by bike.  Some competitive birding activities, such as Big Days or Christmas Bird Counts, make useful contributions to what’s known about seasonal populations and ranges of birds, which for some might mitigate fossil fuel use to some degree.  No one criticizes the Family Roadtrip Vacation for being a fuel-wasting chase to bag National Parks: instead, people talk about broadening the kids’ horizons, engaging in “quality family time” and bolstering local economies. Traveling birders spend money in local economies, too. I would question why birding has been singled out for this criticism in the press.

(Left: Birding from the car in NZ: who’s birding who?  Cheeky Kea!  Photo: A.Shock)

There’s also a seriouly confusing and confused bit of content in the article that seems to quote the researchers as blaming birders for un-environmental practices because birders ignore pollution problems in bird-rich areas because birds tend to thrive there.  Not enough time to sort that one out in this post; I suspect the original study states it more clearly.

However, I didn’t set out to write a defense of the Greenness of Birding: most birders are aware that their passion has some not-so-environmentally-friendly aspects, and try to offset them.  The concept of Green Birding (like BIGBY) is not new; there are sites and posts all over the web — just plug “green birding” into your search engine and check a few of them out.  But, the Telegraph article does provide a reminder that some birding practices are fuel-consumptive or carbon-emitting, and we need to be aware and pro-active to make birding as green an activity as possible.

This might be one of those times it’s best to read the source article for yourself.  Here’s the reference:

Spencer Schaffner. Environmental Sporting: Birding at Superfund Sites, Landfills, and Sewage Ponds. Journal of Sport & Social Issues, 2009; 33 (3): 206.

I couldn’t access more than an abstract online without a subscription to the online reference service.

Here’s a link to an interview with the author of the study, from Science Daily. This has more detail than the Telegraph article, and perhaps better summarizes Schaffner’s conclusions.

2d update, April 2015, about using magnetic tape to secure pans to Altoids tin, see comments

Updated 19 May 2013 (see link at bottom of article)

Everybody in the world has posted their version of the Miniature Watercolor Box, usually ingeniously created from any flat metal tin, often Altoids, sometimes Velamints, or others (see here, here, and here, just for a few examples of many).  These projects are all well-described and illustrated. I hereby add my version, but will only add a couple of tips I think are an improvement on what others have already shown.

As a hiker/backpacker, I’m always looking for a way to carry along sketching and watercolor or gouache supplies that doesn’t take up too much volume or weigh too much. (Or cost too much: commercially made ones are available at artist’s suppliers but seem exorbitant, if pretty cool.) Not all hikes yield usable painting or drawing time, and I want to carry something that I won’t begrudge space to if I don’t get around to using it. So I was enthralled by the mint-tin plein-air kits I saw on the Web.  It’s just the kind of project to seize my imagination, so off I went.  Which brings up the first tip: if this is your kind of project, beware taking up more time constructing your kits (or posting about them!) than painting with them — and I speak from experience — it’s easy to go there.  Although, the preparation can be big fun and have its own rewards.

The basic idea is to use empty, flat, metal boxes (such as those in the top photo in various stages of the process) to carry small containers (like contact lens cups, or polymer clay depressions, or purpose-made watercolor half-pans) filled with tube watercolors pre-squeezed out into them and allowed to dry.  The dried colors can be re-wet and used to paint, just like commercially available pan watercolors.  But with a customized mint-tin box, you can choose your own brands and colors, or easily switch them out for landscape, botanical, or portrait projects — whatever you like. (Second tip — don’t glue your pans permanently in place, as some folks recommend.  If they’re inconveniently loose, fasten them down with something temporary, like double-sided tape or that gummy product they sell; or, wedge them in with a bit of sponge or paper towel, which would be useful anyway for blotting. You want to be able to take them out to change or clean.)  Many people like to accompany these tiny paint-boxes with water-brushes like those made by Niji and Sakura, which have water reservoirs in their barrels, so they don’t have to carry extra water in a bottle. (The photo on the right shows the insides of boxes in various stages, the top one awaiting enameling, the other two enameled and awaiting paint selections.)

I don’t think I’m the only one who’s been saving metal Altoids tins for years with the idea that some day they’d come in handy.  Well, this is that day.  It turns out the older ones are best — the ones with the flat lids, without the product name embossed in the lid (like the one below on the left, painted with a red anti-rust primer).  The embossing is fancy, but since the inner lid becomes your mixing surface, a flat one is better (more about fixing that in a minute).

The inner lids of most brands are silver like the top one in the photo above — those are usable, but it’s easier to see your colors if you’re mixing on white. Some tins are already white inside. A few folks have inserted a portion of a plastic mixing tray here; good, but there’s both extra weight and extra work to cut it out of an existing watercolor palette (although you do get to wield your Dremel tool).  Others spray paint the surface white.  That’s the solution I went with, but here’s my next Valuable Tip: don’t just use white spray paint, use spray-on Appliance Enamel, found with the spray paints at hardware or DIY stores. It’s perfect — stain resistant, glossy, very white, quick drying, and rust proof.  It was miraculous to watch a metallic surface become pure white, shiny, and even in just 2-3 coats. I couldn’t stop using the stuff — the cats were lucky they didn’t end up slick and white.  Don’t forget to mask the outside with some tape before spraying.  If you want to obliterate the product labeling on the outside of your tin, use regular indoor-outdoor spray paint for that — I’ve been doing that after spraying the inside (mask it so that slick white surface isn’t contaminated).

Next tip, about indented lids: if you have an embossed tin lid, your mixing surface will have dents that cause color mixtures to pool.  If this bothers you, start by filling these dents on the inside of the lid with a waterproof product.  I use a modeling product called Apoxie Sculpt.  Just follow the instructions; you can smooth it out with a wet fingertip and then sand when dry.  Polymer clay would work as well, but needs to be oven-cured.  Remember to do your infilling before using the Appliance enamel.  This adds a level of complication to the project, both because of having to do the leveling and procuring the product, but I know your ingenuity is up to it.  If not, just forget it and find a non-embossed tin — they’re out there, but not Altoids, I don’t think — or, use the embossed lid anyway.  It’s not the end of the world. (The photo on the right, below, shows an embossed lid box filled and awaiting enameling, the other box is complete; it’s the rust-colored Altoids gum box above — you can see that the indentations of the lettering have been filled and the lid now has a smooth mixing surface).

Where to put the paints. Since I don’t wear contacts lenses and don’t have access to old lens cups, I was going to make my own half-pans with polymer clay to hold the paints, but I found I didn’t have the patience to make as many as I would need.  Using a solid pad of clay and making paint depressions in it is a good solution, but not for me: I wanted to be able to change out individual colors.  So I went for purpose-made plastic watercolor pans and half-pans, which wedge snugly into mint tins in various combinations.  Unfortunately, I found that individual empty pans are not easy to find, currently.  Jerry’s Artarama has them in their catalog, but as long as I’ve been working on the project, they’ve been out of stock.  I finally found another supplier, Natural Pigments, a cool vendor in Willetts, CA, who specializes in pigments and supplies for people making their own paints.  They have empty pans available for a good price, but frankly their shipping fees are mysteriously high for such lightweight items.  Still, beggars can’t be choosers, and that’s who I’ve been buying from.  Consider that another hot tip, with a caveat (shipping price).

Now you’re ready to configure your pans geometrically in your prepared tin, and select your palette — both tasks similar to scattering rice in front of a vampire: there are those who obsess on these things.  I won’t presume to dispense advice on color choice, but just a warning: the smaller the tin, the fewer your colors, the harder the choice, for most.

Let me finish off by saying that if this is the kind of project that floats your boat, there are many possibilities: different sizes of tins (to accommodate larger and smaller palettes); traveling tins for gouache (non-acrylic gouaches are re-wettable like watercolors and like them can be squeezed into pans and allowed to dry); and gifts for artist friends, with or without the paints (some artists are picky about their color choices).  Now that Altoids has introduced Smalls, there’s a Really Tiny Tin to challenge your minimalist palette selection.  And finally, modern mint-boxes are great, but how cool would vintage metal boxes be?!  I’m thinking Kiwi shoe polish, for one…

Update: Here’s another artist’s traveling pastille box, with plastic caps for pans.  What a great idea!

Gaze upon Sierra Vista, in south eastern Arizona, where the beautiful Huachuca Mountains beetle over the fast food restaurants and motels of the busy town.  Not visible in this shot, but also beetling, is the everpresent and mysterious white surveillance blimp.  One day, I will find out about the white blimp.  Maybe today.

The natural beauty of the region is not far away; below is a view of the foothills of the Whetstone Mountains just north of Sierra Vista.  The landscape here is transitional between the Sonoran and Chihuahuan deserts, and is high enough to be more grassland and thornscrub than desert.  But this trail in Kartchner Caverns State Park has ocotillo, agave (in bloom) and barrel cactus, and a mix of desert and arid scrubland birds, like Curve-billed thrasher, Greater roadrunner and Varied bunting.  (Not that I’m seeing many birds — inexplicably, I forgot my binox!  I guess I’ll have to be an artist this weekend, and not a birder…)  The landscape is lush and green, even in a moderate monsoon year.  Most of the rainfall of the entire year falls during the summer monsoon season.

Southwest Wings Birding and Nature Festival is in full swing and Three Star Owl is in the thick of things. Yesterday was the first day of the Art Fair and Nature Exposition, and lots of people came for the vendors and artists as well as the birds.  Purchases were made: owls, javelinas, black-headed grosbeaks, and gila monsters found nice new homes.  Peek into the Saguaro Room at the Windemere Hotel, and the first thing you see is the Three Star Owl booth.  (Really, why is it always so hard to get a good booth shot?  In person, the set-up looks quite nice.)  My only sorrow is that the hotel hasn’t turned on the twinkle lights buried in the tulle swagging overhead, left over from somebody’s wedding party.

(All photos A.Shock)

…are not a Victorian law firm.

They are delightfully specific bird-related terms: it seems that falconers and ornithologists, like the French, have a different word for everything.

You can talk about a raptor’s “thumb”, meaning the strong digit that in most birds is at the back of the foot, and people will know what you mean.  But there’s a useful Latin term for it, regularly and properly used in both falconry and ornithology: hallux, plural halluces.  Ornithologists have assigned birds’ toes numbers to express foot skeletal structure and toe arrangement, and the counting starts at the hallux: it’s 1.  Used in an informative sentence: “It’s useful to know that if you have a Great horned owl on the glove, and it’s gripped your free hand due to your inattention, ask someone to gently pull its hallux upward to release the grip, avoiding an unpleasant situation involving talons, pain and possible nerve damage.”  Actually, hallux is an anatomical term that refers to our own human big toe, too.  Any word with an X in it ought to be used as much as possible, says I.

That would include the word Retrix, which is a tail feather.  Plural: retrices.  Most birds have ten or twelve, and they are numbered in the order they are shed during a moult, which is from the center of the tail outward: R1 – R6, with the R1s being the two central tail feathers and the R6s being the two outer tail feathers.  Additionally, the two central tail feathers are referred to as the “deck feathers” or, as the French call them, les retrices centrales.  Used in a sentence: “The deck feathers are the first retrices to be moulted out of the tail.”  To learn more about feathers than you wanted to know, check out the Feather Atlas.  (Please remember it’s illegal to collect or own non-game bird feathers, by the way.)

Feak is a verb: feaking describes the action of a bird rubbing or wiping its beak on the perch or branch, usually for cleaning (the beak, not the branch).  Raptors do this after feeding to remove excess matter from the beak.  Songbirds do it as well, including hummingbirds whom I’ve seen feak after slurping at a nectar feeder.  It is a side-to-side motion, like sharpening a knife.  A raptor bends forward to feak, a hummingbird just tucks its chin.  Unlike the words hallux and retrix which are from the Latin, feak is an Anglo-Saxon word, and though it doesn’t have an X, needs to be said often, just to hear the sound it makes. Used in a sentence: “The Summer tanager should have feaked after eating that juicy katydid.” By the way, I think the French word for feak is feak, but I’m not positive.

Falconry is well-stocked with this and other specialist vocabulary, like stoop, warble and rouse, or yarak, haggard and crab — not to mention bate, creance and imp — each of which sounds like a Bleak House Dream Team.

(Photo, Summer tanager, A.Shock)

When the Gophersnake made its appearance, I was about to post on Costa’s hummingbirds, because “informal censusing” (= what we see in the yard) indicates that this is the season when the Costa’s hummer population is highest in our Phoenix area yard: we are lousy with Costa’s right now.

I would guess it has something to do with post-breeding population movement, and the fact that there are a lot of YOY (young of the year) out and about.  Right now, at least three of our back yard nectar feeders are being defended by male Costa’s, one of which is an immature bird, still showing just a few purple spangles at the corners of its throat.

These tiny feisty birds definitely fall into the “dinky desert dude” category.  They spend a lot of time in exciting high-speed tail chases, pursuing each other and other larger hummers like Anna’s away from the nectar sources, even in the impressive heat we’ve been experiencing.  In between, they sip intermittently at nectar sources both natural and human-made, using the energy-rich fluid to fuel their aerial gnatting forays which provide them with protein.

For now, the males seem to have quit their flight displays until next breeding season.  But from their favorite perches — often on twigs under the canopies of open trees like palo verde and mesquite — they engage in quiet “singing” which is a descending sibillance so high and thin that some people can’t hear it.  Even if it’s beyond your pitch range, you can always tell if a Costa’s is singing, because it “assumes the position”: a bit hunched, throat very slightly puffed, head forward and oscillating back and forth gently as the notes are emitted, as if to spray the sound evenly in all directions like audible air freshener, so other hummers in the area can hear it.

The top photo shows the typical neckless, puff-ball silhouette of a Costa’s, short-tailed and gray vested.  In this light, the blazing purple of the “Yosemite Sam” mustachioed gorget is not activated, except for a patch behind the eye.  Even without the bright color, the bird is easily identified by the pattern of dark and light, as in the photo on the left, with the white throat and neck contrasting strongly against the dark moustaches.

(Photos: top, Costa’s in yard creosote, A.Shock; bottom, Costa’s in Boyce Thompson mesquite, E.Shock)

We missed some of Spring in the desert this year, so last weekend we went in search of it under the Mogollon Rim: Sunday found us hiking along the West Fork of Oak Creek in Sedona.  It’s one of the more popular trails in that popular area, and at times it’s mobbed by clusters of sweaty Phoenicians looking for a quick cool-off up in the oak pine red rock country.  But the weather in the desert has been cooler than seasonal, and although we certainly weren’t alone on the path, the trail wasn’t as crowded as we feared.

The day couldn’t have been more beautiful — Oak Creek Canyon at that point is a mile high (literally) so it’s still spring up there, with lots of showy color.  Both Scarlet and Yellow Monkey Flower (Mimulus cardinalis and guttatus), Golden columbine (Aquilegia chrysantha), and Western spiderwort (Tradescantia occidentalis) were at their peak. Columbian monkshood (Aconitum columbianum) and Deers-ears (Frasera speciosa) were just beginning, as were the False Solomon’s seal (Smilacina sp).  Butterflies abounded — both on flowers and on ammonia-rich heron-wash smears on the gravelly banks — and the air was lively with swallowtails, skippers and sulphurs, and others I don’t know.

The local birds were lively and showy too, the males singing and holding territory: Lazuli bunting (Passerina amoena), Black-headed grosbeak (Pheucticus melanocephalus), Western tanagers (Piranga ludoviciana), and Red-faced warblers (Cardenlina rubifrons) were among the colorful singers, while Cordilleran flycatchers (Empidonax occidentalis), House wrens (Troglodytes aedon), Plumbeous vireo (Vireo plumbeus) and the ethereal-voiced Hermit thrush (Catharus guttatus) were vocal but plainer of plumage.

Now, I admire a little brown bird as much as anyone — the House wren is a delight to watch, singing so hard its little barred tail vibrates — but it’s tough to not be swept away by the sight of tiny woodland jewels like Red-faced warblers, who were numerous and singing, or the Painted redstart (Myioborus pictus) who was foraging quietly and intently as if he had nestlings and a mate to feed.

To the right is a page of the day’s birdlist, sketchily illustrated on the fly with really tiny thumbnails of a couple of the brighter species.  (I’ve been honing down a back-packing sized watercolor kit, and it’s coming along well, although I haven’t yet gotten the paints pared down to an Altoids-tin, since Jerry’s Artarama is still out of empty half-pans). The bird-list is small-scale, too — in a Moleskine journal just 3.5×5.5″.

The Broad-tailed hummingbirds (Selasphorus platycercus) were zizzing around fussily, sometimes more easily heard than seen, but we lucked into looking up at just the right time to see this Hen settle onto her nest on a bough directly over the trail.  Check out her clever lichen-camo, and how it blends right down into the lichen-covered Big-toothed maple branch!

The Phoenix-Sedona round trip with an eight-mile hike in the middle makes for one long day, but even so we came back refreshed and renewed, glad to have a cooler option when the desert is too hot to hike.  Graduated seasons are one of the nicest things about living in a state with delightfully drastic topography.

(Photos from top to bottom: red rock overhang, West Fork of Oak Creek, A.Shock; Spiderwort being pollinated by Eurobee, E.Shock; Golden columbine dragon-heads, A.Shock; illustrated bird-list, A.Shock; Broad-tailed hummer hen on nest, E.Shock)

One thing the Southern Hemisphere does well is sea birds.  Albatrosses, gannets, penguins, prions, storm petrels, diving petrels, gadfly petrels, giant petrels, shearwaters, skuas, mollymawks, and more occur in baffling numbers of species (and nomenclature).  Normally, many of these birds are found well out to sea, over the deepwater pelagic zones.  But in tectonically active NZ, there are places where the continental shelf drops off into deep water quite close to shore — like at Kaikoura on the east-northeast coast of the South Island — and in those places you don’t need to venture far from the harbor for excellent seabird viewing.

The birds are accustomed to following fishing vessels, and close-up views are possible if you just chum a chunk of frozen fish-liver behind the boat.  Above a gibbering mob of Pintados (Daption capense, Cape “pigeons”) is joined by Nellies (Macronectes spp, Giant Petrels) and a couple of species of Albatross to joust over gobbets of yummy chum off the back of a small net-fisherman.

I’ve seen Albatross in Antarctic waters, sitting on the surface at a distance from the ship, or skimming adroitly behind the vessel, drafting over the huge waves of Drake’s Passage.  They’re enormous birds — the largest Royals and Wanderers have a wingspan of nearly 12 feet (3.5 meters).  A big wingspan means long wingbones, and when these wings are folded, they jut out behind the bird with a gawky elbowy effect, visible in the photo above of this Toroa, a youngish Wandering Albatross (Diomedea gibsoni).  The “elbows” actually extend almost as far as the tips of the primary feathers, a characteristic I haven’t noticed in any other bird.

The petrels and albatrosses are Procellarids, or tube-noses: in other words, their nostrils are enclosed in one or two tubes along their strong, grooved, hooked bills, a trait visible in the photo above.

As puffins are still eaten in Iceland, some species of tubenoses are harvested for food in NZ.  At this time of year, Māori are entitled to collect Muttonbird chicks (Titi, Sooty Shearwater, Puffinus griseus) from their nesting burrows in the coastal bush and mountains.  (The adults have already headed out to the wintering grounds, some as far away as the waters off the coast of California; the young are left behind to grow in their adult plumage.)

Traditionally, cooked Titi were packed in their own fat in kelp bags, where they stayed fresh for 2 -3 years.  I couldn’t find a picture of a poha-titi, a Māori kelp bag, but here’s a photo of a Titi (Sooty shearwater or muttonbird): it’s the smaller all-dark bird at the top of the picture.  The large and handsome bird in the foreground is a Buller’s Mollymawk (Diomedea bulleri).

Nowadays Muttonbirding is largely a commercial enterprise, for sale to restaurants.  Later in the trip we found contemporary Muttonbird on the menu of a very nice fish restaurant in Moeraki, but I chose blue cod, thinking of the bird we’d seen on the sea in Kaikoura.

(Photos, top: E. Shock: the snow-covered Kaikoura Mountains are visible in the background; middle, A. Shock; bottom, E. Shock. All from the Kaikoura pelagic trip.)