To say that pygmy owls are sparrow-like isn’t entirely true.  But it’s almost true.

To start with, there’s their size: they are Very Very Small (the technical term).  Almost sparrow-sized.  Perched in a conifer, they look like a tiny pinecone. Also, like sparrows, they’re largely diurnal, and can frequently be found glaring down from a high branch in daylight hours.

Ferruginous pygmy owl, San José CR.  (photo A.Shock) >>

Then there’s their fierce, predatory nature.

OK, that’s not like a sparrow at all, unless you’re a seed.

But then, there’s their population density: they’re almost as numerous as sparrows.  Of course this is hyperbole too, but, for a predator, whose numbers are usually limited, they are fairly numerous.  In a walled garden of our hotel in San José, Costa Rica, we encountered (heard or seen) at least three if not more Ferruginous pygmy owls, simultaneously responding to their own staccato calls, recorded and played back to them. (By contrast, in Arizona, Ferruginous pygmy owls reach their maximum northward range in the southern part of the state; they’re not terribly numerous.  In fact, the Cactus ferruginous pygmy owl is endangered in the state)

<< Here’s another pygmy owl in Costa Rica, making its repetitive “poop” call, at the rate of about 3 per second, each note accompanied by a slight lift of its tail, showing the whole-body effort that goes into making a noise that’s pretty loud coming from such a small entity. (Photo A.Shock)

Costa Rica is especially well-supplied with pygmy owl species: Ferruginous, Costa Rican (endemic to the country), and Central American pygmy owl all make their homes there, varying slightly in appearance and voice, but not overlapping much in range.

Three Star Owl blogging resumes after a hiatus of two weeks in Costa Rica…

Volcán Turrialba at dawn, from Rancho Naturalista (photo A.Shock).

In the view above only a small plume of steam and gas is visible from the most active of the three summit craters of the nearly 11,000 foot stratovolcano.  Its last major eruption was in 1866, but a recent increase in activity and a release of volcanic ash in January of this year, resulted in the evacuation of two nearby villages.

Gray-headed chachalacas (photo A.Shock) >>

Local residents may be used to living in view of this steaming giant, but for visitors it can be a little unnerving.  However there’s lots to distract, including vocal groups of Gray-headed chachalacas eating bananas at a fruit feeder, and a Crested Guan perched and silhouetted against the green valley far below.

<< Crested guan (photo A.Shock)

One of our destinations during the recent eastern California trip was the dramatic and amazing Mono Lake and its crumbly, gradually ephemeral tufa groves.  Tufa towers are mineral formations deposited underwater when calcium-rich spring water pours up into carbonate-rich lakewater.  The resulting mixture precipitates calcium-carbonate which builds upward into the lake water, sort of like stalagmites in a cave, but underwater.  If the lake level drops or the lake dries up, the towers are exposed (like the Trona Pinnacles).

>> Osprey-nested tufa tower, Mono Lake.  The tips of the hen’s primaries look like a little black alligator head, if you click to enlarge.

Lots of birds and mammals use the pinnacles to perch, shelter, forage, and nest.  This tufa tower, about 15 feet tall, is completely surrounded by water — a pair of ospreys has built their nest on the platform of its top.  The Osprey hen, sitting tight on either eggs or chicks, is barely visible as two black wingtips sticking up just over the the middle of the untidy stick nest.  She’s hunkered low down in a whipping wind.  Her mate, not in the photo, was coursing low over the water nearby.

This streaky, buffy-lored Savannah sparrow was hunting along the highly alkaline, hyper-saline water’s edge, like a very tiny T-rex, searching for alkali flies and larvae, yum.  The cold temps and wind made it fearless or at least heedless — hunger does that — and it passed right by me, intent on finding a late afternoon meal. >>

Mono Lake is also the second-largest California Gull rookery in the U.S.  Below is one, bright and bold, who landed on our truck roof to see if we had anything to eat.  I suppose this photo might qualify as a “The Bird Spots You.”

(All photos A.Shock; click to enlarge.)

The Mono Lake story is a complicated one of rich natural history, ruthless water-greed, and hard work by a lot of dedicated conservationists and politicians, for better or for worse.  Check it out here.

<< check out the orange “gape” or flexible skin at the corner of the mouth, all the better to gulp down bickies with.  We did not oblige.

After much battling, litigation and legislation, current policy is to let the lake fill naturally, so the South Shore tufa towers pictured above are slowly being inundated.  A good reason to visit now, if you’ve never been; in a few short decades, these tufas will be underwater.

[This is a Spot the Bird, although it’s less of a quiz than a photo series. All photos A or E Shock.  Click to enlarge.]

Here are some feral date palms, growing wild at a substantial oasis in Death Valley, CA.  The date palm is Phoenix dactylifera (“finger-bearing”), but in this case we could call it P. bubifera, “owl-bearing.”  There’s an owl in this palm, although you can’t see it. >>

Owls seem to like roosting in palms.   Every birder the world over checks palms for owls.  Great horned, Barn, Grass, whatever the local species are — if there are owls and palms together in a habitat or region, they are likely to be acquainted.  This is because palms (like pine trees) provide what owls like: concealing, sturdy roosts, and habitat and food source for prey items.  An owl perched hidden in palm fronds has a grand view of scurrying, foraging rodents at its feet — imagine regularly finding dinner on your very own kitchen floor… or, to quote Homer: “Mmmm, Floor Pie!”  (that’s the epic Homer Simpson, not Homer the epic poet).

Spot the bird: In the center of this photo, you can see a vague milky blur on the right edge of the darkest dark: the vermiculation, or fine breast barring, of a Great horned owl, Bubo virginianus. >>

It’s nearly invisible because its distinctive yellow eyes aren’t visible; owls roosting in plain sight will often consider themselves concealed by squinting.  When even one eye is revealed, the bird become easier to spot. <<

I’ve checked a lot of palm trees.  I never find owls in them (although I know others who have), but I keep checking.  This repeated optimistic searching is known in our family as checking for lard. The term was coined after a cat named the Beefweasel found an unattended pile of chopped fat on a windowsill in our St. Louis apartment, waiting to be put outside for winter-hungry titmice and chickadees.  Making good her name, the Beefweasel wolfed down the yummy chunks.  Balancing on her hind legs and sniffing hard, she checked that bountiful window-ledge for years hoping for a fatty repeat.  Birders are well-known to check for lard, too: there was a nut tree in St. Louis that was searched every winter by local birders on field trips because once in a decade past it had hosted an out-of-range Bohemian waxwing.  Among birders, places to check for lard are passed down as oral tradition: I knew about that pecan tree, but the waxwing that made it famous alit there long before my time.

So out of habit and hope, I was checking these particular palms with my binoculars, searching the deepest shadows for Good Feathery Detail (vermiculation).  And there was an owl.

>> The bird never fully unhid; this was the maximum best sighting it allowed.

It was a Great horned owl, tucked in out of the breeze, and not at all worried about us (although we didn’t go very close, being equipped with telephoto lenses and optics — owls are like cats; sometimes you have to respect their invisibility, even if it’s just in their heads).

It’s so delightful to luck into a surprise owl (which, mostly, they are), that we talked about it for the rest of the trip.  We referred to this bird as “the Boss in her Office”, because she reminded me of a boss I once had, who lurked invisible at her desk most of the time.  Although she was hidden from us as we scurried around busily, it was never a good idea to forget she was there…

A few days ago, we drove far out into sage-covered lava rocks to check out some hot springs on the east side of the Sierra Nevada.  After walking to the top of the hill, walking around the next hill and between two other hills, seeing what birds were around and about, and while E was nearby doing Science in Hot Water, I felt I’d had enough wind — since we were above 7000′ feet, it was a cold wind — so I sheltered in the cab of the truck.

The rock I watched >>

If this seems like a nature-phobic sort of thing to do, let me recommend it: a vehicle makes a wonderful blind, great for observing otherwise human-wary wildlife.  I watched a Wilson’s warbler, a sweet scrap of yellow with a smart black cap, struggle in the gusts from one juniper tree to another right in front of the hood; an Audubon’s warbler, too, was getting buffeted about in the same nearby trees. And, next to the truck was this large Rock (top photo).  I studied it, thinking about making a sketch.

<< Ground squirrel and spiny lizard (far right edge of rock)

It was clear that this rock had been heavily used — most obviously by people, who’d built fires under it, but also by plants who’d sprouted in its cracks, lichens crusting its surfaces, and by animals, who were sunning themselves on it. Although I never made a sketch, I was able to watch and photo a series of species — seven in all, ultimately, although I only could photo five — as they used this rock as viewpoint, shelter, sunning place, food storage or source. (All photos A.Shock; be sure to click on each image to enlarge for better viewing.)

Birds landed on it briefly, including the Wilson’s warbler, and a vivid Western tanager male.

<< male Western tanager on the Rock

Being hydrothermally altered (so I’m assured by E), it was porous and full of useful cracks and refuges.  A small movement caught my eye, and in the darkest crack in the darkest center of the sooty overhang, a Piñon deermouse had packed the crevice with soft needles and moss, and was turning this way and that in its snug, sheltered nest, running tiny paws over its big ears.

<< Piñon deermouse in crevice nest in the Rock

Best yet, I happened to look over at the upper dark hole in the rock just in time to see this little face peering out, checking on how things were in the middle of the day.  It’s a Long-tailed weasel, a native here (unlike in New Zealand), but still an active and industrious predator.  I was alarmed when the ground squirrel above made a short trip into the very hole the weasel had just gone back inside.  But there was no disaster, and the squirrel came right back out again, presumably with all its parts, and with no dramatic nature-show confrontation music to mark the event.

Long-tailed weasel outside its hole in the Rock >>

The seventh species I observed on the Rock was Homo sapiens.  It was one of the two dudes that came by in a battered Isuzu Trooper (like the one I drove for years).  Although I didn’t get a picture of him up on the top of the Rock, we were particularly glad to see this human being: something you won’t often hear me say.  The reason he was a fine sight on this backcountry, rocky road?  That’s another story.  I won’t tell it here, except to say that it involved jumper cables…

Hoover the feral African collared dove has solved the problem of how to drink from the swimming pool: board the chlorine float.  The health ramifications of this (for the bird) may be dubious, but watching him neatly land on a floating, bobbing object with a smallish deck area is a thing to behold.  He fastidiously holds his tail up off the water, and bends over to drink, tipping the float steeply, but he still manages to hold on.

<< Hoover afloat (photo A.Shock)

We’ve seen other urban birds, most often Great-tailed grackles, a fearless, strong, and adaptable species, do the same thing.  They will also swoop low over the pool, and nimbly scoop meaty yummies like moths and beetles off the surface, risking becoming swamped if they make too much surface contact.  But we’ve never found a grackle in the pool, so it’s a successful foraging strategy for them.

Here’s a swell photo of a Sora we saw at Tavasci Marsh last weekend.  I’ve categorized this as a Spot the Bird, but your eye will probably go right to it, since it’s out in the open.  The little rail had whinnied a couple of times — Sora make a sound very much like those whizzie-rings you blow into wuh-wuh-w-w-w-w-w in a descending whinny — but because rails are so secretive, we never expected to see it, until it marched out into the open at water’s edge, and did its raily foraging thing.  Click to enlarge.  (Photo E.Shock)

Here are a few images from last weekend’s event at the Verde Valley Birding and Nature Festival.  If you haven’t checked out the Verde Valley in north central Arizona, you should — it’s beautiful green country, with big trees and lots of year-round water like the Verde River, as well as surrounding mountains, good restaurants, hiking trails and birding areas, and amazing archeological sites like Montezuma Castle and Well, and Tuzigoot.  Sedona, Jerome, and Prescott and their amenities are all within striking distance, and it’s all only two hours north of Phoenix and even less from Flagstaff.

The weather last weekend straddled the turn of the seasons, with winter making one last stand in the form of a cold wet storm that left us shivering in the big event tent, and the peaks above Jerome dusted with snow (photo above; by A.Shock).  But warm weather arrived in time for the weekend, which brought out crowds and cottonwood wool alike.

<< Hoarfrost and frozen raindrops on the tent; it was 24F at night!  Brrrr…  (Photo A.Shock)

This is one of the few sales events I camp at, because it’s held in Dead Horse Ranch State Park, just outside of Cottonwood AZ.  Here’s the view from the campground, of Tuzigoot National Monument. The rangers from the Montezuma Castle/Well/Tuzigoot parks complex had their info booth next to mine, and I heard them calling this park “the Goot”.  Unlike in the low desert, where the mesquite are newly green, the bosque in the foreground was still quite bare and gray.  (Photo A.Shock) >>

This made it easy to spot the early-returning migrants, such as this Gray flycatcher.  If you despair identifying Empidonax flycatchers, rejoice in the easy-to-ID Gray, whose gentle downward tail wag is distinctive, along with other field marks such as gray back, bold eyering and wingbars, and yellow lower mandible. (Photo E.Shock) >>

Along with gila monsters, coatis, roadrunners, and lots more, the Three Star Owl booth was positively stuffed with owls, maybe even more than usual.  Below are some owl jars, effigy vessels, whistles, and salt and pepper shakers.

It was a good event for “The Owl”, and my thanks to everyone who came by for a visit, or to take a new treasure home with them.

See you at Southwest Wings in early August!

… and we were — always — this Great horned owl (Bubo virginianus) was giving us the eye from our big backyard pine tree, right at sunset tonight.  The Gila woodpeckers, doves, and local hummers — both Anna’s and Black-chinned — were really ticked off at the eminence tigre, and zoomed and hovered threateningly.  I’m unable to report if the owl even noticed.

The noise of the scolding yard birds, and the nervous upward glances of the “wild” African collared dove, Hoover, tipped us off.

<< Great horned owl (Photo A.Shock)

Hiding behind a shred of pine-bough seems to be a mere formality for the large owl.  It’s probably looking for another Desert cottontail, to follow up the one it helped itself to part of on the weekend, leaving the rest of the bunny for the resident raccoons.