There’s a small bird in this photo of lakeside rocks.  Can you spot the pipit?

Sunday E and I watched an American pipit (Anthus rubescens; photo E.Shock) working its way along water’s edge at Burnt Corral on Apache Lake east of Phoenix, darting after flies. beetles, larvae and other yummies around the cobbles in the shallow water. This is where it was working — not a bad view  (Photo A.Shock)>>

Pipits are sparrow-sized, sparrow-like birds which aren’t sparrows at all.  They’re the type of bird that people tend not to notice if they’re not birders.  It’s partly because pipits aren’t usually found in town or around neighborhoods — they breed in arctic and alpine tundra, and during winter, they frequent shores and coastlines, agricultural fields, and wild, open spaces.  Also, they’re easy to overlook: being beige and brown and streaky, they blend right into their backgrounds.  In the words of the Cornell Lab of Ornithology:

“The American Pipit is a small, slender, drab bird of open country. Although it appears similar to sparrows, it can be distinguished by its thin bill and its habit of bobbing its tail.” Click on this link to All About Birds for more info.

They share this habit of wagging tails gently up and down with other birds of stream-sides and shores such as Spotted sandpipers, wagtails, and dippers. Being in constant motion helps them blend in with their background of running water or wind-blown grasses.

The American pipit we were watching is in the center of this grainy enlargement, at the water’s edge, below the largest rock — click the photo to enlarge, if the bird’s still eluding you.  >>

But wait, there’s more!  Bonus international pipits:

It turns out that pipits inhabit wild open places the world around, even as far south as southern New Zealand, and also South Georgia island, roughtly between Antarctica and South America in the South Atlantic (and that’s a lot of “souths”).  Here is a photo of a shy New Zealand pipit which turned its head just as the shutter fired, and also a picture of the place it lives: this one was on the tops of heavily grazed sea bluffs in the Catlins, South Island NZ.

<< NZ pipit (Anthus novaseelandiae), an indigenous songbird of the island.(Photos E.Shock)

And, here is a South Georgia pipit (Anthus antarcticus), in its habitat, tussock (or, tussac) grass on the quite remote and windswept breeding islets off of the coast of South Georgia (Photos, A.Shock) <<

Seems as if pipits, although not very showy themselves, make their livings in some fairly spectacular scenery.

This is the first installment of:

…but only one came back.

Thanks to everybody who came by Three Star Owl at Wings Over Willcox — the show was a very good one for “the owl”.  Cranes were seen, friends were met and re-met, many clay pieces found good new homes.  And thanks also to the organizers of the Festival, who have a lot of things on their plate: birders to marshall and haul, tables and chairs to account for, vendors to wrangle, and birds to find, just to mention a few of their duties.

And, thanks to Hoover, the African Collared Dove, who once again saw me off from Scottsdale.

An excellent start to the New Year!

(Above, the tails of smoke-fired coatis rising out of bubblepak in a box in the back of the truck, awaiting transport; below, Hoover in the garage, supervising the loading of the truck.  Photos A.Shock)

This is the very week many Costa’s hummingbirds leave our yard.  I know this because I’m keeping track, not out of obsessiveness, or possessiveness (well, maybe a little…), but because each winter I participate in the Cornell Laboratory of Ornithology’s Project Feeder Watch.  Like Christmas bird counts, it’s a way for science to harness the awesome powers of birdnerds and aviphiles across the nation.

<< male Costa’s hummer in our Little-leaf palo verde tree.  Go ahead and click on it to enlarge — I uploaded a huge image!

So, between November and April, I keep periodic count of birds that come to food sources in our yard: feeders, water features, flowers and plants, and other food sources like bunnies, finches and doves.  I report these winter bird censuses to Cornell Lab, and they compile the data into useful charts graphs and figures, which can be accessed by anyone online.

In previous posts, I’ve mentioned how our post-breeding population of Costa’s hummers balloons, with as many as 6 or 8 individuals, both males and females, coming daily to our feeders.  The males can be easy to tell apart, as some are young of the year, and are just growing in their flamboyant purple moustaches (properly called gorgets, like the piece of armor which protected the throats of knights, or the swath of cloth beneath the wimple some orders of nun wear), and the new feathers grow in distinctively, for a while enabling us to separate individuals by sight.  From July to January, the feeders in our yard are dominated by Costa’s.

But right after the New Year, many of them go away.  For instance, Yoyboy and Macho C, fierce contestants for our front porch feeder for months, have just recently moved on.  Some individuals do stay year round, and for right now, we still have at least one female coming to the feeders in the back, and at least two males — “C-Dude” and another nameless young of the year male — are still defending prime feeders in the back yard as well.  Time will tell if either stays here through summer.

For now, though, the Costa’s numbers are thinning, and the big Anna’s hummers are beginning their courtship cycle.

Anna’s hummer, photo by Will Elder of the National Park Service >>

For the last week, while the rest of the country fogs its glasses in a deep freeze, it’s been warm enough in Phoenix to open up the house, and I can hear the sharp, loud “chip” the Anna’s males accomplish at the bottom of steep, repetitive dives.  The sound has recently been discovered to be made by air rippling tail feathers as they descend, and it takes practice before the birds can make the noise consistently.  Little bullroarers, they swoop down on a female from high in the air, and chip just as they pass over her head in a millisecond, like miniature fighter planes at an airshow buzzing the crowd.  They’re just as fuel consumptive — I have to fill the nectar feeders twice a week or more.

So beginning now, my Feederwatch counts will have more Anna’s than Costa’s, until next year when the proportions are reversed again.  The next hummer change?  Around the first week of March, when the Black-chinned hummers fly in from their wintering grounds, and zip around the yard with their zizzing flight sound, dipping at the nectar sources alongside the Anna’s and resident Costa’s.
(This is Three Star Owl post #200!)

…and a Phainopepla in a Palo Verde tree.

As around the turn of every new year, Christmas Bird Counts are happening across America.  Under the auspices of the Audubon Society winter bird distribution and population information is compiled, collected by volunteers, most of whom are not ornithologists but people with a non-professional — although sometimes intense — interest in birds.  The vast quantity of info gathered in this time period is used “to assess the health of bird populations – and to help guide conservation action” in the U.S.

What do the volunteers gain from their long, often cold, hours in the field counting both species and individual birds seen?  For some it’s competition, to best a personal record for birds seen in a given area, and of course, there’s the satisfaction of adding to what’s known about North American avifauna.

right: Four Peaks above the Verde Valley

For me, it’s getting out into in the winter landscape, among plants and animals which, sometimes, it’s been too long since I’ve seen.  Of course, the birds are a big draw for me — but it’s not just birds.  We regularly see other critters on our patch of territory: jackrabbits, coyotes and cottontails are common, but one year, we spotted a bobcat.

For the past three years, I’ve  helped with the Salt and Verde Rivers CBC.

left: Yavapai Nation on the Verde River showing the bands of habitats we census.

Our particular area is in the Yavapai Nation along the Verde River east of the Phoenix metro area (special permission to bird the Indian Community is necessary), under the changeable faces of Four Peaks, at about 7600 feet, the highest peaks close to Phoenix.

The immediate censusing area is a mix of riverside riparian (cottonwoods, willows and invasive salt cedars), cattle-trampled mesquite bosques (mesquite and graythorn with little in between but sand and cowpies), desert upland (saguaros, creosote, cholla, palo verde and ironwood), and agricultural land: the tribe maintains many acres in pecan groves, citrus, and alfalfa. There’s also a patch of semi-rural residential area where tribe members and employees live.  Such variable habitats make for a fairly diverse species assortment, ranging from invasive exotics, like Eurasian Collared Doves and starlings, to uncommon natives like Bald Eagles, which nest along the Verde River.

right: Rio Verde

This area distinguishes itself in a few ways: in numbers of sparrows, including white-crowned, savannah, lark, song, vesper (photo below), and lincoln’s, which glean brushy ditches cut through the fields, alongside verdin, bewick’s wrens, and lesser goldfinch.  Other small birds like orange-crowned and yellow-rumped warblers, ruby-crowned kinglets and both expected species of gnatcatchers hang in the cottonwoods — this year we saw bushtits for the first time. Red-winged black birds, meadowlarks, mourning doves, american pipits and house finches fill the fields and line the electrical wires along the road.  The river hosts wintering waterfowl large and small: gadwall, mergansers, wigeon, mallards, bufflehead, canada geese, coots, and this year, even snow geese.  Throw in five or six species of woodpeckers and other Sonoran upland species like thrashers, Abert’s towhees, cardinals, and quail — the area holds a record for most Phainopepla counted on a CBC — and you’ve got quite an assortment.

With such a smorgasbord of small birds — so very tasty! — there are plentiful predators like Peregrine falcons, Cooper’s hawks, Red tailed hawks, American kestrels, and harriers.  One “functional raptor” we encountered was a Loggerhead shrike, working the brushy ditches for reptiles and insects, maybe even a sparrow to eat.

right: Loggerhead shrike

There’s even raptor-on-raptor pursuit: I saw a Peregrine dive at a kestrel.  As the smaller falcon coursed over alfalfa fields searching for an unwary or slow pipit, the peregrine above took a shot at it out of the sun, its dive so steep and sharp that I could hear its feathers buzz like a bullroarer, the avian equivalent of a sonic boom.  But before the strike, it pulled up short, giving the impression of having accomplished a dry run; the kestrel only dipped in the air evasively, and went on its way.

Experiencing the unpredictability of the natural world is what makes getting out to count enjoyable.  And it doesn’t have to be far from the bustle of people and suburbia: sometimes, it’s all within a few miles of the intersection of a major highway, a casino, and the inevitable Denny’s.

(All photos taken by A.Shock during the 2009 Salt/Verde River Christmas Bird Count)

Weeks out of “swim-season”, our pool is a bit dishevelled right now: a recent windstorm, a bit of a chemical imbalance, a bit of neglect, made it time to brush the pool.  It’s a task that in itself isn’t huge fun in cold weather — cold wet aluminum chills the paws fast! — but does get me out of the studio into the outdoors.

It was nice to be out this morning.  Our post-rainstorm air was still clear as blue glass, the temp in the low forties (yes, snow-dwellers, I know this isn’t actually cold!).  The bird feeders, seed-feeders and nectar-feeders both, were crowded with fressing finches and zizzing hummers, and the squee-like contact calls and chatter of the busy Lesser goldfinches filled the yard.

(left: adult Cooper’s hawk.  Photo by Hanna Breetz)

Suddenly, a gray blur shot low over my right shoulder, and streaked over the pool to where the birds filled the creosote bushes, waiting for their turn at nyjer thistle and oilers, or warming in the early sunlight.  The blur pulled up as the finches and sparrows scattered, and manifested as an adult Cooper’s hawk, probably a female to judge by her size (female hawks are generally larger than their males).  A couple of passes through the mesquite tree and she’d emptied the place of smaller birds: Inca doves, goldfinch, house finch, thrashers, Abert’s towhees, cactus wrens, and white-throated sparrows, even the mourning doves and Gambel’s quail, all exploded off the ground, out of the trees and bushes, off the feeders, and disappeared over the yard walls with a burst of wing percussion, jibbering and complaining.  Hummers scolded energetically from their perches safe inside the thorny citrus.

(right: “accipiter kibble”; if you put out seed for the finches, you’re also putting out finches for the raptors. This is a Lesser goldfinch hang-feeding on a thistle-feeder.  Photo A.Shock)

The hawk paused on the top of the wall, searching the creosote below her with a fierce red gaze, glaring a few more birds out from the thin cover.  Then she flew off, empty-taloned, around the corner of the house, possibly headed for the crowded seed feeders in the front yard.

Cooper’s hawks (Accipiter cooperi) are spry-flighted bird specialists, adept at tail-chasing winged prey through foliage or over open terrain due to their short wings and long tails.  These traits show excellently on the photo at the top of the page, a bird perched on a water feature in my friend Hanna’s Phoenix yard last November.  In the photo to the left, take a look at those long yellow toes, and sharp, curved talons: more bird-catching equipment.

(left: the same Cooper’s hawk as above, showing delightfully rusty-barred breast, and intense red iris.  Photo by Hanna Breetz.)

I finished brushing the pool, but in the silence of a yard emptied of small yammering finches and bossy cactus wrens.  Warming my hands on my coffee cup, I hope the Coop’s finds a fat hot pigeon to take off the morning chill.

(Guest photographer Hanna Breetz often has knitting needles as well as a camera in her hands: you can read her green knitting blog, Ever Green Knits, here.)

BTW, just had another bird moment in a humble locale: While in the looney-bin that passes for a local strip mall parking lot, I looked up to see a heavy-bodied, dark falcon laboring aloft with prey, headed for a high rung of an enormous antenna that looms over this block of big box stores deep in east Phoenix.  Seeing a Peregrine in a place like this is not only a bit of happy spotting, but a great reminder to keep your eyes open: spot opportunities anywhere, like a hawk.

(Photo by E.Shock)

…is bent on both mayhem and mischief.

She was lurking at the north entrance to Papago Park early Saturday morning, in the low spot where the White-crowned sparrows, House finches, and Mourning doves are usually found in great numbers on chilly winter mornings.  She even swooped over our heads on her way up to the top of the utility pole.

(Right, first-year Cooper’s hawk in Papago Park, Accipiter cooperi; photo E. Shock)

But just after E snapped this telephoto, the Coop’s glimpsed more grandiose prey: she started the sparrows, but flew right over them.  I can’t say I’ve ever seen a bird-specialist like a Cooper’s hawk chase a full-grown Black-tailed jackrabbit, but this bird did, and kept after it for ten or twenty seconds, as the jack zigged and zagged evasively until the Cooper’s pulled up, empty-fisted.  What do you suppose she thought she was going to do with it if she caught it?  She either had an inflated idea of her own skills, or was a very hungry bird: no matter how spry a flyer, she can’t have been that good a footer!

(Note: Cooper’s hawks weigh 8-21 ounces, and jacks weigh 4-6 pounds!)

This hawk was bent on causing trouble: here’s a picture of the same bird a few minutes later, on the felon’s side of the fence, trespassing on clearly signed military property.  Scofflaw!

(All photos E.Shock)

Click here to view another picture of an immature Cooper’s hawk in Papago Park that E took this spring.

The post-breeding influx of Costa’s hummingbirds in our Phoenix-area yard continues.  This tough little desert hummer is present at the feeders year round, but the population goes up noticeably between about June and December.  Most of the birds we see are males, some in fully developed adult plumage, some with scraggly purple moustaches just growing in.  Gray-green, slightly less pugnacious females are not as flashy, giving the impression of being less numerous, but I’m not certain if this reflects numerical reality or is a figment of observation.

(left: “YOYboy”, young-of-the-year male Costa’s hummer; photo A.Shock)

Since the vacancy of Miss Thang from the front garden, a new battle for the porch feeder is ON.  The combatants are two male Costa’s, who are easy to tell apart by comparing their gorget featheration.  One is “YOYboy” (male Young of the Year), with only sheathed feathers and small purple spangles sticking out from his face like cactus spines (see left).  His favored perch is about 18″ off the ground, the very tips of the leaves of an Agave americana mediapicta in a pot on the front walkway, where a volunteer chuparosa flaunts its red nectar-filled flowers conveniently nearby.

The other is a full adult male, Macho C (nicknamed in remembrance of Arizona’s recently — and tragically — deceased last known resident wild jaguar Macho B), who sports glorious grape Yosemite Sam mustachios.  He perches in low branches of the mesquite tree across the walkway, also near a blooming chuparosa.

(Right: “Macho C”; photo A.Shock)

These habitual perches are sallying points for fierce aerial combat and tail-chases that break out several times each day, accompanied by zoom-buzzy wing-whirr, metallic scolding, and sometimes actual brief mid-air body contact, audible as a quick, dry feathery tap that sounds like someone snapping shut a rice-paper fan.

Much of the action occurs at the feeder, and can go on for minutes — E clocked them at more than three minutes solid the other day, with the winner getting to sip supper from the sticky feeder ports.  The fierceness of the competition has somewhat lessened in recent days, but they’re both still close by, and in between bouts of strife, each roosts and preens on his perch less than 15 feet from the other. Occasionally they join forces to chase other hummers from the front yard.  As far as I can tell, with all but one of the feeders being defended by male Costa’s, the Anna’s hummingbirds have been confined almost entirely to one part of the yard: the airspace and perches in the big Aleppo pine in the backyard, where the Hen nested last spring.

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!