Last post was the New Year’s first bird — a frosty Costa’s hummingbird — but this one is the Year’s First New Bird, and it’s a hummer, too.

We just returned from Baja California, and in the mission village of San Javier on the dramatic east side of the Sierra de la Giganta in Baja California Sur, Xantus’s hummingbirds (Basilinna or Hylocharis xantusii) were much in evidence. They’re pretty little birds, medium-sized for a hummer (about the size of Anna’s) and colorful, sporting a bright red bill, buffy chest and belly, azure and emerald green upper-parts, black throat, blue-black forehead, a white line behind the eye, and a cinnamon tail.

Behind the Misión San Javier de Viggé-Biaundó, in the three-hundred year old olive grove planted by its founding Jesuit missionaries, Xantus’s hummers zipped back and forth, feeding on chuparosa flowers sprawled over the bulky stone walls (photo right), perched in the thin tips of the olive branches (below), and scolded each other. This is a hummer that lives no where else on earth but central and southern Baja California, and we had tried unsuccessfully to see it once before on an earlier Baja trip, so it was delightful to get so many good views.

(All hummer photos thanks to E.Shock and his magic big little zoom lens, in difficult light conditions with tiny moving targets! Click to enlarge.)

The man whose shares his name with the bird had an interesting history: Xántus János, John Xantus de Vesey (left), was a Hungarian exile who came to the US in the middle of the 19th century, and worked with Hammond and Baird (also names familiar to birders and biologists). He had a short-lived consulship in Mexico — according to Wikipedia he was dismissed for ineptitude — but was there long enough to collect a specimen of this endemic hummer.

In his lifetime, Xantus’s name was also attached to a blenny, a croaker, a gecko, a pelagic crab, a murrelet, a wrasse, a night-lizard, and several plants. In addition, according to an anecdote recounted to me by a Baja historian, during his consulship Xantus left quite a few of his own chromosomes in the local gene pool, along with his Hungarian family name Xántus, which reportedly can still be found as a surname in Baja.

In celebration of my friend Kate seeing Black-bellied whistling ducks in New Orleans, here is a Black-bellied whistling duck Spot the Bird.

The photo was taken in a coastal wetland in the state of Veracruz, Mexico, in Ocotber of 2008. I was scanning the greenery with binx when I spotted the ducks — I suspect I would never have seen them with the naked eye — and took the picture, hoping it would come out just like this: a photo with birds that are virtually invisible, except for their extraordinary bill color. (If you don’t know what a BBWD’s bill color is, click on the link above to Kate’s photo to make the search easier.) I’ll post a photo key later, but in the meantime, don’t forget to click to enlarge. By the way, the head count is three ducks, as far as I can tell.

…it’s hard to hide in bright, falling foliage if you’re a flying tiger…

Here’s one of a pair of Great Horned Owls we happened upon yesterday in a cottonwood grove along the Verde River east of the Phoenix metro area.  We were scouting for Tuesday’s official Christmas Bird Count of the Rio Verde area, and accidentally flushed the pair from their day-roost just before midday.

The owls flew a short distance then resettled, each in a spot they felt was secure.  One hid well, disappearing from view, but the other became a shadowy shape in golden foliage.

Great horned owl (Photo A.Shock) >>

It evidently felt sufficiently concealed, since it didn’t fly again, despite our nearness and a raven and a cooper’s hawk hassling it.  Look carefully — even through the screening leaves, you can pick out the owliness of its outline: a solid, chunky form with wispy cranial tufts. “Stink eye” — no one likes their nap interrupted — can be deduced, but not actually discerned in the photo.

I’ve classed this as a Spot the Bird, of sorts, just because.

It’s not uncommon for people who have moved here from wooded parts of the country to declare that they miss the seasons, especially fall and its bright colors.  This can be true especially for those who live on golf courses with year-round green lawns and palm trees.  But on close inspection, the natural Sonoran desert has its own distinct seasons, and its own rich color scheme. Each year E and I try to get out into wild places— or, at least wildish places — during the holidays to observe these seasonal changes.

<< One of the desert’s fall colors is green: if autumn rains are plentiful, as they have been this year in the highlands east of Phoenix, the palo verdes, catclaw acacias and other trees leaf out opportunistically.

Often, at Thanksgiving, this means a trip up the Apache Trail, Highway 88, along the Salt River Canyon and its lakes.  Not a trail, and not a highway, the Apache Trail is a well-maintained, and in places excitingly precarious, gravel road that leads travelers through some wonderful upland Sonoran desert east of Phoenix. This is a rich desert, populated with vast Saguaro groves, ocotillo, palo verde, crucifixion thorn, hopseed bush, jojoba, viguiera, bebbia, pink fairy duster, desert lavender, lots of Englemann’s prickly pear, the occasional Mammalaria pincushion and hedgehog cactuses, several varieties of cholla, and many other plants.  (All photos A.Shock unless noted; CLICK to Enlarge)

In the fall and winter the fruits of the slender-stemmed Christmas cholla (Cylindropuntia lepticaulis) ripen red  >>

This year our trip up the Apache Trail began with a false start, as we failed to check road conditions before leaving home and were surprised to find that much of the road is closed due to summer monsoon washouts.  It’s a long drive, but by approaching from the east, driving downstream from Roosevelt Dam, we were able to get to the Burnt Corral campground, which is excellent for picnicking, fiddling about like a pipit on the lakeshore, or hiking up into the surrounding desert which was what suited our anti-consumer madness mood.

The Desert broom (Baccharis sarothroides) bloomed earlier in the year and now the female shrubs are flocked like Christmas trees with fluffy, airy radiolarian-like seeds, which are so abundant this year that the pebbly crevices on the floor of the wash we were exploring are clogged with small drifts of them.  Sparrows and chipmunks will feast on this bounty, and the Cooper’s hawks, shrikes, and kestrels will, in turn, have lots to feed upon.  >>

Like odd pod-like ornaments the seed-bearing organs of the female Crucifixion Thorn (Canotia holacantha), are still ripening and red; later they will droop over and hang, woody brown, until they burst open and release their seeds to the ground.  (Photo E.Shock) <<

In spring, Ocotillos are topped with fiery flare-like sprays of blossoms at the very tips of their stems, but in some autumns, the multiple stems of these drought-deciduous plants are lined with dying leaves along their entire lengths, changing from green to yellow to red to brown.  To the right, the outbound leaves of an Ocotillo (Fouqueria splendens) are easy to see against the deep blue sky, and the green skin of two youngish Saguaros using it as a “nurse-plant”. >>

When the sun backlights ocotillo leaves, they glow like dense lightstrings along the spiny stems.  In the background, against the lake, a still yellow-leafed ocotillo can be seen (left). <<

And to draw all the colorful descriptions above of red-ornamented, flocked, light-stemmed desert plants into a Christmas tree simile, here’s a star for the top — a Loggerhead shrike (Lanius ludovicianus) perched atop an already bare Ocotillo, an excellent perch from which to hunt for prey on the desert floor. (Photo E.Shock) >>

<<  Or, if you have a bigger top decoration in mind, here’s a distant Red-tailed hawk, warming itself on a saguaro in the late sunlight, its image captured at the extreme end of my little scope and digital camera’s range.

And under the tree, as a present?  I almost forgot: a quick daylight glimpse of a gray fox, too quick to photo, but with a glorious bushy tail flowing in its wake.

…a Happy Thanksgiving!

As fabulous a bird as our North American Wild Turkey undoubtedly is, there is a turkey more wonderful still: the Ocellated Turkey (Meleagris ocellata) of tropical Central America.>>

On this Turkey Day feast your eyes on the glory that is the iridescent El Guajolote Supremo — eaten nearly to extinction because it apparantly tastes as good as it looks.  Now it’s protected, and currently can be  found primarily on the Yucatán Peninsula, and a limited number of other spots and preserves including Quintana Roo, Campeche, and Guatemala.  (These photos were taken by A and E Shock at Chan Chich Lodge in Belize in 2007.  Be sure to click to enlarge!)

It’s still hot in Phoenix, although less hot than formerly, so here’s a cooling black-and-white-and-gray vista to cool the eye.

These King penguins (Aptenodytes patagonicus) are amassed on South Georgia Island, located at 54〫S in the fearsome southern Atlantic ocean.  There are tens of thousands of them on this breeding beach.  Most of the individuals in this photo are adults — males are larger than females, but the sexes are similar in plumage — but note the so-called “oakum-boys” in their shaggy browny downy chicky plumage standing around waiting for semi-digested krill to be delivered by mom or dad. (Photo A.Shock)

Etymology

According to this site the term “oakum boy”, referring to King penguin chicks, is explained this way:

“The old sealers called them the oakum boys as they looked like the rolls of oakum used for caulking ships. Oakum was a loose fibre got by picking old rope to bits, sometimes, even rope that had been used to hang criminals. Convicts or paupers often did this work. (Ever heard the expression money for old rope?). The word oakum comes from the old english (before 1150 AD) acumbe, literally off combing. The word comb comes from old saxon. Caulking was the stopping up of the seams of ships using oakum and a waterproofing material like tar.”

The last post, on Roseate Spoonbills, was mighty pink. But I have to admit Flamingos are pretty dang pink, pinker even than Roseates. This is because they are bigger, and their entire neck and head are flaming salmon. And these two are American Flamingos (Phoenicopterus ruber), who are among the pinker of the world’s six flamingo species.

Two American flamingos feeding in a brackish lake in the Galápagos Islands. Color not fiddled with, honestly. (photo E.Shock) >>

Flamingos have a propensity for extreme environments: highly alkaline lakes in Africa, the high Andes, Florida, rugged volcanoes sticking out of the middle of the Pacific Ocean. Here’s a pulled back shot of the area where this group of flamingos were wading:

I love the setting because it’s both peaceful and bizarre: a big volcanic hill covered with lava and dry thornscrub, bright pink preposterous birds with upside down heads, and giant cactus. Only in the Galápagos.

<< Flamingos in the Galápagos (photo A.Shock)

Another admirable thing about flamingos is their name. In Italian it’s fenicottero, derived from the genus Phoenicopterus, “crimson-winged”, which is the latinized version of the modern Greek name for the bird as well: Φοινικόπτερο; French, flamant rose; and Spanish, flamenco. The connection between the name of the colorful birds, which perform lavish, mannered dances, and the national dance of Andalusia is reportedly still debated; which came first — the dance or the name?

That’s all.  Just… Roseate spoonbill.

Platalelea ajaja is a fairly large hot pink wading bird with knobby gray knees and a spoon-ended sifting bill which it swings side to side in the water while feeding.  They tend to be gregarious, and seeing a bunch feeding together on mudflats is a fine pinksome sight.

<< This solitary one is on the muddy mouth of the Rio Tárcoles on the Pacific coast of Costa Rica.  Mighty pink ain’t all about the flamingo.

There are other spoonbills, world-wide.  Most hang out in estuaries.  The one in the distant shot below is a Royal spoonbill (Platalea regia), photographed on the Manawatu River Estuary on the Tasman Sea coast of the North Island of Aoteaoroa (New Zealand).  Check out the Wikipedia article on this bird; it’s got a fantastic nuptial crown of white quill-like erectile plumes, hence its regal moniker.

(Both photos A.Shock)

(This post newly updated with better link to owl sound)

Here’s a Spectacled owl (Pulsatrix perspicillata), staring hard at us from its perch in the tropical lowlands of Sarapiquí in Costa Rica.  What could be more delightful than a cinnamon-and-cholcolate owl with white “spectacles?”

I have the answer: one that makes a strange, rapidly pulsating noise like a ray-gun, pwup-pwup-pwup-pwup.  Click on this previous post for etymological details of its scientific name.

(Photo A.Shock)

I’m dying to make one out of clay — a jar perhaps, with a swiveling head?