[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…

…without a bird.  Not that there isn’t something to spot. And it is spotted.  Also, toes are pretty much always a giveaway. (Photo A.Shock; click to enlarge for easy viewing)

This is an “interim” Spot the Bird because about a third of our photos from our Mojave camping trip are locked onto a recalcitrant memory card.  The jpegs are intact — we can view them when the card is in the camera — but communication between the card and our computers is currently at a standstill.  There are images I’d like to share (like the one of The Boss in Her Office), but until we pry them free, there are other things to look at such as the image above: the hindquarters of a Canyon Tree Frog blending in with Aravaipa Creek bed gravel. Oops, I gave it away.

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)

If you’re not familiar with Gilded flickers (Colaptes chrysoides), they are large desert woodpeckers, closely associated with Saguaros.  They excavate their nest cavities in the trunks of the giant cactus.  They’re closely related to Red-shafted and Yellow-shafted flickers who inhabit the western and eastern U.S., respectively.  Flickers are flashy in coloration, being spotted and barred, and having yellow feather shafts in their flight feathers and tail, visible when the bird is in flight.  They are loud, too, both vocally and when the males hammer territorially on hollow surfaces like the metal bird-guard on our chimney.

It’s the male flicker of this species who sports the brilliant red “moustache”.

<< A male Gilded Flicker peering at E as he snapped this photo, in our neighborhood (photo E.Shock)

The primary food of flickers is ANTS, and this large woodpecker frequently can be seen on the ground, foraging for them.  This is a really good reason to NOT POISON ANTS in your Flicker-inhabited yard: use non-toxic arthropod deterrents such as diatomaceous earth.  They also eat fruit and insects, nectar, pet kibble left outside, plant seeds, and will feed at bird feeders with nuts or suet.

It’s time to post the Spot the Bird answers from the Twofer Spot the Bird a couple days ago — thanks to everyone who got back to Three Star Owl with your observations.  Finding the birds seemed to be fairly easy; ID’ing only a little less so. These two key photos are click-onable to embiggen, if you’d like to see even closer views of the subject birds. I’m not sure how your PCs work, but my Mac will allow me to enlarge twice by clicking once and then again, getting pretty close in.

<< The bird in the top photo is on the left edge of the main trunk, in the lower left corner of the photo.  It’s a Red-naped sapsucker; those of you who had guessed woodpecker, were definitely in the right category.

>> The little bird perched in the tip top mesquite twigs in front of the saguaro’s trunk is a Black-throated sparrow, a common desert dweller whose tinkling or jingling song is quite identifiable, and often heard in the Sonoran desert in spring.  Again, click on the photo to enlarge, to see the diagnostic black throat patch and white facial detail on this charming, gray sparrow.  For anyone who finds sparrow ID challenging, this is a great bird to get under your belt, as its markings are distinctive, and separable from all other sparrows.

Sue points out the pinnate leaves on the big tree are wrong for an oak, and suggests pecan; anyone else?  I’m sure she’s right that it’s not an oak, now that I notice the leaves; I’ll see if I can find out the big tree’s identity the next time I’m out at Boyce Thompson.  Thanks, Sue!

“Spot the Word”: Understandably, no one ventured on the etymological challenge — to compare kudos with kleos.  kudos, a Greek word roughly translated as “glory” is frequently used in current speech, but kleos, a related but slightly different concept, isn’t.  In their use in the Homeric epics, both are related to personal honor and fame: briefly, kudos is honor or a glorifying possession owned by a living man — it can be conferred on a person by someone else.  kleos refers to the fame people are said to have by others around them: related to the concept of reputation; it must be won by one’s own actions, but conferred by others.  Accruing kudos adds to your kleos.

For those with a burning desire to pursue these concepts, see:  Nature and Culture in the Iliad by James Redfield, for a thorough and thoughtful discussion.  Or not.  Believe me, like knowing kudos is a singular noun and not a plural, or knowing that saying “the hoi polloi” is redundant because “hoi” means “the” already, it will not necessarily make you more popular at most parties.

Just to even things up, here’s what it feels like to be BIRD-WATCHED:

(Photo E.Shock)

This is “Hoover” the semi-tame wild African collared dove who inhabits our neighborhood, wondering why we don’t have a handful of peanuts NOW.

To indulge in a moment of natural history, notice how the eye is set in a slightly pinched or narrow part of the bird’s head.  This enables both forward and rear vision, in addition to panoramic side-vision.  This eye placement is typical of prey animals (the pursued) rather than predators (the pursuer), whose eyes tend to be placed for superior forward vision.  Except for the beak (!), a dove’s head shape is very much like a rabbit’s.  Without the big ears, of course, which would definitely be an aerodynamic liability.

For other Three Star Owl posts featuring Hoover, click here.

Here are two new Spot the Bird photos.  The visual puzzle is the same in each: huge background, tiny bird.  No camouflage involved, none at all; just hiding against a big landscape.

The first photo of an enormous oaktree (?) in Boyce Thompson Arboretum near Superior Arizona, east of Phoenix, is a photo I took because the branches of this tree were so amazingly massive and lofty.  It was only when I got it home and onto the computer that I noticed there was a bird in the shot, because it had been silent.  Lucky it wasn’t a jaguar, I guess.  By the way, you’re not looking for an intrinsically small bird, just small by comparison to this tree.  (If you find the bird, click twice for a fairly clear embiggening of its image).

I think this second one is easier, especially if you click to enlarge. This photo, ostensibly of a robust saguaro behind a line of newly leafed-out mesquite and the foot of a basalt flow in back, shows a genuinely small bird — a moderately Dinky Dude of the Desert, in fact — doing its singing thing for spring. Hear the jingling sound?

Neither of these will be hard for everyone, especially for folks whose eyes are sharp from being out in the field looking for small things in big, leafy vistas.  I’ll publish enlarged versions of the pictures in a subsequent post.  Extra credit for IDing the birds to species (not that there’s a prize or anything, except kudos to augment your birding kleos.  And, to wax perturbingly didactic, EXTRA extra credit if you know the diff between kudos, Gk κῦδος, and kleos, κλέος).

And if you know what the big tree in the top photo is, please let me know, because I don’t…

Good Luck — I hope you SPOT THE BIRD!

For other Spot the Bird posts, go to the sidebar on the left, and click on the category, spot the bird.

(Top photo, A.Shock; bottom photo, E.Shock)

A recent post, Spot the Pipit, inadvertently marked the inauguration of a series of themed posts in this webjournal: Spot the Bird.

After posting Spot the Pipit, it occurred to me that in the Three Star Owl photo files were other pix which showed birds that were more or less hard to see, but which were fun to look for.  Most of these shots were entirely by accident — at least one bird was so well hidden I didn’t even know there was a bird in the picture until I got the file downloaded to my computer and enlarged — so I can’t claim any real credit, just a sort of 99 monkeys with 99 cameras and 99999 photographs phenomenon.

The birds in Spot the Bird photos may not be easy to find for a variety of reasons: some may be in plain sight, but exceptionally well camouflaged; some may be deliberately trying to hide; some might be very very small or just part of a bird; some might not even be a bird.  Some might be visual jokes, or even manipulated photo images (which I will disclose).  And, there might be trick “Spot” moments…

So, keep a sharp eye out, and look for the Gilded (and very spotted) Flicker “Spot the Bird” logo (above), or search the Spot the Bird! category to find posts with a hidden critter photo challenge from now on out!

To get started, here’s an oldie but goodie that longtime readers of this blog will recognize: in the category of TUI (Totally Unmanipulated Image), I took this photo on the San Pedro River in Southeastern Arizona a few springs back. A version of it was featured in an older Three Star Owl post called Vertical Napping Bark, which also appeared as a guest post on Sharon Stiteler’s lively Birdchick.com site.

Can you Spot the Owl — or is it Owls?  Please let me know where the owl/s are, although there are no rewards except the knowledge that you Spotted the Bird.  (Click on the image to enlarge to make it easier, but not until you’ve given up otherwise)

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:

My friend Kate McKinnon recently posted that she has a hard time seeing owls in the wild, and she takes it personally. Well she should, because an owl’s Primary Goal other than to eat something, is to escape detection, by you, by me, by a thoughtless human with a crossbow, by the other bigger owl, by sharp-eyed prey, and by Kate McKinnon. We are all of us intended to Not See Owls.

Owls have many tools for escaping detection: cryptic coloration, shifting outline often modified with cranial feather tufts, motionless roosting, self-effacing habits, and nearly silent flight. They are chromosomally adept at Hiding in Plain Sight.

Seeing an owl is a lightning bolt, a mistake, a gift, a shock, a plot by crabby song birds. A sighting is usually because someone who knows where an owl day-roosts points it out, or we hear one call and get a glimpse as it glides across a dark sky, or because wrens and chickadees and jays fink it out. If the owl is seen, a small owl will shrink or stretch, and squint to hide its telltale eyes; a big owl might merely turn its head, or not, because though it prefers to not be seen, it isn’t too worried since you cannot fly. If you spot an owl don’t point or wave the hands, it might make it flee. If you remain still and quiet, they often will too, allowing a few photos, especially if they are rock stars like certain Mexican spotted owls in southeastern Arizona, who frequently host googly-eyed camera-toting visitors like me in their woods.

Here are some things to do if you wish to see an owl: put up a nest box; go on an owl prowl (check Audubon groups and raptor education outfits in your area); keep your ears open; look for owl pellets and whitewash under horizontal boughs close to the trunk; inspect the tops of saguaros at dusk; look in every tree/cactus hole you know of that’s above head height; go into the woods at night; watch the news (urban owls often wind up on TV, like the famous Scottsdale Safeway Urn-nesting Great horned owls); make secret offerings to the Great Owly Entity. But remember, owls’ desire to escape detection is greater than our ability to find them. Good luck, and Good Owling.

photos by A. Shock: Great horned owl with downy chick manifesting as barkless tree skin, San Pedro River, AZ; Mexican Spotted owl pair manifesting as dappled sunlight through branches, Huachuca Mountains, AZ.