…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)

…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.

An excellent working weekend in Tucson had an unexpected furry, long-tailed highlight: on a hike up Sabino Canyon with Kate McKinnon and the other participants of her metal clay workshop, we ran into a pair of Coatis! I’d forgotten my camera, but fortunately others had theirs, and the younger coati obliged us by being visible for a few minutes, nosing around for goodies among the grit and rocks in the hill above the stream-bed, so that everyone in the group got to see it.

(Photo right by Kate McKinnon)

If you’re not familiar with the White-nosed coati (Nasua narica) — nicknamed Chulo — it’s a Sonoran desert native with a long, flexible snout, beguiling spectacle-markings, bear-like ears, a long prehensile tail, and clever grippy hands. They are related to raccoons and another snouty-taily mammal the Ringtail, all in the Procyonid family.  They are at home in arid oak-sycamore woodlands and rocky desert canyons in the American southwest and regions south, all the way to Central and South America.  Coatis are not uncommon in their range, but like owls, even though they’re there, you don’t often see them, even though they’re out and about during the early and late daylight hours.

A bit of luck for me, seeing these, because I’m working on a coati bowl right now for upcoming holiday shows, so the furry, fossicking inspiration was welcome.

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!

On last weekend’s trip to the Oregon coast, E and I noticed the beaches were festooned with unsupported sea-foam, churned up by the waves.  This might have been the slimy foam that’s currently causing major problems for sea birds along the Oregon coast.  The foam, a result of an off-shore algal bloom, coats the bird’s plumage as they dive or float in affected seawater. This destroys the water-proofing loft of down feathers, the warmth-holding space under the countour plumage which keeps the birds warm in cold water.

(Above: Foam-coated beach, Fort Stevens State Park; photo E. Shock)

Hundreds of hypothermal seabirds, including loons, murres, grebes, and puffins, are washing up on shore on along the northern beaches of Oregon. Extraordinary efforts are being made to save these animals at wildlife rescue centers both in Oregon and California.  The Coast Guard is helping evac the feathered patients from Oregon to a high-tech rescue center in California which is designed to help victims of oil-spills — read about it here and here.

(Right, unsupported sea foam, photo E.Shock)

We didn’t encounter any of the suffering birds, fortunately, but we did see a number of loons, grebes, and  sea-going ducks like scoters cruising the near-shore waves on beaches covered with blowing clots and rolls of sticky foam.

(Left: Red-throated loon, photo E.Shock.  Note that there’s a small wavelet behind the bird’s beak that’s making the bill look thicker than it actually is.)

…on the northwest Oregon coast.

It’s not very much like the Sonoran Desert here. Everything’s either wet or damp, and when it rains it’s not a pounding monsoonal deluge that ends quickly, but a steady long-term soaking, which might last hours, days, or the rest of the year.  Things that live here are water-loving organisms, like Loons and Mushrooms.

E got great photos of some of the numerous – and poisonous – Fly agaric mushrooms (Amanita muscaria) pushing up through the evergreen needles on Clatsop Spit. There were other varieties of fungus in abundance too, little brown guys with caps so transluscent their gills showed through, and big slick yellow ones with a slime sheen on top. As well as fungi, the moist forests had sprouted mushroom hunters galore: some with five gallon plastic buckets topped with edible varieties, perhaps chanterelles.

Less colorful but still nice to see were an assortment of loons: Common, still sporting a bit of their black-and white summer plumage; a juvenile Pacific loon with its silvery neck; and a pair of Red-throated loons close to shore (left), with their distinctive pale tip-tilted bills, and backs whose pattern looks like the texture on a manhole cover.

Fortunately, sea birds and waders are out in all weather, so even on the wind-whipped estuaries and rain-lashed beaches, there are things to see, like this distant dotted line of Brown pelicans speeding down-wind on a gale at the South Jetty at Fort Stevens State Park.

(Top photo: Fly agaric mushroom, E.Shock; middle: Red-throated loon, only adequately digiscoped by A.Shock; stormy Pacific coast with brown pelicans, A.Shock)

…and we spent the day near Sedona in the Red Rocks and Wet Beaver Creek visiting Palatki and V-V (a ranch brand pronounced Vee-Bar-Vee), both quite spectacular rock art venues.

These are fairly easily accessible sites maintained by the Forest Service for public viewing, and well worth the trip (around 2 1/2 hours from Phoenix, much less from Flagstaff), if indigenous works of art are your thing.  Palatki is primarily pictographs — images applied to the rock faces with mixtures of charcoal or mineral pigments and natural binders like animal fat.  There’s also a well-preserved “cliff dwelling” perched comfortably in the delightfully red Supai Sandstone formation.  V-V is primarily petroglyphs, figures pecked or incised into the sandstone with hard tools.   Both sites feature an abundance of animal images, anthropomorphic figures including ones referred to as “shamanic”, plus geometric and astronomical symbols.  These two locations have been used successively by a variety of inhabitants, from the Archaic people to Sinagua, Hohokam, Yavapai, Apache, and early Anglo and Hispanic homesteaders: in places the images are many layers thick, representing thousands of years of expression.

Interpretation of parietal art seems largely subjective, and despite folksy presentations by earnest volunteers nothing we were presented with was entirely convincing, so I won’t inflict anyone with any of it here.  But the art is impressive, both in technique and aesthetics, so I’ll satisfy myself with admiration, and leave others to struggle with meaning.

It’s a fascinating struggle, and teeters a little antagonistically between local experts, eddycated archeologists, and Native American Interpreters, all of whom seem to have strong opinions and, often, little tolerance for each other’s views.  Oddly, more than once we heard a little bashing of the two extremes of scholarly and indigenous input, with the hero being the guy who wasn’t an expert — who didn’t have the “in” of either academia or ancestry — figuring it all out.  This left the impression of a tale arising from the Mystery of the Lost Symbols that seems just as rooted in folkloric tradition as the images themselves.

If you’d like to visit these sites, and nearby Honanki, be sure to check out the links above for details, since advanced reservations are necessary for Palatki, and hours are quite limited for V-V.

(Photos: Top, Palatki, “Red House” ruins, A.Shock; middle: black herd, Palatki, A.Shock; bottom: overview of one of the V-V petroglyph panels, possibly a calendar overlaid with clan symbols)

…things are more colorful in the tropics.

Let’s unofficially extend International Vulture Awareness “Day” to “Weekend”, just so we can examine the glorious elegance that is the facial skin of the Lesser Yellow-Headed Vulture, a cousin of the widely distributed Turkey vulture that most of us Norte Americaños are familiar with.

You could argue that the King Vulture, also a New World vulture, is even more colorful, especially taking into account its snowy white-and-black plumage, but among the “Cathartes” vultures, the Lesser Yellow-headed takes the prize for chroma.  This colorfulness is limited to its face — in other ways, its plumage is so similar to its “cousin” the Turkey vulture that in flight, at a distance, the two are possible to confuse.

I’ve seen Lesser Yellow-headeds in Belize and Veracruz, and it’s always a thrill to feel that small jolt when you realize the bird gliding above the pasture that you were about to pass over as yet another Turkey vulture has that little extra something… the sun-colored facial skin gleaming in the tropical daylight.

(Photo by A.J. Haverkamp, from Wikimedia Commons: Especially, note the Pervious Nostril in this shot!)

Lesser yellow-headed vultures (Cathartes burrovianus) live in Central to South America, and are birds of tropical lowlands, seasonal wetlands and agricultural areas.  Like the majority of vultures around the world, they are carrion feeders. It’s widely reported that they have a mutually beneficial relationship with King Vultures: King Vultures, which lack the keen putrescine and cadaverene-sensing olfactory prowess of the Cathartes vultures, follow Yellow-headed vultures to locate fresh carcasses.  But the Yellow-headeds lack the mighty hide-ripping bill of the King.  So they wait at a carcass for the King vulture to show up, to “start” the meal.

(Photo: coastal agricultural wetlands of Veracruz, typical Yellow-headed vulture habitat.  A.Shock)

As kids growing up in coastal southern California, we loved to warn each other authoritatively “Shuffle your feet!”, having been scared by older cousins and uncles about the dangers of stingrays in the warm shallow waters of some of the bays we swam in.  Older cousins and uncles may like to terrify little girls for fun, but there really are stingrays in these waters.  They are mild-mannered and usually slow-moving in their search for amphipods and other small crustaceans, but would defend themselves instinctively if a little foot stomped down on their backs, as anyone would.

This ray was gliding slowly in and under the edge of the pickleweed mats in the summery shallows of Bolsa Chica Preserve in coastal Orange County California.  It’s a California or Round Stingray, Urobatis halleri, and is about the size of a small dinner plate, if dinner plates had tails. (Photo A. Shock)

For all the info about this species you ever needed and more, click here.