My Wood Duck

For a few years the only item on my bucket list was to see a male wood duck in person. A couple of weeks ago I fulfilled my dream and saw and photographed a very calm wood duck on a pond in a nearby park. I have no idea what he was doing there, but I’m so glad to have met him! I can’t imagine a more beautiful bird, even though he is not native to the Sonoran Desert. Here are four views of my wood duck, including the rear view below that shows off his beautiful purple mullet.

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Pre-Christmas Rove with Diamonds and Birds

I have written frequently about Roving, which is among my favorite things to do as a Tohono Chul Park docent. Now that it’s winter, we have very chilly mornings, warming quickly to lovely cool and clear sunny days.

This morning it was actually cold—in the high thirties when we started--so my roving buddy and I went for a brisk walk on the Desert View Trail to warm up. It was so incredibly beautiful, I wish everyone reading this could have been with us. The air was so crisp and fresh! And all the plants, especially the creosote, held droplets of dew that sparkled like diamonds. These photos will only give you a pale inkling of how beautiful it was in real life.

Along the trail, and later in the Park we saw lots and lots of birds, all of whom seemed to be enjoying the beautiful morning too as they warmed themselves by basking or chasing each other. We saw a few rarities, and got great looks at some of the more common birds, like this Abert’s Towhee, which was hanging out by a finch feeder.

Here is a list of the 21 species of birds we saw either in the Park or over it: Harris’ hawk; red-tailed hawk; lesser goldfinch; house finch; phainopepla, verdin, Costa’s hummingbird; cactus wren; Gila woodpecker; northern mockingbird; cardinal; curve-billed thrasher; Gambel’s quail; Abert’s towhee; rock wren; house sparrow; hermit thrush; spotted towhee; and Anna’s hummingbird. There are many other birds that are usually in the Park that we didn’t see.

Technorati Tags: Tohono Chul Park,Abert's towhee,common SE Arizona birds

Nature Red in Tooth and Claw

After Reptile Ramble at the Park this morning, I led a lizard walk. It was very hot and there weren’t too many lizards out. On the way to the Riparian Area, we did see something fascinating and horrifying: a large gopher snake in a tree, swallowing a nestling mourning dove. At first, all I saw was the mother dove, below the tree, calling and acting upset. Then I looked up to see a perfect example of a snake opening its mouth wide enough to receive prey bigger than its head. (See this post for a video of a nightsnake eating a large lizard.)
   The snake has just swallowed the second baby; the first one can be seen here as a bulge in its body.

Once it had swallowed the baby dove, the snake returned to the nest, which was now empty, then began to slither out of the tree. I believe that it probably ate both of the babies in the nest (there are usually two in a dove nest). The poor mother dove continued to stand below the tree, now unmoving, and I’m sure doing the dove equivalent of weeping for her lost children.

I am emotionally torn here. Anyone reading these posts knows how much I love snakes, and also how much I love birds. My heart breaks for the poor mother dove, who has poured all of her energy into raising these two little replicas of herself, and now they are both gone—in an instant—with nothing she can do.

When I left the area about fifteen minutes later, she was still standing there, looking as if she wouldn’t mind if the snake came back and ate her.

Here is a brief video of the gopher snake leaving the tree. Note the empty dove nest above it.

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Improving Your Birding Skills

Note: this is the fourth post in a series on beginning birding. The first three are: “How I Taught Myself About Desert Birds”;  “Birdwatcher—Or Birder?”; and “Your First Bird Walk”. 

Once you know the basics, your interest in birds can take you as far as you want to go. In my own case, I progressed from total novice to someone knowledgeable enough to lead bird walks on my own.

My roving buddy at Tohono Chul Park and I started off at about the same level of knowledge, but she began birding several times a week, both on her own and with friends who are expert, and she is now what I would consider an expert birder. (She is modest and would deny this.) She can tell from a bird’s behavior if it is, say, a vireo, though she might not know which one. I feel fortunate that I even know what a vireo is. We sometimes lead bird walks together, and I almost always defer to her superior knowledge.

Bell’s vireo (the only vireo I can identify) feeding its young.

To become as good as my birding buddy, or just to expand your horizons, do all or any of the following.

Take classes. In towns where there is a branch, the Audubon Society offers birding classes for all levels. Check your local Y as well, or a hiking group.

Go birding with other people. If you have friends who know more than you do, you will benefit from their knowledge. If you know more than your friends, YOU will benefit from sharing your knowledge. Be sure to take a bird book or an app, so you can look up the birds you see. Trying to identify an unknown bird with other people is—believe it or not—one of the most fun parts of social birding.

You never know what you will see on a bird walk. My friends and I encountered this red-eared slider while birding at Sweetwater Wetlands in Tucson.

Find or form a bird group. Check community bulletin boards, or classified ads. If you can’t find a group, consider starting one yourself. You don’t need to know a lot; just have the desire and interest to learn more about birds.

What about a life list? You may have heard of “life llists,” the number of species of birds that birders have seen in their lifetime of birding. I have never been interested in keeping such close track of the birds I encounter; such detail seems to me too much like collecting stamps. But many people enjoy collecting stamps, and for many birders keeping a continuing list is part of the fun. 

This is one of several birding diaries you can buy online. Though a simple spiral notebook would work too.

I do make a list of the birds I see on individual outings, whether on my roves at Tohono Chul Park or on bird walks with other people, just for the fun of it. I count the number of species, then throw the list away.

Links:

National Audubon Society Tons of information on all aspects of birding, as well as links to local groups.

The Cornell Lab of Ornithology An educational site offering plenty of information, including a huge library of bird songs.

Birdzilla Describing itself as the Number One Birding Site on the Internet, this interactive site offers a wealth of information and activities.

Next: books, binocs, and apps.

Technorati Tags: birding,beginning birding,birdwatching how-tos

Your First Bird Walk

Note: this is the third post in a series on beginning birding

You don't ever have to go on an organized bird walk. But if you decide to, you'll find that many organizations all over the country, such as your Parks Department, the Audubon Society or other conservation group, or even a local group of enthusiasts, offer free or low-cost bird walks for bird lovers of all ages. The first bird walks I ever went on were sponsored by a mom-and-pop birding supply store, The Wild Bird Store, here in Tucson.

The Wild Bird store in Tucson, showing some of their many products, most of which are for sale by mail order.

The main thing I remember about my first bird walks is that I was very nervous, because I was such a novice. I was afraid that the leaders or other participants would laugh at me. But instead, they all helped me to learn how to identify birds that I didn't know, and explained how to look for “field marks,” the individual signs that aid in identifying bird species. Field marks include such obvious items as size and color of the beak, overall size, length of tail compared to body, and more detailed markings, such as eye rings, color patches, and stripes, The amount of information really good birders know can be daunting, but birding is not (or should not be) competitive, and you can proceed at your own pace.

Illustration of bird’s field marks from the Cornell Lab of Ornithology

My first “official” bird walk with the local Audubon Society was even scarier than the first ones with the Wild Bird bunch. These, I thought, were real pro birders, and they would no doubt sneer at my obvious lack of knowledge. This trip was out of town to a local canyon famed for its wide variety of hummingbird species. It was wonderful to see those beautiful birds. Equally wonderful: there was no sneering. In fact, I was surprised to find that I knew more about some hummingbirds than many of the more experienced birders, because of all the time I had spent studying hummers in my yard.

Anna’s hummingbird in flight

Here are two Do's and one DON'T for your first bird walks:

1. DON'T be afraid. Birders of all levels of expertise are mostly very nice, generous people (some fanatics are not—but that is true in any endeavor). After all, everyone has to start somewhere.

2. DO ask questions. Most birders are happy to share their expertise. And you'll be surprised at how many may not have an answer to your question. Even the best birders are occasionally stumped. When I lead bird walks at Tohono Chul Park, I never assume that beginners know anything. Some bird walk leaders may gloss over such very common birds as house sparrows, (the image below is from Wikipedia), to avoid boring more experienced bird watchers,  but I always make sure that my newbies know all the birds we encounter. Learning a common bird is every bit as much an accomplishment as learning a rarity, if you did not know it before.

3. DO learn at least one new bird on each bird walk, if you can. As you gain more experience, you can try to learn more on each outing, but learning even one or two is doable and a real win.

Next: Improving Your Birding Skills 

Technorati Tags: birding,birdwatching how-tos,beginning birding

Bird Watcher—or Birder?

During my first few years of observing birds, I thought of myself as a birdwatcher. “Birder” seemed to me somehow too exalted for what I did. After a while, though, I realized that the distinction was much like that between “jogger” and “runner.” From the age of 30, I was an avid jogger. I jogged four or five times a week, I ran an occasional race (for fun only), and even wrote books and articles on the topic. Still, I always hesitated to think of myself as a “real” runner. Somehow it seemed that title should belong only to people who ran marathons, or were so fast they could qualify for the Olympic Trials.

                    

Then, one day a marathoner friend said, “You don't think you're a real runner. But don't you run?”

“Well, yes,” I said. “But only very slowly.”

“Doesn't matter,” he said. “If you run on a regular basis, you are a runner.” Yes! I thought. I am! And I am also a jogger.

I believe the same thing is true about birdwatching and birding. Most people think of birders as fanatics with expensive binoculars who can identify a distant bird at a glance . Many birders in fact do fit that description. But they share an important activity with me and millions of other people: watching birds.

                       

It doesn't really matter what you call yourself. If you enjoy watching birds, you will probably enjoy it even more if you develop your birdwatching skills. Here’s how to get started.

1. Start close to home. If you have a yard or live near a park, start spending regular time observing the birds you see. You can even start your observations by simply looking out the window. Start to get an idea of the basics of the most common birds. What color, shape, and size are they? Do they walk, or do they hop? Do they perch on tree branches, or cling to the tree trunk? What are their beaks like—long, short, curved? What color? Do you see one doing something unusual, such as searching for and flying off with pieces of twigs, or feathers? The number of details can seem overwhelming, but if you look at the same birds often enough, the details will soon make sense and attach themselves to individual birds in your mind.   

2. Get a bird book. There are hundreds of books that can help you learn more about birds. As I mentioned in my post yesterday, I bought several books on hummingbirds more or less at random, and found the pictures inside helped me gradually learn identifications. I will list some specific books in a later post, but any guide to the birds of your area should help you get started.

3. Get a pair of binoculars. These don't have to be expensive. I started with a pair of opera glasses that I had used at the opera in New York. They were all I needed for my first couple of years of (mostly backyard) birding. In a future post I'll tell you what to look for when you're ready to graduate to a better pair of binocs.

4. Have fun!

Next: Your First Bird Walk

Technorati Tags: Bird watching,birding,beginning birding

How I Taught Myself About Desert Birds

This is the first in a series of posts on bird watching.

When I moved to Tucson in 1989, I literally knew almost nothing about birds. I had spent most of my adult life in New York City, where the birds I saw were mostly pigeons and sparrows. (I have since learned that Central Park is an excellent spot for birding, but I was not tuned in to that when I lived there.)

When I moved into my small townhouse with real trees and a view of the mountains, I was thrilled to see something outside other than trucks or vagrants urinating in the alley. As I sat glued to the window, one of the first things that caught my attention was a black-and-white striped bird on the trunk of my young tangelo tree.

  White-winged dove and Gila woodpecker on saguaro blossoms.

I soon learned that the “black and white striped” bird was a Gila woodpecker, one of the most common desert birds. I put up a couple of hummingbird feeders, and soon was obsessed with watching these tiny jewels. In a previous post I described how I gradually learned to tell hummingbird species apart as I added more feeders and more and more hums came to sip from them.

To study the hummers, I sat on my back patio for an hour or two every day with a pair of opera glasses and several books I’d found on hummingbirds. I eventually bought a better pair of binocs and branched out to observing other birds. Because my office window looked directly out on the yard, I was able to see a lot of birds that I didn’t know, but was able to identify with the help of photographs and bird books.

This picture of a kestrel, eating a dove it had killed, was shot through my office window. It took me a while with some bird books to figure out what it was.

To attract more birds, I put up more types of feeders—seed feeders and a suet feeder. I put a tiny pond in my yard. More birds came, and I began to learn about mockingbirds, curve-billed thrashers, and Gamble’s quail. I bought more bird books, and read as much as I could. After a year or so, I knew a lot—about a small number of birds. It was time to branch out.

Next: Bird Watcher or Birder?

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Eight Amazing Facts about Bird Nests

We’ll wrap up our tour of Sonoran desert bird nests (My Favorite Bird Nests Part I and My Favorite Bird Nests Part II) with some facts I’ve learned about nesting. Several of the nests discussed here are pictured in the two posts linked above.

1. Both male and female birds build nests. With some birds, like hummers, the male has only one job: to impregnate the female. His participation is limited to the proverbial “Wham, bam, thank you, ma’am!”  Other male birds, like doves, cactus wrens and verdins, share the task of nest-building and often of raising the chicks as well.

2. The male can pick; the female can choose.Sometimes both birds participate, but have different jobs. The verdin male, for example, builds the outside shell of more than one nest and lets the female decide which to use. Then he finishes construction, while she furnishes the inside with down and other bits of fluff. With white-winged and mourning doves, the male repeatedly presents the female with sticks, and she chooses which to use and where to put them. I once spent about an hour watching a pair of white-wingeds construct a nest at the top of a support pole at Tohono Chul Park. Here’s a photo of the male holding what he apparently deemed to be a particularly excellent twig:

Note: the female didn’t agree, and dropped the twig on the ground.

3. Some birds “decorate” their nests. As the photos in the posts linked above show, both hummingbirds and vireos often incorporate bits of lichen and leaves into their nests as decoration and/or camouflage. Cactus wrens often use odd found objects in their nests. I’ve seen yarn, kleenex, cellophane, and, after Christmas, even shiny bits of tinsel.

4. Birds nesting in cactus make the nest safe for their offspring. I don’t know if all cactus-nesting birds do this, but I have seen cactus wrens use their bills to methodically pluck spines from cactus where they are nesting, especially near the nest opening.

A cactus wren at home in the midst of cholla spines.

5. But cactus is not always a safe environment. Cactus is a popular environment for nest-building because the cactus spines deter many predators. But not all. Several snakes, including kingsnakes, can easily climb cactus to reach and pilfer bird nests. 

6. Some birds nest INSIDE cactus. The many holes seen on the sides of saguaro cactus are produced by Gila woodpeckers (and Northern flickers). The saguaro produces a hard scab around the hole, which is then used as a nest by the woodpecker. When the woodpecker is done with its nest, other birds, including several species of owls and even house sparrows, move right in.

The holes in this saguaro are most likely Gila woodpecker nests

7. Many birds do not sleep in their nests. At Tohono Chul Park, only cactus wrens and verdins roost in their nests year-round. The other birds roost on the ground, or in trees or bushes. 

8. Some birds don’t build nests. As mentioned in #6 above, many birds use an existing hole in a tree or saguaro to lay their eggs in. Other birds, like the Gambel’s quail, simply lay their eggs in a depression in the ground or even a flower pot.

Nine quail eggs in a flower pot at Tohono Chul Park

BONUS: If you admired the beautiful Bell’s vireo nests in yesterday’s post, link to this AMAZING VIDEO that shows a pair of vireos constructing their nest, using twigs, leaves, and spider webbing.

Technorati Tags: Bird behavior,nesting behavior

My Favorite Bird Nests, Part II

One of my favorite activities is observing bird behavior, particularly courtship and nesting. It is always a thrill to watch a bird select nesting material, then take it back to the nest. We’ll examine some of that behavior in greater detail in a future post. Today I want to complete the list of my favorite bird nests. (Click here for the first five nests.)

Bell’s vireo: This small, shy bird with an outsized voice builds one of the most amazing nests I’ve seen in person. Like a hummingbird nest, it is a tightly woven cup, with decorations on the outside. But unlike most hummer nests, the Bell’s vireo nest is actually a hanging basket, attached to a tree at two points.

Last year, a Bell’s vireo built her nest shoulder high and right by a walking trail at Tohono Chul Park. As you can see below, this nest is beautifully made. I am unable to imagine how a little bird, using only her beak and her feet, could create something so beautiful and elaborately wrought. So many people gathered to watch and photograph this nest that she sadly abandoned it, with one egg having been laid.

This year, we had two Bell’s vireo nests in different parts of the Park, both high above the trails. Each of these nests fledged at least two broods of chicks.

Bell’s nest in Texas Ebony

 

Bell’s nest in Olive Tree

 Hummingbirds: Most years we have several hummingbird nests at Tohono Chul, many of them easily observable. These tiny nests are very tightly woven, but stretchable, allowing the baby hums to grow. When the nests in a hummingbird aviary at the Arizona-Sonora Desert Museum began falling apart, it was discovered that the material needed to hold them together was spider silk. Spiders were added to the aviary, solving the problem.

The following hummingbird nests were photographed at Tohono Chul. I don’t know the species, but they are Anna’s, Costa’s, or Black-chinned. (For more on these species, see My Hummingbirds.)

I think this mama is a Costa’s.

Waiting for mom to bring food…

       They grow up so fast… these little guys are ready to fledge.

Cactus wren:  The cactus wren, the State Bird of Arizona, is one of the best nesters around. Their nests are large, messy, enclosed structures often decorated with odd bits of debris. Cactus wrens are known for building multiple nests, perhaps as decoys, though no one knows for sure. A cactus wren with nesting material in its beak is a very common sight in the Sonoran Desert.

Typical cactus wren nest, decorated with what looks like tissue paper and fiber-fill. When I’ve left lengths of colored yarn outside, cactus wrens often incorporated them into their nests.

This wren and its partner built this nest and another nearby. For a short video of the process, click here.

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My Favorite Bird Nests, Part I

Nests are among the most miraculous of the miracles of nature. You have probably heard of the extremely elaborate bowerbird nests of New Guinea, but to my mind any nest—even the rudimentary crossed sticks of a mourning dove—is an amazing accomplishment by a creature that has no hands.

In an upcoming post we’ll take a closer look about the how’s and wherefores of nest-building. Today and tomorrow I want to show you some of the nests I’ve been keeping an eye on over the last couple of years.

White-winged dove: This beautiful bird builds a very flimsy nest from a few sticks and twigs. In a good spot, though, the nest will last through several broods. The white-winged dove who nests in my carport raised six chicks last year and is on her second pair of hatchlings at this writing.

Mourning dove: These doves, like white-wingeds, build very flimsy nests. Here is a mourning dove with her two babies in a nest on TOP of a cactus wren nest.

Verdin: This tiny bird builds a small, round, enclosed nest, usually in a palo verde tree. Here are a verdin and a verdin nest:

Cooper’s Hawk: These predators nest every spring at Tohono Chul Park. The nests are massive, big enough to hold both parents and two or three chicks. Here are last year’s nest, high in the tree, and a juvenile Cooper’s soon after fledging.

House finch: House finches and Lesser Goldfinches build  compact, cup-like nests. Here is a beautiful, tightly-woven nest we found in a cholla at Catalina State Park a couple of years ago. We couldn’t imagine who had created it. My docent buddy, Sue, went back the next day and waited until the proprietor, a house finch, returned.

Quail census update: there are so many families now, of varying sizes and ages, that they actually line up at the edge of the garden and wait their turn before coming to the quail block. In just the last hour, I’ve had two families of 3 and 5 with half-grown chicks, the family of nine grade-schoolers, and at least two families with three to five chicks no more than a few days old.

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My Condor Walks

One of the things a docent does at Tohono Chul Park is rove, which I do on Monday mornings. I like to get an idea what birds might be in the Park on weeks when I’m leading a bird walk, and I also just like to look around and see what’s new or different or interesting.

I try to cover all the main trails, including the Saguaro Discovery Trail, which is seldom used by visitors on very hot or very cold days. Whenever I head out for that part of my rove, I always say I’m going on a Condor Walk.

A hill on the Saguaro Discovery Trail.

A Condor Walk? Yes, I say, you never know what might appear on the trails. I could even see an Andean Condor. This majestic bird, which has a wing span of up to 10 1/2 feet, is found only in western South America, but so what? My position is that anything can happen out in nature, and if an Andean Condor should decide to visit Arizona and alight on top of a saguaro, I don’t want to miss seeing it.

Andean Condor, photo from Wikipedia

Among the wonderful things I have seen on my Condor Walks are jackrabbits, road runners, Lucy’s warblers, and other fairly common denizens of the Park. More than once I’ve also come across the beautiful but seldom-seen longnosed snake…

Longnosed snake

…and the supposedly nocturnal nightsnake, eating a zebra-tail lizard. This last event was so unusual that I was asked to write it up as a nature note for the Sonoran Herpetologist, a scientific publication.

I’ll write more about some of the unusual behaviors I’ve witnessed in birds, reptiles, and mammals.. I wouldn’t have seen any of these things, though, if I didn’t go out looking for Andean condors on a regular basis.

Technorati Tags: docenting,Tohono Chul Park,snakes of the southwest

What Does a Nature Docent Do?

The word docent comes from a Latin word for “to teach.” It is defined in Merriam-Webster online as “a person who leads guided tours, especially through a museum or art gallery.” In my case, I lead guided tours through Tohono Chul Park, the beautiful nature preserve where I volunteer.

KL (me) leading a tour of members of my high school graduating class.

I also “rove” in the Park once a week—three hours at a time in the cool weather, two hours in the summer. My job as a rover is to help visitors, if any, and to get to know the Park and its wonders better, for the benefit of visitors and myself.

The Park features many natural desert trails…this one is the Desert View Trail.

Some docents find roving boring, but I usually love every minute of it. Unless it is too hot, I usually try to cover all the major trails on each rove. There is always something beautiful to see, and I always learn something new.

The Sundial Plaza, in the center of the Park, is beautiful all year round.

I’ve written about roving often in this blog. A typical rove last year at this time featured the inside of a saguaro, a hawk nest, and a preview of our famous Queen of the Night, the night-blooming cereus that only blooms once a year.

In addition to roving, I also lead bird tours four times a month, lead scheduled tours for adults and children, and participate in our reptile show, Reptile Ramble, in the warm months. I’ll have more to say about each of these activities in future posts.

Technorati Tags: Docenting,Tohono Chul Park,Night-blooming cereus

My Two Favorite Nature Apps

As part of the 2013 WordCount Blogathon, all participants are asked to write about our favorite apps on the fifth day.

Naturalists today are fortunate—we can easily carry an entire library of nature guides in a pocket, choosing from among the dozens of apps currently available for smart phones and tablets. As part of my work docenting at a nature park I use six or seven such apps. Here are my two favorites.

IBIRD. The nature app that I use the most and recommend the most is iBird, one of the most popular apps around. IBird comes in several versions, including regional (for several regions) and Pro. There are versions for Windows, Kindle, Android, iPad, and iPod/iPhone. The one I have is iBirdWest, for iPod/iPhone, which currently lists at $9.99 but is often on sale for much less.

The iBird West cover

This app is incredibly useful. I always take it on the bird walks I lead, usually  with a paperback birding guide as well. Because it is so lavishly illustrated, with photos and drawings, it’s great for showing birders new to the area what a particular bird is supposed to look like.

When I’m on a bird walk myself, the app helps me identify unknown birds, especially wen I have a general idea what category they belong to. Among the wealth of information given for each bird is a link to other birds that are similar. The app is relatively easy to search, and allows for creating a list of “favorites” for those birds you want to look at often.

Ash-throated flycatcher. Or is it a brown-crested?

I also use iBird to help identify birds by sound, when I’m not quite sure what I’m hearing (I will write more about birding by ear in a future post). For example, I have trouble remembering the differences between the calls of a brown-crested flycatcher and an ash-throated. iBird always comes to the rescue, but perhaps I need an iBrain so I could just remember those calls once and for all.

PETERSON BIRDS. My other principal birding app is Peterson Birds of North America. I find this app more difficult to use than iBird, but it does one thing iBird does not: it displays like birds together on one “page,” much like a paper bird book, making it much easier to choose from among, say, several similar warblers. Unfortunately, this excellent app is currently available only for iPad and iPhone/iPod. It was selling for $14.99 on iTunes at the time of this review.

Hummingbird page from Peterson Birds

I find that iBird and Peterson complement each other, and am glad to be able to carry both of them. Both apps offer plenty of background information on the birds they list, including behavior notes and distribution maps. Each app also allows you to enter sightings, so you can keep a constantly updated birding list.

Technorati Tags: iBird review,Peterson Birds review,birding apps