December 26, 2005

It was a lovely Christmas day. I think the temperature got up to eighty. The day before I'd been out working in my rose garden in my shorts. This is how I remember many Christmases from my childhood, but I believe it is fairly unusual for it to be this warm.
The pond is still being visited by bees, who are usually dormant by this time of year. But all the deciduous trees have finally lost their leaves (to return in February). The pomegranate tree looks like a collection of bare sticks. There are plenty of hummers around, male and female. All I have recognized are Costa's and Anna's, both of them beautiful enough birds. I've seen a few tail-waggers, which may mean that I have some black-chinneds, but I can't be sure.
I hope one day (or month or year) soon I get some year-round broad-bills. I still miss them a lot. Maybe this will be the year I have mockingbirds in my garden.
I suspect that my pond would look to any outsider like a pitiful half-attempt at greening up some scrub desert, but to me it is beautiful and lush, and with the new year I plan to make it even more so.

December 19, 2005

The word of the day is hawk. Today while on the River Walk we saw a small, rather nondescript hawk sitting on the railing. I am pretty sure it wasn't a kestrel or peregrine. Then this afternoon, I saw another, similar hawk on the fence around my pond.I studied it for a while with the binoculars, but still don't know for sure what it was. I suspect it may have been a male Cooper or a sharp-shinned. It had a gray back and a rufous-speckled chest. The tail was gray and blunt, with thick dark bands and a rim of white at the end. I didn't see any identification bands on its leg.

We are approaching the shortest day of the year. We've had a few freezes, but it's a warm winter. My roses are still blooming, and the only thing that has frozen back is the lantana.

My pond area looks rather bare, but I still love looking at it. The other morning when I went out to add water, I saw a road runner, several hummers, cardinals, pyrrhuloxia, the usual cactus wrens, sparrows and woodpeckers, and even the beautiful mockingbird, out in the desert area. The visiting hawk probably thinks it's an all-you-can eat buffet.

December 6, 2005

EXCITING NEWS! I just saw a mockingbird out on the fence behind the pond. He or she looked cold (we had a hard freeze last night, so all the lantana have died). Here is my fantasy: the mockingbird has taken a good look around, and decided, "This looks like a terrific place to raise my family next spring."

Apart from the mocker, nothing new. Lots of hummers, all Anna's and Costa's, as far as I can tell. Though I do have one female with a VERY long beak who doesn't seem to be either.

November 23, 2005
It's a very cool (low 60's) cloudy, gray November day. I just watched a brilliant red male cardinal eat eleven sunflower seeds in a row. He hops onto the perch, instantly grabs a seed, hops down to the fence, eats the seed, hops back onto the perch. I never saw quite this behavior with the other feeder.

This new feeder is working out very well. The woodpeckers don't even seem to try. Though the finches do try, they don't get anywhere. I've had tons of cardinals and pyrrhuloxias, sometimes even fighting over it (especially the first few days). Only problem is sometimes it sticks. The cards and adult pyrrhuloxias seem to have figured that out. Flutter your wings, jump on it again, stick your beak betwen the door and the wood. The other day a male pyrrhuloxia was here with his son (gray beak, but adult plumage). The little one couldn't figure it out. I think he was too lightweight. I felt sorry for him.

My winter hums seem to be at least one, maybe two Costa's, and at least one Anna. I sure do miss the beautful Broadbills.

I am thankful for the beautiful birds in my yard and in the world.

November 11, 2005
Well, yesterday I spent nearly $170 at the Wild Bird Store for suet, seeds, and the new seed feeder. The guy at the store advised me to rubber-band the opening open so the cardinals would get the idea, but I didn't want the woodpeckers to get the idea, so I didn't do that. A female cardinal showed up just before sunset, and she knew immediately what it was, even though it looks very different and is in a different location. She flew right up onto the perch... and couldn't feed! I had set it incorrectly!

So I called the store and he told me what to do, but by then it was almost dark and the cardinal didn't come back. However, she was out there this morning and feeding! I'm so pleased! I saw a couple of finches trying, but--as it's supposed to do--it shut them out. I haven't yet seen a woodpecker try.

November 9, 2005

Well, the damned woodpeckers have destroyed the new feeder. No way I can get it to work. I called The Wild Bird store which has handmade, wooden cardinal feeders and explained my problem. The owner told me he is sure that his feeders will withstand manhandling (birdhandling) by woodpeckers, plus he stand by his products, so I'm going to get one, even though they cost something like four times what the plastic one cost. Gulp. But I can't stand to see the cardinals and pyrrhuloxias have to leave empty-beaked.They look so frustrated when the feeder doesn't work for them.

In other news, we've had a small wolf spider in the house, which I have been trying to protect from my cats and husband. It really gets around; I see it on the ceiling in different rooms. The other day it was in the foyer, in the crack between wall and ceiling, just resting or sleeping. They do that by stretching half their legs out on each side, in a bunch, so they look sort of like a bundle of twigs. I'm going to try to find it doing that again and photograph it.

Watching a flock of quail on the Riverwalk this morning I realized how the flocks form: in the spring, they all split up (except Mama and Daddy, who presumably stay together), and all the children go off and find new mates. Then these new pairs spend the summer raising broods, and however many young quails are left stay with their parents for the rest of the year, learning more about surviving in this harsh environment. Then in the spring the whole thing starts again. You can tell how successful a quail couple has been by the size of the flock.

October 27, 2005
The weather has been absolutely glorious for the last couple of weeks. It's the reason we're all here in this valley. Tucson has two seasons: the summer that we bitch about, and most of the rest of the year. Sunny clear days in the seventies-low eighties and cool nights in the fifties. Slight breeze most of the time.

The hummers seem to be tapering off--only a couple now, I think. An Anna's for sure. I'm not sure if the Costa's are still around. I planted a new crossvine to make up for the one that got fried last summer. It did very well for about a week--putting out new tendrils, looking great, and then yesterday it looked all wilted. Today it was gone. Nothing left but a couple of sticks. So I presume something ate it. The climbing rose that got eaten a few weeks ago has not come back either. So I guess the moral is not to plant anything outside the pond enclosure. I feel really sad about the rose, because this coming spring it would have been great.

The petunias inside the pond enclosure are growing and blooming beautifully (they are in big pots). And so far the chile and new gardenias in the front porch area are doing well.

The only other thing going on around here is bees. There are a gazillion bees swarming around the pond every day as soon as it warms up. I called a bee service, and they said that probably the hive is not on our property (I haven't seen any hive activity), and that the bees could be coming from as far away as two miles. I have two choices: drain the pond for a couple of weeks, or wait for the first freeze, when the bees will become dormant.

So far, I have chosen to wait.

October 18, 2005
The main thing going on has been the problem with the seed feeder. I kept adjusting it, but the only birds who could feed were the woodpeckers, and it didn't matter what height I set the door to. I watched cardinals and pyrrhuloxias try to feed and finally leave in disappointment. Day before yesterday I took the feeder back to the store to readjust it, and they couldn't do it either, so they gave me a new one.

I'm happy to report that the pyrrhuloxias and cardinals are again feeding happily; the perch on the door swings down exactly far enough for them to pluck seeds out of the hole. The woodpeckers, however, are extremely frustrated. I watched a male yesterday try for two or three minutes: first sticking his beak between the door and the feeder from the top, then from the bottom, then from the side. He eventually succeeded in dislodging one seed from the hole, and swooped down to the ground to snatch it up. But there has been much less trying by the woodpeckers today. I guess they get the message that the free buffet has closed.

Still quite a few hummers around. There's a mature male Costa with very fluffy white bib behind the ears and under the chest. It looks like cotton. I also might have spotted a little Rufous the other day, but haven't seen it again. The Costa juvenile male is still around. I'm finding that these guys are a good deal less skittish than some other hummers. Sure wish i still had Broadbills around....

October 5, 2005
I have a few hummers now, very aggressive and apparently tanking up for migration. I know for sure that I have male Anna's and Costa's, because I have seen their beautiful gorgets in the sun. A week ago I also had a juvenile Costa's, identifiable by what looked like lavender ribbons at his throat, where his gorget was just coming in.

Also last week a small hawk visited my pond while I was on the exercise bicycle (so I didn't look at it through binoculars). It was small--about the size of a white-tail dove--and fairly pale, with a dark-and-white striped tail. Its profile resembled that of a bald eagle. My raptor-expert correspondent thinks that based on my description it was likely a male sharp-shinned hawk, which would be another first for me.

In other news, at least one woodpecker has figured out the cardinal feeder. He sits on the perch and maneuvers his beak down between the sliding door and the feeder, then grabs a seed from the feeding hole. Today my yard guy planted the pomegranate tree in the ground east of the pond, and the bottle-brush outside the pond area, to the north. I hope they both do well. I'm going to put flowers in pots around the pond for winter, but don't know about next summer. I guess it partly depends on how much everything else grows by then.

And a final weather note: I keep thinking it's going to stop being hot, but it's still in the mid nineties, and for the last few days has also been humid. Supposedly this weekend it will suddenly drop to the low eighties. That will be a shock--it will probably feel freezing!

September 14, 2005

My blog is so boring compared to all the hyper political ones. But it's also soothing, to me, to know that my little birds and critters are getting their moment on the Internet, even if only for a handful of eyes (now there is a nature image!).

Not much action. We had one last monsoon rain last week--nearly a third of an inch in twenty minutes or less. It reminded me of the heavy monsoons that were so common when I was a kid--a downpour along with lightning and thunder and heavy wind that felt like the end of the world. And then... it stopped. The monsoon is now over, it is dry and sunny and beautiful, and even in the heat of the day it doesn't get above the mid-nineties.

Also last week, I saw a very sad sight: a doting Papa Cardinal busting his buns to feed a greedy little cowbird chick.

Finally, yesterday I had a new bird at the pond! I first thought it was an odd-looking sparrow, but then looked through the binocs and saw that it was a sparrow-sized gray, black, and white bird with striking black and white face streaks. Its body was marked similarly to a mockingbird, and it was very flitty. In my haste to get all the field markings I neglected to note its beak! I couldn't really narrow it down from my bird book, but I happened to go to The Wild Bird Store later in the day and Jon Friedman helped me find it: a solitary vireo. (Maybe--the picture in my book doesn't look much like it either.) Hope it will be back.

September 1, 2005
Time flies! In the last two weeks, there has been a lot of nature to write about. First, we finally had a very active monsoon, even up here. One day the airport received nearly 2 1/2 inches of rain, which is nearly unprecedented. (August went down as the fifth-rainiest month in history.) We are actually AHEAD of the average annual rainfall total for the year. My rain gauge picked up .82 inches, which is pretty good.

Since then it has dried out again. It is cloudy today, for the first itme in about a week, and humid too (it's been hot and reasonably dry for a while). I don't expect any rain, though they are getting it to the south and the northeast of here.

Mama dove apparently decided not to raise another brood in the carport. Twice I have seen her sitting on the nest, but she always flies away whenever I come close. No brooding behavior. Maybe she just feels comfortable there, or maybe she is thinking, "I can't go through this again! Won't that woman ever leave me alone?"

A huge prickly pear--a prickly pear tree, really--apparently got too much rain and has pretty much collapsed. It was the main thing you first see when you look out the central back doors, though I didn't notice it was down until I smelled a rotting odor. Kind of gross, but it was very big and very old, and maybe its time had just come.

Finally, two days ago I saw a Rufous hummingbird at the feeder by my office window. I haven't seen him anywhere else, and I didn't get a good look, but I know he was Rufous (or possibly Allen's). It is migration time, after all. Mr. Broadbill is long gone, alas.

August 19, 2005
SHE'S BAAAACK....
Mama dove, that is. Or at least she's thinking of coming back. I saw her sitting on her nest this morning, though when I went closer she flew away. No eggs. I assume she's been out dating, however, and is checking out the digs for her fifth (!) brood of the season.

I haven't seen Mr. Broadbill for a few days (sniff, sniff), but I recall that at the other house it took a few years before I had broadbills year round. There is a very feisty Costa's now guarding the feeders by my office. Maybe it is the same one, and maybe he will stay year round. Wouldn't that be nice?

Not much else doing, nature-wise. It rained for about half an hour earlier. I haven't checked the rain gauge, but probably not much. The monsoon is probably over for the year, except for occasional thunderstorms here and there. At the airport, we are almost on target for rain for the year, so it's been a good summer.

August 10, 2005
The monsoon continues, though mostly not up here. We had .70 inch of rain the other day, but down in the valley they had nearly two and a half!

Anyway, I just wanted to post that I HAVE A BEAUTIFUL MALE BROADBILL! He is guarding the feeder that the beautiful male Costa's formerly owned. (The Costa's is clearly not happy about this.) I'm so excited!

And this afternoon I saw a dead bird wing out by the mailbox, along with a few loose feathers. Nature red in tooth and claw....

August 3, 2005
THIS 'N' THAT
A few updates: the Costa's hummingbird loves it here. He has staked out a territory by the pond, which he guards from the Texas Ranger outside my office. Right in front of the Texas Ranger is a "little beginner" hummer tube feeder. I put it up when nothing would deter red ants from clogging the previous feeder. Even two ant traps didn't slow them down. They can't, however, seem to get into the tube feeder, though it is very drippy and is making a mess on the porch. Anyway, it's nice to have the Costa's around. He is the only one I've ever had long enough to observe much behavior. He is very bold, and doesn't seem bothered by my presence.

The monsoon continues--everywhere but our neighborhood. We've had .10 inch overnight twice in the last week, and that's about it. Meanwhile, the rest of the city is getting flooded. But those drips do help my plants, which are looking much perkier. The ground seems saturated, as is the air. It's a nice time of year.

Finally, dove update: Three days ago I was in a panic because I had not seen Mama Dove for a day and a half. The babies sat patiently in the nest, looking like perfect little miniature doves. But then I found a dead dove out by the pond and thought the worst had happened. I called Wildlife Rescue. Just as a woman called me back to tell me where to take the little dovelets, Mama returned! And boy, were her children happy to see her, jumping around in the nest and I suppose clamoring to be fed (I watched this from the window). I had put food and bugnuts out for them earlier, but they ignored that. Anyway, the wildlife rescue woman said that once the dovelets are fully fledged, mom spends increasing amounts of time away from the nest, and will soon kick them out. I haven't been out there today, so I don't know if it has happened yet.

I wonder what Mama has been up to. Maybe out getting knocked up again?

July 28, 2005

Well, I've been suspecting I had a Costa's hummingbird around here, but couldn't see it close enough to tell for sure. This morning while I put water in the pond I was standing very still, just looking around at the unaccustomed cloud cover. I heard buzzing and glanced up to see a beautiful male Costa's face to face. Maybe he's been thinking, "I suspect there's a middle-aged female writer around here, but I need a closer look."

July 27, 2005
THE EVOLUTION OF THE CARDINALS
Two days ago my cardinal feeder fell apart. The door cracked and broke into several pieces, and the body developed alarming cracks across the front and sides. It was no doubt sun-rot (around here, sun-rot and water-rot between them get just about everything).

Anyway, the next morning early I saw a juvenile cardinal at the feeder, actually feeding. He had figured out that if he jumped from the chain link fence to the hole in the feeder, he could sort of grasp the plastic with his feet and flap his wings really fast like hovering long enough to grab a seed. He then retired to a better perch to eat the seed and then resumed his hummingbird-like behavior. A finch had figured out the same thing, and the two of them went through quite a few seeds while I watched. I got a new feeder later in the day, and the cardinals have resumed normal feeding.

MAMA DOVE
At least one of her eggs has hatched; a thumb-sized little gray dovelet was sitting beside her this morning. I couldn't tell if another was there or not. I think it hatched a couple of days ago, because she has seemed to be sitting higher on the nest.

BABY LIZARDS
There are baby lizards all over the place. I guess this is the season for them. Lots of them on the River Walk, mostly scampering away in time not to get stepped on or run over. Several I've seen at the house, including one that briefly came inside and was attacked by one of the cats. I rescued it, but it may have been damaged beyond repair by the time I returned it to the yard.

STILL NO RAIN
It's been pouring everywhere but here. Sniff.

July 20, 2005

Hooray! The monsoon has finally arrived! It started two nights ago wtih a tremendous thunderstorm that brought little rain (here, anyway) and tons of lightning and thunder. There were trees down all over the city, some of which we saw today on the riverwalk. Also power outages, though not here. Although we had one of our own a few days earlier.

Still plenty of quail around. Yesterday I saw a gorgeous white spiny lizard with a blue collar and belly and tan and gold stripes on its back and flanks. It is possibly leucistic, though spiny lizards are capable of changing color to match the ambient temperature: the hotter it gets the lighter they get.

And I just saw a very intelligent white-wing dove (a seeming oxymoron). He was clnging to the perch on the cardinal feeder and trying to insert his beak into the space between the feeder cover and the feeder hole. He obviously got how the thing worked, but wasn't able to figure out how to beat the system.

July 9, 2005
QUAIL NATION!
I can't believe how many quail there are running around, across our back and front yards, through the pond, into the wash, across the streets (cringe). Pretty much every time I think to look up from typing, I see some combination of adult and juvenile quail out in the riparian area. Day before yesterday I caught a glimpse, as they left the yard, of a gazillion (or maybe two gazillion) little bitty guys--the dandelion-fluff stage of baby quaildom. They were so cute. I counted about eight or ten, but there were more.

Also, I don't know if all quail mamas are stupid or fat, but practically every time I see one now, she's trying to find a mesh square to get through to get out of the riparian area. Why not just fly over the fence, duh?

And speaking of duh, Mama Dove is at it again. I saw her with a twig in her mouth the other day over by the old nest on the shelf. Two days later she was sitting on the nest, and she is still there. She does have shade where she is, but it's SO HOT. I wonder if she will lay (or has laid) hard-boiled eggs? (This is her fourth brood of the season, counting the egg that didn't hatch.)

The last set of baby doves apparently fledged successfully. They had gotten pretty big and were walking around and even flying a bit. One disappeared, but I think it may have flown away to its own life. I saw the remaining one sitting on the shelf, alone, and when I approached it flew off, its wings flapping strongly. I hope they're okay--this weather has been brutal. It can't be a good time to be born, whether you are a dove, or a quail, or anything. I'm sure that my little pond is helping some guys make it through the tough early days.

The monsoon is probably arriving next week, and not a moment too soon. We've had I think 27 days of 100 plus heat, and at least another week to go. Despite the coming humidity, it will be nice to get back down in the nineties.

Final nature note for today: yesterday out on the River Walk a kestrel landed on a wasit-high fence just in front of us. So beautiful!

June 28, 2005
QUAIL CITY!
I guess the rattlesnakes and coyotes are going to be very well fed this summer. There are quail all over the place. Sunday afternoon I counted 26(!) young quail with their parents. I might have even missed some. I don't know if this was a blended family or a family where 26 babies lived, though I suspect the former. The attrition seems to be very high in general, and these were pretty well grown. It was exciting to watch them as they came into view.

This morning, a mama and papa and two adolescent chicks came to the pond. I think this might be the former 3-family, but I'm only guessing. As I say, there are a lot of quail. The mama in this group had a hard time getting through the wire mesh around the pond fence. The spaces aren't very big, but there are apparently some large enough for rabbits and fat quail to squeeze through. Mama had trouble, though, and tried square after square, all along one side, before she finally found one that she could get through.

The baby doves are growing quickly. They look like actual birds now, and are the size of finches. Their little beaks are very long, and they still spend most of the day sitting motionless in the nest, either snuggled with mama or waiting till she comes back if she has gone off for some reason. I was thinking yesterday that she'll probably be glad when they're gone and out of the nest and she can go back to just pecking the ground, bathing in the pond, and generally hanging out somewhere else.

June 24, 2005
There's been a little rain, but it's not yet the monsoon. Sure feels like it, though, with high dewpoints and humidities higher than 30.

Mama dove's babies hatched sometime a few days ago. I first noticed she seemed to be sitting a little higher than usual. It turns out that's because instead of sitting on eggs, she was sitting on babies. By the time I saw them, they were already feathered. But still very little, and unlike other baby birds, who seem to spend a lot of time squawking and screaming to be fed, these guys remain completely motionless, as she was while brooding. They are striped and dull-colored, and look very much like the twigs that make up the nest, except for their little black beady eyes that occasionally blink. I took a photo, and will try to post it, but truthfully it doesn't look like much.

Yesterday afternoon the pond was visited in close succession by three quail families, all of whom spent some time drinking and poking around on the ground. The first family had three babies--two rather large and one quite small. I'm assuming they are from two separate broods, but wonder why so few babies?

The second family had five or six medium-sized chicks. They were at the stage where their topknots look like mohawks. They reminded me a bit of our old next-door neighbor, who for some inexplicable reason has worn a mohawk for several years.

The third family had at least nine medium-to large chicks. They made quite a picture, all crowded around the water. It was very, very, very gratifying to see all these adorable young quail and to feel that my riparian area has made their lives a bit more pleasant and predictable.