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on tomorrow's bird walk will almost certainly be the Ponderosa Pine with a Western Tanager nest. It is pretty well tucked up in the pine needles so a nice clear shot is virtually impossible, but cool to see none the less. There are three chicks as near as I can tell; they lay low and stay very quiet until mom or dad shows up with a tasty morsel. This is awesome!
Today the turnout for the bird walk here at Bryce Canyon was kind of small (6) but resulted in the highest species total since I began leading them almost a month ago with 22. The highlights were many as we observed several parents feeding hungry offspring: American Robin, Townsend's Solitaire, Chipping Sparrow, Pygmy Nuthatch, White-breasted Nuthatch, and Yellow-rumped Warbler. The real biggy came just as things were winding down and we spotted a male Western Tanager fly up to a pine just off the trail - and into a nest with hungry mouths that were attached to babies still in pin feathers. Too much fun for one morning!
Here's the complete list of species:
White-throated Swift, Northern Flicker, Say's Phoebe, Steller's Jay, Clark's Nutcracker, Common Raven, Violet-green Swallow, Cliff Swallow, Mountain Chickadee, White-breasted Nuthatch, Pygmy Nuthatch, Western Bluebird, Mountain Bluebird, Townsend's Solitaire, American Robin, Yellow-rumped Warbler, Western Tanager, Chipping Sparrow, Dark-eyed Junco (Gray-headed), Brown-headed Cowbird, Cassin's Finch, plus 1 female hummingbird species (either Black-chinned or Broad-tailed) who was "hawking" insects (knew they did it but it was the first time I have actually seen the behavior!).
And, for a little icing on the cake, when I came from work today I watched a young Yellow-rump foraging on its own!
Last week's quiz was a stumper for a few folks - note the weak supercilium stripe (just above the eye) and pale throat telling us our bird is a House Wren. I shot this week's bird at the seep in front of Bryce Canyon Lodge and, while I had my suspicions, it had me going for a few minutes until I saw one a little later being fed by an adult. Nothing like a juvenile to test your ID skills - have fun!
It has been an interesting week which started off with the best attended bird walks since we began them a few weeks ago. On Sunday I discovered a seep near the Bryce Canyon Lodge that is a bird magnet and that will become a regular stop on the tour, I think. Then I come home for lunch that day to a sick Roxie who ended up taking a trip to the vet on Monday. I know she has a few fans out there and the good news is that she is all right; the meds did the trick. Tuesday was a regular day off and a day when I would try to get in a little shooting but, with here down-and-out, I didn't even pick up the camera, deciding to just hang around the "house" for the most part though at one point I ventured out for a bit and made an interesting discovery (see below).
Wednesday I rolled out early to do something I had not done since arriving in April (shame on me!): go out and shoot at sunrise. The image above is from Bryce Point overlooking the amphitheater, stretching from Inspiration Point at the upper left almost to Sunset Point at the upper right. The image at right is from the trail leading to Bryce Point from the parking area and was taken about 45 minutes after sunrise. What I find cool about it is that the white hoodoo and the pine tree are being lit by sunlight reflected from the white rock above them. Something about it gives the it an interesting glow. I'll be looking for more stuff like this in the future.
Back at the trailer after shooting the hoodoos the male Williamson's Sapsucker posed on a Ponderosa for a moment - and that is about all he'll give you, very skittish, this one. Though there has not been any chances for photos I have now seen both male and female Black-headed Grosbeaks in the campground now, will need to update my list but it should be approaching 80 species for the park (plus 5 miles outside). Which brings me next to the interesting discovery I made Tuesday: I found a Burrowing Owl not far from the park's north boundary. I knew it wasn't on the checklist for Bryce birds and mentioned it to the folks in Resources who were a bit wide-eyed. There's still some research going on but it appears that my sighting may be a first for the Paunsangunt Plateau (the uplift from which Bryce Canyon is carved). We'll find out, I guess
They seem to be coming out of the woodwork! This is one of the fledgling White-breasted Nuthatches that have been begging in the trees here in the campground. On both Friday's and today's Bird Walks the group encountered several family-sized flocks of Pygmy Nuthatches swarming through the pines with no shortage of begging little birds. In addition I have been seeing larger groups of Cassin's Finches moving around along with several fledgling Robins recently. And it looks as if the Western Bluebirds nesting near my trailer have also fledged their brood in the last 24 hours since yesterday the adults were still making frequent trips to the nest cavity.
Friday after dinner I made the short drive out to East Creek Meadow in hope of finding the Pronghorn fawns on the sunlit side of the park road and hit the jackpot. I counted a total of 9 of them (plus the adults). This one kept trying to grab a teat whenever the doe stopped to graze but she would just move on right away - guess mother knows best when it is the proper time for nursing. I managed to catch a few others: here's one strolling alone, three hanging out together, and, finally, these two playing around butting heads.
My most recent bird walks have begun in a different location that where I been starting previously and each time the first bird of the day was one of the Say's Phoebes that were quite obviously feeding young in a nest in the rafters on the front porch of a building adjacent to the parking area for Sunrise Point. This morning's group was treated to seeing 3 birds fresh from the nest being fed insects on a regular basis by a pair of very busy adults. We also got to see one of the adults "dive bomb" a Golden-mantled Ground Squirrel each time it ventured near the bush that the fledglings were perched in - and we could clearly hear the phoebe smacking the squirrel. Luckily for me the little one's were still in that same bush when I got off of work - I went back a couple of hours later and they had moved on for the night.
Last week's bird was a Barn Swallow (f); this week we've got a bird not to be found around Bryce but still a widespread species. Have a go at it!
I found this site via Pharyngula but decided this quiz looked to be more fun than getting a movie-style rating on my blog:
Of course I look at the 3 answers I missed and bang my head against the wall since I knew them. Duh.
How well will you do . . . ?
After all the times the males have come around I finally got the opportunity to photograph the female Western Tanager. I went a little crazy, laying on the shutter a lot, but that was probably a good thing because she was quite fidgety and it was tough to get her in a nice position. Much like the female Painted Bunting, she is a beautiful bird in her own right even without all that flashy color.
It has been a pretty productive couple of days off. The Utah Prairie Dog pups are growing rapidly and I spent some time with them yesterday in the morning and afternoon. Not sure what the pup on the right was yelling about, but it made for a nice pic anyway. What is sad is while "my" prairie dogs are protected as a threatened species, the Forest Service is getting ready to poison thousands of Black-tailed Prairie Dogs on the plains. Please take a moment or two and send a comment to them so that maybe the slaughter can be stopped.
Here's one of the most skittish birds in the neighborhood, a Northern Flicker. I hear them frequently and have even seen them at the bath drinking a few times but this was the first time one posed long enough for a clean shot. The flickers here are the red-shafted race, the red underneath their wings clear visible when the fly off. Early this evening I was out chasing Pronghorn (see below) and, when I arrived back home, heard one in a tree next to my trailer and discovered a very whiny fledgling male up there!
The flicker fledgling wasn't the first "new bird" I saw today - in fact I've seen quite a few. First thing this morning a pair of robins were at the bath along with a heavily spotted fledgling. A short time later I noticed this White-breasted Nuthatch gleaning insects (and/or spiders) from the bark of a Ponderosa Pine, then flying up high in another tree to 3 young nuthatches who were begging and fluttering their wings. Then tonight after the flicker flew off I saw a female Cassin's Finch who was also attending to 3 young beggars.
I did have some luck finding the Pronghorn fawns though they were in really difficult light (as in "backlit"). I snapped off a shot of them anyway, while the image is pretty soft it was still quite a sight to see three of them chasing each other around while the moms grazed. I have no clue as to their ages but I can tell you that they are FAST. They had to be going between 30and 40 miles per hour - they were just ripping across that meadow. I can only hope to get another chance with the light behind me . . .
I don't get a lot of comments but spam is (and probably always will be) a problem and having to moderate comments is a pain. For now I have decided - after fussing with coding - to implement something called "reCaptcha". To post a comment you'll have to type in the coded words (you've probably seen this somewhere before) and then the comment will immediately post. I'll kill it if the spammers manage to get through and go back to moderating. What I really want to do is get it working for my "Email Kevin" form on the main website because I think that is where most of the spam comes from - I must get at least 50 a day and, while I oppose capital punishment, I could almost be convinced to change my mind when it comes to spammers.
After dinner tonight I had loaded Rox into the truck to take her for a walk out in the national forest when, just as I was about to start up the truck, I made a last minute decision to grab my camera in case I found anything interesting. On the way back to the truck with camera in hand I noticed the robins and a flicker were making quite a racket. Thinking it sounded like it might be alarm calls, I started off in the direction of the ruckus. Good choice because it turned out that what had them upset was this:
Northern Goshawk
Today is the last day of 7th annual Bryce Canyon Astronomy Festival, the thumbnail at right is a shot I took last night. It's awfully dark with the red glow coming from lights at the base of one of the 40+ telescopes that were there; the bright object in the upper left corner is Jupiter in the constellation Scorpius. I've had the opportunity to view lots of great objects (Jupiter, Saturn, globular clusters, open star clusters, double stars, and galaxies) through some pretty impressive telescopes. I've also attended a couple of great programs, the first being about mythology related to the constellations, the second being a talk about bats (I know, nothing to do with astronomy but it was awesome). Tonight I'll be going to one about the solar system being given by one of the Space Telescope scientists before going back to the 'scopes.
Of course they do astronomy programs (complete with telescope viewing afterwards) twice each week here during the late spring though the end of summer, but this is truly special. The festival is put on in conjunction with the Salt Lake Astronomical Society and next year's is going to be in late June. That's more than a year away but if you're planning a trip to southern Utah next summer you should try and schedule a few days at Bryce for this festival. It is pretty awesome!
Just moments ago, outside with Roxie in the early morning, I heard a beautiful song that I had heard before but couldn't place. Then I saw a bird swoop down to the bird batch and I placed the song right way for it had been the sweet, flute-like song of a Hermit Thrush.
Okay, we're back after a week off with the Friday Quiz! Not a species I have seen within the park boundaries here at Bryce Canyon but they are pretty common outside. Good luck and have fun!
Over the past week or so I've seen a Chipping Sparrow gathering bits of grass on a fairly regular basis. This morning while waiting for some birds to come by the bird bath a pair of them happened to come around and decided to put on a show. About four times, in fact. Naturally they were never positioned in such a way that I could get the camera pointed at them (not that anyone would particularly care to see photos of copulating Chipping Sparrows).
Things were otherwise quiet so I set out to see if there might be some photo ops with the Utah Prairie Dogs.
(Sorry for the interruption but I caught a glimpse of some Mule Deer walking by and just watched one of them empty the bird bath.)
The youngsters were pretty cooperative today and I managed to make a few nice images of them. After the prairie dogs I took Roxie over to the lake so she could get in a little swimming and, while there, ticked off the 74th bird species I've seen since arriving almost 2 months ago - lone Western Grebe was swimming at the north end of Tropic Reservoir. Maybe I'll hit the century mark by this time next month . . .
The current edition of I and the Bird is up at The Birdchaser; pay a visit and go read all of this week's entries and you may win a book in the I and the Bird Sweepstakes!
When I'm sitting in the blind the Uinta Chipmunks and Golden-mantled Ground Squirrels will come close, too. They also come to the water and I caught this pair of chipmunks doing some kissy-face thing. One of those moments when I wish I had a zoom instead of the fixed lens since I couldn't get them completely in the frame.
Just a few minutes ago I added to the list of birds I've seen at Bryce when an adult Accipiter gentilis (Northern Goshawk) flew right over the campground. I knew they were here and a breeding species so it was only a matter of time, I guess.
Over the past few weeks we have been gearing up for the busy season here at the park and much of my time - even on my days off - has been consumed creating PowerPoint programs for my evening "ranger programs". At present they are on Saturday evenings, I now have 2 completed and they are "Wings on the Wind" (about migration) and "Birdwatching Basics." I'm also leading bird walks on Sunday and Friday mornings in addition to my other duties at the info desk and a bit of design and printing work.
Today's bird walk was the best out of the first 3 with 18 species; the bird of the day was a male Virginia's Warbler that put on a show hawking insects for several minutes. The group also got to watch a female Western Tanager chasing a Steller's Jay around (presumably trying to keep it away from her nest). The really bizarre behavior we saw involved a White-throated Swift. Three of them flew by and were flying around not far from where we were standing, doing a lot of chattering when one completed an in-flight maneuver that had us all shaking our heads.
The only way I describe it was that it stopped flying and began to spin and slowly lose altitude. The non-word that springs to mind is "helicoptering". I have since checked Cornell's Birds of North America Online and learned that they do a "courtship fall" but it doesn't mention the spinning aspect. I plan to write them about it, though I would most interested to hear from anyone that may have observed this behavior before or has heard of it somewhere.
The newest visitor to my little birdbath has been this Williamson's Sapsucker, on Thursday it made a least 3 visits. I've seen a Northern Flicker there on a couple of occasions in the past week, too. And over at the headquarters/visitor center building I've found nests in the eaves: Say's Phoebe and American Robins. All those big Ponderosa Pines around and they had to pick the building. The phoebes must have chicks because they are doing a lot of flying back and forth to the nest (as are the Western Bluebirds with the nest cavity near my trailer).
With a lot more traffic in the campground the chipmunks and ground-squirrels seem to have gotten tame and I have to wonder if they are being fed (actually, I'm pretty sure they are). A couple of days ago I was working on the PowerPoint when I glanced over at Roxie and she was staring out the screen door. When I peeked out to see what if anything she was looking at and there was a Golden-mantled Ground-squirrel who had climbed up the steps and was peeking inside. I don't know if that is a good thing. Anyway, pictured is one of the Uinta Chipmunks (and they drink from the birdbath, too).
Update: I did find this little snippet about White-throated Swift aerial copulations in The Birder's Handbook but what we witnessed yesterday was a single bird and not a pair:
Among the most spectacular sights North American bird enthusiasts can see is a mating flight of White-throated Swifts. A group may come swooping down a canyon at high speed, shortly after dawn, with pairs tumbling together as they copulate in midair.
This has been the week from hell where I have been spending most of my non-working waking hours with my computer preparing last night's Ranger Talk. Other than a short session with ground-squirrels and chipmunks outside my trailer on Tuesday, I have been immersed in creating that PowerPoint presentation. My brain is just fried and since I've slacked on this and two days late we'll skip this quiz for this week and get going again next Friday. The last quiz was a Red Knot, a species that I am quite fond of and that I found out a few days later is still having serious problems with a shrinking population. Hopefully we'll see another attempt to get listed as endangered - though I doubt it considering the criminals in the current administration that are doing such a bang-up job these days.
The "Ranger Talk" last night that I spent so much time on was Birdwatching Basics and I'll be getting ready here in a couple of minutes to take some folks on a birdwatching hike here at the park. This will be my third in the last 8 days; the birding is tough here at times, but Friday morning we had a Plumbeous Vireo foraging and singing in a small Ponderosa Pine at eye level and "no binoculars necessary" close range. It was pretty cool.
I sure didn't like seeing this bit of news this morning: Scientists Scramble to Save U.S. Shorebird. Another 3000 Red Knots are unaccounted for with this year's count being a mere 12,300 birds (down from 100,000 in the mid-80's).
We haven't done a shorebird in a while and there's been a lot of chatter on one of the bird lists I subscribe to about this species so I thought "why not?". Last week's bird - and it was noted by one astute observer that I forgot to strip the bird banding code from the file's name - was a Say's Phoebe.
It was a fantastic morning and I got to spend a little time out by the birdbath before the light got too harsh. Finally got a shot at the male Cassin's Finch (plus another couple frames of a female) on a nice perch. The robin's were around quite a bit as well as a male Western Tanager (unfortunately I was a little too slow with the shutter with him). Wish the Western Bluebird nest wasn't up so high because that pair really seems to be actively feeding somebody in the hole in that big old Ponderosa Pine.