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I had this rather large visitor to my birdbath/dripper this evening, though she didn't sit on the available perch (a good thing, I suppose). She wiped that little birdbath clean too - but ,at well over 45 kg. (100 lbs.), she would probably require a lot more water than your average Yellow-rumped Warbler or Western Tanager . . .
(Actually, this post's title isn't entirely correct. Skunks and Brown-headed Cowbirds are not welcome here.)
So this week we begin our second hundred quizzes with a bird that is widespread across much the U.S. and whose range also extends into portions of Canada and Mexico. Last week's quiz bird was a Downy Woodpecker.
In other news, I have decided to break down the quizzes into year-based categories in a bit of blog-related housekeeping. I've started with the 2008 editions and will be working as time permits or I'm bored and have nothing better to do (unless I can find a shortcut, I have to go through all 100 posts individually).
Around Delaware Bay, I have been able to find very little news about migrating Red Knots, which is a little disappointing. But then maybe no news is good news? There is a news item here noting that Horseshoe Crab numbers seem to be up slightly this year but there is no mention of shorebird numbers.
Once you've decided on the answer to this week's quiz, head on over to A D.C. Birding Blog for this week's Loose Feathers.
And last but not least, the 76th edition of I and the Bird is a little garden party being hosted by Wanderin' Weeta.
This morning I stopped off at the storage area where the park's brochures are kept to do an inventory and was greeted with a call as I unlocked the warehouse door. While it seemed familiar, it wasn't anything that I'd heard recently, I played it back in my mind while the door opened and I walked back to my truck to grab my binoculars. Hearing another "round" of the call, I remembered the mnemonic:
"Quick, three beers!"
"Quick three beers!"
"Okay, it's a flycatcher", I decided.
Then it hit me:
"Yes! That's it! An Olive-sided Flycatcher!"
I never did find the bird up in the pines, but recognizable calls count. However, despite the persistent request, I haven't had a beer in many years, and it has been a really long time since I had one at 8 in the morning . . .
That was the second new species for the week after what seemed like a bit of a dry spell for new "year birds". The first was on Tuesday while I was lounging around trying to recover from my nasty cold: a female Red Crossbill stopped by my birdbath that afternoon. Earlier in the day, before the wind started to kick up, and while feeling much better thanthe day before, I did shoot a few wildflowers. At this elevation this early in the year there aren't but a few, one early bloomer is the Common Starlily (Leucocrinum montanum). I think it may be a good year for wildflowers based upon some of the stuff I see growing in the vicinity of my trailer. Very little flowering yet, but, as last week showed, winter hasn't quite given way to spring completely.
This photo is also from Tuesday morning, an Acmon Blue that I encountered while searching for flowers. A tiny butterfly whose total wingspan is an inch or less, it is the first butterfly I've photographed since arriving here more than a year ago. I guess I really need to work on that statistic a bit more. . .
Here's some video from this morning (the file is about 10 megabytes) of Roxy doing what she loves to do more than anything:
The weather is still not the best though a warming trend is supposed to begin tomorrow - and I've come down with a nasty cold just in time for my days off. Fun.
Welcome to another Spring day at Bryce! This is what woke up to yesterday morning - snow everywhere! It wasn't deep, maybe a centimeter or so (less than 1/2 inch), but there none the less. Not that it is a surprise around here since last year it snowed as late as June 6. Pictured is a close-up of the snow and hoarfrost on a Manzanita outside my trailer.
Surprisingly, given the weather, I had 8 participants show up for my bird walk. And the birding was tough. Best I could muster was finding 10 species and that includes a Northern Flicker that was heard, but not seen. A singing Green-tailed Towhee once again put on a show for us and we saw several Grace's Warblers foraging in one small area near the lodge, high up in the Ponderosa Pines. This female Western Bluebird is, for me, a reminder of the beautiful Spring days we had earlier in the week. Today there's still a 70% chance of snow.
Looks like we have reached a milestone in the weekly quizzes - #100! In another month it will be 2 years since the first quiz, though I've missed an occasional week for various reasons, so the record isn't spotless. And I think at least a couple of times I snuck in something that wasn't a bird.
As far as last week goes, if you're looking for a little frustration, look no farther than the "peeps". That bird was one of three small sandpipers that can make you scratch your head. Of the 3 possibilities we can eliminate one right away - Least Sandpiper - since we have a good look at the legs which would be yellow on a Least. So that leaves with a choice between Semipalmated and Western. The first thing I would look at would be the bill - relatively short and blunt-tipped on a "Semipalm"; longer and slightly drooping on the Western. Everything I have seems to indicate that the Western will also have a somewhat light coloration on the head and my best guess is that this is likely a well-worn juvenile. So in a nutshell the answer is Western Sandpiper.
Have fun with this week's edition - best of luck and great birding!
It's been a while since I had any images of birds to post, but a little time hanging around the dripper (and some decent weather) solved that problem. One thing I can count on is the robins coming around trying to keep themselves clean. Get a couple of them in a row and it'll be a while before the dripper can catch up and replace all of the water they manage to splash out! In this shot the robin is giving it a good shake after wrapping up an extended preening session.
While I have yet to see them bathe, Mr. and Mrs. Bluebird at least come around for a drink now and then. The male frequently uses the dish for my satellite internet for a perch to launch himself from when foraging for insects - before long I'll need to clean off the tell-tale signs ("whitewash") he leaves behind, lest it should have a negative effect on reception. Can't help but wonder if it is the same pair from last summer; they're using the same cavity that produced a few young.
There's at least a couple of male Western Tanagers coming around; this is the less brightly colored of the two, the other one hasn't been around when I'm in the blind, unfortunately. There's at least one female tanager visiting, too, as well some other species.
I've padded the year list over the past couple of days as well as getting some photos. Over at Tropic Reservoir I picked up a couple of rarities for Bryce with a lone Great Egret and several Forster's Terns. The Utah year list now stands at 117 and the Bryce list has topped 100 (now at 103). Even though we are well into the second half of May, if the forecasts are correct we are headed back to winter for the next several days - that'll slow things up a bit.
Today I led my second "bird walk" of the season with an amazing 17 participants. We ended up with 16 species on the day, 1 less than last week but still better numbers than my early walks last year. Probably has something to do with the fact I know a little more about where to look. Species highlights were a very cooperative Green-tailed Towhee who gave us some great looks, and a first of the season sighting of a Williamson's Sapsucker (a female). The real fun was watching male Western Tanagers chasing each other around in apparent territorial squabbles - 3 different times! While I cannot say for sure, I think it may have been different birds involved because they were in separate locations some distance apart. In between the 2nd and 3rd tanager battles we got to watch a pair of Chipping Sparrows in a knock-down, drag-out wrestling match on the ground just a few feet away from the group. To top it all off, this evening after work I had the opportunity to watch a pair of male Yellow-rumped Warblers chase each other around just outside my trailer.
Things are definitely heating up for "breeding rights", it seems.
Last week's bird, a Blackpoll Warbler, makes one of the most amazing journeys of all the members of the family. Most of the population nests in the Boreal forests of Western Canada and Alaska, then migrates first to the Canadian Maritimes and New England, followed by a 3,000 mile leap across the Atlantic to Venezuela and Brazil. Their journey north takes them across the Gulf of Mexico, then overland back to the breeding grounds. Fort DeSoto Park, near St. Petersburg, Florida, can be a great place during spring migration, the Blackpoll was photographed in one of the famous Mulberry trees that, if the timing is right, will be full of berries and a great place to find warblers, buntings, orioles, and others.
For this week, a challenging species I'd photographed a few years ago during the winter in Florida. They should be nearing their breeding grounds in Alaska by now and looking very different from what you see here. Good luck and great birding!
The latest edition of I and the Bird is being hosted by Amila at Gallicissa. Coming to us all the way from Sri Lanka, take some time to check out all the great entries!
Friday is also when I go over to A D.C. Birding Blog to check out John's latest edition of Loose Feathers. Another site I'll be checking with some regularity over the next few days is The Shorebird Project. They haven't posted any updates since they were in Tierra del Fuego monitoring the Red Knots down there, but I hope to get some news soon as these beleaguered birds should be arriving en masse from South America now.
On the home front, it has been kind of a weird week. Monday started out nice but was snowing by the afternoon, though I find a lone Horned Grebe over at the reservoir to pad my lists. Tuesday was mainly spent on the road for a shopping trip to the "big city" that, in addition to spending money, turned up a couple of more species for the Utah list: American White Pelicans at Otter Creek Reservoir and a Swainson's Hawk soaring over an alfalfa field. On my shopping trip I also picked up a few native plants that should be attractive to hummingbirds - if I can keep the deer from eating them like they did last year (a doe and her 2 yearlings are browsing within 30 feet of my trailer as I write). Wednesday we had a guest speaker who took up most of our workday, and yesterday I went to Las Vegas for a "press check" for the park's summer newspaper (I did all of the layout as well as some of the writing). Next week I have 3 days off on our new summer schedule - maybe I can get some photography done for a change . . .
First of all, hope all the mothers out there had a happy Mother's Day.
Here at Bryce we had a nice International Migratory Bird Day weekend with about 60 people at my presentation Saturday night and 6 bird watchers along with me on the bird walk this morning. That went pretty well with 17 species - 6 of those "life birds" for one of the participants. The highlight, I think, was the most glorious Western Tanager I have seen. The red on this guy's head was incredible - the one hanging around my trailer is positively dull in comparison. We also had great looks at a Plumbeous Vireo, some brilliantly colored and loudly singing male Yellow-rumped Warblers, and watched 3 Green-tailed Towhees doing some sort of display raising their wings (I've researched the behavior a little but haven't found any real specifics - apparently some sort of territorial thing going on between males). Another highlight was watching a Say's Phoebe carrying nesting material to refurbish the same nest that treated one of the walks last June to views of 3 freshly fledged youngsters.
The towhees, along with a Black-headed Grosbeak, are additions to the year list; added another later in the day when I saw a Broad-tailed Hummingbird (male) checking out taillights on cars in the Visitor Center parking area. I guess he just wanted to know what all that red was about; not many flowers around here yet. Also saw a first of the season female Western Tanager today, too.
Tomorrow, May 10, is International Migratory Bird Day and to celebrate I dug deep into my archives (it's from a slide!) for this week's quiz bird. This species is one I feature in my presentation Wings on the Wind, that, not coincidentally, will be tomorrow's night's featured Ranger Program here at Bryce (we're also having a birding walk Sunday morning if you are in the area and care to come along).
Before I forget, last week's bird was an American Bittern.
Note: David (and anyone else who wants to play): extra credit if you can tell me what kind of tree it is in . . . I know you know, though you may not be able to identify it from the photo
One of the things I enjoy about living where I live is listening to the birds in the morning. Just for fun I took out my little notepad and jotted down the names of the birds I heard singing and/or calling today. It took them a little while to get going, most likely because we had some heavy rain in the evening (canceling last night's astronomy) which turned to snow during the night. This morning's "joyful noise" was provided by the following:
American Robin, Grace's Warbler, Northern Flicker, Cassin's Finch, White-breasted Nuthatch, Pygmy Nuthatch, Yellow-rumped Warbler, Plumbeous Vireo, Chipping Sparrow, Western Bluebird, Western Tanager, and Brown Creeper.
As I write this the sun has set, it is nearly dark, and there is still a robin outside chatting away.
Things have been a little hectic at work with some training going on that has actually cut into my time off. The good news is the birds just keep on coming. On Monday we had some geology training (including a little fossil hunting that yielded a couple of nice new specimens from the Cretaceous) and on that day I added a pair of new species for the year lists Black-chinned Hummingbird and Black-necked Stilt. The stilts, a bird I know well from Florida, were in a pond just outside the park. Considered "rare" Spring/Fall migrants on the park checklist, they were a nice, unexpected surprise. At a staff get-together on Tuesday night I saw a pair of House Finches to further pad the list. Then this morning I went for a short walk while waiting for my laundry and the new bird on that little stroll was one I heard singing 6 or 8 times last Spring before finally seeing one: Plumbeous Vireo.
Bird of the day was when I got home after the chores were finished: #105 for the Utah list (and #91 for the Bryce list) was my long awaited male Western Tanager! Actually, I knew he was around because I heard him singing for a good 1/2 hour before I'd left, I just couldn't pinpoint the exact tree. When I finally did see him he was at the bird bath and binoculars weren't even necessary.
And the answer is . . .
Chipping Sparrow.
(The question, of course, would be: What was Kevin's 100th Utah bird - and 84th for Bryce Canyon- in 2008?)
After work today I made a quick run into Tropic for a few items and, along the way, added 2 more species to the year's lists: Brown-headed Cowbird (who needs 'em) and Mourning Dove. The doves made it 99 species year-to-date for the state and 83 for the Bryce checklist. Still need Western Tanager and, since there is no more colorful species that regularly occurs here, it would make a great one for number 100 . . .
While I have now seen 3 of the 4 species of swallow that are said to occur here at Bryce, last week's quiz bird, Northern Rough-winged Swallow, still eludes me. For this week, a bird that is rarely seen but widespread across North America. Good luck and good birding!
A couple of gentle reminders on this Friday: Another 2 weeks has passed and the 74th edition of I and the Bird is being hosted at Con's World and the latest edition of Loose Feathers is up at A D.C. Birding Blog.
