Yard birds and bathing

Paul and I spent this past weekend working in the backyard. I had brought home a new fountain from the Mesa Costco and we got that up and running. Well, Paul got that up and running all I did was say where I thought it should go! He had to till up the whole area first as I want to get my native plants in there and wanted it tilled before he put the fountain in. I didn't want to have to work around it. His poor arms are still hurting from it. Thanks Paul!! This will take the place of the pond at least for a couple of years I think. It just seemed like more work than we wanted to do right now. At least we have another running water source in the backyard so that should draw more birds in. As of this morning I have not noticed any birds on it yet but I'm sure they will find it soon. The fountain is straight, I just noticed that my picture is slanted. I meant to crop it but forgot. Oh well, just know that Paul was very careful in getting it level!
We had a several year firsts this weekend also. We got our first American Robin and our first Hooded Orioles. The Robin was eating the ivy berries (more of those later) right over where the fountain was going in. I didn't get a picture of her though. I didn't have the camera out so.....
I haven't got a picture of the Orioles yet either. I just finished sitting in the middle bedroom waiting for one to come back down to the feeder outside the window but he wouldn't come while I was waiting. He had been their twice before I got the camera and I could see him sitting up at the top of Pat's tree in front but he didn't come back down. I will never be a good nature photographer. I have no patience to sit and wait!!! I have only seen the males so far as they come in a couple of weeks earlier than the females do. They stake out their territories first.



Another bird we had in GREAT number this weekend was the European Starling. We have a great crop of the Ivy berries this year and they love those. I know most people dislike these birds as they do go in large flocks and eat everyone out of house and home but it is hard to dislike something that looks so neat and can't sing any better than I do!! Okay, they do sing some better than me but they don't have a beautiful song like some of the song birds do.
They were in flocks of 30 - 40 and they would land in the ivy between Patty's and our house and just have a grand time with the berries. (The Mockingbirds like the berries also.) Then they would all take off together and fly around for awhile and then end up back in the ivy.


Hummingbirds.

The best thing for the weekend was a new yard bird as well as a new life bird!! We now have Rufous Hummingbirds in the yard. This is the first year that I have ever seen them here. They look a lot like Allen's but their backs are all the rufous or orange/rust color. I am sooooo excited!! There are at least two in the yard as I saw two on one feeder this morning. When Jim was over this afternoon he saw one on the feeder by the kitchen window. I am going to have to update my yard list to see how many different birds I have had over the years.

It is crazy the number of hummers we have this early in the season. We have at least thirty in the yard now. We have lots of Anna's, lots of Allen's (the most we have ever had) the Rufous and this weekend I saw our first Black-chinned of the year.


It seemed like this weekend was bath day for everyone. Everytime I looked at the fountain in the front there was someone taking a bath!! This black-chinned really got into the fountain more than most of the birds do. Most of them use the top to bath but he really flew right into the bottom to get wet.



Then the Goldfinches got into it for awhile. JayJay was taking one in the small birdbath in the front in the morning. It is funny some birds like one bird bath and others like another. The jays like the one in the front and the crows like one of the ones in the back. Some like the small fountain by my bedroom door but most everyone likes the large fountain in front.
This little Allen's just sat on the edge of the fountain and waited for the water to shower over him. He wasn't getting a lot of water but he was making the most of what he did get.



I have never seen any bird get as much pleasure from a bath as this little hummer did. She was sitting there taking a bath for a least 3 - 4 minutes! Now that might not seem like much for a preteen or teenager but it is a long time for a bird! As you can see from the set of pictures she really sat right down into the fountain. She would splash around for awhile then she would lay her head right down on the fountain and rub it around. I have never seen anyone doing that before. It was great fun watching her!



Well, all in all a great weekend!!

Salton Sea Birding Trip 2/3-4/06

(Don't forget to click on the picture to enlarge them.)

On February 3& 4th Paul & I met Steve down at Salton Sea for a day and half of birding. The first day Steve had arranged a guide to show us around. We met Bob Miller at his house in Brawley at 6:15am. The one problem with birding is the early starts that you need to get!! Something about getting up before dawn to start a vacation day ... well, you know what I mean! http://www.southwestbirders.com/ What a help having a guide was!! Bob took us places that I would never had gone. Some of the "roads" he took us on I would have thought were just a path through a field that would be private property. Hopefully when we go back there again we can find all the places that we went.

Here are the three guys, Steve, Bob Miller & Paul checking all the birds.

We started out in Cattle Call Park. This was Paul's favorite place on the whole trip. It is where they have the rodeo every year. Paul & I got a life bird right off! A male Vermillion Flycatcher.

After that we took off though fields and over to the Sea where we saw lots and lots of gulls and other birds.
At lunch we went up to the town of Niland to pick up some sandwiches for lunch. Bob told us all about Slab City where lots of snowbirds come down and spend the winter. http://www.polarinertia.com/march03/slab01.htm It was Patton's training ground during World War II and when they left they took everything but the concrete slabs that the buildings were on. I guess it is getting run down and more people are living there year round so it isn't the draw for the Snowbirds that it once was. Another place he told us about but we didn't get back to was Salvation Mountain. http://www.bearclover.net/hwy101/salvation-mtn.html Check out the web site for information on that. Looks like something everyone should see once in their life!!
After lunch we headed back to the Sea and lots and lots more birds. By the time the day was over we were compleletly worn out but very, very pleased with the day!!

Here's Steve the Birder with his scope.



One of the areas we hit with Bob had hundreds of great-tail grackles sitting in the bushes. He put the number between 2,000 to 3,000 birds. He said it was the largest amount of grackles he had ever seen in one place before. He couldn't figure out why they would have been there then and not before. It was a pretty amazing sight.


A Peregrin Falcon sitting on a telephone wire looking for breakfast. This is the first one that Paul and I have seen in the wild. We saw a tame one in New Mexico that his trainer brought in. Steve took this picture out the car window.


The next morning we started at dawn again and the three of us headed out to Finney Lake to see what we could find on our own. I didn't know how we would do but we ended up doing very well thank you. There is something about a lake in the early morning with the light hitting the water and reeds just right to put a smile on my face.

As you can see from the picture there was a haze/smog over everything in the distance. LA was real bad that Thursday when we drove through and you could see it just sitting over in the distance all weekend. Not a pretty sight. :(
The birding was a pretty sight though. There were several things that I really liked. One is the Great Blue Herons on their nests. The pictures really don't show it very well but there were a lot of them sitting around on snags in trees in the middle of the lake sitting on these great big nests.


Then there were the Great Egrets sitting around in the tops of the trees. Some of the trees had several of them just sitting up at the top.

One of the common birds you see at the Salton Sea are Burrowing Owls. If I remember correctly Bob said to look for pototoes with legs sitting on the side of the road. There was one stretch of road that he showed us that had about 14 owls along a 1/4 mile of road. They are so cute!!! They move their heads round to the back and it is weird!!



Another Life Bird for Paul & I was thanks to a great spot from Steve. Great Horned Owl. We would never had seen it sitting in the middle of the trees. Steve was able to get this picture of it before it headed off. That was exciting!!

Another nice bird; the American White Pelican

Another Lifer: White-faced Ibis. Look at the bill on that bird!!


One of the birds that I wanted to see was a Yellow-headed Black bird. I had seen them before but I really like that bird so I asked Bob on Friday if there were any around. He told us about the cattle feed lot where there would be some so we headed over there just before we stopped on Saturday. I thought there might be a dozen or so and about double that of Red-winged Black Birds. Boy, was I wrong!! We got there and there must have been several thousand birds all together. Most of them were the Red-wings but there were a lot of the Yellow-headed. What a sight. Thousands of birds flying around the cattle, eating the cattle's food and the bugs that went along with the cattle. The noise from them singing and fighting was loud!!



I don't think the pictures really shows how many there were there. I had one of the Yellow-headed but Blogger doesn't seem to want to post it tonight. I will try and edit this some other time and see if it will go through.

That is some of the story of the Salton Sea Birding Trip of February 2006. I am hoping there will be another story to tell of the 2007 trip if not sooner. I wouldn't mind going down to see the Wood Storks in the summer but the sound of 115degrees and messes of flies might keep Paul away!!
This is the list of the birds we saw on both days.
Peid-billed Grebe
Eared Grebe
Western Grebe
Clark's Grebe
American White Pelican
Double-crested Cormorant
Great Blue Heron
Great Egret
Snowy Egret
Cattle Egret*
Green Heron
Black-crowned Night Heron
White-faced Ibis*
Snow Goose
Ross' Goose
Green-winged Teal
Northern Pintail
Cinnamon Teal
Northern Shoveler
Gadwall
American Wigeon
Redhead
Ruddy Duck
White-tailed Kite
Northern Harrier
Cooper's Hawk
Red-tailed Hawk
American Kestrel
Peregrine Falcon*
Prairie Falcon
Ring-neck Pheasant
Gambel's Quail
Common Moorhen
American Coot
Sandhill Crane
Black-bellied Plover
Mountain Plover*
Killdeer
Black-necked Stilt
American Avocet
Greather Yellowlegs
Lesser Yellowlegs
Willet
Spottoted Sandpiper
Long-billed Curlew
Marbled Godwi
Ruddy Turnstone
Black Turnstone
Western Sandpiper
Least Sandpiper
Stilt Sandpiper*
Ruff*
Long-billed Dowitcher
Herring Gull
Ring-billed Gull
Yellow-footed Gull*
Caspian Tern
Rock Dove
Mourning Dove
Common Grownd-Dove*
Greater Roadrunner
Great Horned Owl*
Burrowing Owl
Black-cinned Hummingbird
Anna's Hummingbird
Gila Woodpecker
Northern Flicker
Gray Flycatcher
Black Phoebe
Say's Phoebe
Vermillion Flycatcher*
Horned Lark
Tree Swallow
Northern Rough-winged Swallow
Barn Swallow
Common Raven
American Crow
Verdin
Cactus Wren
Bewick's Wren
Marsh Wren*
Ruby-crowned Kinglet
Blue-gray Gnatcatcher
American Robin
Northern Mockingbird
American Pipit
Phainopepla
Loggerhead Shrike
European Starling
Orange-crowned Warbler
Yellow-rumped Warbler
Common Yellowthroat
Abert's Towhee
Sage Sparrow*
Savannah Sparrow
White-crowned Sparrow
Red-wing Blackbird
Yellow-headed Blackbird
Wester Meadowlark
Brewer's Blackbird
Great-tail Grackle
House Finch
House Sparrow
At my count 104 with 11 life birds. Not bad for a day and half!! Steve, feel free to correct me on any of this!
Thanks Steve and Paul I had a great time!!

Goldfield Mine & Lost Dutchman State Park

While in Mesa one day while everyone else was at work or school I took a couple hours off and drove up to the Supertition Mountains for some birding and picture taking. I ended up at Goldfield Ghost Town (http://www.goldfieldghosttown.com/) as they have several feeder stations for the birds so there are always birds around. Kind of like cheating but I wanted to take some pictures and I'm lazy!! After I spent a couple hours there I went up the road a half a mile to the Lost Dutchman State Park. (http://www.pr.state.az.us/Parks/parkhtml/dutchman). They have a little cactus garden in the front and they have a couple feeders set up there also. It was a good day weather wise and most of the time the sun was out. By the time I was leaving around 1pm it was getting very overcast and a bit cool so I was glad to be leaving!!
Birds I saw:

Goldfield:

Curved billed Thrasher
White Crowned Sparrow
House Finch
House Sparrow
Inca Dove
Mourning Dove
Rock Dove
Cactus Wren
Great Tail Grackle
Abert's Towhee
Roadrunner
Gamble's Quail
Turkey Vulture
Starling
Northern Cardinal

Lost Dutchman added:

Phainopela
Black Throated Sparrow*
Canyon Towhee


Curved-Billed Thrasher Easy to see how they got there names!!



Cactus Wrens are very vocal birds. This one was sitting here singing away.


Northern Cardinal Such a bright red. This is a male,the female is more orange and brown.


Cactus Wrens playing King of the Post


Black-Throated Sparrow This is a new life bird for me!!!


A couple more Cactus Wrens


A House Finch sitting on the cactus

Gilbert Water Ranch

I found a new and great birding place very near Darcy's house!! I was checking the local Audubon web page and was led to this very wonderful place. There was a bird walk listed for Saturday so I dragged everyone up and we got over there at 8 am! It was cold in the mid 30's!! The Wearings only lasted for a short while with Kody etc but I spent the morning there. I'm sure they will be going back when it isn't so cold and they can walk at their own speed.
When we first got there they had some birds from a bird rehab. I didn't get to look at them very well as the bird walk was starting and I didn't want to miss out on it and they were gone when I got back. Darcy was saying the Golden Eagle had been hit by a car or a truck I don't remember which and broken both wings so it will never fly again. I didn't hear about any of the others. I only got pictures of the Redtail and Kestral.


The site is fairly new but is gaining a good rep with birders. It is next to the water treatment plant and they have 10 ponds that they use to drain the water back into the water table. This makes for lots of areas for lots of birds.


The list for the day and I'm sure I didn't put down everything:

American Coot
RedWing Blackbird
Yellow Rumped Warbler
Staring
Anna Hummingbird
Costa Hummingbird
Curved Billed Trasher
Verdin
Snowy Egret
Great Egret
Great Blue Heron
Green Heron
Gila Woodpecker
Abert's Towhee
Northern Mockingbird
Killdear
Pied-billed grebe
Northern Shoveler Duck
Northern Pintail Duck
Cinnamon Teal Duck
Green-winged Teal Duck
Ring-Necked Duck
Black Headed Phoebe
Northern Roughwing Swallow
Orange Crowned Sparrow
Ruby Crowned Kinglet
Grey Blue Gnatcatcher
Least Sandpiper
Long-billed Dowitcher
Black-Necked Stilt
Great-tailed Grackle
Mallard Duck
Peach Face Lovebird
Mourning Dove
White Crowned Sparrow
House Finch
House Sparrow
Burrowing Owl

That is all I have written down but I know there were a couple more....
They have made nesting areas for the Burrowing Owls out of sewer pipes and the population is growing. The one I saw just sat next to the path next to his nest. He didn't seem at all afraid of me or the people walking by.
The Peach Face Lovebirds have several flocks in the Mesa area. Most likely they are escaped birds that have just done real well and started breeding. Jessy and I were in North Mesa on Thursday and we saw a flock of at least 20 fly over the car. Sure suprised us!!
This was great fun and one of the best things is that it is only about 15 minutes away from the house!!

Northern Pintail Duck


Peach Face Lovebird


Verdin


Great-Tail Grackle


Burrowing Owl

Birding at 80 MPH

Birding while driving isn't the easiest thing to do but once you start birding I think it is hard to put it aside even though you shouldn't be doing it!!

Birds I saw from the car on my trip home from Mesa:

Great-tail Grackles
Red-wing Blackbirds
Brewers Blackbirds
Mourning Doves
House Finch
House Sparrow
Roadrunner (running across the road in front of me!)
Red Tail Hawks (there was one section about of about 2 miles where I saw 4 Redtails sitting on fence posts)
Northern Harrier Hawk?
Kestral
Turkey Vulture
Starling
Rock Dove (Pigeon)
Not bad for 80 mph!!

In the Mesa Backyard

I'm out in Mesa checking out the birds in Darcy's backyard. Every morning there comes a rat-tat-tat on the wall by the living room. At first I thought someone was knocking on the door but then I figured out it was a Gila Woodpecker knocking on the house. I looked and looked but couldn't figure out where he was pecking as I don't see any holes. I put out a suet cake for him and the other birds and he came and started to eat from it yesterday afternoon.




This picture shows his red head.




Another type of bird that comes to the yard a lot are Grackles. They come in flocks of a dozen or so. They make a lot of noise, kind of like crows not the same sound, just the amount of noise. The males are all black and the females that are in this picture brownish.


So far the birds I have seen in the yard are:
Great-Tail Grackle
Inca Dove
Mourning Dove
White Winged Dove
Rock Dove (Pigeon!)
Cactus Wren
House Finch
House Sparrow
Canyon Towhee
Gila Woodpecker
Anna Hummingbird
Darcy and family have seen Gambel's Quails but I haven't seen them yet.
That is all I can think of right now but there might be more.
They have a huge Pigeon "problem" in the Phoenix area. I don't know how you can have feeding stations in the yard with so many pigeons around. They would quickly take over the yard!! I will have to do some research on it. I did put out the suet as I don't think they will bother that. We will have to wait and see.

Rhubarb - I knew you would want to know!

On this date in 1770, Benjamin Franklin introduced rhubarb to America. He was representing the American colonies as an ambassador in London, and sent a crate of rhubarb to his friend John Bartram. The plant, native to central Asia, had been introduced in Europe by traders; the rhubarb which Franklin (books by this author) sent to America had come to London from Siberia. Rhubarb first appeared in American seed catalogues in 1829, and soon became a popular ingredient in pies. John Bartram was also responsible for introducing kohlrabi and poinsettias to America.

Last Thursday's Hike

Once again I got out to Sierra Vista to do a little hiking while I was feeling okay. When I started out I thought I should have gone over to the gardens as I haven't been there in awhile. After awhile I was glad I had taken this hike at this time.
I had the closest encounter with coyotes that I have ever had other then in a car.
While I was walking along the ridge just up from the Chumash Center I looked over and there were two coyotes walking along hunting for ground squirrels. They noticed me there but really didn't care at all! I got to stand there and watch them for at least 20 minutes. It was neat. The female was a little more nervous about me but the male didn't seem to care at all!! He just went along looking into all the holes in the ground. The pictures didn't turn out real good but they will serve to remind me of a very nice hike.

This is the first sight I had of them. At this point I was sure they would take off the second they saw me. How wrong I was.



This is the two of them together. The female came over to see what he was checking out but it was too close to me so she wandered off again the whole time giving me dirty looks!

This is the male checking out the squirrels holes. Compared to the coyotes we see at Death Valley these two were very, very well fed!!

Hike to Sierra Vista

On Saturday we headed out to Sierra Vista to take the camera out for a hike. It was a beautiful day. The weather was perfect. After a couple of weeks of cloudy and cool days it was good to have the sun back!

We had headed out there as we wanted to see if the White-tailed Kites (hawks) were still there. When we had been out there on October 10th they were massing in a couple of the trees there. There were about 20-30 on that day. I had read on the message board that someone had seen them in the past few days so we were hopefully. When we were there we could only see about 8 so don't know if they have moved on or if we just didn't find the right area. It was midmorning by the time we got there so they might have been out hunting further into the park. As you can tell the oak tree they were sitting in was a ways away so the picture isn't very good. Think you can see three or four of the 8 that were sitting there. They spent the whole time preening so was hard to get a picture with their heads up!

The highlight of the hike was a Red-Shouldered Hawk. (Thank you Steve for getting the correct ID!! I knew I liked having smart kids!!) She was sitting on a post right next to the road with people walking and riding bikes right next to her!! We couldn't believe that nothing was bothering her! Paul was able to get several great shots of her. The first picture is to show how close she was to the road. Lots of people were going by her. A couple of people were asking Paul what kind of bird it was as they were right next to her. Didn't bother her at all. She finally flew off when Paul got a little too close to her while he was taking pictures. Either that or she just figured with him there she wouldn't find anything to eat!!






Short list of birds but we didn't stay out long and we were working with the camera most of the time.

Blackheaded Phoebe (lots and lots of these)
Roadrunner
Crows
California Towhee
Mourning Dove
House Finch
House Sparrow
White Crowned Sparrow
Western Kingbird
Scrub Jays
Becwick's Wren
Yellow-rumbed Warber (lots)
Northern Mockingbird
American Coot
Bushtit
Anna's Hummingbird
Cooper's Hawk
Redtail Hawks
White-tailed Kite
Nuttall's Woodpecker
I think I saw a couple Common Yellowthroats but they were backlite so couldn't be sure.




The Nuttall's Woodpecker was busy catching bugs in the tree. I was surprised how great a picture Paul got of him.

All the pictures are Paul's with our new Canon EOS20D with the 70 - 300 lens.

Couple more birds from the back yard

The hummers are still around in force. Most of them like the front yard but there are still several that use the backyard feeders. This was taken from the yard looking up to the oriole feeder on the hill. Both of the pictures today were taken with the 70-300 zoom lens. Think I'm going to like this lens.



This is a male House Finch that was very helpful in staying still and showing me all his different poses.

New Camera

We just got a new camera and guess what I went out and took pictures of. You guessed it, The Jays!! They are so easy to take pictures of as they are always begging for more peanuts. These are the picture of one of them when he found the swarming flying ants. He just sat there and had a feast!
Hopefully we will get out this weekend for more pictures. That is if the weather clears up a little.

They are back!

For two days there were no scrub jays around! Now everyone that has been here lately knows that they are always around begging for peanuts. My question is where do 7 scrub jays go for two days? Think there was a Jay convention that they all went off to? What is everyone else's guess?

Guess the important thing is that they are back!!

Snapple fact #11 & 48 & 126

#11: Flamingos turn pink from eating shrimp.
What color would you be?

#48: Cats can hear ultrasound.
Ever have a Cat Scan?

#126: A piegon's feathers are heavier than its bones.