80AcresOnline

Spring is one of our busiest bird seasons, with winter residents often still around, spring migrants moving through, year-rounders breeding, and the first of the summer residents showing up.

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The thicketing plums in full bloom–this thicket began with a few stems of plum stuck in the ground.

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During migration and winter we have a lot of birds in the grass–birds that fly up and dive down a little distance away, birds that fly up and perch in bushes, birds that fly up and away and dive down over there. Most of them are sparrows of some kind.    Today one of the “divers” posed long enough for me to note salient characteristics and even get some slightly blurry pictures–good enough for an ID:

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We had clear dry weather today to get some work done, and no choir duties.   Our first chore was moving water iris taken from the lily pond (which had overgrown with them) out onto the land, to see if they’ll naturalize in some of the temporary pools.  We were successful with a few transplants a few years back.

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We had gorgeous weather for Thanksgiving, and an out-of-state guest who enjoyed a moderately long stroll around the place.  We weren’t in rubber boots, so we couldn’t cross the creek or wander as freely, but still a fun hour or so out wandering.

Saturday, in not-as-perfect (but still pleasant) weather I made it across the creek in regular shoes–not exactly dry-shod, but not too wet-footed.   I did put three knapsacks of rocks from the rockpile near the creek onto the ford, which has migrated a bit with the flash floods this fall.  Water quality looked great, clear, spring-fed, and flowing strongly.   This view is upstream from the ford (shown in previous post); the braced fencepost to the right, on grass, shows the north fenceline where it crosses the creek…there’s a mess of flotsam caught on the water gap.

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Driving home from church today,  I saw several more “winter hawks” in the sky or perched along the road, which brought up the topic of our disparate bird populations through the seasons.   We have year-rounders, winter residents, winter visitors, summer nesters, and migrants in fall and spring.

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Forgot to mention yesterday that though I had heard a White-crowned Sparrow call in the yard a few days ago, I hadn’t spotted one until yesterday evening, up in the dry woods.  I came into the south end of the dry woods trail and startled some White-winged doves, who flapped off with their usual noisy behavior, but one smaller bird just hopped to the top of a cactus and sat there.

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Some of the birds on the place usually stay away from the house, but in this severe drought we have the only substantial water (the creek’s dry at the south end of town, a mile downstream–and probably beyond that, too.)    In the past week,  with a slightly decreased workload, I’ve been out looking for migrants in the back yard–hearing more different songs.   Today I was lucky enough to photograph this gorgeous male summer tanager:

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The annual GBBC sponsored by Cornell University and the Audubon Society is our big bird census activity of the year.    Usually I spent 1-2 hours in each of four sites on the land, but this year (since I’m under orders not to overdo as I recover from pneumonia)  today’s observations at least will all be literally “yard” ones.   So far that’s only eleven species….but my “special bird” in the year, the female Pyrrhuloxia, is still here.   (Usually I see a really interesting bird the day before the count starts, and then not again until afterwards.)

Anyone who’s never participated should consider doing so…it’s fun and it contributes useful information on bird distribution in winter.   There are maps, updated constantly, showing where observations have come from.

In December 2002, I was birdwatching at the site of what would be Fox Pavilion (hadn’t been built yet.)    We had a flock of cardinals that showed up every day…but that day, there was a female bird with them that wasn’t a cardinal.  It was a Pyrrhuloxia, a close relative whose normal range is well west of here.

I had only a little point and shoot camera then, and it was a heavily cloudy day, late in the afternoon, so my pictures of the female Pyrrhuloxia weren’t very good–just good enough to show that’s what it had to be.  That female was somewhat melanistic, very dark indeed, noticeably darker than the female cardinals perched in the same scrubby trees.

I watched every winter, but did not see another one until today: on the feeder in the back yard.   I wasn’t able to get a picture of it except through the study window–old glass, and can’t be opened so it can’t be cleaned–so it’s blurry–and handheld with my less-great lens, but here it is:

Pyrrhuloxia, female

Note that the bill is yellow, with the upper part (culmen) sharply curved, and the bird is a cool gray, with minimal red in the crest, around the eye, and in the folded wing.

Here’s a female cardinal (but this taken outside, so there’s no blurring by the old dirty glass in the window and with my best lens) as gray as they look in our yard–usually they show warmer colors–and always the red bill and more red in crest, eyes, wings, and tail.

Even though the Pyrrholoxia picture isn’t as good as I’d wish, it’s still nifty to see one back again, this time in sunlight and close enough to see details with the binoculars.    I expect these “desert cardinals” (as we called them when I was a kid) to appear in our area more often as climate change makes it hotter and dryer.