Summertime, and the Livin' is Easy

The days approach 90 degrees even here at 7000 feet; I’m harvesting tomatoes and peppers and wishing I started my raised beds earlier. Next year I will have a decent garden.
I mean it too.

All the fledglings are growing up, but still I see the occasional little beggar getting fed by what must be a nearly exhausted parent.

Here are Evening Grosbeaks…looks like the male helps raise the little ones. I wonder what happened to the little guy’s head. Could one of those dreaded Cowbirds, or some big icterid attacked the nest and nearly got the nestling? This little fluffy-head is still pretty young; perhaps he’ll turn-out okay. Obviously he’s being well-cared for.

There are many Black-headed Grosbeaks still here, too. I watch the little streak-headed youngsters beg for food right on the flat-feeder full of seeds. Parents patiently show them over and over how it is one opens a seed...insisting, for the most part, that they give it a try themselves. What good parents. One youngster I saw actually fluttered wings and gaped for a Hairy Woodpecker that came to the suet block. For a minute I thought the woodpecker was going to feed it; but I think that peck was a repremand...the youngster jumped back and quit begging. Too funny.

The Bullock’s Orioles are still here, though I mostly see the females these days. What I am seeing suddenly…are lots and lots of Common Grackles and what I imagine are blackbirds and starlings. I have to admit I begrudge them a single sunflower-seed and so have not really spent time watching the big bullies. The Grosbeaks, the Goldfinches and the Siskins all eat together peaceably…but when those blasted Grackles show up, the other birds bolt. I’ve watched them a bit and wonder too; just how many young birds these birds raise at once? Gads, there are bunches of scruffy juveniles which are still getting real feathers in the flock. They're big birds with yellow eyes, but they don't have their shine-on. Are these things like chickens; do they lay eight or ten eggs in a clutch? I’ll have to do some research…and report back. It seems the flocks are growing exponentially; and mixed with Red-winged Blackbirds and gawdknowswhatelse.

Okay, here is what I discovered: The BNS says:

“The Common Grackle is now among the most significant agricultural pest species in North America, causing millions of dollars in damage to sprouting corn. It has also earned a reputation for eating other birds’ eggs and nestlings, and it occasionally kills and consumes adult birds.”

“Once rare in West; now, along with Great-tailed Grackle and Brown-headed Cowbird (Molothrus ater), [the Common Grackle} has increased greatly within its original range and expanded its breeding range westward during twentieth century (Marzluff et al. 1994). …In Colorado it “seemed to have displaced Brewer’s Blackbird from most urban and agricultural areas on eastern plains” by 1970s and was expanding as breeder into western mountains and valleys (Andrews and Righter 1992). Breeding range “recently” expanded into ne. Utah, perhaps from Colorado (Behle et al. 1985). …Increased occurrence in these states suggests that breeding may occur in the near.” Wow...no wonder we have a hard time finding Brewer's Blackbirds.

About Fall Migration, the BNS goes on to say: “Fall migration can begin in Aug–Sep, but typically peaks late Oct–early Nov and is mostly completed by early Dec. … Fall migratory pathways are oriented primarily toward Gulf of Mexico. Severe winter weather may force birds farther south.” So…they’re just starting and it's gonna get worse through late fall. [sigh] I'd best get more of that safflower seed; they don't like that stuff much.

The site goes on to say these thugs migrate diurnally, usually in mixed-species flocks with Red-winged Blackbirds (Agelaius phoeniceus), European Starlings (Sturnus vulgaris), Brown-headed Cowbirds, and less frequently, Euphagus blackbirds and American Robins (Turdus migratorius). Reeaaally. My respect for our Robins has just fallen a bit. Whoda thought. All I can say is I’m glad I don’t live near corn, rice or sunflower seed farms, where the birds can congregate by the millions. It is especially adapted to opening acrons, however. Apparently they are pretty good at fishing, too. (ZOTTOLI)



And finally, clutch size: one to seven eggs and attempted twice a season. Well, we had an easy winter, seems to me; perhaps that’s why we gots so many of these big guys.

The word grackle is derived from the Latin word graculus, which means "to cough" …that would be their 'song'.

The Wonder of Learning

A view of the Wahatoyas: Breasts of the Earth

I am approaching sixty years old…the new forty. I find it amusing that I am embracing the interests and hobbies of an older generation.

Spring snowstorms; why I feed birds.
A Black-headed Grosbeak w/Bollock's Oriole and
Bollock's Oriole (m) with Hairy Woodpecker (f)

and three-in-one: an Evening Grosbeak, a Black-headed Grosbeak and a Bollock's Oriole .

Still, having always had an interest in the natural world; from camping to snake-hunting, from gardening to bring home crayfish to watch the birth of thousands upon thousands of young; from watching and raising chickens to catching and keeping lizards, shrews and large, unusual bugs; I have enjoyed time outside watching the creatures that live there. Now I am bird watching.

...haven't seen them for weeks, and suddenly there was
a Dark-eyed Junco.

In Bill Thompson III’s book Identify Yourself; the 50 Most Common Birding Identification Challenges, Kenn Kaufman writes in his forward to the book “…knowing the names for things can change our perceptions of them for the better.”

He goes on to say that when someone asks “I wonder what kind of bird that is?” and cares enough to find the name of a bird, that person has started down the road to becoming a bird watcher.

The beautiful Western Tangier, a short-time visitor here. Heyyyyyy, could this be a Jelly-head impersonator?
(looks like a jelly-drip to meee.)


The Tangier shares a meal with a Black-headed Grosbeak


A male (left) and female (right) Bullock's Oriole,
but I'm not at all sure which is prettier.

The female Black-headed Grosbeak is quite similar
to the female Rose-breasted, but the lack of strong
streaking on her breast identifies her.

I suspect that is why there is a move to get children outside. Too many are spending days inside with television, computers and game-players and not discovering, and naming, the treasures in our natural world. Is it any surprise so many young people do not care to keep habitats clean or intact? Is it any surprise that people who do not know nature feel that humans, as the top-predator, have the right to change the world in any way that suits them to make life easier for them, even if it gravely impacts the world itself?

When I first saw this tiny bird, I thought it was a Bluebird. While
he is blue, this is the Lazuli Bunting..only 5-6" long and unlike the
Bluebird he sports a wide, conical beak for breaking seeds.

Kevin Cook says today in his weekly column Pathfinder: “To know the steppe is to love it; and knowing and loving are a simple commitment: teach the mind and the heart will follow.” and “If one tethers their sense of beauty to trees, then the absence of trees implies an absence of beauty misperceived as emptiness. Such tethering is a bondage of mind and soul.”

As George Schaller observed three and a half decades ago: "The character of a region has much to do with the character of the person describing it, for we see our own heart in a landscape. That the mind understands, the heart can love. It's a kind of magic.”

A seldom seen Rose-breasted Grosbeak with the
oft-seen Black-headed Grosbeak and ubiquitous Pine Siskin.

Mike, of Mike’s Birding and Digiscoping discusses ‘Electrolandia’ and The Nature Conservancy’s study that finds kids prefer TV over Trees. He quotes Richard Louv regarding saving our children from ‘nature-deficit disorder’ in his book Last Child in the Woods; where the author argues teaching awareness of and appreciation for the natural world will not only teach our children science and nurture creativity…it will ensure that we have stewards for our future.

All this brings to my mind how much I relish my childhood and the time I had to play outdoors; that my parents not only instilled in me a love of books, but by what they read to me, instilled the magic of nature. My parents were not perfect, nor were they ‘outdoorsy’; they were not well-educated people but they were curious and read about and how to do things. They had an innate respect for the natural world and showed me that respect when, as smokers, they refused to smoke when we went camping. Oddly, while interested in organized religion they also saw great spirituality in spending time in nature and saw the woods as close to godliness as any church.

I have to laugh at myself, the enthusiastic new birder. I am overly excited to see new birds; I’m feeding them at several many stations in my yard, I’m keeping lists of birds I see, I’m taking as many pictures as I possibly can. In my enthusiasm, I’m posting my failures and success; both good photos and bad. I am learning how to write, and what are the rules of blogging. I am growing. Already, though I post them here, I am rapidly loosing interest in photos of birds at feeders. I want to learn more, I want to get out more; I want to remember birds in the natural canopy of a tree, on the natural branch of a tree or in the sky where they are so comfortable. I can see my photos are improving, and they will continue to become more.

That is the wonder of learning; we become more.

The small town of La Veta is nestled within the Huerfano Valley
against the Spanish Peaks, also known as The Wahatoya:
Breasts of the Earth.

International Migratatory Bird Day

This weekend, I participated in the annual International Migratory Bird Count that occurs the second Saturday in May, that this year was May 10th. I accompanied several seasoned birders from AVAS and had an absolute blast. The day began warm, but blustery and at one point was down-right windy. Many birds seemed somewhat inactive and hunkered down to stay out of the wind, but as the wind died down they took to the air...to the degree that we had what was considered a near-record with about 116 named birds! Holy cow! I don't have the 'official list' yet, but...116 different birds in a single day in Colorado! Sheeshhhhhhhhhhhhh

Interspersed here, I'll include some of the photos I've taken in my yard the last couple of days...as part of my own 'Bird Count'. The Great Horned Owl nest is the one I photographed the other day, you can just see nestlings peeping over the edge. I wanted to comment on the female Black-headed Grosbeak and how beautiful she is. So different from the other Grosbeak females, this one has lots of color.

But, back to the topic at hand...this is a counting day, not a photographing or bird watching day. Still, we saw everything from Golden Eagle, Peregrine Falcon, Swainson's Hawk and Osprey to Willets, Godwits, Dowitchers, Plovers, Sandpipers and other tiny little shore-birds. Most of these birds, I've never identified so I must have had at least 50 'Firsts', but not 30 minutes after making the comment I really wanted to see a bird I find most intriguing, a Shrike...we saw a Loggerhead Shrike! Then we saw another, and yet another! Apparently one scuffled with another bird in what appeared to be a territory dispute, but I missed it. I did see the winner, our Shrike, then hope to a nearby branch and remove something it had impaled on a twig and feed it to his mate. I find that fascinating, and this storing behavior is why the bird is sometimes called the Butcher Bird, as people have discovered six or eight mice hung neatly in a row along a barbed-wire fence; the Shrike's larder. Too cool, huh?

We also saw a couple of Brown Thrashers, a stunning bird; Bohemian Waxwings, hundreds of different kinds of Swallows and Swifts, my first Kingbirds, and I spotted a beautiful little Blue-gray Gnatcatcher which was identified for me by one of the others. I also saw my first Lewis’s Woodpecker, my first Bullock’s Oriole, first Lark Bunting, and even first Mute Swan. Lordy, it was an awesome day; from a single Great Horned Owl to hundreds of Red-necked Phalarope and the young Peregrine Falcon hunting them and the ducks closer to shore. It was a marvelous day.


I call this photo: Dandi Lions...

Yard Birds

During the last couple of days, I’ve logged several more ‘Firsts’ in the birding department. First birds period…first time I’ve ever really seen them at all and firsts for my ‘Yard Bird’ list (it's a birder-thing...track all the birds you can see in (or from) your own yard.) For one, I finally saw a Black-headed Grosbeak here. Unfortunately, the first few pictures were through glass and of a puffy, sick-looking bird. Finally, a beautiful, health male showed up and let me photograph him through an open door. That makes three [species] Grosbeaks that I’ve found in my yard…apparently there are three more. Oh, and the Evening Grosbeaks seem to be visiting again...

This afternoon, I observed the male Hummingbird again, but didn’t get pictures. I did, however, get one of a female. A friend says it is likely a Broad-tailed Hummingbird, though the male I’ve watched seems to be the tiniest thing I’ve ever seen…I just assumed it is a Ruby-throated Hummingbird; but have since heard it is unlikely I'd see one here. The suggestion is it might be a Black-chinned Hummingbird. Based on size alone…I might guess the thing is a Calliope, but truth be told, I’m not at all sure I’d be able to tell the difference in a Calliope, a Broad-tailed, a Black-chinned or a Ruby-throated Hummingbird. Later in the day, I discovered a female hummer trapped in my garage…beating herself silly at a window. It took several tries, but I finally caught her in a fish-net; poor thing was trying to bite the broom I tried first. When I finally caught her, she made a high-pitched call which drew in a male who hovered in my face for several minutes. At that time his neck looked purple, rather than red. Sheeshhhhh, how does one learn to tell colors that change in the light? Since I had feeders handy, I tried to get the little female to take some sugar-water before I let her go…I am not used to handling such tiny birds and sure do hope I didn’t hurt her when I caught her. While she wouldn’t drink, she seemed to fly just fine; fast and away. Part of me wished I’d had the nerve to more thoroughly examine her. BirdChick is my inspiration.

The other day I got a nice photo of the Turkey Vultures in the tree in my front yard. I understand such a gathering is called a wake of vultures; too funny! Hopefully I won’t have the issues some people have had with Vultures, but I will say, I’ve never seen them sitting on a car, much less pulling rubber pieces off of one.

Just as I was finishing up a late lunch, I noticed a blue dot at a feeder and grabbed my binoculars. It was a small bird, long though, and it flew when I moved too quickly. Patience prevailed though, I found the tree it flew to and got a photo through a screened window…enough for a friend to tell me what I was seeing. The bird has a blue head, an orange breast and a creamy belly…and a beak more like a seed-cracking Finch than a bug-eating Bluebird. At first I wondered if it was a Grosbeak, but it was so tiny; only a bit over 5” or so…about the same size as the Pine Siskins sharing the feeder. I had no idea what it could be. I looked all through a field guide, but couldn’t discover it. It had very dark eyes and finally I noticed the bars on the wings. I don’t even know how to pronounce this bird’s name, but it’s a Lazuli Bunting; I’m not at all familiar with Buntings. Thanks again, Gary.

May Day

May Day…probably has more holidays than any other day of the year. While it is also known as International Worker’s Day (or Labor Day), I rather like the older notion; the celebration of Beltane which traditionally meant the livestock were moved to valley pastures and mountain grazing lands. While I particularly dislike that today’s ranchers have some sort of special dispensation to graze livestock on our public lands without accompanying herdsmen (ever find cattle on the deck of your very remote, off-grid, cabin-in-the-woods?), I do like the European ways of doing things that are so much more in harmony with nature; herdsmen and dogs moving with livestock keep them from harm and move them away from homesteads…and also remove the ‘need’ for laying out poison for predators that might harass untended livestock.

May Day is the celebration of Spring. I enjoy a good bonfire…and who wouldn’t enjoy dancing around a May Pole? As a child, I remember making posies by pushing a small handful of tiny flowers and pretty greens through the center of paper doilies and offering them to the various moms in the neighborhood; we made them in school for our own mothers, too. While I’ve not actually danced around a May Pole, I have danced a Medicine Wheel to the hypnotic beat of drumming at a celebration of Solstice. The idea that we are connected to the earth and her seasons is comforting to me; nature is my church. Perhaps I am a pagan at heart.

This past weekend, the last day or two of April, I heard my first Hummingbird of the season and put up feeders outside my kitchen window. It took a day or two, perhaps because I’m away at work all day, but I’ve now seen a small, green hummer with ruby-red throat feeding at my window. He’s got a dark head; it took a few visits to see that his deep-scarlet throat is a different color. I will have to watch him when he becomes more accustomed to my presence to see if he’s got a white collar. I’ll get photos later, but I’m fairly certain I have a Ruby-throated Hummingbird.

Yesterday, as I returned from work, dropping my bags and glancing out the window, I saw yet another new bird! He patiently allowed me a couple very fast photographs, perhaps another time I’ll get them in focus…and from outside those old double-paned windows. I have never seen a Black-headed Grosbeak before! Fun Fact: this is one of the few birds that eat Monarch Butterflies, whose diet of milkweed produces an accumulation of noxious chemicals that most birds are unable to tolerate.

I notice this bird is marked a lot like the Rose-breasted Grosbeak...and then read that they sometimes interbred. I wonder if this bird is a hybrid. Watching him I suddenly discovered there were two! I'll get better photos soon.

How is it we can live somewhere for years and it’s not until we actively look for them, that we even see the variety of birds in our own backyard? So far, I’ve seen over 44 different species in mine…but only in the last two months! I want to keep my eyes open.