Spring Migratory Birds

Posted on by
3

Spring migration is over, most of the neo-tropical birds now settled in their breeding areas for summer’s chick raising. I didn’t have quite the numbers of migrants through my gardens this year. I don’t know if it’s that I simply didn’t see as many or if there weren’t as many; I hope it’s the first and not the second. That being said, it’s a challenge to watch the many flitty birds that visit my front garden, as I don’t have a unobtrusive spot in which to hide and observe. Lincoln and Chipping Sparrows showed up, as they scattered when I came into the garden. I saw busy, chatty Eastern Phoebes, and Great Crested and Crested Flycatchers; I usually heard them before seeing them and identified those (and others) using my Merlin app to identify calls and songs.

My back garden is still the best place to bird watch and it didn’t appoint. In an earlier post, I profiled a male Summer Tanager, Piranga rubra,

…and an Indigo Bunting, Passerina cyanea, who visited on the same day. I wonder if they coordinated, as red and blue go nicely together?

The tanagers usually show up in May and hang out near my beehive as they’re bee and wasp hunters. I’ve only seen an Indigo a couple of other times, so I was pleased with this pretty fella; he was obliging for the photo shoot. Both of these birds breed in the southern half of the US, the bunting with a wider range than the tanager. As a general rule, I only see these birds during spring or fall migration, though female Summer Tanagers have visited my gardens in summer months.

Painted Buntings also make an appearance in early May, usually for a couple of days. The only male Painted Bunting, Passerina ciris, that I saw this year was perched in my SIL’s Retama Tree, which sits outside one of our bedroom windows, offering close-ups of its lovely flowers and foliage at the window. I saw movement out the window, observed the handsome guy, ran for the camera, realized the battery was dead, said some bad words, replaced the battery, and by the time I returned for the shot, Mr. Gorgeous was semi-hiding in the pretty foliage and flowers of the Retama.

Harrumph!

On the brighter feathered side, two female Painted Buntings spent an afternoon noshing on seed fallen from the the safflower and sunflower feeders. They never were close enough to one another to acheive both in a photo, but this pretty one was still long enough for me to capture her nibbling on a seed. Her sister bird is just as attractive.

Two pairs of Common Yellowthroats, Geothlypis trichas, spent some time in my gardens over several weeks. This male, with his lemon yellow chest and jaunty black mask was all about bathing in the pond and fluttering dry in nearby shrubs. I never think these cuties the least bit common, despite their names.

The females Common Yellowthroats were hard to see, only allowing the briefest of glimpses as they bopped for seeds and insects in, out, and through undergrowth. One of the females finally emerged from the greens of the garden long enough for me to capture her in a few photos. She’s less colorful than her mate, but darling nonetheless and her yellow is just as lemony as her male partner. These tiny birds fly far for their breeding, as they are mostly out of Texas to raise their families.

I like this bird-on-bird photo!

We were gone for the first week of May and that’s a prime time for migrants through my gardens, including Baltimore, Bullock’s, and Orchard Orioles. This female Bullock’s Oriole, Icterus bullockii, was a late arrival and perched amiably on a metal bird just so I could catch a shot of her. She was only around one evening and I saw no other orioles this spring unless they all came through when I was traveling. I’m a bit sad about that, either the lack or orioles or my having missed them. Orioles are easy to spot in a garden owing to their bright colors! I hope this one is north of Texas now, somewhere in the central or western part of the country, preparing for or tending to some healthy chicks.

Hummingbirds are here, too, though no photos yet. They’ll hang out through summer nectaring on a variety of my plants, most of the tiny terrors leaving by late October. Resident birds are tending to growing chicks, or have already competed the intense part of parenting, and breeding season will wrap up soon for most species around here. It’ll be mostly the usual suspects until sometime in August, when new calls are heard, and young birds hatched far north of here, together with their parents, make their way southward again for winter, continuing the timeless migratory patterns their genetics demand.

Double Trouble

Posted on by
13

This is the second spring that a pair of Red-shouldered Hawks, Buteo lineatus, have chosen to nest in my neighborhood. Their nest sits snug in a large Red Oak tree around the corner from my street; it’s the same nest that they built last year and you can read about it here.

In recent weeks, one or both adults have spent time perched at the top of my SIL’s life-supporting snag, the remains of the once living Arizona Ash tree. Usually, there is one adult atop the snag, but often the mated pair sit companionably together, preening and observing the goings-on in the neighborhood.

It’s nice to observe the still, calm birds and to clearly see the front and back feather patterns of the hawks. The front red shoulder with barred chest combines with the warm, burnished brown and banded tail feathers in back to create a lovely bird. The bird on the left (I think it’s the female) demonstrates the name of this hawk quite well with the ‘red’ draped across the shoulder. Red-shouldered hawks’ intelligent dark eyes watch for prey, their formidable talons catch that prey, typically in flight.

These are magnificent birds, beautiful, graceful–and huge!

If you’re squeamish about a hawk’s meal, close your eyes as you scroll passed this next photo. I’d been called outside by a neighbor about a non-hawk event and when I headed back inside, saw this adult, smack dab in the middle of the sitting area of my front garden, enjoying its meal of rat. The hawk was wet, as a downpour had occurred earlier, but that didn’t negatively impact its meal. The hawk wasn’t happy with me when I grabbed my camera for a photo. It called at me a couple of times, then picked up its meal and hopped to part of the garden where I couldn’t easily follow, and so, could eat in peace without the bother of an obnoxious human.

Fair enough.

Aside from these two gorgeous adults, it’s more than just double hawk trouble! The couple produced two baby hawks, eyasses, which have become visible in the nest as they’ve grown. They’ve traded their white fuzzy feathers for semi-adult plumage, and I believe they fledged this week, in the last day or so. No more bobbling baby hawk heads, the nest appears empty of its young occupants.

I caught a shot of these cute little raptors about 5 days ago. It always amazes me how quickly wild babies grow, especially birds.

I hope to see this family hunting in the ‘hood and I look forward to more hawk watching as summer moves forward. My neighborhood hosts this pair and their offspring, a pair of Red-tailed Hawks, Buteo jamaicensis, and at least one pair of Cooper’s Hawks, Astur cooperii. That’s a lot of hunting in the skies. I wish them all rodenticide-free rats and mice, as well as other delectables (ahem–we have plenty of White-winged Doves, European Starlings, and House Sparrows) for the taking.

Just sayin’.

Pinks on Pinks

Posted on by
11

When deciding what to plant in a particular area, I take into account a number of factors: amount of light the plant will receive, how large the mature plant will become, whether I have a hose nearby for the mid-to-late summer watering, and what other vegetation occupies the area, so that there is a complementary blast of colors and textures year-round and that the community created all play nicely with one another.

However, plants tend to have will of their own and do as they please, growing where their seeds land, despite the gardener’s intentions.

The Tina-planted plant is the Pink Skullcap, Scutellaria suffrutescens, a spreading, low-growing evergreen sprinkled with small pink flowers throughout the long growing season. The I’m-gonna-land-where-I-please plant is the mallow Rock Rose, Pavonia lasiopetala, hovered with arched branches and open-petaled flowers, over the Skullcap.

Pinks on pinks, I’m charmed by the Barbie-esque look!

Since the photo, I’ve cut back the Rock Rose as they respond well to pruning because they bloom on new wood. Trust me when I say that it’ll grow back quickly enough. The Skullcap has been in that spot for many years and had spread to about four feet in diameter. During late winter I pruned it to a two-foot diameter mound, making room for some other plants to settle in next door, out of the photo’s range.

Clearly, these two twin pinks get along and I’m sure in short order, there will be further pinks-on-pinks as summer moves forward and everything continues to grow apace.