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Northern Mockingbird has Arrived!

The Northern mockingbird has arrived! I suspect he's already been here 3 or 4 days, but today is the first time I heard or saw one, so I'm calling it today: 5/8/2011.

Because I wasn't quick enough these were the best pictures I could get, at around 200 yards:

Typically, they don't spend much time on my property. When they are here and see me, they get as far away from me as they can. Consequently, I have never gotten a good mockingbird picture.

This summer is going to be different -- I'm going to find out what they like and provide it for them.

F-Stop and Depth of Field

I've always known that in photography, the aperture affects the field depth.  A small f-stop means the aperture is larger, and a large f-stop means the aperture is smaller.  A large f-stop, therefore, necessitates reduced exposure time.  With a small f-stop, the shutter has to stay open longer for a proper exposure.

I like things to be simple. Especially when I'm taking pictures, I don't like to think about aperture size, f-stops, etc. My thinking has been that I could set the control on my camera to "Tv" (Shutter priority), choose my speed, and let the camera intelligence make all the decisions for me.  I believed, because a higher f-stop lets in less light, that depth of field was governed by how long the film was exposed by light. Although incorrect, that line of reasoning usually worked pretty well for me, because most of my pictures are taken with a zoom lens.  Then I took this picture (speed 1/160, f. 5.6):

With my reasoning, it would make sense that at 1/160 the depth of field would be greater. Instead, note how the bird 'pops' out of the background!  That made me curious, so I decided to explore this further. I had also taken this (speed 1/160, f. 8.0):

I realized my reasoning must be faulty. So I researched it on the internet (thanks, Internet!). I discovered that it's the angle of light hitting the film that affects depth of field the most. When using a zoom lens, the light's angle is smaller the more the subject is magnified. So the depth of field is already going to be shorter than it would be if you were using a shorter lens. The aperture size also affects the angle of light hitting the film. The larger the aperture (and smaller the f-stop), the wider the angle of light allowed to hit the film. The smaller the aperture (larger f-stop), the shorter the light angle.  So shutter speed has absolutely nothing to do with it!

My equipment is the best I can afford. But it's not good enough to take the pictures I want to take in every situation. I need to make up for that by being better at using the equipment. So I will be spending some time in the next couple of weeks exploring the f-stop. 

To help me remember what the f-stop is, I "borrowed" a diagram from Wikipedia.*

 

The smaller the hole the higher the f-stop number. The higher that number, the tighter the angle. The tighter the angle, the shorter the depth of field. 

One could think of the f-stop as the "Angle Tightness Indicator." The higher the number, the tighter the light angle. When you want a short depth of field, you need a high angle tightness.

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* Wikipedia image came from Wikimedia Commons. It is licensed under the GNU Free Documentation Licence. The picture can be found here.

Barn Swallow Arrival!

I first saw a Barn swallow today. I'm going to put their arrival at sometime yesterday, 5/6/2011.

Dovirsety

Around my house, I have frequently seen 3 species of doves: Eurasian collared, White-winged and Mourning. The most common here is the Eurasian collared dove:

According to the experts, this dove is larger than either the White-winged or Mourning doves, but they all look the same size to me.

This species comes from Europe and Asia presumably, and has covered most of the continent after being introduced to Florida in the 1970s. I'd prefer indigenous species like the Mourning dove, but if they can survive here without my help and aren't wiped out by the many raptors around here, then maybe they belong. I am a little concerned about the native species -- interbreeding and competition can't be a good thing.

Right now, there are about 30 doves living around my house. Most of them are Eurasian collareds, but there is a small percentage of the other two species in the mix. I'll take some pictures of the others when the opportunity presents itself. There's a cycle -- the flock grows to around 50 birds, the hawks move in and kill off 90% of them, then the flock grows to around 50 birds again.

I have a friend in California who works as a butcher. He said these birds are delicious, told me how to clean the carcass for consumption and suggested I eat them.  Although I'm not opposed to hunting. I'd rather just shoot them with my camera. I have to admit though -- I do wonder sometimes how they would look and smell, roasting in my oven.

Screwing up a Perfectly Good Picture

I looked out the patio window a little while ago, and saw a crow taking a bath. I've never been all that excited about crows.  They're everywhere, they're loud, they all look the same. But a well-groomed crow is not without appeal. I bet the chicks dig him (at least his do).

I thought this crow looked comical. So I grabbed my camera and took a few shots.  Here's the best one:

Even shot through a tinted window, it looked pretty good. After I applied a couple of touch-ups using Gimp, it was a picture I could almost be proud of. Except:

1. The stick in front of him ruins the whole picture. It's not something I noticed through the viewfinder, but it is very noticeable in the image.
2. The silver vertical bar behind him is a little distracting.

I can't do much about the first item. I put the sticks there for birds to perch on. If I remove the stick, maybe I can reproduce this shot without the stick, but that would defeat the stick's purpose: If a bird perches on that stick I can crop it so that the fiberglass pond isn't visible. It allows me to change the subject's context. So the stick stays.

I can do something about the vertical bar.  It's just a tree trunk with foil wrapped around it to discourage my goats from eating the tree. A couple of months ago, I discovered a goat stripping the bark off of that tree. He  stripped it all the way around the trunk, top to bottom, except for a 1/4" strip.  The aluminum foil made the goat lose interest.  I'm still not sure if the three is going to survive. For my pictures, all I have to do is paint the foil light brown, and the trunk would barely be noticeable. So that's what I'm going to do this weekend.

More Bird Photo Experimentation

I decided to make lemonade anyway.

I thought I would do some experimenting with shutter speeds in the snowstorm.  I don't know where birds go in a snowstorm, and I couldn't find any in the trees around my house. So I went with the next best thing: My granddaughter Kay-Lynne's punching bag. My daughter brought it over for temporary outside storage and it never left.

I should note that since I added a UV filter to my camera last week, I've been able to get good pictures at lower shutter speeds. Where previously 1/400 was the slowest I could go and still get consistently good close-ups, that number is now 1/320 (and maybe lower).

Here, the first picture was taken at 1/250.  You'll notice that the snowflakes traveled about 1/2 inch during this time.  

(I think that means the snowflakes were traveling at ~40 MPH but my math could be wrong. I also think, based on the angle of the white streaks left by the snowflakes, that the wind was ~20 MPH. So the bag was moving a little, just like a perched bird.)

The bag, which is moving slightly due to the fast wind, still looks fairly crisp.

The second picture, at 1/30, would still be a good picture if it was a bird, though it is blurred slightly. There are no snowflakes, just long white streaks on the "film."  The most telling part is the big 'E'.  It's darkened slightly compared to the picture above.

I would consider this a fairly good picture, though not nearly as good as the first picture. And since it's cloudy and overcast, 1/400 isn't really an option.

I really think that the UV filter I added has improved my picture taking.

I like capturing all of the bird details perfectly. But since this picture, I've started thinking more about composure:

The details aren't blurry, but they are softened. Not what I would normally wish for. But I'm very, very happy with this picture.  Most of the pictures I like would look good in a bird field manual. But sometimes it's really hard to get close enough for that kind of perfection, unless you have the $8,000.00 to spend on the right zoom lens. I don't know about you, but I don't have that kind of scratch.

This summer, I'll be doing a lot of experimenting. I'm still going to spend time trying to get closeups of birds I don't have good closeups of yet. But I'm also going to try to be creative at low shutter speeds.

Even if you can't afford state-of-the-art hardware, you can still take really nice pictures. It's just hard work. My solution is to spend a lot of time "lying in wait." My brother-in-law took an amazing wetlands sunset picture -- with the 2MP camera in his phone. It was poster quality, and my sister made a poster out of it.

Good digital cameras can be had for cheap these days. I bought Kay-Lynne a camera for her birthday this coming Wednesday (she never reads my blog, so my secret is safe). It's a really nice camera, with a modest zoom, for under $150. The trick is to improve the zoom level. With SLR, you just buy a zoom lens. But even without SLR, it's not too difficult, and it's far less expensive.  Here's one $40 example.

If you have fun taking bird pictures, I'd be interested in hearing from you. Especially if you've come up with creative solutions to getting close with a budget digital camera.

It just stopped snowing. Maybe today isn't a complete loss after all.

Snowing on the First Weekend in Spring?

I said that Thursday was the first day of spring, according to the Cassin's Kingbirds. Then I woke up this morning to an inch of snow on the ground. And it's still snowing. Yesterday, I unplugged the heater I use to keep the water pipes from busting. Today, I plugged it back in.

Yesterday, I went to Talin's Market to get some quail eggs. I was going to make some decoy nests for Brown-headed cowbirds. Today, I'm looking out the window at an almost horizontal sheet of falling snow. Temperature outside is 30 degrees Fahrenheit, and wind speed is 20 miles per hour.

Some people say "When life hands you lemon, make lemonade." You might expect me to close with a sentiment like that. But I just wish the sun would come out. I've waited months for spring. Now that it's arrived, I don't think it's too much to ask that it would just stop snowing.

Brown Headed Cowbird. They're here too. :(

I heard the call of a Brown-headed cowbird in a wooded area next to my house today, 4/30/2011. I didn't see it, but I know it's there.  I'm not particularly overjoyed about this, because these birds are a parasite on other species, the welfare bums of the bird world.  They aren't hard to look at, however, so I'll post some pictures of them this summer sometime.

Tomorrow I'll go to Talin market, pick up some quail eggs and make some nests in hopes I can get the cowbirds to replace those eggs instead of the eggs of the birds that live around my house.  I'll post pictures of everything I do, and will let you know if I am successful.

Black-Headed Grosbeaks Have Arrived!

The Black-headed Grosbeaks arrived today (or last night), 4/30/2011. I took some pictures this morning, but I was using a 2x extender at the time and there wasn't enough light so the pictures didn't come out too well.  That's ok -- here's  a picture I took a couple of years ago:

Black-headed grosbeaks are fruit-eaters except during the nesting season. During this time, they eat plenty of grasshoppers, too. But they love strawberry jam, and will spend a lot of time at your jam feeder if you put one up.  See previous posts in this blog for a few jam feeders I've made over the past two years.

Cassin's Kingbirds Have Arrived!

I walked outside and heard the unmistakable call of a Cassin's Kingbird this morning! Two were flying overhead. I saw two more in an oak tree. I ran in and shouted to my wife,

"Babe! What day is it today?"

"Saturday."

"Yes, but what day is it today?"

"I don't know."

"It's the day in 2011 that the Cassin's Kingbirds arrived! It's the first day of spring!"

"No, they've been here a couple of days."

"What? Why didn't you tell me?"

"I forgot."

"You forgot? How could you forget?"

After going back and forth like this for a couple of minutes, we established that their arrival (and the first day of spring) was Thursday, 4/28/2011.

I tried to get some pictures, but they were too far away. I'll go stealth tomorrow morning for a couple of hours when they're most active.

Yellow-Rumped Warbler Arrives!

Dendroica coronata (s. auduboni), the Yellow-Rumped warbler, has arrived! Sibley's says they eat flying insects mostly, and I believe that's true. Although I have a very healthy grasshopper population, I don't think I've ever seen a Yellow-Rumped warbler hunting them. I believe this bird inhabits a hunting niche between 3' and 20' off the ground. This keeps it from competing with the Ash-Throated flycatcher (which actually eats mostly grasshoppers around here) and the Cassin's kingbird, which eats grasshoppers and does a lot of hawking but in open fields.

This bird is easy to identify because its coloration (yellow splashes on high-contrast silver and white), and the way it flits about are both unique and very enjoyable to watch. As you can see in this picture, it's truly a gorgeous bird. Because of how it moves, it's much better "live" than in a still picture.  But that's probably true of any bird.

This is a male of the Audubon's subspecies. He may have arrived yesterday, 4/24/2011, but he might just as well have arrived this morning or a week ago. Every year they nest in the same place; just outside of my yard in a dense 40'x40' successional stand of mixed juniper, pinon and gambel oak, surrounded by a large open field. I can't be sure of the date, because I only see him when I sit down near the thicket for an hour or so, and today is the first time I've done that this year. According to the Natl Geographic text*, this bird arrives in late April. So if he arrived today he's right on schedule. I will check next year starting on 4/10 to get a more accurate arrival date, however.

This is a tough bird to photograph, at least for me. He's nervous and doesn't stay in one place for very long. In fact, he spends more time doing this than anything else:

But what makes it most difficult for me, is that I have to focus manually, because he likes to perch inside the confines of the thicket and that confuses the autofocus too often to make using it anything but a risky endeavor. He rarely hangs out at the edges except when in transit, and he never hangs out anywhere for long. This spring I resolve to set up a comfortable folding recliner, a gallon of ice tea, and sit out there until I get a good picture.

The top picture (blurry as it is) is the best picture I've ever taken of this bird, so I do feel encouraged.

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* The Natl Geographic reference text: National Geographic Complete Birds of North America. For quick reference it's not quite as handy or small as Sibley's. But it has more in-depth information and is a needed complement to the Sibley's guide in my opinion.

Greed: The Corvid Condition

I like to feed crows leftovers, because I know they're going to keep coming to visit my camera until the food is gone, no matter how much food I put out. Many bird species, but especially those in the corvid family, stash away food as insurance against future hunger.

This guy kept coming back until he had disposed of four slices of bread.  At first he took the bread and dunked it in water, I think so that it would go down faster. He ate his fill that way, which probably took fully half of the bread I put out. Once full, he started taking bread away to stash in a safe place, or maybe to feed his offspring.

My wife was telling me she took a fried chicken drumstick out of the fridge yesterday that had been there for awhile, and put it on the feeder platform shown in the pictures.  This crow took it out into our yard and spent the next hour or so stripping off the meat and carting it off. He then left the bone behind and one of our dogs found it.

Greed is not just a human condition. It's a behavior that ensures survival for animals. Next time someone says you're selfish, tell them it's a survival instinct.

Oh, and P.S: That feeder platform?  You're right -- it is a satellite dish.

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I am a little disappointed in these pictures. The field of view is too short, and his eye is a little out of focus as a result. But next time I put out food for crows I'll take another shot at it.

Brewer's Blackbird has Arrived!

Sometime yesterday afternoon (4/22/2011), the Brewer's blackbirds (and probably the Brown-Headed cowbirds) arrived.  I took this picture this morning. It's not a very good picture, but I'll take some more after they've had a couple of days to settle down.

So far there are just 3 or 4 blackbirds, and I haven't positively identified cowbirds at my house. But I heard the call of a cowbird about 10 miles from my house when driving home yesterday. So I know the babykillers are in the East Mountains too.

More on Ash-Throated Flycatcher

This Ash-Throated flycatcher has been hanging around the house waiting for his wife to show up. Chee! Chee! CheeChee! She (if it's the same pair) usually nests in a box on a fence in my yard. I hope she made it this time. He's been here for a couple of weeks already. Unless he is actually a she. I can't tell until I see both of them together.

These birds are master grasshopper hunters. I haven't watched them for a full 16-hour day. But if they hunt grasshoppers all day at the rate they do when I am watching them, they're capable, combined, of killing 200 grasshoppers a day. That's why not mowing your lawn can be so important.

Cassin's Kingbird, and Plagiarism

I've never seen anything published about the Cassin's kingbird's mating ritual. Not to say such data doesn't exist, just that I've never seen it. One day a couple of years ago, I added few lines about the wedding dances I have observed, to the Cassin's Kingbird entry on Wikipedia. 

I forgot I made the entry, until I was looking for some information on this bird recently. I found some text that looked familiar, on someone's site. Then another site, the exact text. Another place, the same text with minor changes. Then on Wikipedia, I saw the original entry. I hit the History tag and saw that my login had made the entry.

I realized that two things had happened:

1. People saw my entry and assumed it was gospel. The entry is true; Cassin's are one of my favorite birds and I was only reporting what I had observed. Even so, you know what they say happens when you assume something.
2. People stole my entry and put it on their own site, as their own. Without even putting it in their own words!  I guess this is ok. I want people to know about this bird. But it would have been nice to have been given credit. That's one good thing about Wikipedia -- your work is perpetually credited, as long as you post it there first. (The downside is that Wikipedia requires references. My posting may disappear from there, so I put it at the bottom of this entry so that it can be referenced by Wikipedia.)

One thing I have learned, in my sojourn as "not an ornithologist, naturalist or biologist,"  is that information about specific bird species is very rare, unless they're a well-studies species, like Robins or Penguins. Most people don't spend enough time watching a specific species to pick up the details that really should be studied.

Mating rituals are a good (and fun) example.  Since I saw the Cassin's Kingbird pair dancing, I've noticed other mating rituals. Hummingbirds. Chickens. Even crows do it.  I think people, you especially, should devote a summer to taking pictures and making observations of a specific species. Take notes, and put your notes online. That helps the rest of us learn, and might benefit that species.

And if I borrow what you publish, I promise to attribute it properly.

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Cassin's Kingbird Mating Ritual: In early spring, presumably after having chosen (or shown up with) their mate, they launch into a peculiar dance. With excited high-pitched calls, they hover in unison, wings outstretched, over a favorite perch. This dance takes place several times a day over several days, over several separate sites in an area covering two or three acres (12,000 m²). The sites chosen for the dance appear to be the same sites used as hunting perches during the spring and summer.

Canyon Towhee on the Woodpile

The Canyon Towhee is a faithful friend. Nothing notable in the looks department, but packed with personality.

This female and her hubby remain here all year around. They think they own my wife's truck, and pitch a fit whenever they think I'm going to get close to it. They don't mind me being around, so long as I stay more than 30' away. This picture was taken at about 25', but she flew off when I tried to get closer.

The picture: I used the Tv setting, at 1/400. I stepped down to ISO 100 and set the automatic meter to compensate down by 1 F-Stop. I think it makes colors look much richer. A 1/80 shutter speed still looks crappy, though.

Want my advice? Don't waste your money on an IS lens for shooting birds. You still have to shoot at a high speed to get good shots, and image stabilization doesn't matter at 1/400.

More on Shutter Speed

I've been experimenting with the Tv setting on my camera, and it seems that anything less than 1/400 is too slow at distance. I'm not sure what the problem is, but here are some sample pictures I took of a Western Scrub jay.

The first one was shot at 1/400, and the second at 1/320. F7.1 was used on both pictures.

It seems that my problem is slight over-exposure at the slower speed. Although the Rebel's auto setting gets perfect shots under near-perfect conditions such as these, it has some annoying features if the light isn't perfect. Sometimes the flash is used when I don't need or want it. And when the flash is used, shutter speed is reduced. The Tv setting obviously isn't perfect, either. I wish they would make it easy for us to program the exposure intelligence for ourselves...

I don't like things to be really complicated, and a 95% solution would be perfect for me. But I'll keep experimenting with shutter speeds until I'm satisfied.

Putting DirecTV to Good Use

I live in the Southwest, and things may be different where you live. Then again, they may not. I believe the single most important thing you can do to attract birds is to provide them with a clean, reliable water source.

It doesn't have to cost a lot of money. You could buy a liner at Home Depot for $40-$100, dig a hole and make a pond that way. I actually purchased a liner recently, and hope to finally turn that big hole in my backyard into a pond. But for several years, my bird pond has been a large, 70s-era satellite dish. I use a 240 GPM pump for circulation, and attached a filter I made by stuffing some HVAC filter material into a V8 juice bottle. (A filter isn't necessary, though it improves water quality. The important thing is either a pump for circulation or frequent water changes.)

Today I created a bird bath that I think the robins are going to love. It's an old DirecTV dish. I removed the mounting bracket, set it on top of some bricks and used a rock to keep the hose in place.

You can see my pond (the 70's-era satellite dish) in the picture too. One dish on top of the other one. When I finish my "real" pond, I'm thinking I'll move into another spot in my yard and keep using it.

Since I added water to my yard 7-8 years ago, the number of birds I see has gone up at least 10-fold. In dry areas, the land's carrying capacity skyrockets when you add water.  It doesn't matter if birds can find plenty of food and shelter. Without water, you're not going to see many species. Even where there's a lot of water available in an area, much if it may be stagnant for a large part of the year. If birds find a source that tastes and smells clean, that's the source they're going to use. If they need to, birds will fly a few miles for water. Your backyard can see hundreds of regulars instead of just a few, depending on the water situation in your area.

A water source also provides the best place for birdwatching and photo opportunities.  Not all birds visit feeders, but all birds visit water.

Hummingbirds are Here!

Yesterday (4/16/11), I looked out the window just in time to see a hummingbird trying to drink something out of an empty feeder that has been hanging there since last fall.  I quickly grabbed it, cleaned it off, filled it with pastel-colored nectar and put it back. But the hummingbird never returned. I fear he moved on to a place nearby that had a full feeder.

I'll be ready when the next wave hits, though...

Western Bluebird - Slow Speed Shutter Experimentation

I have an image-stabilization zoom lens from Canon that is supposed to give me perfect pictures at slow speeds. I took a bunch of pictures of this Western bluebird today at 1/60. I wasn't satisfied with most of them. I think the color is oversaturated at that speed, maybe a poor combination between the light, the zoom lens and the CCD sensor on my camera. But after making some color adjustments in Gimp, I did like this one:

Here's what you can expect at 1/60 when motion is involved (bad, bad, bad!):

I'm going to keep playing with shutter speeds. I think 1/100 is the slowest I'll go from now on.

One thing I have learned: My camera is a better photographer than I am. Whenever I use a creative setting, if the picture is important I try to follow up with full automatic just to be safe.

Cassin's Kingbird arrival in Albuquerque

Once again, looking forward to the arrival of new bird species. Today I was gratified to see two Cassin's kingbirds doing their marriage dance. It seems a little early for their arrival, but I think birds have been showing up a little earlier every year. (That's part of my reason for this blog -- I'm terrible at keeping records, and I can come back next year and look at bird arrival dates for comparison.)

It was at a distance and I didn't have my camera. If I had it, I would have taken a picture something like this picture I took on 5/14/06:

They probably won't show up at my home in the Manzanos until the end of April, though I am encouraged by their early arrival in Albuquerque.  When they get here, I promise to spend several hours shooting their mating displays.

So if you are in Albuquerque, now is the time to go locate a mating pair and get some good pictures for yourself. This weekend is the best time; by the end of next week they're probably going to be finished with their pageant and you'll have to wait a year for your next opportunity.  An open field with plenty of bugs (grasshoppers, flying moths, etc.) would be a likely spot. If there's a lone tree near the field and the area is fairly quiet, your success is practically guaranteed.

The ones I saw today were in an industrial parking lot on Kirtland AFB (near Hardin and Wyoming) though, so you can probably find them just about anywhere in Albuquerque. I once encountered a pair guarding a nest in a yucca 3' off the ground in a Fort Davis field (5/11/08):

All I had was my 2MP cell phone, but up until that point I believed they always made their nests over 20', so I thought it was worth taking the shot.

Which is Better -- Starving, or Being Eaten?

When I first moved to Albuquerque in 1991, Columbidae Columba, the feral pigeon, was relatively rare throughout most of the city. It could be found downtown, but not anywhere else, as far as I can remember. Now the city is covered with these birds, and they have spread out to anywhere in the state with a fairly dense population of humans.

As you probably know, I consider them one of the three illegal aliens of the bird kingdom (the other two are House sparrows and European starlings). I don't even like them, and the picture above is the first picture I ever took of one. I took this picture two weeks ago.

Now Albuquerque wants to criminalize their feeding. I can understand why. Nobody likes bird poop, and pigeons leave a lot of it everywhere.

But there's a huge opportunity here! Other cities in recent years have seen a return of Peregrine falcons and Red-Tailed hawks. These birds have returned because the cities have everything they need -- skyscrapers and telephone poles to nest on, and pigeons to eat.  Pigeons have been living with humans for thousands of years. They're not going to go away on their own, and they eat garbage. We can't starve them out. But if the City of Albuquerque were to actively pursue ways to get hawks to come to the city, the pigeon population would drop to something manageable.

I've seen how hawks manage the Mourning dove population at my own house (having seen the cycle described below play out three times), and I'm sure they would manage pigeons the same way. A flock grows to 40 or 50 birds, and starts to feel safe in its territory. A hawk moves in, and over the course of a few months kills off about 90% of the flock.  Only the most vigilant birds survive. When it gets hard to catch food, the hawk moves on to the next flock. Bird behavior changes, too. Instead of being everywhere, they become more wary. Less likely to be caught out in the open where they can be killed by hawks. It's likely that pigeon eating and pooping patterns would change to something less annoying for those who don't much care for pigeons. As the hawk is off decimating other flocks, the flock already decimated begins to grow again. And the cycle starts over.

How many pigeons are there in Albuquerque-5000? If you starve 5,000 pigeons, you'll end up with 4,800 ravenous, annoying pigeons. But if hawks do the management work, the population should be reduced by 75-90%, depending on where you're standing when you do the count. The few left would be scattered out over the whole city in small flocks.

Unlike New York City, which had to intervene to successfully reintegrate Peregrine falcons, hawks live up to the very edge of Albuquerque and occasionally hunt in city limits already. So instead of punishing old men on park benches, why not just make Albuquerque bird friendly? There are things we can do to get hawks to move into the city. Replacing the use of harsh chlorine in city fountains with mechanical filtration systems would be a good action to take. Providing hawk-friendly habitat (especially downtown) would be another. If we put our mind to it, we could make Albuquerque look like heaven to a pair of young hawks trying to find a place to raise their chicks.

I used to believe that birds need pristine habitat to survive. But although pristine habitat is ideal, many bird species can coexist in the city with humans if they have what they need. If they have everything they need, they won't know that they're not in pristine habitat. All we have to do is make sure that the other needs of predatory birds are provided, and they will happily manage our pigeon flocks for us.

Their food is already here.

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If there is a group of people in Albuquerque dedicated to making Albuquerque bird-friendly, please let me know about them. I'd like to join.

Brown Headed Cowbird: Nature's Welfare Bum

This time of year every morning I'm filled with anticipation, wondering if another bird species is going to arrive today. Lately, I've been disappointed more often than not. So while I'm waiting for the next species to arrive and remind me it's spring, I think I'll talk about the Brown-headed Cowbird, nature's welfare bum.

This bird's call is beautiful. It's very high-pitched. Sometimes the pitch is so high it's almost inaudible. It's hard to describe--it sounds like water in a tumbling brook running over rocks (except that the pitch is many times higher).

Although this picture doesn't do the bird justice, it really is gorgeous. Its head is brown and its body is black, but it also has metallic purple or green highlights that change color depending on how sunlight is hitting it.

But don't be fooled. This bird is an insidious, destructive baby killer. It sneaks into other birds' nests when they're not looking, destroys their eggs and lays its own. The bird that made the nest ends up having to raise the cowbird chicks, who usually grow faster than their legitimate "siblings." Baby cowbirds out-compete their step-siblings, frequently taking more than their share. This increases the risk that the legitimate chicks will not make it to adulthood. Some birds can recognize their eggs and throw them out of the nest. Other birds will leave the area to nest elsewhere when they find their nest has been invaded. But the cowbird is moving into new territory occupied by species that haven't evolved any defense. In these cases, native species can be decimated in just a few years.

The picture above is of the male of this species. The female is a gray-brown, and looks exactly like a female Brewer's blackbird.  They seem to take advantage of this similarity. If blackbirds and cowbirds are in the same area, they can usually be found together in the same flock. In my area, I'm pretty sure that the bulk of the cowbird young are raised by blackbirds.

You can protect your local populations. I've noticed that this bird is not just lazy when it comes to raising children. It's not much of a forager, either.  If you buy birdseed from the store, stop doing it. Most wild bird seed contains millet. Most birds don't like millet. But cowbirds do.  Research the bird species that visit your yard. If you want to feed them, find out what they eat. Purchase that specific type of food. Don't buy anything with the words "wild" and "bird seed" in the title. It's too generic, and will help birds like this gain a foothold. Also, when feeding birds, less is better. Put out only the amount of food that will be eaten in a few minutes. Make sure that the birds are hungry enough to eat whatever falls on the ground, too. Your feeder is not the only source of sustenance for your friends, and if they're leaving food behind they're probably eating more than is healthy anyway.

Your second line of defense is quail eggs. On the day after Easter, go to Walgreen's and buy 5 or 6 Easter egg baskets. Get some straw from the local feed store or dried grass from your lawn, and make nests. Try to put the nests in places that are easy for you to access but seem natural.  Don't underestimate cowbirds' powers of observation: The best time to work around these fake nests is during the night when birds are sleeping. Take a magic marker and make a tiny mark on each quail egg, to be sure you can identify when cowbirds are using your nest. Every other day, put one quail egg in each nest. Just one. Do this until the nests have accumulated 4-5 eggs.

Every day, visit the nests. Move eggs when you do, because that's what the mother bird would do. Quail eggs will start to go bad after a week, so replace quail eggs with fresh ones weekly. If you discover cowbird eggs, mark them and leave them there for a week or so (like the quail eggs, remove them before they go bad). If the cowbird finds out the "mother bird" has discovered her deception, she'll quit using that nest.

I would imagine that after a few years, local bird populations will begin to develop resistance to cowbirds. Perhaps they'll learn to recognize the interlopers' eggs. Or once the baby cowbirds hatch, they'll learn to recognize them and throw them out of their nest. I don't know for sure, because I've only been dealing with them for a few years. But I do know that, though cowbirds are native to North America, their range is growing as they come into contact with humans who like to feed birds. And they are a non-native, invasive species to much of the territory they now occupy. They can have a devastating impact on the species in your neighborhood.

As soon as the cowbirds show up at my house, I'll post some pictures of my stealth nests. I don't expect them here until the beginning of May. I'd like to hear from you about your cowbird woes and any successes you experience. So post a comment, or send me an email.

Bird Embedded in a Rock

I was looking through some pictures I took over the past few months, and I found the following picture. I took it on October 15, 2010. All I did was crop it -- no Photoshop, no extra processing. What you see is exactly what the camera saw: A white-crowned sparrow embedded in a rock.

Sometimes life is stranger than Photoshop!

Coke adds Bird Life

I went to town today and tried to find small jars of strawberry jam. As you might remember from reading my last post, I was going to buy 200 jars and build a custom holder.

Well, it turns out that small jars of strawberry jam are hard to find.  I ended up buying  several large jars of strawberry preserves at Smith's.  When I got home, I made this:

Strawberry preserves are perfect for a feeder like this, because preserves contain lumps of fruit. You can see in the closeup below that I drilled holes in the cap and cut small holes large enough for a tanager's beak around the neck of the bottle. You can also see strawberry jam dripping out. I expected to lose a lot, and that maybe the feeder would be a complete disaster. But I actually lost very little because fruit quickly plugged the holes.  The birds will have to work at it by pulling out the pieces of fruit that are plugging the hole. When they have their fill of jam and fly off, some jam will drip out but fruit will fill the holes again.

I think birds are going to love this feeder. It's practically ant-proof, though there is going to be plenty of food on the ground for the ants to clean up. It's probably too early to put it out, but I want it to be there before any tanagers show up. And I don't know when that's going to be.

Did you know that hummingbirds and tanagers are drawn by color? On their flight in, if they see food, they're going to stop to eat it. And if they stop, there's a chance they won't leave. If I have a western tanager living here this spring and summer, that'll be all the proof I need. And when that happens, I'm going to take plenty of pictures and post them here.

If you put out hummingbird feeders when you start to see hummingbirds, try something different this year. Put out the feeder now, before they arrive. More hummingbirds will stop, and you might end up with five times as many birds as you're used to. Try it!

Get the Western Tanager to Stay

Any day now, I expect this guy to show up and look longingly through the window of the sunroom at the blossoms on my wife's plants. He'll hang around the area for a day or two, then he'll fly off to find a better place to raise his kids.

Tanagers love fruit. If I could give this guy what he wants, I think he might stay. Last summer, I made a temporary jam feeder out of a Bugs Bunny cup:

 

It was hugely successful with the local population. This female Bullock's Oriole spent a lot of time there, as did my population of Black-Headed Grosbeaks. But aside from the fact that it was ugly, being basically a mess of tape, twigs and string, it was tedious to keep clean.

Today I'm going to go shopping for a few cases of strawberry jam. Maybe I can find something cheap at the dollar store. If I can find 200 plastic, 2-4 ounce jars of jam, that should get my feathered friends through the summer. And I'll have it ready before the Western Tanager shows up this time, so that he can feel like he's found a perfect place to raise his family. Then maybe in a few weeks I'll have some nice Western Tanager pictures to add to my collection (and put up here).

The idea is to put up a post outside with a hole drilled in it just the perfect size for a jar of strawberry jam. When they empty it (which can happen in a few hours), I'll replace it with another one and throw the old one away. No muss, no fuss.

I'll post pictures of my new feeder when I'm finished with it. If I can find my jam supply today, I should be able to have everything ready for the tanagers when they show up.

Spring's True Harbinger

The first summer resident to arrive this year is an ash-throated flycatcher:

He showed up on March 15th. This is his third year. I think. The reason this guy lives here is simple: There are a lot of grasshoppers. But it wasn't always that way. I live on two acres. Half of that area has no trees, just grassland with a few shrubs.

I used to mow the whole field, two or three times a year. But four years ago it occurred to me that if there were more grasshoppers, the Cassin's Kingbirds would have more to eat. So I started mowing just the area near the house and leaving the rest for nature.

Two summers ago, a pair of ash-throated flycatchers showed up and had a family. Last year, there were two families. The Cassin's Kingbird population increased too. There are two pairs that hang around my house now (only one pair nests here), and several other pairs in the area that weren't here before.

So now I'm actively managing my grasshopper farm. It covers about 1/2 an acre, and never gets mowed. Not even at the end of the season, because I think the eggs have a better chance of survival if the ground is covered.  And there are other insect eggs on the plants that grow there. Think about it: Birds are only going to nest where they can feed their young. What's better--a manicured lawn, or half a dozen bird species calling your yard home?

I have other stories to tell you later about how I was able to entice other new species, so stay tuned.

Turdus? Migratorius?

Don't believe everything you read in bird books. Just because there are only five subspecies of a bird recognized, doesn't mean there aren't infinite variations in-between.  Take Turdus Migratorius, for example.  (First, why turdus? Couldn't they have come up with a better name? And Migratorius? Well, I can tell you that they don't all migrate.)


I don't normally pay attention to when they arrive, because I have a winter population and a summer population. I'm guessing the summer population arrived around the 7th of March this year. The difference between the summer population and the ones who don't migrate, is that breast coloration on the summer population is a much brighter orange. The scientific name for the species is Turdus Migratorius. I would call natives Poopus Migratorius just to distinguish the two, but I'm no scientist. There are Western and Atlantic Canada subspecies and different hybrids, so who knows?  But many things are possible.

My next post is about this year's Harbinger of Spring.

Eurotrash is back (and so am I)

This past Monday, March 20, a couple of European starlings arrived. They do that every year, hang around my house for a couple of weeks, then move on because I don't feed them. When I used to feed birds storebought feed, these intruders would stick around all summer. Maybe I'm not a true friend of birds, because I consider starlings one of the three illegal aliens of the bird kingdom (the other two are Pigeons and House Sparrows). Their presence is disruptive to native birds, and part of the reason that you have to leave the city to see more than a few species.

I also have problems with brown-headed cowbirds. My cowbird problem is diminished though not gone, and I no longer have to worry about the starlings hanging around more than a couple of weeks. There are things you can do to improve your bird variety, and I will be talking about things that I do in this blog.

Today I'm going to make several entries, because every year I want to start tracking arrival and departure dates for birds, and every year I forget to. This year I'm going to stick to it.

I am an avid amateur photographer. Feel free to emphasize the amateur, but I do get a few good shots, and I'll be posting them here frequently.  My success is less technique and more patience, and I'll be talking about that as well.

For now, I'll move on to my next entry, robins.