Homecomings and Homebuilding

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I was almost right about the Hooded Oriole's return.  He came "home"  just one day later than last year.  Here he is in one of the palm trees in the backyard, not far from where a pair of the birds nested last summer.  Actually several pairs nested last year, as every year, in our palms and those of yards nearby.  Their small beautiful nests are made of long palm fibers, like little golden purses, that are usually nestled under a palm frond. So far this spring I've seen only one male at a time and no females.  It appeared first late in the day at a front yard bath, just as it did last year, and was in the Bottlebrush tree early the next morning.

Below is a photo of a similarly-colored  Altamira Oriole in the Bottlebrush.  Here in Texas, Hooded Orioles are orange like the Altamiras, though I think they are more yellow or gold in other locations.   The two species are sometimes confused by casual observers. Note the difference in the shape of the black on the head--more like a mask on the Altamira Oriole and coming straight down just behind the eye of the Hooded, forming the orange "hood." In addition, the Altamira Oriole has an orange wing patch high on the shoulder and the Hooded does not.

When the male Hooded Orioles arrive home, they seem most interested at first in bathing and eating.  When the females follow in a few days (this is the usual pattern), oriole-watching gets more interesting as the males crisscross the yard and show off from every tree. Home-building quickly follows their homecoming as they pair up and start finding nesting sites.

 My favorite oriole photo from last spring is this one in which a male is spreading his tail almost as if imitating the palm frond on which he's perched (and where his mate will build a nest after his antics successfully get her attention).

Tail-fanning seems to be a popular way of attracting attention in the bird world.  Here's a photo of a Long-billed Thrasher showing off to his mate a few weeks ago.  I had taken a picture of what I thought was just one thrasher in the Bottlebrush tree.  I hadn't even seen the dancer with the fancy tail, but there it was when I reviewed the photo.  I love photos I just shoot randomly that turn out later to be really interesting.

Long-billed Thrashers

Curve-billed Thrasher

We have two species of thrashers that live year-round in the yard,  both virtuoso singers.  Long-billed thrashers are more musical, their phrases a little slower,  but I find the Curve-billed Thrasher's song extremely interesting.  The male that lives in our yard all year began singing in January, very quietly but constantly as though practicing for the "real" full-throated singing that began in February.  I've written about this "whisper song" before.  (I've also written about Buff-bellied Hummingbirds and Altamira Orioles singing so quietly you have to be very close to hear them.) When the thrasher sings his quiet song, he doesn't open his beak much, if at all, but his throat moves. I'll hear a song that sounds as if a singing bird is far away, and then find the persistent singer in a nearby Hackberry tree. His usual song is like the whisper song in quality and phrasing but is very much louder.

Curve-billed Thrashers seem always to be doing something interesting.  

Here one is taking a sun bath on a  sun-warmed stepping stone.

Here one bends low to sip water spraying from a dripper hose.

And here he looks especially distinctive perched on a post.  

Curved-bill thrashers have more rounded markings on their breasts than Long-billed, and of course their color is a more muted brown.  Both have a distinctive long, dark bill,  and orange eyes.  Our yard, a messy one with unraked leaves and brushy unkempt tangles of native shrubs, is a perfect place for them to thrash around in, throwing leaf litter and dirt all around. 

Yesterday I thought perhaps a Brown Thrasher had stopped by our yard.  Once one spent a whole winter with us.  Yesterday's bird appeared redder than the usual dark brown of the very similar Long-billed.   But closer looks showed me the gray face and darker bill of the Long-billed after all,  looking especially bright and reddish in the sun. 

Both pairs of thrashers are beginning nest-building activities,  though neither has settled on a specific location.   I think the Long-billed pair will nest in a Cedar Elm in the front yard and the Curved-billed couple are experimenting by sticking  thorny twigs  in various locations in the back.  Curve-billed Thrashers seem to not need such brushy locations.  They have built in past years in just about every medium sized tree in the yard.  Last year their first nest was in a Yucca and the second in a Brasil.  One year they even built a nest in a Purple Martin house that the martins no longer liked because trees had grown too near it. 

Starlings are already nesting in a cavity in the dead cottonwood.  I don't begrudge these invaders a spot since there are about a half-dozen other cavities for the woodpeckers and titmice to choose from.   A Screech-owl is at least roosting if not nesting in a new owl box by the drive.  We put the box up just a couple of weeks ago to replace one bees had taken over last summer.  It's probably too late for this guy to nest, but he sure likes sitting in the box. 

He doesn't, however, like me to walk past his door.  That's what my granddaughters call the stink eye.  

I've added to the year's bird list (see sidebar) but I'm not sure it's accurate yet. I'm still tweeting new year birds on Twitter, but I don't always remember to tweet every one.  I'll work on my list tomorrow and then keep adding more as migrants return home or pass through.  I think the list is a little behind last year's at this time.

 Two days ago I was very excited to see an Aplamado Falcon fly over the house. Typically, I didn't have my camera with me.   This is only the second time I've seen the falcon in (or over) the yard.  The first time was about ten years ago when two perched on an electric pole in September.  (We live not too far from Laguna Atascosa NWR where several pairs have nested successfully after a reintroduction program by the Peregrine Fund.)

Spring arrived officially a few days ago.   The moon over the arroyo on the first night of spring was a Supermoon, named because it was nearer the earth than it had been in 18 years.  A moon rising over the water is always breathtaking, but this one was especially ... well, super.  I wish I could have captured a picture of the Great Blue Heron that flew along the river across the moon's light.  

I'll try to blog often to report on our  homecomings and nest-building.   Spring is super everyday in the Rio Grande Valley. 

Early Birds

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The first bird I see on winter mornings is often the cheerful Orange-crowned Warbler.  I hear its chip note, a sharp "tick", and see it flitter in to the hummingbird feeder.  Inevitably it is the first to find a  new orange-half on the edge of the deck and the first to taste fresh sugar water. Field guides describe this guy as "drab" or "nondescript," but it's one of my favorite winter visitors.  Some are brighter than others.  The one above seemed quite yellow in the morning sun but most of them are a duller olive with yellow under the tail and along the margins of the wing coverts. (The photo turned out a little too bright perhaps, but that makes it look even more sunny--appropriate for my first picture of the day.  If it's more yellow than reality, we'll just call it metaphorical.) In good light you can see faint brownish stripes on the breast and a light yellowish eye-ring that looks broken because there's also a faint brown streak through the eye.  These birds are easy to study because they will stay put to eat oranges and nectar even if I'm sitting only a few feet away.

Thrashers are also early risers.  This Long-billed Thrasher was singing from the top of a live oak tree in the backyard this morning, and a pair of Curve-billed Thrashers investigated a brush pile.

A few winters ago a Brown Thrasher hung out in the yard for awhile.  It was neat to be able to see the Long-billed and Brown Thrasher side by side in the drive.  Although similar species, there are differences that can be seen when you have time to compare.  The Brown Thrasher was redder, especially on its head, and its eye was yellow instead of orange.
Last summer in Missouri I watched Brown Thrashers that nest in my son's yard and sensed a slightly more streamlined look to them than to the Long-billed Thrashers that nest here.  (Of course that may be only my impression and may not be true at all if I were able to carefully and scientifically measure.  It was just that sense you get of a bird when you get to observe it day after day in your yard.)

Whenever I see a Brown Thrasher or a Catbird or an American Robin in the winter here, (uncommon birds for South Texas), I am reminded of the common birds of Oklahoma where we grew up.  I would not want to be living anywhere else but here on the banks of the Arroyo Colorado, but sometimes I am nostalgic for those birds from the yard of my childhood.
My dad gave me my first Peterson Field Guide when I was eight  (and had the measles), and he patiently pointed out the differences in various sparrows that came to the seed he sprinkled on a table outside when it snowed.  In my favorite photograph of him, he is sitting in his chair with a newspaper on his lap and the bird feeding table visible through a picture window behind him.   Snow covers the ground but the table is covered with little brown birds waiting to be identified by a child and her dad.

Back Yard Birding

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It was another beautiful day on the Arroyo, less windy and about 85 degrees. The bird feeders were attracting all the colorful birds of the neighborhood, as you can see in this photo. That's a Green Jay, an Altamira Oriole, and a Kiskadee along with a drab House Sparrow. (I really don't mind the sparrows, though, especially since our trip to England when I saw them in their "native" habitat. The males I think are especially perky little birds.)

The Kiskadee is not actually eating seed from the feeder in that picture; it's gobbling up granjeno berries from the shrub just beyond the feeder. Of course, Mockingbirds were just out of sight, jealously guarding the berries, but the Kiskadees usually had them outnumbered. Some of the palms also have berries that the berry-warriors are fighting over.

I've seen Kiskadees eat cat food, fish, insects, and berries, but never seed. Altamira Orioles eat seed, citrus, and nectar. Green Jays eat seed, peanuts, berries, meal worms. ( The feeder the birds are on in the photo is one our son brought us more than 13 years ago, just after we moved into our house. He carried it on the airplane because it was too big for the suitcase. Though it holds a lot of seed, we put out only a handful at a time to keep the raccoons from climbing on it at night. )

New 2010 "yard birds" today were a Reddish Egret that flew by over the river and a Brown-headed Cowbird eating seed with the Red-winged Blackbirds. I wish the egret had stopped to "dance" in the shallow water at the edge of the Arroyo, but it didn't. We did have a Tricolored Heron and a Snowy Egret feeding, though--and Night Herons filling the trees that hang down from the banks.

The Baltimore Oriole was back again today, perched in the same ash tree as before, above the grapefruit feeder.

The busiest birds in the yard were a couple of Long-billed Thrashers. They were under the bougainvillea most of the time, scratching in the leaves that fell off in the freeze. One of them kept flying to the very top of an ash tree to sing. I love their song, so loud and cheerful, more musical than the Curve-billed Thrasher's. I kept trying to get a good photo but didn't succeed.

Here's one of a Curve-billed Thrasher on some palm fronds in the back of the pickup. Always curious, they are the first to check out any new brush piles or fallen branches.

These birds are among my favorites, the first "day" birds up and around in the morning and the last ones to go to bed! They keep busy digging little craters in the sandy soil. We usually have two pairs that nest in our yard and they usually raise three broods. The Long-billed Thrashers nest in the yard most summers, too. Occasionally, in the winter, we get the similar (but redder) Brown Thrasher. We were used to Brown Thrashers in Missouri and Oklahoma so I always enjoy seeing them in the winters that they show up.

Tomorrow I'm going to do some reading about hummingbirds in Texas.

I'm not sure how to distinguish among the female and immature Ruby-throated and Black-chinned hummers that are at our feeders these winter days. I think I've read that the RTH's have greener heads, with the BCH's having grayer. I don't know if you can actually use that field mark as distinctive, though. All the ones I'm seeing have green heads, but one is less green. I am also noticing that some of the birds have wing tips that are about even with the tip of the tail and some have slightly longer tails.

Today we had three or four different Ruby-throated/Black-chinned. The one pictured here has tail and wing tips about even.