Tom's Bird Feeders and Reptile Supplies

We have been out of town for a couple of weeks and working on a plant project in South Dakota, so our birdwatching here in Portal has just started up again.  And this is a great time to be bird watching in Portal.

Our hummingbird migration is still going on.  We still have Rufous Hummingbirds coming through and we still have most of the hummingbirds like the Magnificent, Blue-throated, and Violet-crowned coming into our Best 1 Hummingbird feeder.  We have also set up several saucer humming bird feeders around the yard and of course, Tom still has the window mount hummingbird feeder on the kitchen window.

In the past few days we have had warblers filtering through including the Townsend’s, MacGillivray’s, Common Yellowthroat, Wilson’s, Yellow, Yellow-rumped and the Black-throated Gray.  They have been at our birdbath and enjoying the bird mister especially.  The Blue-gray Gnatcatcher only came in for one day and seemed to enjoy the  bird dripper most.

Many of our winter migrants have started coming in.  The Clay-colored and  White-crowned Sparrows are back as well as the Green-tailed Towhees.

All of this going on and in our recycled platform bird feeder we have a Curve-billed Thrasher feeding young.

Have I convinced you?  It’s Great to Bird Watch in Portal!

This morning we had a Rufous-crowned Sparrow visit us while we were sipping from our coffee cups and doing our daily ritual of bird watching from the easy chair.

Our yard has been fenced off from cattle grazing for about 10 years now.  We are fighting a battle with Russian Thistle and have noticed a definite decrease in this weed and several other noxious weeds.  The return of the Rufous-crowned Sparrow has given us hope that our yard will someday become a true desert scrubland haven for the birds.

Once paired the Rufous-crowned Sparrow remain on their territories year-round and stay bonded for life.  The are ground feeders and like to peck at the base of grass stems.  They are therefore most attracted to platform bird feeders in the winter, however prefer insects in the summer months.  The bird baths we have in our yard seem to be attracting them this year as we have not had much in the way of monsoonal rains. 

To help you find Rufous-crowned Sparrows download our Portal Birding Map and look along the Portal Road and the Foothills Roads in the scrub land before and throughout the big thicket.

The fall warbler migration is in full swing now, here in southeastern Arizona.  During the past week we have had numbers of Wilson’s Warblers, Yellow Warblers, MacGillivray’s Warblers, Townsend’s Warblers, Black-throated Gray Warblers, Virginia’s Warblers and Lucy’s Warblers visiting our four tiered bird pond.  Without this nice water feature these birds would be only a fleeting glimpse through our Chihuahuan Desert property.  The warblers and hummingbirds enjoy the waterfalls where the water flows from one tier to another.  It is so nice to see the colorful warblers bathing in the various levels with our resident Pyrrhuloxias, Canyon Towhees, House Finches and Black-throated Sparrows.  Water is the key to attracting the warblers, flycatchers, vireos and tanagers.  Moving water is even better because birds flying in the vicinity can see the ripples in the water or hear the moving water.  Even a simple bird bath can be made a bird magnet with the addition of a mister or dripper.  There are not many bird species that can resist the sound or looks of moving water so if more birds of more species is your goal, moving water is the solution.