Scenes like this are why we always start our day in front of the bird feeders. You just never know what is going to happen and which of nature’s wonders you will have the privilege of observing.

Well, it’s that time of year down here.  As we sipped from our Southwest Canyon Bird Coffee Mug, the fall sparrow migration hit our bird feeders.  We had had a few Lark Sparrows into the recycled platform bird feeder last week.  Today the flock arrived!  We had them enjoying our bath bath and then using both platform feeders.  While we were watching them the Chipping Sparrows started filtering into the triple tube feeder.  Shortly we also had Savannah Sparrows, Lincoln Sparrows, Black Headed Grosbeaks, Blue Grosbeaks and a Green-tailed Towhee.  Most of these species seemed to prefer the platform bird feeders, but many used the various tube feeders we have scattered around the yard, especially the shy species.  Many of these species will stay with us for the winter.  Some will get their field marks back after this molt, making the ID so much easier.

We were surprised that so many species arrived at the same time, perhaps it is because we put up a new novelty crossing sign - ”Wild Bird Crossing!”

We came back to Lark Sparrows in great numbers at our bird feeders.  We had 9 in our platform bird  feeder and about 10 more on the ground under the bird feeder.  The Pine Siskins and Lesser Goldfinches are still coming into the stainless steel thistle feeder, but we have not seen the Lawrence’s Goldfinches since we got back. 

We have had a Cassin’s Kingbird into the bird bath and the warblers are bathing on a regular basis with the most common being the Yellow-rumped Warbler.

Our first juvenile Black-throated Sparrow was being fed just above our triple tube bird feeder in the mesquite tree.

The most common birds at our Best 1 hummingbird feeders have been the Broad-tailed and the Black-throated Hummingbirds.  All three of our orioles have be into the saucer oriole feeder and they have been sneaking sips from the hummingbird feeders.

We have reports of the Elegant Trogan in our canyon (see our birding map for directions)

This is a great time to visit Portal, Arizona.

Lucy’s Warblers are one of the smallest warblers and has chosen to make the desert its home, making its nest in the driest of all warbler habitats.  

Dr. J. G. Cooper discovered this tiny and inconspicuous warbler at Fort Mojave in Arizona in 1861.  He named it after Miss Lucy Baird, daughter of his associate Dr. Spencer F. Baird. 

The Lucy’s Warbler is one of only two warblers that breeds in cavities. (The Prothonotary Warbler is the other.) If using a woodpecker hole, the warbler may fill the cavity nearly to the top with debris and put the nest on top so the bird can see out.  Abandoned Verdin nests are also a favorite nesting place.

I could not find if anyone has established the size of a Lucy’s Warblers territory. However, it is not unusual to find up to 5 nests in 1 acre.  When Tom and I do breeding bird surveys, the over lapping songs make it very hard to impossible to get an accurate count on the number of males singing.

Most people spot this bird while it is gleaning insects off foliage, and its quick movements catch the eye.  Remember, if you are in the dry desert do not eliminate all warblers when trying to identify a little gray bird!   It just may be a Lucy’s Warbler!

The Northern Flicker is one of the few North American woodpeckers that migrates.  Flickers in the northern parts of their range move south for the winter, although a few individuals often stay rather far north.

Although flickers prefer to eat on the ground, they will act like other woodpeckers and drum on objects.  This drumming lets other flickers know that they have established a territory and that the flicker considers it priviate property.  For this reason the flicker likes to make as much noise as possible and will drum on metal objects.  One Northern Flicker in Wyoming could be heard drumming on an abandoned tractor from a half-mile away.

We are glad that the flickers stopped in for a visit, but do hope that they do not start drumming on our metal chimney pipe!

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!

Beginning bird watchers have a tendency to misidentify Pyrrhuloxias.  They are quite often confused with the female cardinal.  This mistake can be avoided by looking at the beak.  The Pyrrhuloxia has a strongly curved bill that can be described as “stubby”   The beak is dark in the juvenile and yellow in the adult.  The cardinal has a larger, more triangular bill.  The juvenile does have a dark beak, but adult cardinals have an orange to red bill.

The odd name Pyrrhuloxia comes from the genus names Pyrrhula (bullfinches) and Loxia (crossbills). The roots mean “flame-colored” and “crooked,” and aptly describe the reddish bird with the crooked bill.

During the summer the Pyrrhuloxia will glean insects from the plants around our bird bath.  During the winter they would normally forage while hopping on the ground, so to attract Pyrrhuloxias the platform bird feeder will be most likely feeder used by this species.

It is alway exciting for birdwatchers out of our area to see their first Pyrrhuloxia and we still enjoy seeing them, specially when we know that a successful nest has taken place in our yard.  If you download our Portal, Arizona birding map you can find the Pyrrahuloxia along the Portal Road or along the Foothills Road.  Good Luck and Good Birding!

But…..(you could hear that but coming, couldn’t you)…  we have a new bird feeder problem.  We have a young Cooper’s Hawk that has decided that our four tiered bird pond is a great place to soak it’s feet on a hot day.  It comes in and just stands in the water next to the water fall so that it gets a little splash, but not soaked.  We have never seen it attempt to hunt while it is here.  In fact it comes in with a great deal of wing flapping and hopping around.  It seems to want to clear every other animal out so that it has the bath to its self.  It is great to see the hawk stand so still for so long when you want to identify the bird or want to show it to a fellow bird watcher……but….you sure aren’t going to be able to show your fellow bird watcher any other birds when the hawk is around.

Now I realize that Cooper’s hawks have a rough life.  In a recent study of 300 skeletons,  23 percent showed old, healed-over fractures in the bones of the chest, especially of the wishbone.  The males have a particularly hard life.  Let me remind you that:

1. Cooper’s Hawks eat birds smaller that they are. 

2. The females will eat medium-sized birds.

3. Male Cooper’s Hawks are smaller than the female. 

 Are you getting the picture?

This tends to make the male submissive and he will make sure that his mate is in the mood before he makes his move, for reasons I’m sure are obvious to you.

The male will build the nest and will then feed both the female and the babies for the next 3 months, the time it takes for the young to be ready to go out on their own.

Now despite this rough life, I wish this particular Cooper’s Hawk would find some other way of cooling off this summer.  He is wreaking our chance to see the baby birds that would usually visit our yard.  It is always fun to watch the adult plumage slowly emerge.

We do have bird feeders on other sides of the house, so we haven’t been totally out of touch with the maturing of the baby birds, but it is just not the same when we fill our coffee cups each morning.

This hawk does not have a flight plan, so we can’t discourage him in the normal ways.  Our only solution is to let the pond go dry and water the birds in the other bird baths are offered around the yard.  I hope he gets the message soon.

Of course, we are not having to put out as much bird seed as usual, so we are saving some money. But, doesn’t the President want us to spend money right now?  Maybe I can get him to address this problem over a beer at the White House some time.

When the grosbeaks builds a nest they do their best to install air conditioning by making the bottom of the nest so thin that you will be able to see the eggs through the bottom of the nest and the best air circulation is available to the eggs and the parent bird. The thickness of the nest depends on the part of the country the nest is built in.

The female grosbeak is a true feminist. She expects the male to do about half of the work when it comes to incubating eggs and feeding young. If the male starts to spend too much time away from the nest, she will start singing. The male will then return thinking his territory has been invaded.

Attracting grosbeaks to your yard is as easy as providing food, water, and shelter. Grosbeaks will eat insects, seeds and fruits. The grosbeaks visiting our yard prefer sunflower seeds. They like our hopper / platform bird feeder. This feeder has a hopper in the middle of the platform. It is easy to keep full.

These birds seem to prefer our bird pond over our bird bath. They seem to prefer to be near the splash of the tiers, and are regular bathers.

Our yard does not have many of the large deciduous trees, but I have heard them singing from our 15-20 foot trees, although we have never found a nest.

In conclusion, you do not need the ideal habitat to attract Black-headed Grosbeaks to your yard.  Provide the right type of food and some water and they will come.

I am not sure why else they would be here.  Their preferred habitat is generally streamside willows, cottonwoods and mesquites.  They generally nest in cavities or under peeling bark of these trees.  The closest habitat of this sort is nearly three miles away from our property and there is not a tree large enough on our property to have cavities or peeling bark. 

These small active little elves have pale gray upperparts, plain gray wings and whitish underparts.  Both male and female have a rusty patch on the upper tail coverts.  The male has a very noticeable rusty red patch on the top of the head.  The bills are thin and very pointed and they have dark legs.  Overall size is smaller than some of our hummingbirds at about 4 1/4 inches.

Lucy’s Warblers are insect eaters and a great deal of the joy we have for these little tykes is watching them glean insects from the sage, acacia and mesquites which border our bird pond.  The acrobatics of these birds in catching their food is amazing as they chase small insects in every imaginable position up and down the branches of the plants.

I do not know if this pair flies from the better habitat three miles away or if they are nesting closer and are utilizing a non-traditional nesting site.  Today, however, they showed up with a juvenile bird.  The youngster was fully feathered and was catching its own food on the various shrubs.  It was similar in looks to the female but had some buff on the underparts.  Now we have three of these little birds to enjoy and enjoy them we will.

Because of this musical talent, they were nearly extirpated from parts of the east coast in the early 1900s.  People took fledglings and  trapped the adults to sell in cities like New York, Philadelphia and St. Louis.  In 1928 these talented singers could bring as much as $50.00.

The Northern Mockingbird is found in shrubby areas with open grassy spots.  Shrubs that form thickets and produce berries are their favorites.  You can find Northern Mockingbirds in parkland, cultivated land, suburban areas and in second growth habitat at low elevations.

Northern Mockingbirds eat mainly insects in summer but switch to eating mostly fruit in fall and winter.  What this means for you is that you must create a backyard bird habitat to attract them to your yard.

Start by planting shrubs and hedges that produce fruit and will become quite thick.  Try to pick native plants, although mockingbirds will eat ornamental berries.  The mockingbirds that clean off the pyracantha berries from our thickets are already establishing territories although the berries are still green.

We use our recycled oriole feeder to feed raisins to the mockingbirds and birds have taken mealworms from other cups in our recycled oriole feeder.  It is always a thrill to see the flash of white in their wings as they approach the feeder.

We also have a four tiered bird pond that recycles water throughout the system.  This is a magnet for the Northern Mockingbird.  They seem to enjoy the splash from one tier to the next.  The less dominate mockingbirds take turns at the bird bath, pretending they can’t see each other.

 The Northern Mockingbird population has rebounded from their low counts in the nineteen hundreds, and even though the mockingbirds in our yard have waken me on more than one morning, I for one know that I am going to have a good day when I hear that song.

For some birds, however, this may still be a critical time of year.  While nature and man may provide luxuriant growth in many areas, some birds must still travel afar to obtain water and food to feed themselves and their young.  The birds are exposed to added dangers during these forays.  This is where we as birders can come in and make a difference for the birds and add a great deal of enjoyment to our own lives by attracting a greater number of birds and bird species to our yards. 

By providing fleshy fruits for feeding babies and water we can eliminate or lessen these dangers.  Many nesting birds require fleshy berries for food during their early development.  We can help by providing or planting cherries, mulberries, serviceberries, blueberries, elderberries, raspberries, pyracantha, blackberries, wild plums, chokecherries or other fleshy fruit producing plants in our yards. 

In summer, birds look for thick plantings to provide shelter and nesting areas.  They naturally look for thick evergreens, yews or barberry hedges, vine thickets, hawthorns and trees providing hollow cavities for nesting.  We can help by putting up bird nest boxes for the species that will utilize them.  These plantings also attract many insects which the birds eat themselves or feed to their young.

Fresh water is even more important during the summer than any other time of year, especially in hot dry weather.  It is more important during this time of year to keep fresh water in the bird baths than to operate feeding stations during the summer.  Always remember that the sound of moving water will attract more birds to your yard during this time of year than non moving water.  This can be accomplished by providing your bird bath with a dripper or mister or by providing moving water with a backyard waterfall kit.

Summer is a “prosperous time of year for the birds, but, this does not mean that we cannot still help them out and provide enjoyable, educational and relaxing entertainment for ourselves.  Summer can be fun in the backyard.

While many of our old birding haunts in the Valley are now closed to the public because of the rampant drug trade with nearby Mexican cities, several great places are still available for birding and nature studies.  Laguna Atascosa National Wildlife Refuge is an excellent birding location.  We have spotted Aplomado Falcons here on several occasions and feeders and water features at the headquarters bring in many local favorites.  Falcon Dam and Falcon Dam State Park provide homes for Green and Ringed Kingfishers and Green and Brown Jays.  Santa Ana National Wildlife Refuge is great for a number of Texas endemics.  The Hidalgo Pumphouse Nature Park in Hidalgo, Texas is a wonderful early morning birding site.  Favorites here include the Clay-colored Robin which behaves much like the American Robin hunting worms on the grassy lawns.  Bentsen-Rio Grande Valley State Park also provides for exiting birding.  There is even a Birding Trail which covers the vicinity and takes you into many small nature centers and special habitat areas.

We have found the birding to be very good in the Lower Valley all 12 months of the year.  Each season has its specialties, but you just can’t go wrong with this area at any time of year.

• A male Scott’s Oriole is in full song from the top of the neighbor’s Yucca.
• The baby Red-eared Sliders (a turtle species which we work with at our facility) are swimming in the turtle pool.  These babies hatched from eggs laid last fall by parents we are caring for after they were hit by vehicles in the wild.  Quite often they hatch in late fall, but remain in the nest underground until favorable weather exists.  They seem to know when there will be no more freezing nights.
• The mesquite trees are leafing out.  They also seem to know when there will be no more freezing nights.

Spring has truly sprung here in the Chihuahuan Desert.

Water is a very important element for birds.  Many birds come to water that do not come to seed feeders or other bird attracting devices.  The birds need to  keep their feathers clean just to stay alive so they make daily visits to safe, clean and consistent water sources for the important task of preening.  You can make your water feature more comfortable for the birds by providing nearby bushes and trees for preening and evading predators.

To provide water for your birds, all you really need is a shallow 1 to 2 inch deep dish with a non-slippery bottom.  Commercial bird baths are made specifically for this purpose and are available in most price ranges.  Many more birds can be attracted by a drip or waterfall situation.  The sound of moving water will attract every bird within hearing. 

Cleanliness is important with water as a number of diseases can be spread from dirty water in a bird bath.  To prevent these diseases your bird bath should be cleaned every few days with a 10% bleach solution. When nighttime temperatures fall below 55 degrees, the bleach is not necessary but the cleaning is still a must.  A simple rule of thumb regarding cleanliness is to ask yourself, “Would I drink from this bird bath if I were a bird?” 

Always remember the three basic elements of providing water for birds and wildlife–cleanliness, comfort and consistency.  All three are important in maintaining a backyard bird or wildlife habitat.