two days ago i saw a crow badgering a juvenile sparrowhawk of the TV antenna of the apartment building behind our house; it was calling for its parents who didn't show so it left the roost. this morning i had a fairly big moment: i saw my second tree-creeper ever scrambling up the maple tree: and just as i reached for the binoculars a female pied flycatcher (species i see about once a year even though it's actually a rarer bird) lit on the apricot tree just in front of me in the same line of vision.
Went to a friend's wedding. Saw Black-billed Magpie (Pica hudsonia) Also a Mountain Chickadee (Poecile gambeli)
the black billed magpie is almost identical to the magpies we have here (pica pica) and they are beautiful birds; unfortunately they are also the biggest predators of songbird eggs and chicks, even worse than cats. in my part of california yellow billed magpies were quite common until about 1970, and then just disappeared. in general i was surprised when i made a prolonged stay a few years ago to see how the birds had changed in the area. of tricolored blackbirds, very common before, i saw not one. woodpeckers also seemed rarer. but hummingbirds which were fairly rare in my youth were everywhere (probably because feeders for them are everywhere) and about the most common bird i observed was the western bluebird which i don't remember ever seeing as a boy. also notable is that some species that i'd only see when out wandering in the hills, quail, barn owls, could be seen right in streets and back yards. the same for a species not at all a bird: mountain lions. i'd seen their trails as a kid when i went way up into the hills; now they've been sighted in the parking lot of 7-11, and people no longer leave their pets in their yards at night. btw, i only looked it up to see which of our local tits that chickadee resembles (between a marsh tit and a coal tit) and i think that pic is of a black-capped chickadee.
http://wamu.org/news/morning_edition/12/09/13/bird_biodiversity_could_be_key_to_stopping_west_nile Heard this earlier today.
although they're not birds i think this is the best place for me to mention a couple of dumb animal tricks i've seen recently. ants. ya gotta respect that kind of effort! under the concrete tiles of a kind of gazebo in our yard there's a pretty big ant colony. they recently did a spring cleaning and the amount of stuff they drug out and piled up outside one entrance was amazing. more amazing though were the plum pits i had spit out onto the lawn the evening before and they had tried to drag back in. we all know how strong ants are but even so there is no way one ant could move one of these, they used teamwork. and they had to bring each pit about 4-5 feet. and when they get to the crack? the pit is too big to fit. so what do they do? go get another one. and another one. until finally there are a dozen wedged into the crack. ants do a lot of things that make us praise their "intelligence" but this is proof that they're not smart the way a chimpanzee or a dog (or a crow) is smart. now a silly pet trick. we have a scottish terrier and he's fairly feisty. his attitude is the bigger they come the harder they fall (luckily for him he never gets to test this theory because some of the hounds he tries to provoke would fall pretty damn hard)... the second part of the story is that there's a driving school in the neighborhood that has a slogan "welcome to the urban jungle" and their cars are serigraphed to look like animal fur. and scottie equates these cars to big dogs: barks and growls at them (and never to any other cars) and pulls at the leash to get at them.
Now that it is a bit off-topic. Here is the popularly known as "Cole" (Fanaticus colombianus), whom recently may have been seen whirling in the Monumental stadium of Santiago de Chile, last 11 th of September :
Apparently a Brown Creeper (Certhia americana) made her residence at my new place of residence. I love how they go up a tree in corkscrew fashion.
That is an interesting article. I posted it in the Science thread, located, oddly enough, in the Religion and Spirituality subforum
Yes. they have the amazing ability to be on the other side of the tree you are looking at. They are nonstop energy too! Eventually, they will encircle the tree while on the way up/down.
the always go from the bottom up... wheras nuthatches always work from the top down. reportedly they're the only birds who can do so!
Went to Leesylvania State Park this past weekend and saw: Cooper's Hawk (Accipiter cooperii) American Coot (Fulica americana) And a Eastern Screech-Owl (Otus asio)
while my toast was toasting and the coffee brewing this morning i was looking out the french doors for birds as always and saw just a robin. while eating said toast and drinking aforementioned coffee i heard a clunk on the glass and when i opened there was a robin on the mat. but perhaps not the selfsame robin. there was another one on the patio table and the stunned one was probably fleeing from a flight. only stunned i hope : i put it in a shoebox and the wife is looking after it. i hope he'll be well, and gone, by the time i get home.
Last night my girlfriend and I were awakened (again) by an Eastern Screech Owl (Megascops asio). Her house is right next to a green space that is swampy. I am excited by the prospect that it lives nearby and maybe in her backyard considering we have heard it multiple times at night right outside the window. She doesn't share my enthusiasm.
Over the weekend I saw a big raptor swoop over our street and fly into some trees. It looked bulkier than an osprey. My wife and I wonder if an eagle is roosting nearby; she thought she saw one a couple of blocks away.
Went on my long run this weekend. Saw a Eastern Meadowlark (Sturnella magna). I'm pretty sure that is what it was.
it's a very good thing to do! here, i participate in this http://www.faune-rhone.org/index.php?m_id=1&logout=1 you just enter your sightings whenever you want. i used to do a similar thing just limited to our region but it closed down and merged with this much more powerful survey about 6 months ago.
Went for a winter paddle yesterday on the river that runs two blocks from my house here in Columbus. About 20 minutes in, a bald eagle flew down the river, straight toward me, before veering to the right directly above my kayak.