The Strange, Sleepless, Tweaked-Out World of the Killdeer

By Mel Carriere

Image from:   http://www.urbanwildlifeguide.net/2011/08/killdeer.html

The killdeer is the "tweaker" of the bird world.  They never sleep, you can hear their incessant, fidgety, bone rattling, screeching complaints at all hours of the day or night, and they seem to be everywhere at once.  I have seen a killdeer under a street lamp on my block, I have frequently come across them in shopping center parking lots, they frequent public and corporate business parks, they are quite at home on school campuses, and I have also found them in natural settings on the muddy fringes of San Diego Bay and in salt marshes.  There doesn't seem to be any place relatively flat that is not on the killdeer real estate wish list.

All this, and a lot of folks don't even know that they exist.  This became clear last night as my wife and  I accompanied my son to the bank and could hear the harsh alarm bells of disturbed killdeer going off all around us.

"What is that?" my wife asked me.

"Those are killdeer," I said.

"Why killdeer?  Can they really kill deer?" she continued, asking the number one answer on Family Feud in response to the question "What do people say after you tell them the bird they hear is a killdeer?"

"Of course they can't," I said.  "They call them that because the noise they make is supposed to sound like Killdeer, Killdeer, Killdeer."  It doesn't sound anything like that, really, so maybe the real origin of the name is because this little bird has delusions of grandeur, or perhaps it has managed to run grazing multi-point bucks away from its ground nest in the past using its broken wing display, fostering the myth that it lured the deer off Pied Piper like to their doom.

The bird's ambulatory style also lends credence to the tweaker hypothesis.  Killdeer tweak their way across parking lots, meadows, and lawns, stopping and starting at intervals as if the highly taut spring within them needs to be rewound before resuming.  Then at the slightest facial twitch or groin scratch of a passerby they will launch into flight and loudly proclaim their outrage with the loud, klaxson call that theoretically gives the bird its name.

Because I've done overnight security jobs where the Killdeer in the area never seem to put on their stocking caps and go to bed, but instead spend the entire interval between dawn and dusk fleeing from their own shadows beneath street lights, I was deeply interested in the sleep patterns of these birds.  So I did a lot of researching around on the Internet and surprisingly enough, the insomnia associated with the Killdeer species turns out to be a real problem, not so much for the birds as the human inhabitants of wherever they live, who are often rudely awakened at 3 AM by what they think is the nerve fraying wail of a neighbor's car alarm, but is actually only a family of killdeer fleeing from the terror of a passing moth or a bouncing bunny rabbit.  Internet chat rooms are full of complaints on this score.  One Killdeer complainer says:

"Killdeer, the little plover looking birds... what the heck are they doing making so much noise at night? Sheesh, the last 3 nights they've been flying around chattering their heads off at like 3:30 am. Anyone else have noisy killdeer? GO TO SLEEP! ROOST! Aargh!"

This comment generated a lot of responses, so it is apparent that the sleeplessness of Killdeer is definitely not something confined to my neighborhood.

The next time you see these little winged tweakers stutter stepping across your driveway, offer a glass of warm milk, or better yet a nightcap.  This bird with its apparently taped open eyelids seems like it should be collapsing from exhaustion at any minute, but instead there it is, orbiting around you or trying to lure you off the edge of a cliff with that bogus broken wing act.  You're not much bigger than a young buck, young man, so mind your manners around these tweaker Killdeer.  Remember, they never sleep.


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Nighthawks, Anyone? Thoughts on a Tennis Court Feeding Frenzy

By Mel Carriere

Image attributed to:  http://utahbirders.blogspot.com/2014/05/utah-big-day-record-pt-1-scout-route.html

If they play tennis at night, which I'm not really sure they do because I'm not much of a fan of the sport, I wonder if Serena Williams or her sister ever looked up and noticed the remarkable nighthawks engaged in amazing, fluttering flight among the flood lights above.  Even though I do not play tennis at night, I have been to places where they do, and have stood in awe of this spectacle - not at the amateurish, clumsy swings of the tennis players, but of the smooth, precise, coordinated flight of the Lesser Nighthawks catching bugs in the lights.

As it turns out, tennis courts are a mini ecosystem.  In addition to the primates sweating and grunting down below as they make crude, awkward attempts to imitate the graceful and beautiful Serena, there are hundreds of moths, beetles and other bugs attracted to the brilliant bulbs that illuminate the courts, and following these bugs are the predators that feast upon them, including perhaps a few bats that pass by incognito because their dark coats blend into the night above, and also the Lesser Nighthawks whose wingtip safety reflectors and bright strip of reflective tape across the chin clearly announce their identity for the spectators at the courts.

I accompanied my son to the park a few nights ago so he could do his jogging.  As he slogged around the park's pathways, I sat outside the gym and watched the parade of Nighthawks that were circling around the tennis court lights across the way.  There must have been at least a dozen of the birds, but it was impossible to count because not all of them were illuminated at the same moment.  The Chordeiles acutipennis would dash and flutter in, scoop up hordes of bugs in their enormous bug shoveling gapes, then vanish into the darkness beyond the range of the glare of the floodlights.

One thing about Lesser Nighthawks is that, even though they straggle into work in rather lackadaisical fashion, once they are on the clock they are all business.  I have seen them commuting slowly in from the higher sage scrub around dusk, appearing to be fighting off the effects of a bender the day before, dipping and swirling in a rather aimless, pointless fashion, as if they were trying to delay the inevitable, like we all do when we have had a rough night but we still have to make a living.  Once within the limelight of their tennis court theater, however, the flight of the sluggards instantly transforms from haphazard into precise as they pirouette about the flood lights with swiftly executed, geometrical turns.  Although they can glide a straight line as efficiently as any raptor I've seen, Lesser Nighthawks alternate their smooth, flapless flight with a rapid fluttering motion which made me think of bats as I sat there and observed.

This line of thinking took me to the concept of convergent evolution, which basically means "...the independent evolution of similar features in species of difference lineages (per Wikipedia)."  For instance, bats and Nighthawks are nothing alike, one being a mammal and the other a bird, but they have evolved a superficially similar pattern of fluttering flight, and I couldn't help but wonder if chasing insects on the wing requires these quick wing beats.  It seems that swifts and swallows also pursue bugs through the air using this same rapid fire flapping motion, followed by quick glides.

While on the subject of convergent evolution, there are other examples in the bird world that demonstrate how species of different evolutionary lineages nonetheless evolve the same physical traits.  For instance, have you ever noticed that birds who inhabit flat areas, such as meadows, parks, beaches and construction sites develop white edging on their tail feathers?  Meadowlarks have this, as do Pipits and Horned Larks, all birds that forage in wide open areas.  I wonder if this white edging along the tail feathers breaks up their silhouette and helps them disappear into the landscape, so that they are not so easily spotted by predators flying overhead.

Life is full of wonders like this to observe and ponder, if we take the time to observe and ponder.  So the next time you are playing tennis at night, look up!  Don't worry - your name is not Serena and this is not Wimbledon, so if the ball misses your racket and hits you in the belly while you are marveling at the fluttering Nighthawks, no one is going to care.


Get this cool Lesser Nighthawk puzzle on Amazon! 


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Phoebe "Phreaks" Out, Dive Bombs Bird Blogger

By Mel Carriere

My experience with birds has always been a positive one.  I have never been harassed by angry crows or dive bombed by infuriated nest-defending Mockingbirds.  Sometimes little Anna's hummingbirds take umbrage to my proximity to their digs and will frighten me off with a majestic J shaped swoop that doesn't even come close enough to ruffle the few remaining hairs on my balding head.  For the most part, however, I have kept my distance and lived in peace with members of my local avian community, and they have reciprocated by regarding me as a harmless feature of the landscape.

But sometimes aerial threats come at you from unexpected directions, and such was the case last week when I was attacked from a quarter of the sky that I never would have expected.

The culprit was a Black Phoebe, a bird I have observed can be fierce in defending its home territory against invading members of its own species, but have never known to be aggressive against me or any other members of the Homo sapiens set.  Indeed, my wife and I enjoy sipping our coffee in the dining room while we watch the tail wagging antics of Sayornis nigricans as they dive bomb for bugs from a planter hanger perch they make use of in our back yard.  These birds never seem to object to, or even take notice our presence, for that matter.

But last Sunday, as I turned the corner of a building that is part of a large complex where I work security one day out of the week, I was the bug who was Phoebe dive bombed .  An angry Black Phoebe, standing watch in a Sweet Gum tree just outside a window, took wing and began flying intimidating circles around my head as I walked by.  Not prepared for this air bombardment I scurried off for safety, and when I was outside the Phoebe's comfort zone the bird assumed I got the message and went back to its vigilant post on the Sweet Gum.

As I continued my solitary rounds, I wondered about the Phoebe's unexpected bad temper, and could only conclude that the bird was jealously protecting a nest in the vicinity.  When I swung by the same place again a little later the Phoebe was no longer using the Sweet Gum as a base for its Stuka operations, so I chanced a quick peek up into the rafters.  There as expected was the rather unkempt mud cup that this Phoebe had constructed to raise its young in.  Since I could not hear the urgent, hungry peeping of any bird babies, however, I concluded that the nest was empty, so it seemed a little strange to me that Ma Phoebe should be so urgently and insistently defending the place.  It also seemed a bit odd that this bird should still be nesting so late in the season.

I conducted a little investigation on this bird's breeding habits, and found out that Black Phoebes do indeed "...nest in mud cups anchored in protected nooks, often under a bridge or the eaves of a building (per allaboutbirds)."  The female does all the nest construction while the sperm donor Dad goes off on a bug bender, hence my attacker was most probably a lady.  Phoebes raise 1-3 clutches, so it is possible the nest you see photographed above was a late brood, but I couldn't find any definitive dates about how late in the season this bird breeds.  Even though I can't verify it from any bird authorities, however, I know now from personal experience that in July Phoebe love is still in the air, and these tail flicking fiends remain in "high feather" against anyone who might intrude too close to one of the ugly mud splats that their children call home.

I have decided not to declare war on Mrs. Phoebe, but to write off her unwarranted attack as a case of raging hormones.  As a married man of near 25 years I can definitely understand female hormones run amok.  Therefore, I will do my best to maintain a positive outlook on the Phoebe clan as I go about my terrestrial based duties and leave the sky to the birds.

A great place to start for beginning birders!


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The image is a composite.  The photo on the right of the Phoebe nest was made by me, the photo on the left is taken from Wikipedia, and is attributed to:  "Sayornis nigricans NBII" by John J. Mosesso, NBII - http://images.nbii.gov/details.php?id=56595&cat=Birds. Licensed under Public Domain via Wikimedia Commons - https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Sayornis_nigricans_NBII.jpg#/media/File:Sayornis_nigricans_NBII.jpg

Do Birds Mourn Their Dead? - Notes on a Starling's Untimely Demise

By Mel Carriere

I confess I have never liked Starlings much.  First of all they are an invasive species - a kind of weed with wings that drives out other more desirable feathered favorites, notably Bluebirds.  Secondly, Starlings typically inhabit mundane, barren industrialized areas and add their sparkling ugliness to the already blighted urban landscape, so that there is not much romance at all associated with the species.  Point three is the voice. I'm pretty sure there are no bodice-ripper novels that feature Starlings singing sweetly in the garden as the two lovers finally lock in amorous embrace.  The song of the Starling is just not that sweet; consisting largely of a series of dissonant hisses, clicks, and whistles that are definitely not  music to the ears and definitely do not inspire poets.  Finally, there is something downright creepy about the bird and the flocks in which it thrives.  Starling flocks seem to be possessed of a hive mind, much like a swarm of bees or a plague of locusts, and it strikes me as unsettling to watch their undulating flocks moving in choreographed unison, as if directed by an invisible controlling entity.  This particular Starling behavior, in fact, used to creep me out so much that I once wrote a fantasy novel featuring Starlings as the bad guys; an army of foul avians being led by a grotesquely proportioned boss Starling that directed the insidious affairs of his kin from the dark bowels of an abandoned refinery.

Over the years I have come to appreciate Starlings a little more.  I found that they are superb mimics - much better than any Mockingbird in my opinion, a fact I discovered when I heard one outside the bedroom window perfectly imitating my wife's cuckoo clock.   Indeed, research has shown that whatever their voice lacks in beauty is more than compensated by the complexity of their vocalizations.  It turns out that Starlings have an extremely complex language that employs recursion, a phenomenon that in general allows for extremely complex sentence building, something that at one time was thought to be unique to humans.  In 2006, however, scientists began to discover that Starlings also use recursion in their speech, shattering yet another arrogant misconception of man that we alone employ complex language and are superior because of it.

These discoveries have made me respect Starlings a little more.  Not love, mind you, respect.

While doing my security rounds in a building parking lot on Sunday I came across a dead Starling on the pavement that had obviously been ripped apart by some predator.  Its body had been gutted and one bloody wing ripped away and dragged a few feet.  The unsightly carcass remained in this state for a couple of hours until scavengers came along and thoroughly finished the job; even taking the beak, leaving nothing but a few feathers.  A trio of crows loitering nervously nearby, looking a bit shamed by their gluttony, were probably the clean up crew.

This sounds silly, but my first thought upon seeing the dead Starling was to wonder if any of this bird's friends and family mourned its death.  Scientists have demonstrated that Scrub Jays actually conduct impromptu funerals for their dearly departed, so is it beyond the realm of possibilities that such a complex, intelligent songbird like the Starling wouldn't do the same?

One of the themes I am going to frequently write about here is how human arrogance misinterprets animal behavior.  Until very recently, traditional science always maintained that most animals function on a purely instinctive level, basically doing everything on impulse without moderating their behavior through the process of rational thought, as humans supposedly do.  I have always thought this idea to be pure bunk, complete hooey.  I believe scientists circulated this notion on purpose without really investigating it first, probably so they can justify killing animals in cruel experiments. 

Now science is reluctantly waking up to the true capability of animals, and the Eureka revelation is that they are not really much different from us.  Our unique evolutionary advantage, one that has fueled further vital adaptations such as an opposable thumb and powerful brain, is the ability to stand on two legs for extended periods.  Animals can't do this, which means we can stand up and throw things at them all day but they can't throw back, which is a definite liability in a fight.  Well, I suppose a chimpanzee can stand up and throw a rock at us, but then it has to run away on all fours, meaning its hands will be occupied while running.  Humans, however, can run and keep throwing things the whole time, an ability that definitely put us ahead in the struggle to dominate the planet.  It also means we can stand up and manipulate increasingly complex tools.  In summation, it's not that we are innately smarter or better, it's simply that we can stand up, and this has given us leisure time to experiment with ways to better control our universe.

Since Starlings have developed complex language, therefore, why can't they also have complex social behavior, such as funerals, like the Scrub Jays do?  Scientists refer to these Scrub Jay last rites with the impressive title of "cacophonous aggregations in response to dead conspecifics," a label that seems to demean their purpose.  If you have ever seen a video of one of those Arab funerals with the hysterically shrieking women mourners, you might be inclined to call that a "cacophonous aggregation" as well.  Human funerals certainly can be quite a cacophony.  So what is the difference?  I think that putting a clean, technical label on the emotional outbursts of animals makes it easier for us to cancel out their feelings and suffering, which means its okay for people to kill as many of them as we have to.

What was that the great philosopher Kurt Cobain said? - "...it's okay to eat fish, 'cause they don't have any feelings."  Well, turns out that if the Scrub Jays and the Starlings do, then why not fish?  So now what, Kurt?

Hear Kurt's immortal words for yourself:



More bird thoughts by Mel on Hub Pages

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The Says Phoebe Gets Around - New Mexico Notes

By Mel Carriere

I just got back from vacationing in Colorado and New Mexico for a few days, and hopefully the bird blogging business will crank up a notch or two.  This little family reunion road trip didn't turn out to be the birding bonanza I was hoping for.  There were plenty of barn swallows for everyone and then some - one pair was actually nesting in a hole in the roof above the front porch of the farmhouse where my mother grew up, and the birds got very nervous waiting on a high wire for the old codgers swapping yarns from the past to clear out so they could get about the business of feeding their babes.  I'm sure the swallows will have a future family reunion story or two of their own to tell about that one.  

I think I was the only one who even noticed the swallows.  The codgers just kept on jawing and lying while my soul bled for the anxious parents waiting above - but to my shame I did nothing. 

I also saw a Violent-green Swallow perched in a nook of an ancient stone wall at the Quarai ruins, a part of Salinas Pueblo Missions National Monument just outside of Mountainair, New Mexico.  The ruins there are remarkable and if you get off your butt and go right now it might still be green, a temporary blessing that has been visited upon this area after a decade of dismal drought.  So there's a plug for the ruins, of which there are actually three in the area, and here's a plug for my ancestral town of Mountainair, which is a fine spot from which to embark upon your ruins exploration, with the single disadvantage that there is not a single drop booze in town unless you break and enter into somebody's private liquor closet.  If you do enjoy a nightcap, plan accordingly, and if you elect to stay in Mountainair I highly recommend the Rock Motel.  It looks sort of Norman Bates-ish on the outside, but don't be frightened.  It is remarkably clean and new where it counts, on the inside.  The Ancient Cities Cafe just across the street from the Rock Motel also has wonderful food - great breakfasts, outstanding Mexican fare, and you can conveniently call out for their passable Pizza from the menu in your room at the Rock.

What does my little travelogue here have to do with Says Phoebes?   Not much, except to say that if I would have just gone ahead and brought my own neighborhood birds with me they would have felt right at home there on our old family farm south of Mountainair.  With the exception of a single Juniper Titmouse making  himself at home in one of his namesake shrubs, the birds I saw were the same ones I have seen time and again in my current San Diego neighborhood.

The barn swallows I mentioned before are not exactly common in San Diego, and tend to get lost in the swirling flocks of our signature Cliff Swallows, but if you look closely into the midst of such an aerial assemblage long enough you will spot a forked tail or two.  Their cousins the Violet-greens are also common up on Cuyamaca Peak, about an hour and a half from where I live.  

Another bird I could have just packed into my suitcase, TSA permitting of course, is the Mockingbird, which carves out its territory in the open fields between the New Mexico Junipers just as it defines its dominion in the open spaces between our Queen Palms and Sweet Gums back in San Diego.  I could see the distinctive white wing flashes of the Mockers as they flitted between fence posts, and at one point I spotted a pair tenaciously harrying a crow, also a sight I could have seen from my front porch in San Diego and kept the $119 plane fare in my pocket to boot, with which I could have bought a couple six packs of that elusive beer that disappeared from Mountainair along with the indigenous Tiwa Indians of the Salinas Pueblos, sometime in the 1600s I think.

There were also enough Says Phoebes out there on the farm to munch the house flies in my yard to extinction.  Fortunately, if you are a Musca domestica, there were sufficient flies in Mountainair's Pinyon-Juniper biosphere to harass a herd of buffalo over the edge of a cliff, so the Phoebes didn't seem to be lacking for food.  A Phoebe joined the swallows by nesting in the farmhouse roof, but did it a more remote corner where its activities seemed to be unhindered by human interference.  Again, I could have stayed home and watched Says Phoebes nesting.  Well, maybe not, my neighbor's cat seems to have extirpated them from my particular neighborhood just lately, another drawback of suburban birding.  Luckily, these Phoebes get around, and just like we prodigal sons, they always head back to the farm sooner or later, where there is enough open space to avoid feline deprivations.

So my New Mexico trip wasn't much of a bird Safari, but a change of scenery is always delightful, and I'll take a day sitting on a porch with a favorite Uncle or Aunt, watching a Phoebe dive bombing for bugs over a Southern California traffic jam any day.  

 Photo By Sayornis_saya_5.jpg: Linda Tanner from Los Osos, California, U.S.A. derivative work: Berichard (Sayornis_saya_5.jpg) [CC BY 2.0 (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/2.0)], via Wikimedia Commons



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Winged Sights and Sounds of the Sage Scrub

By Mel Carriere

Now would be as good as time as any to take a walk through the sage scrub, I suppose.  The unseasonable rainfall has somewhat rejuvenated things around here a bit, and the life down in the canyon bottoms should not be as dry and brittle as has been the norm since the politicians started getting serious about the water crisis.  Do the birds that bounce from sage to sumac worry about the drought on some level, or does nature automatically adjust for them, limiting their reproductive capabilities through the skillful application of hormones, or perhaps just "culling the herd" via natural Darwinistic survival of the fittest methods; in the process making sure there's enough to go around for the few that survive.

These are some heavy questions, but all I really want to do is take a walk through the canyon bottoms and get in touch with the bird life down in them.  When I first started birdwatching, a visit to the local canyon corridor was a monthly occurrence at least, but now it seems like years since I've gone.  I think I just ran out of new birds down there and sort of got tired seeing the same thing all the time.  Now I miss it, and I think it's time to go back.

San Diego has these fantastic undeveloped wildlife corridor canyons that criss-cross the city limits.  Depending on how much and how consistent the water that flows through their streambeds is, anything from low, scrubby willows to massive sycamores can be found growing there, along with the occasional invasive Pepper Tree or Russian Olive that has sprung up from a seed that strayed from someone's garden.  On the walls of these mini refuges within the sprawling metropolis one finds the Coastal Sage Scrub habitat, characterized by its low, drought tolerant scrubs, most notable of these being the chamise, various varieties of sage, buckwheat, and two or three kinds of sumac.  The chamise is also called greasewood, probably because it ignites like a grease fire when the autumn Santa Ana winds put it to the torch.

The sage scrub doesn't sound like much, and in truth it is not that impressive to look at either, especially during the long, dry summer that stretches through October.  Nonetheless, the sage scrub is the secret home of several interesting and lovely birds, and if you stick to the shaded canyon bottom and conduct yourself in an unobtrusive manner, many of these denizens of the Canyonlands will sneak down toward you and make their presence known, even though the bird guides and websites tend to describe them as "secretive."

Some are more secretive than others, I have discovered.  The bouncing ball song of the Wrentit is common everywhere, although the bird itself skulks in the thick brush and is frustratingly difficult to see.  The California Gnatcatcher is especially secretive for me, because I have yet to have a confirmed sighting of one, even though I have crossed its poor desert country cousin The Black Tailed Gnatcatcher off my list already.  Not so secretive are the Rufous Sided Towhees that flash their rusty flanks and muscle for territory with their drab California Towhee cousins that sneak down from the cool human gardens on the mesas above.  An occasional Roadrunner makes an appearance, and the California Quail can be heard singing that Frank Sinatra tune about the Windy City as they hunker down somewhere out in the brush.

The California Thrasher, which you see above, is also referred to as "secretive," but to me this is inaccurate.  The Cal Thrasher will boldly perch on a dry stick to proclaim its ownership of the Canyon in its rambling, disconnected, rather avant garde song that says "Yes I am the signature species of this place and without me it would suck down here."  Of course I have failed to capture the poetry in the message, but the real meaning is lost in translation.  You have to go and hear it for yourself.

One of my favorite memories of the sage scrub involved resting in the shadow of a Pepper Tree and watching as a California Thrasher strolled by casually within a few feet of me.  It looked like a Roadrunner in miniature, scratching through the dried leaf litter for edibles.  For a moment, at least, man and bird were at peace with one another there in the shade.

There is plenty of life just like this scratching around in those dry hills that line our Southern California coast.  It is a disservice indeed to say it is dead up there, because dead is far from the truth.  The beauty of this life is admittedly stark, but the hidden art of the sage scrub is all the more valuable because one has to work to see it.  It's time for me to get back to work; I need to return to the canyons before the cloud cover of the May Gray and June Gloom has disappeared; leaving me swooning in the July sun with my inert binoculars in hand.

The book below is highly recommended if you are planning a hike through the sage scrub or elsewhere in Southern California.





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Above photo of the California Thrasher is attributed to:  "<a href="http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Toxostoma_redivivum_-Morro_Bay,_California,_USA-8.jpg#/media/File:Toxostoma_redivivum_-Morro_Bay,_California,_USA-8.jpg">Toxostoma redivivum -Morro Bay, California, USA-8</a>" by <a class="external text" href="http://www.flickr.com/people/72825507@N00" rel="nofollow">Mike Baird</a> from Morro Bay, USA - <a class="external text" href="http://www.flickr.com/photos/mikebaird/2532590105/" rel="nofollow">California Thrasher, Toxostoma redivivum, Morro Bay, CA 28 May 2</a>Uploaded by <a title="User:Snowmanradio" href="//commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/User:Snowmanradio">snowmanradio</a>. Licensed under <a title="Creative Commons Attribution 2.0" href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/2.0">CC BY 2.0</a> via <a href="//commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/">Wikimedia Commons</a>.

Strange Sounds from my Neck of the Woods - Western Tanager Updates

By Mel Carriere

My bird blog has been grounded for several days by a strange stomach bug I have been battling with that has left my typing fingers drained and weary, with no urge to take flight.  I hope those of you who are regular readers will pardon my absence as I shut myself up in my nest to recuperate.

There have been a couple of interesting developments in my little corner of the bird world since we last touched base.  On April 29th I went outside in the morning to hear the unusual sounds of what could have been Robins, which are very rare in this part of the country even though they are in extreme abundance in Northern California, but which I suspect were probably Western Tanagers, the bird you see in the photo above.  The song of the two is creepily similar, almost as if one was deliberately imitating the other, but the reason I lean toward Tanager is because the first of May is the time that these birds typically migrate through our suburban San Diego neighborhoods, on their way to breeding grounds in our county's higher, conifer covered elevations.  This is strictly anecdotal and does not have any research behind it, but it seems like since the 2007 fire stripped our Cuyamaca range of much of its tree cover I have not seen this species pass through in the numbers that it did formerly.

My first encounter with this bird came on 6 May, 1999, when I was delivering the mail on my route in South San Diego, very close to the area where it abuts with Imperial Beach.  The male tanager appeared very unexpectedly in an unkempt garden, and for me seemed as peculiar and out of place as finding an elephant drinking from your bird bath.  I was familiar with this splendidly colored bird because the beautifully plumaged males appropriately adorn the cover of many a field guide, but I had imagined the species to be restricted to the cool conifer canopies of upper elevations.

That day and for a few days afterward I came across Tanagers in abundance in some ornamental fig trees that lined a dead end street on my route.  I thought perhaps they were attracted to the thick clumps of fruit that hang down from those trees at that season, or maybe the insects attracted to the ripening fruit, or perhaps both.  At any rate, this brief apparition was not an anomaly because the tanagers returned punctually every year in the early days of May before moving on to the sugar pines and incense cedars of our higher peaks, where I would encounter them while roaming through the then blissfully shady glades that have since been laid barren and exposed by fire.  Then I myself migrated to other temporary job opportunities and lost touch with the tanagers for a while.

Fast forward to this 29th of April, when I thought I heard one singing from the row of Eucalyptus trees to the south of my neighborhood, but the thick foliage would not permit me to confirm the identity of the songster.  It could very well have been an equally rare, equally transitory Robin, but the proximity of the date to the first of May made me think, or perhaps want to believe because of an air of nostalgia for the past, that it was a tanager that was stopping by to refresh my memory of 1999's golden age of birding, when everything I saw with wings was new.

The same day I thought I saw a male tanager perched on a wire as I drove by it in my mail truck in approximately the same area I saw my first, but the glimpse was too fleeting to confirm it.  They could be out there in droves for all I know; this being, appropriately enough, the 16th anniversary of that first encounter, but because I sit here at home nursing my sick tummy they are singing out their wheezy Robin imitations without my being there to witness it.

I guess I will have to give my other bird updates later.  The tanagers have taken up more space than I expected.







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Wonderful image of this Western Tanager is by Kati Fleming, licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution, taken 26 June 2010 in Wyoming.  http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Western_Tanager_piranga_ludoviciana;_body_visible,_male.jpg#file