My Neighborhood is Down With It!

Several people in my neighborhood reacted positively to my last two blog posts. In fact, there has been enough interest that I've scheduled a birding walk for this Saturday at 8 a.m.

Still, I don't know how many people will come. This will be the first time I have led a bird walk in an otherwise unremarkable urban neighborhood. A neighborhood containing no natural open space or birding hotspot. What will happen? Will we see enough birds to keep people interested?

Pyrrhuloxia (above) and silhouette (below) showing
the curved bill rather than the cardinal's pointed bill

I was buoyed over the weekend by finding some new species in the neighborhood for 2014. On Saturday afternoon a friend and I were walking on a nearby residential street and we saw a pyrrhuloxia (the desert relative of the northern cardinal). It was in one of the places I often see new species--a yard with dense native trees and shrubs. It is grayer overall than the cardinal and has a yellow, curved bill (rather than the red, pointed bill).

There was also a wintering white-crowned sparrow there, which I hadn't seen in the neighborhood in 2014.

On Sunday I saw two pyrrhuloxias in another location--a very small patch of chollas (cacti) and creosotes. I managed to get some photos.

There was also a great-tailed grackle in an alley a block from my house. I had just been discussing with Keith, the friend walking with me on Saturday, how grackles often congregate in some of the most urban locations--like parking lots and commercial buildings. I realized that I don't see them very often in the nighborhood. What does a Home Depot parking lot have that our neighborhood doesn't? I got a photo as the grackle flew by.

A photo as the great-tailed grackle flew by

On this Saturday's birding walk we will walk to the house of an experienced birder named Vivian MacKinnon. For years she has kept a list of birds seen in the neighborhood. She says others have kept lists too. It will be exciting to know what's been seen over the years--not just this year.

Also she says northern flickers (red-shafted variety) have been seen recently in the neighborhood.

Here are the 25 species seen in my neighborhood so far in 2014:

Gambel's Quail (Callipepla gambelii)

Cooper's Hawk (Accipiter cooperii)

Red-tailed Hawk (Buteo jamaicensis)

Rock Pigeon (Columba livia)

Eurasian Collared-Dove (Streptopelia decaocto)

White-winged Dove (Zenaida asiatica)

Mourning Dove (Zenaida macroura)

Great Horned Owl (Bubo virginianus)

Anna's Hummingbird (Calypte anna)

Gila Woodpecker (Melanerpes uropygialis)

American Kestrel (Falco sparverius)

Vermilion Flycatcher (Pyrocephalus rubinus)

Verdin (Auriparus flaviceps)

Curve-billed Thrasher (Toxostoma curvirostre)

Northern Mockingbird (Mimus polyglottos)

European Starling (Sturnus vulgaris)

Yellow-rumped Warbler (Setophaga coronata)

Abert's Towhee (Melozone aberti)

White-crowned Sparrow (Zonotrichia leucophrys)

Northern Cardinal (Cardinalis cardinalis)

Pyrrhuloxia (Cardinalis sinuatus)

Great-tailed Grackle (Quiscalus mexicanus)

House Finch (Haemorhous mexicanus)

Lesser Goldfinch (Spinus psaltria)

House Sparrow (Passer domesticus)