What's in Your Neighborhood? The Garden District Tries to Answer that Question

The Garden District, the next neighborhood east of mine, got wind of my effort to promote urban birds and birding. They asked me to do a bird walk. I agreed and Meg and Kris, from the neighborhood association, arranged for me to lead a walk yesterday (Saturday) morning at 7 a.m.

Let me know if this is something you would like to do in your neighborhood!

I went over about 6:45 a.m. and met about 10 residents. Our hostess, Lisa, set out a great spread of coffee cake, orange juice and strawberries. Lisa's partner Michael, a biologist, was quite knowledgeable about neighborhood birds--I could tell right away he'd be an asset as we walked around the neighborhood.

A big thank you to the Kris Yarter of the Garden District for supplying the next two photos.

Gathering at Lisa's house before the walk (Kris Yarter)

The group stops to watch white-winged doves and Gila woodpeckers (Kris Yarter)

We set out through the neighborhood seeing plenty of house finches, house sparrows, mourning doves, white-winged doves and lesser goldfinches. When we arrived at a large, corner lot with a lot of native vegetation, the first thing we spotted was not a bird but a swarm of bees that had spent the night in a blue palo verde along the street. We gave it a wide berth and learned later that it had moved on later in the day.

Honey bee swarm in a palo verde

Other finds were made here including an early-blooming saguaro that was attracting birds and bees.

Curve-billed thrasher among saguaro flowers, and a bee

Saguaros provide food and nesting opportunities to birds. It's not always the woodpecker holes that provide a place to nest. This rotten section of a saguaro arm made the perfect nesting spot for this dove.

Dove on a nest in a saguaro arm

I've also heard of Lucy's warblers nesting in tiny rot-holes and of course some large raptors like Harris's hawks and caracaras have been known to build their nests in saguaros.

Later we saw vermilion flycatchers in two different places. Both times we saw evidence of family life. I knew about one at the elementary school yard and on this occasion we found both the adult male (pictured below--an earlier photo of the same male) and an immature individual, apparently a fledged young-of-the-year. Also, in a back yard along an alley we found a male feeding a female that was sitting on a nest!

Here's a photo of the male vermilion flycatcher at the school yard I took a while back.

Vermilion flycatcher on the elementary school fence, Garden District

In the same alley from which we saw the flycatcher nest we heard incessant singing of a Lucy's warbler. It turned out there was a pair of them acting as if on a nesting territory. I want to go back and track down whether there is a nest in that area. I thought it was rare for them to nest in residential areas, so I want to follow up. In the same alley--let's call it the "magic alley" since we saw so much there--we saw an Abert's towhee fly up to a fence, sit for a minute, and then disappear out of sight.

Back at Lisa's house after the walk, an Abert's towhee showed up at her seed feeder. Michael said that although they've come in the past, it had been some weeks since the last sighting. Today Lisa emailed that they are still coming to the feeder, and that she was attributing that to my influence! Perhaps I can take credit for heightening their vigilance in observing the feeder. In any case it was a successful morning of meeting new neighborhood birders and enjoying nature in a residential setting.

Here is the complete list of species seen during the walk:

Cooper's Hawk (Accipiter cooperii)
Rock Pigeon (Feral Pigeon) (Columba livia (Domestic type))
White-winged Dove (Zenaida asiatica)
Mourning Dove (Zenaida macroura)
Black-chinned Hummingbird (Archilochus alexandri)
Anna's Hummingbird (Calypte anna)
Gila Woodpecker (Melanerpes uropygialis)
Empidonax sp. (Empidonax sp.)--probably a migrating cordilleran or pacific-slope flycatcher
Vermilion Flycatcher (Pyrocephalus rubinus)
Verdin (Auriparus flaviceps)
Cactus Wren (Campylorhynchus brunneicapillus)
Curve-billed Thrasher (Toxostoma curvirostre)
Northern Mockingbird (Mimus polyglottos)
European Starling (Sturnus vulgaris)
Lucy's Warbler (Oreothlypis luciae)
Abert's Towhee (Melozone aberti)
Great-tailed Grackle (Quiscalus mexicanus)
House Finch (Haemorhous mexicanus)
Lesser Goldfinch (Spinus psaltria)
House Sparrow (Passer domesticus)

Just Passing Through, May Stick Around a Couple Days

Certain birds just pass through Tucson in spring migration. While spring migrants are expected in a general sense, they're always a  pleasant surprise in the moment you see them. Many only stay a day or two. The latest issue of Tucson Audubon's Vermilion Flycatcher (Vol. 59, No. 2) is about Wilson's warblers' migratory stopovers and what we can do to help them fatten up for their continued journey.

One of the most dramatic neighborhood migratory surprises came last Monday morning as I attempted to back out of the driveway. It was much bigger than a Wilson's warbler. Through the back window of the car I saw a hawk rise up out of the neighborhood to the south. The General Impression of Size and Shape, or "GISS" (yes, that's a term birders use) was of something larger than a Cooper's hawk but not as broad-winged as a red-tailed hawk.

I put the car in neutral and got out. The wings were a little pointy and swept forward; there was a brown hood; the leading edges of the wings were white. It was a Swainson's hawk! It circled once and headed northwest. This was my first sighting of this species in the neighborhood and I realized I had the camera in the car. So I got back in the car and took off after it!

Swainson's hawk, April 7, 2014, Palo Verde Neighorhood

I chased it west into the next neighborhood, driving by a coworker's house on the way. Part of me wanted to let her know this bird was in her neighborhood, but I knew if I stopped to knock on the door or call I would loose track of it.

Finally after another three blocks it stopped and circled on a thermal, trying to gain altitude. I got out with the camera and got a pretty decent photo. After appreciating the experience for a little while longer, I headed off to work.

In other raptor news, young Cooper's hawks have been out of the nest and flying around for at least a couple weeks now. Here's one from about a week ago. Notice the little hummingbird to the right that was hovering around up there too! I like to think it was saying "Bet you can't catch me!"

Immature Cooper's hawk, early April 2014

In my last blog I mentioned a Cassin's vireo that showed up in an acacia a half-block from the house while I was walking the dogs. On Wednesday morning, as I was leaving home to visit's the Patons' house in Patagonia, Arizona, I heard another vireo nearby. I saw it fly into the big mesquite in my back yard and, behold, it was a plumbeous vireo. This vireo is closely related to the Cassin's, once having been considered the same species (solitary vireo). Plumbeous, as the name suggests, is grayer while Cassin's is washed with yellow-green. See more about plumbeous vireo at AllAboutBirds.org.

Later at the Paton house in Patagonia I enjoyed views of a long list of birds including my "first of year" gray hawk, canyon towhee, western tanager, black-headed grosbeak, brown-headed cowbird and lazuli bunting. Hmm, somebody ought to start a urban birder blog for Patagonia!

What's Birds are Missing from Your Neighborhood?

Cassin's vireo was a surprise visitor to the neighborhood last week. I had not seen it in the neighborhood this year, or ever for that matter. I didn't get a photo of it because, again, I didn't take the camera. It was just a short walk around the block with the dogs! Cassin's vireos are migrating through our area on their way from Mexico to the Pacific Northwest and southwest Canada.You can learn more about Cassin's vireo here.

Northern mockingbird on a wire, Palo Verde Neighborhood

A friend wrote that when she saw her neighborhood mockingbird on a telephone pole she thought of me. It had appeared at just the time of day it always does. I hope that means she thinks of me as reliable. Maybe it's just that birds remind people of me. It's nice to have those reliable old friends in the neighborhood, as well as the surprise species.

That reminded me of when I lived in central Mexico and a visiting ornithologist commented that the habitat there should be good for mockingbirds. But there were few to be found. He speculated that mockingbirds hatchlings were easy to capture and sell in the cage-bird trade. In fact, I saw many mockingbirds in cages. They are good singers and they livened up courtyards all around the city.

Cactus wren in a cholla, Palo Verde Neighborhood

Thinking of that made me wonder what birds aren't here that should be. I have noticed that cactus wrens are not as common as I expected. Just today I found a cactus wren for only the second time. They are curious and unafraid, experimental and canny. You'd think these would be great traits for adapting to urban areas, and that they'd be common. When I worked at the VA Medical Center in an old, two-story wooden building, sometimes birds wandered in to the screened porch area--or were scared in by passing cars. Mourning doves and Gila woodpeckers came in pretty often and had a devil of a time finding their way out. Cactus wrens came in on purpose, though holes in the screens or the broken door. They foraged for food or nesting materials, and then went out the way they got it--which they apparently remembered. I never had to rescue them. Why are these adaptable birds almost absent from my neighborhood?

Rachael McCaffrey, in her doctoral studies at the University of Arizona, found that if her urban study plots had cholla cacti, she would more frequently find cactus wrens. They like to nest in the cacti. The presence of a place to nest seemed all that was really necessary. Chollas are not a very common landscaping choice around here, so maybe that explains it. However, there are some places that have them. Interestingly, where they do occur many of them have thrasher nests. Few have cactus wrens. I wonder what's going on. They are known to compete with thrashers for nesting space.

Maybe it's less of a surprise to find a Cassin's vireo than I thought.