Month: July 2020

New Bird Sighting: Bronzed Cowbird

Posted on by gardengirl8
Bronzed cowbird

So, this guy landed in my yard today (it seems like I see a new bird a few times a week now!). At first I thought it was just a common grackle, which are extremely common in these parts. But I noticed right away that it was much smaller, and as you can see, it has intensely red eyes. I soon discovered that it was a bronzed cowbird.

bronzed cowbird on bird bath

It was really quite striking with its jet-black feathers and beautiful, if not a little creepy, eyes. But what was interesting was the way it would bunch up its neck feathers.

bronzed cowbird with bunched up neck feathers

He kind of reminded me of Jon Snow in Game of Thrones when he wore the Night’s Watch cloak.

No Spoilers] A question about the Night's watch cloak : gameofthrones

Sigh. I miss that show. But I digress.

Here is what Cornell Lab’s All About Birds has to say about this bird:

A compact, bull-necked bird of open country, the Bronzed Cowbird forages for seeds and grains on the ground, usually in flocks. In good light, the male shimmers with deep glossy blue on the wing and a black body with a velvety bronze sheen. Males and females have intense red eyes. Like their relatives, the smaller Brown-headed Cowbirds, these unusual birds are “brood parasites”—they lay their eggs in other birds’ nests, leaving the hosts to provide all the care for their young.”

https://www.allaboutbirds.org/guide/Bronzed_Cowbird/overview

Yeesh. I hate that they are “brood parasites.”

And here are some cool facts:

Both Brown-headed and Bronzed Cowbirds have expanded their ranges recently, and the two species now overlap extensively. Competition for host nests has been one result. Bronzed Cowbirds tend to lay eggs in the nests of larger species than the Brown-headed does—but people have reported many host nests containing the eggs of both cowbird species.

Many species of songbird that are regular hosts to Bronzed Cowbird eggs attack the cowbirds when they are near their nest, which suggests that they perceive the cowbird as a threat to the nest. Couch’s Kingbirds, Hooded Orioles, and Northern Mockingbirds are especially aggressive toward Bronzed Cowbirds.

At least 101 species of songbirds have been known to host Bronzed Cowbird eggs in their nests. These range in size from the small Golden-cheeked Warbler to the sizeable Green Jay.

Bronzed Cowbirds often parasitize the nests of orioles. Birders have noticed that the sound of an oriole singing in the springtime often brings in both male and female Bronzed Cowbirds.

The record for the number of Bronzed Cowbird eggs found in a single nest is 17.”

https://www.allaboutbirds.org/guide/Bronzed_Cowbird/overview

Check out a previous New Bird Sighting.

Night Bird

Posted on by gardengirl8

For a couple of years, every night in the spring and summer, we’d hear a bird chirping. It wasn’t like the long drawn out bird song you might hear in the mornings. It was more of a consistent succession of chirps–sometimes one at a time, and sometimes a rhythmic series of them. At one point, the chirper must have been in the red tip photinia right outside our bedroom window, and he kept us up with his serenade.

What bird sings at night? I wondered. I found an article that mentioned how Mockingbirds will sometimes chirp at night during mating season. But this didn’t sound even remotely like the Mockingbirds I’ve heard, which are bold and forceful in their singing.

Armed with a flashlight, I searched the bushes and trees around our backyard to no avail. Every time I got close to where the sound was coming from, he’d just clam up.

“It’s just Night Bird,” my husband said.

After a while, we just sort of let the mystery of Night Bird be. And so, whenever we’d hear it, we’d just say, “Night Bird.” Like, there he is, at it again.

A few months ago, I took up my sleuthing once more. I’m really not one to let things go. I call it persistence. You might call it being obsessive. Potayto, potahto. Anyway, one night, Night Bird was doing his thing, and I decided to go out and have a look. I started thinking about everything I know about birds, namely that when you get close to them, they fly off. So, if this indeed was a bird, it was being remarkably still. There wasn’t even the sound of rustling leaves or movement of any kind. Which led me to think…

It wasn’t a bird at all.

Suddenly I remembered the tree frog we found on our porch a few years back. It was making the strangest sounds. I knew that whatever Night Bird was, it wasn’t the same as the tree frog, but maybe it was some other kind of frog or toad.

So, I searched “frog call that sounds like a bird.” Boom! I had my answer. Ladies and gentlemen, may I present to you, Night Bird. Also known as the Rio Grande Chirping Frog:

Rio Grande Chirping Frog

As you can probably guess, I just had to see this guy for myself. They are pretty small, so viewing them can be a challenge. In fact, all I managed to do was snap a picture as it was hopping away. Not a great shot, but it’s all I’ve got.

We still call him Night Bird, although, there is clearly more than one. Their calls seem to echo all over the backyard. Sometimes, I even hear them in the morning. I’ve looked and looked and I still haven’t been able to see one in person. But maybe one day, I’ll get lucky. One can hope. Or one can obsessively, er, I mean persistently look.

One day, Night Bird, one day.

Robber Fly

Robber Fly

Posted on by gardengirl8

So, one morning, a few weeks back, I walked into my garden and saw this. If you can’t quite tell, it was emerging from some kind of cocoon that looked like it had been buried in the ground. Needless to say, I stifled a scream and slowly backed away, sure that thing was going to attack me.

But then, I went inside to get my camera. Because, yeah, I’m obsessed with taking pictures even when I’m thoroughly freaked out.

When I came back, it had finished birthing itself.

And had left its cocoon thing behind.

I searched and searched the internet but couldn’t find a definitive answer on just what the heck this bug was. That is until I stumbled on the Texas A&M Agrilife Extension page, where they have a form that you can fill out to ask an entomologist to identify an insect for you.

This is the answer I got:

The insect is one of the robber flies, insect family Asilidae. It’s adult coloration is not fully formed, but I think it is one of the “bee killers”: https://bugguide.net/node/view/6695/bgpage. There is some general information here: https://bugguide.net/node/view/6695. Robber flies are predatory on other insects and considered to be beneficial species.”

https://askanentomologist.tamu.edu/insect-id-form/

So, no it wasn’t going to attack me. Despite how freaky that thing was, according to A&M, he’s a good guy. Just a little reminder to get the facts before we go squashing something out of existence, right?

New Bird Sighting: Greater Roadrunner

New Bird Sighting: Greater Roadrunner

Posted on by gardengirl8

Yesterday while I was working at my desk, which incidentally looks out onto my front garden and our neighbor’s yard across the street, I saw a roadrunner eating a giant grasshopper of some kind. As per usual, I snatched up my camera, but in my excitement, I didn’t put my glasses on, and my shots came out blurry. And then, of course, the bird had disappeared.

Disappointed but a bit hopeful he might still be around, I decided to go outside and have a look. Sure enough, he was hanging out in my other neighbor’s yard.

I don’t know much about roadrunners, but their name implies that they probably hang out mostly on the ground. So, I was surprised when this guy flew up into our neighbor’s oak tree.

But the squawks and shrieks from the jays and mockingbirds made me worry that perhaps this guy was after some fresh eggs. If you look to the right of the roadrunner’s head in the picture below, you can see a mockingbird. She doesn’t look happy.

I never did spot a nest, so I guess the other birds were feeling territorial. And, I mean, the roadrunner does look intimidating. Just look at that beak!

After a bit, the jay and the mockingbird flew off to do other things. Maybe that was because the roadrunner didn’t seem to be all that interested in doing anything but sitting in the oak’s dappled shade. Or maybe it was because given how loudly the cicadas were screaming in the afternoon heat, this guy had plenty of snacks available to him.

I left him alone after a while and hopped on the computer for some ID details. If you’ve never used The Cornell Lab’s Merlin bird identifier, definitely give it a go the next time you want to ID a bird. It’s super cool! Anyway, according to Merlin, a greater roadrunner sighting in Kyle, Texas, is “uncommon.”

Here are some basic facts about the bird from the Cornell site:

A bird born to run, the Greater Roadrunner can outrace a human, kill a rattlesnake, and thrive in the harsh landscapes of the Desert Southwest. Roadrunners reach two feet from sturdy bill to white tail tip, with a bushy blue-black crest and mottled plumage that blends well with dusty shrubs. As they run, they hold their lean frames nearly parallel to the ground and rudder with their long tails. They have recently extended their range eastward into Missouri and Louisiana.”

I especially appreciate this bit of info:

“Greater Roadrunners eat poisonous prey, including venomous lizards and scorpions, with no ill effect, although they’re careful to swallow horned lizards head-first with the horns pointed away from vital organs. Roadrunners can also kill and eat rattlesnakes, often in tandem with another roadrunner: as one distracts the snake by jumping and flapping, the other sneaks up and pins its head, then bashes the snake against a rock. If it’s is too long to swallow all at once, a roadrunner will walk around with a length of snake still protruding from its bill, swallowing it a little at a time as the snake digests.”

https://www.allaboutbirds.org/guide/Greater_Roadrunner

So, it was a pretty cool sighting. And if you know anything about me by now, you know I love it when a bird I’ve never seen in or near my habitat shows up. It just feels special.

Did I mention that I’ve had the song from the Roadrunner cartoon in my head ever since?

Shades of Green

Shades of Green

Posted on by gardengirl8

The squirrels in our yard are weird and hilarious. Most people think of them as nuisances because yes, they eat the birdseed, and yes, they tease the dog. I’ve heard they can damage trees and probably a lot of other things that I don’t know about. But you know what else? They are freaking entertaining! I mean, just look at this guy. All those acrobatics are totally unnecessary. It’s almost as if he’s having…fun.

I’m trying to cultivate a tolerance for everything in my garden. I’m convinced there is a way to live with all creatures, even insects–cue the heebie jeebies. Because once you start trying to eradicate one critter, especially in the case of bugs, you often end up with more problems than you started with. One thing might be gone, but a new one will come in to fill the void. Nature is an intricate web, and I am trying to learn how to preserve those delicate strands–emphasis on the word trying. We humans don’t have to control everything, don’t have to beat nature into submission all the time.

Forgive me. I have a tendency to be a little idealistic at times. It’s not just about letting it all go, maybe it’s about tolerating more wildness, more of nature’s perfect imperfection. Perfect because nature knows what she’s doing. Imperfect because that’s how humans often see it.

It reminds me of Joni Mitchell’s song “Big Yellow Taxi”:

Hey, farmer, farmer 
Put away the DDT now 
Give me spots on my apples 
But leave me the birds and the bees...

I think we need to learn to live with a few spots, especially if the pay-off is the birds and the bees. In a healthy garden and habitat, things don’t get out of control as often. It’s a balance. You know how homegrown tomatoes rarely look as perfect as those store-bought ones? They don’t always look as good, but they taste a heck of a lot better. I like that side of the scale much better.

Still, letting nature totally have her way doesn’t always work. When I started putting out bird feeders, we had a terrible problem with rats. At first, I thought it was kind of cute to see the little guys (I’m hopeless, I know, but I had a pet rat as a kid, so cut me some slack). But then they started getting into my husband’s work truck and chewing hoses and wires. So some of the rats had to go bye-bye. But what really made the difference was when I switched to waste-less birdseed and started bringing the feeders in at night. We haven’t had any issues since (fingers crossed).

I guess the point in all this rambling is that I think we all need a little more wildness in our lives. Maybe then we can stop defaulting to black and white thinking. This or that. Yes or no. Perhaps we can ease into shades of gray. Or shades of green, as it were.

So, yeah, the squirrels can stay. Besides, if I kept all of them out of my yard, I’d miss out on their circus acts every day. And they definitely make me smile.

I’ll leave you with this guy, who built an obstacle course for squirrels in his backyard. He totally gets it.

New Bird Sighting: Ladder-Backed Woodpecker

New Bird Sighting: Ladder-Backed Woodpecker

Posted on by gardengirl8

Oh happy day! I’ve spotted a new bird here at the Paddington Drive wildlife habitat! Seriously, nothing is quite as exciting as seeing a new bird species.

This ladder-backed woodpecker showed up on my sage bush. He didn’t seem interested in the bird feeder right in front of him, but was instead content with picking small worms off the shrub. Apparently, it’s worm/caterpillar season because I’ve had a terrible time with them eating my watermelon plants, and our backyard mountain laurel is infested with tent worms. I’m reluctant to use BT anywhere but my vegetable garden since I have butterfly plants in the front, so this guy was doing me a favor. Thanks, little bird!

Here’s a brief species account from The Cornell Labs All About Birds page:

When traveling through the scattered cactus and mesquite of the arid southwestern U.S., it’s difficult to believe that these almost treeless habitats are home to woodpeckers. But the Ladder-backed (once known as the “Cactus Woodpecker”) is an attractive dweller of deserts, desert scrub, and thorn forests. It can also be found in pinyon pine and pinyon-juniper forest. Like many small dwellers of arid habitats, Ladder-backed Woodpeckers can be inconspicuous and quiet, requiring a bit of time and patience to find. Their small size and agility make them deft foragers among the thorns and spines of plants like cholla, mesquite, and prickly pear.

Ladder-backed Woodpeckers may come for mealworms offered at feeding stations; they have also been observed eating peanut butter and black oil sunflower seeds. In the northern parts of the range, suet feeders sometimes attract them. To attract a nesting pair, try growing native vegetation and leave dead trees standing when possible; this species does not typically use nest boxes.”

To learn more, visit: https://www.allaboutbirds.org/guide/Ladder-backed_Woodpecker#_ga=2.909873.1842200963.1594845711-1861089910.1594845711