Some Recent and Unusual (for me) Backyard Birds

Including the bird that was my original “spark bird” back in 1969.

In the last week or two I’ve had more ‘unusual’ birds in my yard than ever before. Most of them, though not all, are due to migration and I’ve been able to document several of them with photos.

 

This female Black-headed Grosbeak first showed up about ten days ago and since then she made semi-regular appearances for about a week. Unless she’s on my feeder she’s quite shy so usually she’s buried in vegetation.

 

 

This one time she landed on one of my tomato cages on her way to the feeder. This is the best photo I’ve been able to get of her.

 

 

For the first 30 years I lived in this house, California Quail were fairly common in my yard but about 2 1/2 years ago they just stopped coming. I haven’t seen any since then, until two days ago when a covey of seven quail showed up in my back yard. For that reason, I’m considering them “unusual”.

Most were females or young birds.

 

 

This is the adult male, the only one in the covey.

I took photos of the quail as they moved from my garden to the fence on the east side of my house. But at one point, one of the female quail came dangerously close to a rat trap I had hidden in thick vegetation, so I impulsively rushed toward them to retrieve the trap. Which flushed the quail to the other side of the fence and into my neighbor Shane’s garden.

Both Shane and his wife Kimmy are birders and Shane is a bird photographer so they were as excited to see the quail as I was. When I sat down at my patio again and looked over into their yard…

 

 

this is what I saw – Shane and Kimmy watching and photographing the quail, which were in their garden and directly between us. I’m not sure if Kimmy was pointing at the quail or at me.

The best kind of community birding.

 

Two days ago, in the middle of the day, I saw a small sparrow-like bird deep in the shadows of my garden. At first I thought it was just another House Finch but something about its erect posture and the way it was scratching in the dirt made “Green-tailed Towhee” come to mind. In fact, I said out loud “Damn, could that be a Green-tailed Towhee?”.

But I immediately dismissed the possibility because my yard comes nowhere near the preferred habitat of the species (semi-open shrubby sagebrush in mountains and high desert) and I’d never seen one in my yard. And I certainly never expected to.

Then, nearly four hours later, in early evening,…

 

 

I got this shot of what I presume was the same bird and yes, it was a Green-tailed Towhee! “He” never did face me but his distinctive red cap and greenish wings and tail were obvious. After I got this shot he disappeared.

I was so excited I camped out on my patio with my lens aimed at my garden for most of the afternoon and into the evening until it was nearly dark, in hopes of him making another appearance. When it was almost dark the towhee eventually showed up again but I’d have missed seeing him if it hadn’t been for…

 

 

this rat that was digging for food next to a small volunteer amaranth plant. While I was watching the rat and planning its demise I spotted the towhee only a few feet away…

 

 

inside one of my unused tomato cages.

Note: These last six towhee photos were taken in extremely low light so in order to maintain some kind of reasonable shutter speed I was shooting at very high ISO’s, sometimes as high as ISO 5000. As a result, some of these photos are quite noisy.

 

 

When towhees scratch for food, debris goes flying. I’ve cropped this photo into this composition to show more of that flying debris (mostly grass clippings).

 

 

Sometimes he almost disappeared into the holes he was digging.

 

 

He rarely held still like this.

 

 

They typically scratch with both feet at the same time, as he’s doing here. It’s a pretty neat trick when you think about it.

 

 

This is probably the best shot I got to show most of the key field marks of Green-tailed Towhees, including red cap (semi-erect here), greenish wings and tail and white throat.

Readers know from previous posts that Green-tailed Towhees were my field study species when I took an ornithology class at the University of Utah way back in 1969. For three months I spent many dozens of hours in the field, binoculars in hand, studying the nesting habits and behaviors of Green-tailed Towhees. That experience turned me into a bird lover, making Green-tailed Towhees my “spark bird”.

I can’t begin to tell you how exciting it was for me to see one in my yard.

Ron

 

Notes:

• My Green-tailed Towhee study area back in 1969 is now at the bottom of Little Dell Reservoir.
• I got more photos of the towhee last night at about the same time (when it was nearly dark) so he’s still hanging around.
• A female Western Tanager has also been in my yard sporadically for a few days. Late yesterday I ALMOST got photos of her, but no cigar.
• An observation. I owe migration for many of these sightings. Migration is hard on birds and it’s a perilous journey but it sure is a boon for birders.
• Holy moly, I just looked outside and the towhee is still out there (8:07 AM). In better light too.