Backyard Photoshoot #2!

Backyard Photoshoot #2


Quick Update

Over the last couple weeks, I have amassed more than 30 year birds at Starr Ranch, Laguna Niguel, Bolsa Chica, and other birding hotspots, raising my yearlist to 187. Here are a few recent photos:

A beautiful tern gives a cheer for the camera. Or at least, that's what I  want to think it was doing. It was probably just belching happily after eating a fish. 

A Snowy Egret tries to shake feather dandruff off its beak. I made that up, there is no such thing as feather dandruff. OR IS THERE?

A cormorant holds out its beautiful, scaly, wings to dry. Cormorants are ugly at a first glance, but a second look reveals the beauty inside the beast. 

Sometimes, with all the cool birds I can find at my local hot spots, sometimes it's hard to remember that there are just as cool ones at home in the backyard! 

It takes a little closer inspection to truly appreciate the wonder of the hidden jewels in life, whether it's a marauding Coopers's Hawk or a tiny striped fly. (I'm sure that hawk would not be pleased with being called a "hidden jewel!")

But backyard photoshoots aren't just for the birds. Today's 90+ degree heat meant the usual orioles, tanagers and grosbeaks lounged in the shady, thick palm fronds instead of coming up and out.  

You have to admit, flies are pretty cool.  Even if they barf on your food and suck it up with their alienlike tubes. Just look at that iridescence!

A closer look at a fly's eye will reveal thousands of tiny hexagons. My camera is nowhere near the top grade required to get a close-up picture that is intimate enough to show them. 

For those of you who think flies are disgusting: My theory is that you can love any creature when you get to know it! So next time a fly lands on your steak dinner, don't be grossed out! Be excited, because it's another opportunity to better know a fly.

(Okay, I admit, a fly landing on your dinner IS gross)

I like flies, you like flies.  But you know who likes flies even more than I do? Birds! Particularly swallows and swifts. They LOOOOOVVVE flies! 

Monarch butterflies zipped among the dying rose bushes and dead brown sunflower heads covered with mites. Birds hate monarch butterflies! To them, monarchs probably taste like brussel sprouts (if this offended any brussel sprouts lovers I'm sorry).

The only bird in Southern California that is immune to the monarch butterfly's poison is the Black-headed Grosbeak. Interestingly, the grosbeak is patterned similarly. It has black wings with white spots and an orange belly.

My brother took both these photos here with his new camera! I hate to give him the credit. They actually turned out not bad at all! 

A Monarch butterfly chrysalis...

...and a caterpillar. 

If you would like to read more about Monarch Butterflies, click here! 

(CROSS-PROMO! )

Along with the bounty of insects, their were also a couple of curious Lesser Goldfinches who didn't mind the hear. 

"MWAHAHAHA! I will purposely stand right behind a bunch of branches so your camera autofocus will freak out and you will have to use manual focus!"

One of my favorite subjects are House Finches. A frequent sight in my yard in the spring is the male House Finch courting the female House Finch. He will sing vigorously with his head and tail raised high and strut around like a little clockwork bird. Often these advances are unwanted, and the female will viciously attack and peck at the singing, marching male House Finch. It's quite a spectacle! 

The incredibly rare House Finch.

Male: "Look at me! Am I hot or what?"

Female: "GET OUT OF HERE!"

Bewick's Wrens are another favorite photo subject of mine. At this time of the year, the squeaky sound of juvenile wrens is almost constant in my yard. The parents still hang around and supervise the bouncy babies.

A fledgeling Bewick's Wrens will sit in the same place for hours waiting to be fed, even if large dangerous creatures with one giant eye in the middle of their head approach (aka humans. For those sensitive people, I did NOT get close enough to disturb the bird, the above shot was taken through a dirty window)

Flight

Flight

I've always been amazed by birds' flight. If humans had wings, we would probably be crashing, blundering, and falling everywhere, being the clumsy organisms we are. But the flight of birds is graceful, quick, and complicated.

To start, I'll post an old set of photos showing the takeoff progression of a House Finch, which all takes less than 1/10 of a second. Though they're not eye-pleasing images (I filmed the takeoff, then clipped seperate images from the video) they show decently the complicated-but-simple act of taking off that birds probably do 1209803948098 times a day.

Mr. Finch has to position himself into the prime position for takeoff.

One powerful flap provides all the lift the finch will need to set him on his appropriate pathway.

A little flap helps the finch maneuver towards his goal.

He then tucks in his wings, creating the classic "bobbing" look of finch flight:

And he directs himself towards the feeder down below. 

See? A lot more complicated than it looks at first. To get to the feeder and use a minimal amount of energy, the House Finch has to use the best angle, direction, and flapagram (yes, that's a thing now) to calculate the best route to go.

A Purple Finch (The only female I ever saw at my feeders) tries to figure out how to land on my feeder without stepping on a House Finch head. 

Having a fight? Hard. Having an airborne fight? Super hard!! 

The ultraspeed flight of the hummingbird

I remember around ten years ago, some random guy at a bird show said that hummingbirds can beat their wings up to 200  times a second. I didn't buy it then because my little kiddy brain just couldn't imagine that, but I certainly believe it now! The amount of control and manipulation hummingbirds gain from their ultra fast-moving wings and small body is mind-blowing. 

Unfortunately, it also spells a shorter, harder life for the bird, and most hummingbirds don't live too long (There are a few super exceptions- A couple hummers have lived to be more than 9 years old).

Hummingbirds are the only birds that can fly backward! Males display their super-stamina and strength in extremely impressive, energy-consuming courtships that have only a small chance of winning over mates. 

Hummingbirds use their minute wing  control to hover and drink from the typical thin tubes of nectar-rich flowers. 

As well as constantly feeding to ensure that their energy level is up, hummingbirds have to constantly be on the watch to ensure no other hummingbirds are stealing food from their territory. Another hummer found on one's territory will result in an incredibly fast, exciting aerial chase.

Skilled flight of flycatchers

Imagine this. You are hungry, and there's no food left in the kitchen. So instead of cooking up a meal, you have to go about it another way instead. You stand outside in a large park. Every couple of minutes, a random chocolate chip goes flying at a hummingbird's speed through the air somewhere in the park. You must first spot it.  Then you have to run over to it and catch it with your mouth before it flies out of the park, which it will soon. Now repeat this about 1000 times a day, or starve. Oh, and if you have kids, you need to catch 5X more chocolate chips to keep them from starving. Sounds fun, right? 

In order to catch fast, small insects in the air, flycatchers have to be extremely adept at flight and have spectacular vision. 

A Say's Phoebe hovers in the air like a butterfly searching for insects. When it finds one, it will dive down on the insect and grab it. 

Phoebes seem to be on the constant watch for insects. 

Hope you enjoyed this week's post!

-chiccadee

The Rainbow of Summer (Photo Blog #2)

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THE WINGED RAINBOW OF SUMMER

Summer in Southern California means vibrant reds, pretty yellows, and beautiful blues to birders. Here are seven common colorful visitors from the tropics that can be seen here. 

Western Tanager (backyard)

Fast fact: Western Tanagers obtain their red-colored head from rhodoxathin, without their specialized diet they'd lose it. 

Black-headed Grosbeak (backyard) 

Fast Fact: Black-headed Grosbeaks are one of the few birds that are immune to monarch butterfly toxin and often feed on them. 

Yellow-breasted Chat (Golf course)

Fast fact: Chats mimic other birds in their rattling, loud songs.

Yellow Warbler (park) 

Fast fact: The oldest Yellow Wabler recorded in the wild lived to be 11, which is longer than the longest recorded life span of a Western Tanager by five years. 

Orange-crowned Warbler (outside bushes of a building)

Fast fact: The Orange-crowned Warbler is one of the most geographically diverse warblers in North America.

Blue Grosbeak (Aliso Woods)

Fast Fact: Blue Grosbeaks seen in Orange County and other areas in the West Coast migrate directly over the Gulf of Mexico! 

Costa's Hummingbird (campground area)

Fast Fact: The heart rate of Costa's Hummingbirds vary from 50 times for minute when the bird is torpid to 900 times a minute when the bird is fully active (Soruce: Cornell Lab of Ornithology ) 

A Starling Story: The Alarming Fate of Starlings

Most people know...

Once upon a time, in a place far, far away (Okay, not so far away. On the East Coast) some smart guy decided it would be a good idea to release European Starlings for the simple and stupid reason that the new continent America had to harbor every single bird that appeared in Shakespeare.

Little did he know he was unleashing a deadly fate for many of North America's native birds.

House Sparrows, also from Europe, were released in the hordes for a different reason. People thought that the cities were lifeless without birds. At the time, no native American birds were found in cities due to their unexpected and sudden arrival (They didn't have time to adapt). 

Bathing House Sparrow. These guys are found ALL OVER THE PLACE now, and they push out native birds.

What better way to cure the lifelessness than release a couple dozen House Sparrows? House Sparrows had already adapted to the gradual arrival of cities in Europe! They would surely take to the cities of America, right? 

People were so worried that House Sparrows wouldn't make it that they started to shoot the now rapidly-declining shrikes to protect the lousy sparrows. 

The two invasive, highly aggressive birds grew hugely in numbers and began kicking out native cavity-nesting birds from their nests. They almost caused the extinctions of the three bluebird species in North America. No doubt, they have extirpated hundreds of native bird populations locally through the entire nation.  And they still are doing it, to this day, despite the huge amount of control efforts to bring them down.

Often, House Sparrows will completely dominate and take over a feeder, keeping native birds away from it. 

The Other Side of Things

Ironically... 

House Sparrows and European Starlings are both declining rapidly in their native homeland. And they are still declining, to this day, despite the huge amount of control efforts to bring them back up. Starling populations in Europe have declined over 80% in the last couple decades. Unfortunately, it looks like they're headed on the path of hard return. 

Sadly, these birds may become extinct if the reason for their rapid decline is not discovered and dealt with soon.

So why are starlings and House Sparrows doing so ridiculously well in America, which isn't even their native homeland, but dying out miserably in Europe? 

What's happening to the starlings? 

Starlings feed on specific invertebrates heavily that are regarded as pests, so as those "pests," are eliminated, the starlings are eliminated too, some say. Then how are starlings surviving so well here, where gardeners freak out and spray two tons of pesticide at an aphid? 

Others (in denial. This decline has been going on for decades) say the huge crash is because the mild winter has enabled the starlings to forage in the wild. I'm not even sure how that really makes sense. Isn't there more food in the wild than in cities anyway? 

Still others say that other birds are pushing them out. I doubt that a bird aggressive enough to kill two bluebird parents for their own nest will be pushed out by other less aggressive birds. And there's no evidence that other aggressive bird populations are on the rise, anyway, quite the contrary. 

So what's happening to the sparrows and starlings? 

What do you think?

-chiccadee

The Strange Case of Pin-tailed Whydahs and Nutmeg Mannikins

The Strange Case of Pin-tailed Whydahs and Nutmeg Mannikins

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FOR A WHILE, I thought there were Black-chinned Sparrows at my feeder.

The very thought may sound ridiculous. "Black-chinned SPARROWS?" you may exclaim. "Why, they don't even occur in suburban backyards, let alone visit feeders!" Well, I was absolutely positive they were BC sparrows because nothing else in my field guide even came close to the strange birds I was seeing.

Then one day, I bought a 4 dollar Kindle guide to California Birds and behold: my amazing, super rare "Black-chinned Sparrows," were actually introduced, common, juvenile Nutmeg Mannikins.

Visit any Petsmart or Petco and you'll find these small, perky mannikins hopping around in a glass case. Apparently, the small amounts released into the wild formed a local, established populations that has grown incredibly fast. The California Ornithological Union (I have NO idea if that exists or not) decided to add it to the official California List a couple years back.

Nutmeg Mannikins are extremely social: There are always found in a flock of 5+ and I have seen them "cuddling" together in a cute little bundle of furry feathers, similar to the huddling behavior of swallows and bee-eaters.

Visting the birdbath! 

Adult Nutmeg Mannikins are very distinctive and beautiful.

Nutmeg Mannikins are not the only exotic birds to have established themselves in California.
What's worse than mistaking a juvenile Nutmeg Mannikin for a Black-chinned Sparrow is mistaking the introduced Pin-tailed Whydah for a Fork-tailed Flycatcher, which actually happens quite often and causes considerable consternation among birders until everyone realizes that some birder guy has mistaken a cat for a tiger, so to speak.

A whole little mob of different-aged mannikins. 

What's so interesting about  Pin-tailed Whydahs? Well, they have a very unique relationship with Nutmeg Mannikins- a similar case is found nowhere else in the world. Pin-tailed Whydahs are nest parasites, like Brown-headed Cowbirds and most worldwide cuckoo species. Rather than build their own nest, they lay their eggs in another bird's nest. You would think that this would be terrible for the native species of California, but in reality, there is NO effect at all because Pin-tailed Whydahs aren't very smart. Whydahs only know how to recognize mannikin nests and parasitize those, because only Nutmeg Mannikins  hail from their native homeland. Every other nest they see, they don't recognize with their tiny brains.

As Nutmeg Mannikin populations grow, it's expected that Pin-tailed Whydah populations will continue to grow for obvious reasons. For now, there are few studies being conducted on this and we don't know much about the actual relation between the two introduced species' population changes-most of this is just a hypothesis. What we do know, is that both populations ARE rising. Recently one birder had a whydah  show up in his yard!

Hope you enjoyed this week's post.

-chiccadee

Celebrate P&S Power!

IT'S OFFICIAL POINT-AND-SHOOT CAMERA DAY!
(If that sounds made up, it's because it is)


WARNING: If you have no interest in taking photos of birds whatsoever, and you read this post, you will be so bored you will shoot yourself. HAHAHA. Get it? You shoot stuff with cameras? Fortunately, I'll insert random pictures of birds I shot with my P&S camera.

Too often, I hear people complaining about their P&S cameras.

"I wish I had a DSLR! I would be so much better at photography."

"These pictures would come out SOOOOO much better with a DSLR!"

"I would take good pictures, but I don't have a DSLR."

The above statements are complete BS. BS means Ballerina Spins, for those of you who don't know. Of course, a GOOD photographer would take MUCH better photos with better DSLR equipment, but having good equipment does not make you a good photographer.

DSLR cameras are superior to point-and-shoots in many, many ways. It would take hours to count them all.
Unfortunately, most of us really just can't afford quality DSLRs.
So, let's celebrate National P&S Day by listing some of the things that make P&S cameras better than DSLRS!

1. Point-and-shoot cameras are waaaay cheaper than DSLRs.
Quality wildlife photography DSLRs are typically 2X more expensive than 2X the cost of a cheaper DSLR which is 3X the cost of the best P&S camera available, which is 500X the amount of money I have.

2. You can go incognito.

You can sneak tiny little P&S cameras with their tiny little lens to boring events like soccer games and not look suspicious while you're secretly taking pictures of birds! Going to a soccer game with a DSLR is just too obvious.

3. You're less likely to get robbed.

Criminals look at a DSLR telephoto lens are immediately think of money. They look at P&S cameras and immediately think of bad experiences of trying to take pictures of butterbutts.

Seriously, who has not gone insane trying to get shots of these guys?

4.You're less likely to get tendinitis if using a point-and-shoot.

Lugging and lifting a huge lens can cause some serious arm strain, especially if you take lots of pictures. Actually, not really. It just creates a tiny bit more arm strain that leads to a 0.01% increased risk for tendinitis.

5. P&S is a cooler abbreviation.

Just look at that! P&S sounds more like M&M, or some kind of awesome candy company to people who have no clue about photography. DSLR sounds like a huge, clunky, machine that requires 200 years for assembly, and to figure out how to use.

Hope you enjoyed this week's celebration!

-chiccadee

Baby-roma!

The bird babies are coming in
The bird babies are coming, thick and thin
So many babies they make my head spin
Let the bird baby arrival begin!

I apologize if the hideous rhyme made your brain melt. 



Quick Update: Yearbirds
Last last week- Avery Golf Course: Yellow-breasted Chat, Brown-headed Cowbird
Last week-Aliso Woods: Blue Grosbeak, Eurasian Collared-dove, Yellow Warbler, Ash-throated Flycatcher
Today-Laguna Niguel: Downy Woodpecker, Caspian Tern, Bullock's Oriole, Common Tern


Today I dropped by Laguna Niguel to see what I could find, since I hadn't been there in forever. I was in for a surprise! Besides the sudden huge abundance of tanagers, orioles, and warblers,  there were also tons of ducklings and goslings (Though if you put them all together, they would probably weigh less than a pound, they were so light and fluffy). I counted at least thirty total in six different families. One poor pair only had a single gosling left. *insert sadface*

All in a line. So cute!

Both Canada Goose parents help in the caretaking of their goslings. They carefully maintain and watch each one, doing their best to ensure the survival of their offspring. 

SO...MANY...BABIES... There were 2+ families who kept a grassy corner as a group nursery for all the babies. There were at least twenty goslings total!

A closer look at a gosling.

The cute little gals/guys made constant "peep!" noises.

They didn't mind passerby coming up to them to take photos, though I tried to maintain a wide distance. 

Canada Goose. The familiar, widespread, considered-annoying-by-many-people goose that is the parent of the adorable goslings on this page. 

Two duck families were also in the vicinity. The ducklings are almost full grown in this one!

The Mallard female is the sole caretaker of her family. She does not check or round them carefully like the geese do. Males have been known to help, but only rarely. 

And for the "why not," factor, here's a picture of a Pied-billed Grebe!

Hope you enjoyed this weekend's post!

-chiccadee