Where You Least Expect Them

After a protracted struggle (it actually snowed on St. Patrick’s Day at my house!) Spring seems to be gaining the upper hand around Seattle.  The last few days have been wonderful – and I’ve gone on two long walks with my dogs this week.  Good to be out and about again.  If you go back and look at my posts from last year, you might see that I was quite enthusiastic about the prospects of winter birding.  Unfortunately, it didn’t live up to its promise – not because nature wasn’t cooperating, but because I got wrapped up in other things and let the winter pass without enough observation.  Those “other things” – including an emotionally demanding writing project, ending one business and planning another – were all important.  But I disappointed myself with my unwillingness to brave the cold and dark in search of birds.

Anna's Hummingbird

The one bright spot throughout the winter was my hummingbird feeder.  The Anna’s not only stayed all winter (through snow and storm) but there were more of them here than I’ve ever seen.  One combative little guy staked out our tree and yard as his territory and defended them bravely, but that didn’t stop others from making a run at the feeder whenever they could.

A couple of days ago, I was out on my porch with my roommate and the dogs, enjoying the novelty of sun, when I noticed a hummingbird on the feeder.  It was one of those sights that have become so common I almost passed over it.  But something didn’t seem right.  

My roommate saw it too.  “That doesn’t look like the same hummingbird,” he said.  

This hummingbird – obviously a male – was smaller, and his coloring wasn’t quite right.  I ran inside to get my camera, but by the time I got back he was gone.  I’m pretty sure he was the first Rufous Hummingbird of the new season, back just a little early from his winter in Mexico.  I will be watching for him now, and hoping to get photos.

“Look for surprises among what you take for granted” seems to be the theme so far this year.  There is no more ubiquitous bird in my neighborhood than the Black-Capped Chickadee.  I see them all the time, and as much as I love them, it’s easy sometimes to almost stop seeing them.  When I have the camera, I often think, “One more photo of a chickadee – you have thousands.”  Which is true, I do.  Still, I’ve found surprises hiding among the chickadees before.  A couple of years ago, I found Nuthatches in the chickadee flock in my yard.  So when I started seeing flashes of brown I thought that’s what it must be.

But it wasn’t.

Chestnut-Backed Chickadee

A friend who was visiting watched the feeders with me for a few minutes.  I mentioned the brown interlopers and suggested there might be nuthatches in the flock again.  He wasn’t convinced.

“Those are definitely chickadees,” he said.

Chestnut-Backed Chickadee

He was right.  The next day I started to get photos, and they were definitely chickadees.  Just not Black-Capped Chickadees.  For some reason I had the idea that Chestnut-Backed Chickadees were usually found only in the woods, not around neighborhoods or urban parks.  I was wrong about that.  I asked my naturalist friend and he assured me it was quite common for them to form mixed flocks with Black-Capped cousins in the spring and early summer.  But I’m pretty sure I’ve never seen them in my yard before.  

Pine Siskin

 The same holds true for the Pine Siskins I wrote about in an earlier post.  I’ve seen them around Seattle, but they’ve never been common in my neighborhood – until this year, when they’re everywhere.  Change, it would seem, is in the air.

Pine Siskins

So, encouraged by the new discoveries, I spent a little more time on the deck this past week, and snapped a lot of photos.  I found some familiar, but entertaining fellows – like this puffed up House Sparrow, and a much shier Song Sparrow.  But once again, it was a case of finding the unexpected among the most familiar.  When I looked through my sparrow photos, I found this.

Do you know who this is?

I had to get help with this ID, but if you said “Gold-Crowned Sparrow”, you’re right.  It’s a juvenile, born last year and almost ready to molt into his full adult plumage.  There’s no chance at all that I would have spotted him with my naked eye.  

So far this year, I’ve added four species to the yard list (Gold-Crowned Sparrow, Pine Siskin, Chestnut-Backed Chickadees, and Cooper’s Hawk) and three to my lifetime list (Snow Goose, Chestnut-Backed Chickadees and Gold-Crowned Sparrow).  

Not a bad start at all.

(And I’ll get back to that hawk very soon.) 

 ###

If you like Birdland West, you might also want to check out our sister blog Books and Beasts, which focuses on reviews of books about animals and related topics.

(Many of the original photographs featured on Birdland West are available for sale as art quality prints.  You can check out all of our offerings at http://AlexWashoe.imagekind.com.  If you see an image here that does not show up on our Imagekind site please contact me directly and I'll let you know about availability.)

The Warriors of Winter

Since I was writing about hummingbirds in my previous post, it seems appropriate to continue.

Zeke is weatherproof.

It's been wintery in Seattle this week.  Grey wet weather and cold temperatures have moved in.  We had to close the house up for the first time -- although my dog Zeke insists on having the door open as much as possible, in spite of the weather.  In fact, Zeke, with his St. Bernard ancestry, is thriving.  The cooler it gets, the happier and more energetic he becomes.

The sense of winter may have been as much internal as external though.  I've been tired lately, feeling my age.  And I've been in the midst of what is most likely a hopeless infatuation.  At least it seems that way on long gray days when I'm home with the dogs working alone.  When she's around me, I can convince myself that anything is possible.

Webs decorated by winter (photo by Dan)

But seasons are slippery things.  They resist our attempts to turn them into metaphor.  Last year, as winter turned into spring, I got excited about the possibilities for bird watching around my home.  I already had twenty-plus species on my yard list and I was expecting that to burgeon.  The list did grow, but not dramatically.  And I did see some excitement with fledglings, but overall there actually seemed to be a drop off in bird activity during the spring and summer.  Perhaps because of the unusually cool weather -- we never really got a sustained summer going -- the ripening of fruit on the cherry tree didn't draw nearly as much activity as it had the year before.  So -- because of that and other, unrelated things -- I was feeling kind of down.

But seasons -- as I said -- are slippery things.

Male Anna's (photo by Dan)

This past week, as storm clouds move in and winds pick up, the hummingbirds have returned in force.  Most people think of hummingbirds as tropical birds, summer friends.  But in my yard they are creatures of the snow and rain.  I already had two female Anna's visiting me regularly -- one looks young and the other is more mature.  But this week the males arrived.  Not just one, but two.  And the yard became a battleground.

The male keeps his lonely vigil.

I've written before about fierce these little guys are.  How the Aztecs considered hummingbirds to be warrior symbols, and wore their feathers into battle. 

Over and over he stood off attacks.

Well, this week they proved it.  I stood out on the deck and watched a male Anna's sitting at the very top of the cherry tree, loudly asserting his position.  Then the second male began to buzz him, swooping by again and again at full speed, each time making with a piercing chirp as he passed, almost like a high-pitched sonic boom.  The first hummingbird stood his ground for a long time though before abandoning his perch.  I wasn't able to get any photos of  them together, but I did get some shots of the first male holding his perch, and a shot of what I assume was the attacker pulling up out of one of his attack dives. 

I believe this is the attacker, pulling out of his dive.

Twice, afterwards, I saw them "dance" with each other around the feeder.  The would fly straight at each other and then spin around a common center, cursing all the while.

None of this drama seems to bother the females, who continue to come regularly.

 It might look like winter, but around here every gray day has a scarlet and emerald lining.

If you like Birdland West, you might also want to check out our sister blog Books and Beasts, which focuses on reviews of books about animals and related topics.

I have also begun writing regular Sunday morning posts for SoDo Mojo, a Seattle Mariner's blog.  Check out my most recent post, Change of Season.

 Many of the original photographs featured on Birdland West are available for sale as art quality prints.  You can check out all of our offerings at http://AlexWashoe.imagekind.com.  If you see an image here that does not show up on our Imagekind site please contact me directly and I'll let you know about availability.)

Anna's Hummingbird

[Today's post marks something new from Birdland West.  I want, from time to time, to post experiments in fictional technique, short stories or sketches that attempt to bring more of the non-human world into fictional forms.  At this moment, this all experiment and feeling my way forward in the dark.  I hope that readers will offer feedback and ideas in response.]

The hummingbird hung motionless, except for its furious wings, above the feeder.  The red plastic -- a human would have called it red -- glowed like a beacon in the bird's vision, reflecting parts of the spectrum no mammal could see.  Light glinted off the bird's feathers which broke it apart like millions of tiny prisms, throwing flashes of green and red.  (Again, green and red as humans would see them -- with their primate color vision, recently recovered in evolutionary time, and so limited as compared to the bird's).  The hummingbird poised above the feeder.

Almost no one noticed.  The writer -- who lived in the house attached to the yard where the feeder hung -- was uncommonly aware of the sounds of the bird's presence -- the high pitched, fast sound, like a telegraph key -- but the weather was growing cold and the doors and windows of his house were shut.  Besides, he was preoccupied with work (or with the distractions that kept him from working).  And he was thinking about a young woman he had recently become interested in and what seemed like the impossibility that she could be interested in (old, fat, unsuccessful) him.  He didn't hear the hummingbird's approach or sense it hovering over the feeder in the bush at the front of the yard.

Across the street, a woman had just come out of her split-level home, carrying her son in her arms.  He had just turned a year old and was large for his age, with a thick tassel of very dark hair and dark eyes.  His mother looked as if she could barely hold him.  She was from China, but spoke English with only the barest trace of an accent, having lived in Europe for years before the US.  The writer, who was probably old enough to be her father, thought she was beautiful.  Her son was moody, and sometimes when he cried she would bring him across the street to the sidewalk outside the writer's house to look at the writer's dogs -- especially the huge St. Bernard mix puppy who liked to hang out on the front deck in all kinds of weather.  He was oblivious to cold or rain or snow.  Children loved him, with his goofy face and harlequin colors.  He would stand up on his hand legs and put his paws on the rail and the little boy's fussing would turn to laughter.  He would point and laugh.  The funny dog was too big and rambunctious to play with small children though.  Ironically it was the older dog, a female pit bull two thirds the size of the clown dog -- the type of dog that some people crossed the street to avoid -- who was really good with children.  She understood that they were like puppies.

The little girl who lived three houses down also loved the dogs.  She was a few months older than the boy, much smaller, but already walking.  Running.  Her mother -- tall, slim and unselfconsciously lovely -- was always chasing her up and down the sidewalk.  They were a Mormon family, the mother and father had met at Brigham Young University, moved here because of his work, and were renting a house on the block until they could find one of their own to buy.  The little girl was fearless.  She would run down the sidewalk, and back down the stairs into people's yards.  Once, she had started climbing the steps to the writer's deck with the clown-dog, who outweighed her by three times or more -- at the top of the stairs, behind the gate barking.  Whenever she saw the dogs she would point and squeal.  Her mother believed her first word had been "dog".

But today the sky was gray and the mood was drizzly.  The writer's door was closed and the dog's were inside.  The mother, struggling with her son's weight, sighed and headed off down the sidewalk, hoping a little more walking would ease his mood.

She didn't see the hummingbird.

In the cherry tree, which grew in a neighbor's yard but overhung the writer's yard, chickadees were queuing up to take their turn at the brass feeder which swung from one of the lower branches.  They leapt from branch to branch, their sharp black and white markings standing out when they landed in the light.  Chicka-dee-dee.   Chicka-dee-dee. Their call had a wheezy sound and the writer often whistled, absently, a rough approximation of the tune.  Nothing any chickadee would recognize.  The little birds seemed almost fearless, and they would sit on the feeder and look into the eyes of a person standing on the stairs only a few feet away.  They could, with a little patience, have been coaxed into eating out of the writer's hand.  They would even scavenge seed off the boards of the deck while the clown dog lay close by, watching.  They were smart enough not to try that with the older dog.

Suddenly, a young grey squirrel raced up the trunk and out along one of the branches.  Chickadees, startled by the sudden movement, dived upwards into the air.  The squirrel leapt heavily off the swaying branch and landed on the rail of the porch, where seed had been scattered (by the writer) for the pigeons and other birds, like the Juncos who preferred to eat off the ground or rail instead of a feeder.  Just as often, though, it was the squirrels who ate it, or one of the rats that lived in burrows underneath the fence.

Inside the house, the clown-dog, whose hearing was acute, jumped on the couch beneath the window and bayed.  The blinds were down, so he couldn't see out, but his eyesight was not so good anyway.  His ears never failed.  The older dog's head bobbed up out of sleep at the sound of the baying.  She jumped up on the couch beside him.  Even with her front feet on the back of the couch, standing nearly erect, she wasn't as tall as the clown dog sitting on his rump.  Her three short, hoarse barks counterpointed his bay.

On the rail, the squirrel pivoted, changed directions almost as if he had turned himself inside out.  His busy tail sprang upward and he reversed his leap, catching the thin branch -- which dipped precariously under his weight -- and hugging it with all four paws.  He flowed rapidly along the branch and down the trunk, disappearing into the neighbor's yard.

After a moment the dogs fell silent, but the clown-dog kept his ears cocked.  Somewhere down the block, the little boy was crying.

The hummingbird, all but unseen, alighted on the perch of the feeder and drank.

###

If you like Birdland West, you might also want to check out our sister blog Books and Beasts, which focuses on reviews of books about animals and related topics.

I have also begun writing regular Sunday morning posts for SoDo Mojo, a Seattle Mariner's blog.  Check out my most recent post, Change of Season.

 Many of the original photographs featured on Birdland West are available for sale as art quality prints.  You can check out all of our offerings at http://AlexWashoe.imagekind.com.  If you see an image here that does not show up on our Imagekind site please contact me directly and I'll let you know about availability.)

Where to from Here?

It's been about six months since I started this blog -- it seems so much longer.  Spring (which never really got on its feet this year) was just "heating up" back then.  There were Flickers and Starlings on my suet feeder, the hummingbirds had braved the snows in my yard, and the rats were foraging under the fence.  Six months later the rats are still there, the Starlings are re-forming their winter flocks after the breeding season (there were two in my backyard this morning making such an incredible variety of sounds it seemed like a huge mixed flock), and the hummingbirds are coming back.  Most people have hummingbirds in the summer who leave in the fall.  Around here, it's been different.  The hummingbirds left for the summer (because there were so many other food sources, I guess) and now that the weather has begun to cool a little and most of the flowers are gone, they're coming back.  This past week I've seen almost constant hummingbird activity.  They're so vocal (a lot of hummingbird sounds are not actually vocal, they're made by wings and tail) I can hear them from inside the house.  There have been at least two here regularly, a young female and an older female.  I'm on the lookout for more.

Zeke's first day home.

When I started the blog I did it for a number of reasons -- the most important of which are spelled out on my "About" page.  It was pretty dark time in my life, I had gone through the deaths of my mother and my canine companion Roscoe, and through it all it was bird watching and observing wildlife that really got me through.  Since I started, some things have changed-- for instance, my "puppy" Zeke now weighs close to 120 pounds -- and some things haven't.  Bird watching is still very important to me.

Zeke today.

It's been a pretty good year for my writing in general.  Both this blog and its companion, Books and Beasts, have been pretty well received.  I had an article about Roscoe published by Whole Life Times.  I've done a couple of guest posts for 10000 Birds. (Consider the Chickadee and Crazy Flickers). I may soon be doing a regular post for SodoMojo, a blog which covers the Seattle Mariners.  And my Klout Score (if anyone can explain to me how that thing really works, I'd love to hear it) is hovering somewhere around 47, give or take.  Not bad, all things considered.  It's a far cry from making a living as a writer, but I'm having fun.

Meanwhile, I keep thinking about what I want to do with these blogs.  Between them, they take up a fair amount of my time now, and I want to keep them as fresh an interesting to the readers as I can.  Without losing what's good about them so far -- I have some ideas that I am hoping to try out in the months to come.

The first of these involves my puppy Zeke.  I will soon be doing a review for Books and Beasts of Mary R. Burch's book Citizen Canine, about training for the Canine Good Citizen test.  Following that review, Zeke and I are going to undertake a regular training regimen with the goal of his passing the test at next year's Paws Walk.  And my intention is to document that training here -- with regular updates, and even videos of his progress.  I'll tell you a lot more about it in the near future, but if you think this would be an interesting addition to this blog, I'd love to hear from you.  (And if you don't, I'll still be glad for the feedback.)

The second thing is fiction.  I've written a little here, and a lot more at Books and Beasts, about point of view in fiction, and how incorporating the consciousness of other species might effect that.  I've also been working on that problem more practically in my own fiction, and what I hope to do is share some of that work with my readers from time to time.  I'm thinking of having a semi-regular short fiction post in addition to the regular contents of the blog.  Again, I'd appreciate any thoughts readers have on this idea.

Meanwhile, I'll keep doing what I'm doing, keeping you informed on what's going on with the birds and wildlife in this tiny corner of the world.  I hope it makes interesting reading.

If you like Birdland West, you might also want to check out our sister blog Books and Beasts, which focuses on reviews of books about animals and related topics.

 Many of the original photographs featured on Birdland West are available for sale as art quality prints.  You can check out all of our offerings at http://AlexWashoe.imagekind.com.  If you see an image here that does not show up on our Imagekind site please contact me directly and I'll let you know about availability.)

A Busy Day at the Bird Feeders

Yesterday, in the afternoon, the sun came out unexpectedly after a cold, rainy weekend.  The yard was glistening in a way that I usually associate more with spring than late-summer-fading-into-Autumn.  But then, we didn't get much spring in Seattle this year, so I'll take it.

Black-Capped Chickadee with his prize, perched in cherry tree.

Waiting his turn.

I don't know if it was the sunshine, the cooler, crisper temperatures or just a coincidence, but suddenly the yard was alive with birds.  Chickadees, who are always around, were out in force.  They queue up in the cherry tree and wait their turn at the feeder -- it seems to be a chickadee rule that only one bird can use the feeder at time.  Sparrows and finches and Juncos are glad to double up, but chickadees wait their turn.  Usually, the next chickadee waits on the branch above the feeder until the one who is there leaves.  They never take very long, picking out the seed they want and flying back up into the tree with it.  Every once in a while a chickadee approaches the feeder and realizes at the last minute that there's someone already there, then pulls up in a whuff of wings and lands in the tree.  But they never seem to squabble the way sparrows and other birds do.  It's all very orderly and efficient.

I wasn't the only one watching the chickadees yesterday.  Another familiar visitor was out and about.  I'm pretty sure that this is the same young House Finch that I photographed (and blogged about) earlier this summer.   

 

He's looking much more adult now, but he still has a tentative, uncertain air.  I didn't ever see him use the feeder, but he did sit on the chickadees' queue branch and watch them for quite awhile.  It seemed like he was observing their use of the feeder. 

 I also saw another return guest.  This Bewick's Wren was foraging in the Morning Glory vines along the fence.  I haven't seen a BW in months.

 And, the young Anna's Hummingbird that I've seen and reported on a couple of times recently was back.   In fact, I could hear her periodically throughout the day -- a rapid chirp sound like a high-pitched telegraph key -- but it wasn't until late in the afternoon (when the light was fading) that I managed to get some shots of her.

So, counting the crows who were foraging on the sidewalk and the House Sparrow at the feeder -- not counting the Starlings I could hear in the back yard or the pigeons who I didn't see until evening -- that's five species that I counted standing on my deck, without even really trying hard.  None of them were new or unusual, but it was still pretty exciting.

And just to top things off, today I was drawn outside again by the Anna's Hummingbird sound, only to find a totally different bird at the feeder.  This one, as you can see, is quite a bit larger and clearly full grown.

 If you like Birdland West, you might also want to check out our sister blog Books and Beasts, which focuses on reviews of books about animals and related topics.

 Many of the original photographs featured on Birdland West are available for sale as art quality prints.  You can check out all of our offerings at http://AlexWashoe.imagekind.com.  If you see an image here that does not show up on our Imagekind site please contact me directly and I'll let you know about availability.)

The Nest Generation

Despite the belated summer weather here in Seattle -- we just went through a record setting late September spell of nine over eighty degree days (after an almost nonexistent spring and unusually cool summer) -- the birds seem to know that fall is coming and they are changing their patterns.  I've seen a couple of species back around my yard in the past week that haven't been around much during the summer.

First -- a hummingbird.  Anna's hummingbirds were frequent guests in my yard all winter.  In fact, on very cold mornings I had to keep rushing outside to make sure that the feeders weren't frozen.  I got very good at thawing them out, and keeping two in rotations, one inside the house to stay warm, one outside for the birds until it got too cold.   

I haven't seen them much this summer, though.  Which seems opposite of what you would expect.  But Seattle is a city full of flowers (a blooming city, you could say) and I suspect that the hummingbirds just had plenty of food sources and didn't need my feeders.  Now, the blooms are fading and they're coming back.

At least this little gal is.  This is an Anna's hummingbird, and though it's not easy to be sure from the photos, probably a female and very likely a juvenile.  (You don't have much scale in the photos, but if you could see her in person, and you know Anna's at all, you'd realize she's pretty small.)

(Photo by my roommate Dan)

I also saw this week -- not in my yard, but at a nearby bus stop -- a busy flock of bushtits.  These guys are frequent visitors to my yard and suet feeder, and they have also been mostly AWOL during the summer.   I was happy to see them back -- they come sweeping in with lots of activity and chirping like a sudden rain squall, and then, just as suddenly they're gone.  Off down the road to another yard.  I'll be keeping my eyes (and ears -- I frequently hear them before I see them) open for them at home.

(Photo by Dan)

(Photo by Dan)

I mentioned in my last post that I had seen a Steller's Jay eating on the rail with Timmy (my resident pigeon).  I got a few photos of him, and roommate got some more soon after.  You might not think it's the same Jay from the different angles in the photos, but I'm pretty sure he is.  And if you look closely at the photos you can see, at the corner of his bill a trace of a lighter color.  That, most likely, is the remnant of gape flanges which allow juvenile birds to open their beaks extra wide (to "gape" in other words) so that they can be fed by their parents.  In a fully mature Steller's Jay the beak is dark all the way down, with no lighter coloring visible.  That means this guy is very likely one of this year's fledglings.  It also might explain why he's on his own and looking for new sources of food.

A sad note:  One of my personal heroes passed away recently.  Sarge the Elderbull was a tireless advocate for his breed, for dog lovers (and dogs who love dog lovers) and for the welfare of shelter dogs everywhere.  You can check out this sweet remembrance of him at Stubby Dog, as well as their loving obituary.  Also, you can check out Sarge's own site at Elderbulls and his Facebook page.  Sarge was a true American hero.  Thank you to Sarge and to his human family who carry on his work.

###

You can also enjoy my recent article "Crazy Flickers" over at 10,000 Birds.  They have a great site, well worth checking out even if I wasn't included.

If you like Birdland West, you might also want to check out our sister blog Books and Beasts, which focuses on reviews of books about animals and related topics.