I am NOT a Mouse!

Okay, I know I'm cute, I get that, but please don't think I'm a mouse. (Smelly pesty little rodent...) Au contraire, I'm a "fastidious, beautiful animal" and "hardly deserve the negative stereotype most people have" of my kind. And that's according to the Colorado expert on such things. Photo credit: National Park Service.

When The Husband called me to look at a little critter jumping in and out of the chicken feed bucket late last month, I leaped to a quick conclusion. Despite my hasty conviction that the little guy is a Woodrat, I'm open to corrections.

Historical Perspective: Back in 1877, while hunting dinosaurs near Morrison, Colorado, Arthur Lakes preferred the outdoor life:

For myself I still adhered to my tent life & adjourned every evening to my canvas dog tent pitched by the side of the stream. At last however after one or two snowstorms it became rather dismal to leave the warm stove and go out through the snow to the cold tent & so I cam in & for the first night slept on the floor but the mountain rats kept up such a racket that sleep was impossible. So I turned my tent into a swinging hammock & swung myself up into the rafters above the boys head.

In annotating this journal excerpt for a local publication, I wrote:

Bushy-tailed Woodrat (Neotoma cinerea)
Lakes' "mountain rat" is likely to be the bushy-tailed woodrat, better known as the packrat of western lore. Of some 20 species of woodrats in the west, five [six*] occur in Colorado. The other 15 species occur mostly in Mexico and Central America, where some subspecies are considered endangered.

The bushy-tailed woodrat, as its alternate name implies, is best known for its acquisitive habits. The Mexican woodrat occurs in southern Colorado and extends its range northward through our area, taking advantage of the milder microclimates provided by the hogback and adjacent foothills. The larger, more common bushy-tailed woodrat occurs well into the mountains and ranges from Alaska to Mexico. Woodrats eat a variety of plants, preferring the leaves, quantities of which are stored in crevices for winter use. Woodrats generally nest among rocky outcrops in vertical cracks, caves, or shelves, although they also use old mines and outbuildings, as Lakes discovered.

*According to my favorite mammalogist, there are six species of woodrats in this state: Mexican, gray, white-throated, eastern, desert... (I can't figure out his sixth from that article, and don't have his book handy.) Most sources I found neglected to distinguish among—or provide a scientific name for— the species, but here's a Colorado list, courtesy NatureServe:

White-throated Woodrat Neotoma albigula
Bushy-tailed Woodrat Neotoma cinerea
Eastern Woodrat Neotoma floridana
Desert Woodrat Neotoma lepida
White-toothed Woodrat Neotoma leucodon

Other sources do list a gray woodrat, the Southern Plains Woodrat (N. micropus), so that or the white-toothed may be the sixth species in Armstrong's list. I'm guessing these little guys are tough for a novice to tell apart.

Meanwhile, back to Our Story:
As you can tell from the previous post, it took several tries before we were able to capture this little fellow at all clearly (window and screen notwithstanding). Mostly my shutter finger was not quick enough. I got several nice photos of the empty bucket, though.

But as he traveled back and forth from the feed bucket to the stash many times, we were finally able to catch him going in... and out of... the bucket. He was quick!

(The feed bucket is 9.5 inches/24 cm in diameter. Armstrong says the smallest Colorado species of woodrat is 12 inches/30 cm long. Is he including the tail? I can't imagine a local rodent more than 12 inches long, except rock squirrels and marmots. Anyway, bigger than a mouse, for sure.)

We weren't the only ones appreciating the show! The cats, trapped behind glass, enjoyed it even more!

The first personal encounter I recall with woodrats was a sad one many years ago. A woman, startled by the appearance of this creature in her brand new foothills mansion, captured it in a glass canning jar and brought it to the museum where I worked at the time to get an ID. Without punching holes in the lid. Horrified, I told her what the freshly suffocated creature was, but was not nearly as welcoming as I would have been with most visitors. An educational opportunity lost: I suspect she never set foot in the place again!

For some time, we've known that woodrats occupied the peripheral spaces of the chicken coop. Sometimes I even see (more often, hear) them in the ceiling or under the floor when I collect eggs and count beaks each evening. Occasionally one of the cats leaves a half woodrat on the doorstep. Last week, the entire ceiling of one part of the coop collapsed, exposing a collection of mummified lilac twigs complete with leaves, chewed foam panels, nesting material, and a vast accumulation of waste material. We were on our way to a veritable packrat midden.

Yes, woodrats, aka packrats aka trade rats, particularly in the southwest, are benefactors to humankind. Their middens, one of which is pictured here, are archeological time capsules that record vegetation, climate (via pollen trapped therein), and other conditions dating back as far as 40,000 years! Being fastidious, as Armstrong says, they deposit their refuse in discrete areas, where it accumulates to form deposits that are almost geologic in scope. Cemented and preserved by crystallized urine, the mass is capable of preserving most anything in it and, thus, a boon to researchers. More on this photo.

Our woodrat continues to live under the front step, where I hope he will elude the cats, live long, and prosper. He still enjoys sunflower seeds and chicken scratch, although to date he's shown no signs of leaving us any shiny baubles in return.

More on woodrats:

Nice writeup on the Colorado species of Neotoma.

At Wikipedia (see also species pages and links)

Species of concern, on Univ. of Calif Santa Cruz campus, which has some good photos of the "stick-pile" nests they build when not living in rocky cliffs. We saw a lot of these in the deserts of Arizona.

——

Okay, it must have been a really lousy photo. I'm awarding the prize to Swampy, at Swamp 4 Me, who at least got it to the right Order (Rodentia). Thanks, everyone, for chiming in! Swampy, send me your address to claim your original historic postcard of this fabulous local spot where you can see packrat middens.

A Small Saturday Challenge

Simultaneously displaying my amazing skills as a wildlife photographer and giving you a little something to puzzle over this morning-- check out this terrific shot from last week.

Got ideas? I'll be back later with the full post, just packed with information and (yes, promise!) better photos. Oh, guess I'd better be thinking of a prize for the first correct guess, too. Hmmm...

Feeling Picked On?

At home?

Or maybe at work?

Actually, I'm fine, thanks, just couldn't resist sharing these!

Have a great weekend...

Of Vermin and Varmints

How often have you heard the two words in the title in recent decades? Not much, I hope, though I know they are still used. I'd never thought of wildlife in these terms until I moved to Arizona in grad school, and discovered "varmint hunting." Say what?

Wikipedia does an intriguing etymological job on vermin, albeit relatively citation-free, pointing out that both words have evolved from the root (verm-, meaning wormlike), which originally included mostly insect pests, to cover pests that range in size from rats to small or medium-sized predators, such as (in Arizona's predominant case) coyotes. Soon I found myself writing letters to editors (okay, one, in response to a Paul Harvey diatribe) and hanging out with HSUS types occasionally. I wanted a chance to see coyotes, alive and without holes in them. And that, in the category of "things you can see while hiking in Arizona," is putting it mildly.

"God's dog," it turns out, is persona non grata in the Southwest, where hunting is regulated not as a game animal, but in a special class for predators.* I'd say "was" but here's what the AZ Game & Fish Dept has to say on their website today:

The take of coyotes by hunters has been relatively stable during the past 10 years, about 13,000 hunters taking an average of between 30,000 and 40,000 coyotes a year. Most of these animals are taken while "varmint calling," while hunting other game, or simply as opportunities arise...[updated April 2009]

* "Predatory mammals as defined by A.R.S. 17-101 are coyotes, bobcats, foxes, and skunks. Bobcats are the only predator also classified as a furbearer with an export tag required to ship a bobcat pelt out of state.
August 1 - March 31 is open season for Bobcat and Foxes as authorized in Commission Order 13. The season for Coyote and Skunk is yearlong." [Emphasis mine.] If you like this one, you'll probably want to read their Predator Management Policy.

From the immediate at that time, my interest shifted to the historical today. Just last month I encountered an arresting tidbit: this account of pests destroyed at a bird sanctuary in 1929-30, from Bug Girl's blog. I hope she won't mind my repeating it here for those who may have missed it.

A Disgraceful Tally

You really should click to enlarge this—it gives you an idea of the real abundance and variety of wildlife, even into the early decades of the last century, if so much can be destroyed on one small 700-acre preserve. (Note, however, that the take of most every group was down substantially the second year.) I've no doubt the taking of 174 snakes and 58 owls necessitated the killing of the 2,644 mice!

"Such birds and animals as were poisoned have not been included in these totals." Gee, that's good to know.

I quite agree, Bug Girl—things have changed, thank goodness! Else we couldn't have enjoyed last week's Cooper's hawk without fears, so close to "civilization," for his life.

——
In related news, on March 6th Dyana Furmansky, author of Hawk of Mercy, a biography of Rosalie Edge, will discuss her book. In the early 20th century, Edge earned the title "Nature's hellcat" by campaigning against such prejudicial practices on the part of conservationists who protected sport species (think ducks) at the expense of hawks and snapping turtles. Details here, and a great story on Edge by the author here.

Note: Illustrations, from a collection I did years ago, are copyright S.L. White and not to be used without permission, as are photographs. Thanks!

Two for The Watcher

Sometimes the work of a fellow blogger so moves us we simply must comment. Other times, it may trigger something that's too involved for the mere comments field on the subject post. Such has been the case lately for me. A couple of The Watcher's recent posts triggered memories of a favorite author, Loren Eiseley. I've no idea whether The Watcher reads or has ever read Eiseley, but I want to share a couple tidbits of Eiseley's work with you.

Inspired by The Watcher’s post of December 30th on why birds are “God’s favorite children”, I wanted to contribute another reason—they OWN the planet.

It happens every spring and nobody seems to take any notice at all. There are no congressional investigations, no cross-examinations of witnesses before television, no one hurls himself out of a window. Nevertheless, it happens every spring and there is no doubt that it smacks of sheer communism. I refer to the expropriation and reassignment of land in these states and the incredible way in which even city properties fall victim to it. Yesterday morning I could hear conversations about it just outside my window, and somebody over my rooftop was expropriating in at least half-mile sections. … The whole thing smacks of subversion and disrespect for the laws of private property. It may well merit an investigation. It should begin by a thorough and painstaking investigation of the birds.

—Loren Eiseley, from The Lost Notebooks of Loren Eiseley (K. Heuer, ed.)

I suspect he was under the influence of the McCarthy hearings when he wrote that one, don't you? Perhaps that explains why this vignette was (I believe) never published. Fellow Eiseley fan Gary Raham (see below) suspects Eiseley would not have wanted the unfinished material in his notebooks to see light, but such is often the fate of the illustrious. I only regret that I can't share the incredible sketches of The Lost Notebooks with you as well. If you're a follower of Eiseley's work, you need to see this book!

Inspired by The Watcher’s post of January 18th, in which he waxes poetic about exozoochory (we love that word!), here's Eiseley’s own eloquent testimony on seed dispersal:

When I climb I almost always carry seeds with me in my pocket. Often I like to carry sunflower seeds, or an acorn, or any queer “sticktight” that has a way of gripping fur or boot tops as if it had a deliberate eye on the Himalayas and meant to use the intelligence of others to arrive at them. More than one lost mountaineer lying dead at the bottom of a crevasse has proved that his sole achievement in life was to inch some plant a half-mile further toward the moon. His body may have been scarcely cold before that illicit transported seed had been getting a foothold beneath him on a patch of stony ground or writhing its way into a firm engagement with the elements on the moisture of his life’s blood. I have carried such seeds up the sheer walls of mesas and I have never had illusions that I was any different to them than a grizzly’s back or a puma’s paw.

—Loren Eiseley, from The Lost Notebooks of Loren Eiseley (K. Heuer, ed.), though I suspect this one may have been published in an essay somewhere

Leaving aside his disregard for the evils of introducing plants where plant dictators (like FF) think they don’t belong, I’ve always appreciated Eiseley’s writing for its poetic combination of science, introspection, observation, and outright nature mysticism. It’s an appreciation I share with one of my research enthusiasms, Paul B. Sears, who wrote in a review of Eiseley’s The Mind as Nature:

It is well that we are increasingly respectful of quantitative method and its results. But this respect should never blind us to the fact that no man [or other living thing] is a mere statistic. There is an essential place, not least in science, for those precisely individual accounts, too often lightly—even scornfully—dismissed as “anecdotal.”

—Paul B. Sears, 1963, The Exception is the Rule, American Scholar 32(2):321-322.

Foothills Fancies, you’ve perhaps noticed, is all about anecdotal! Though far less eloquently than Loren Eiseley, who by the way is the topic of an upcoming talk here in the area (and wasn't that a smooth seque):

Wednesday, Jan. 27, 7:00 p.m., "Fireside Chat" sponsored by the Friends of Dinosaur Ridge: “Loren Eiseley – A Poet Wearing the Fox Skins of a Scientist,” by Gary Raham; Dinosaur Ridge Visitor Center, 16831 W. Alameda Parkway, Morrison.

Loren Eiseley (1907-1977) wrote for Harper's Magazine and Atlantic Monthly, penned best selling books, both non-fiction and poetry, but also served as Provost and Benjamin Franklin Professor of Anthropology at the University of Pennsylvania. In 1960, his The Firmament of Time only lost out to the Rise and Fall of the Third Reich for the National Book Award. As a graduate student he discovered a Folsom Point embedded in the vertebra of the extinct Bison antiquus at the Lindenmeier site north of Fort Collins. Yet he struggled his entire career to find the balance between the objective pursuit of science and exercising his ability to explain and dramatize science with the written word. He felt awe contemplating deep time and man's place in the natural world. This event is not recommended for children.

Note: Illustrations, from a collection I did years ago, are copyright S.L. White and not to be used without permission, as are photographs. Thanks!

Hawk Week

Beginning with Monday's Redtail-magpie episode, the week has focused on hawks. Wednesday morning, another magpie fit drew me out to look at the same elm, and I was rewarded with a view of a Cooper's Hawk hopping from the ground to a low branch of the magpie tree with what I hope was a starling in hand.

The easy pickings around our feeders usually draw immatures, so we're having some trouble being certain, from quick looks, whether we're seeing Cooper's or Sharp-shins at times. (See what you think: photo left from this morning.) Telltale signs, best seen in the adult, would be the squarish head, roundish tail, and less streaked breast of the Cooper's, all relative and dependent on getting a good look. And of course, larger size—but that too is proving to be hard to judge except at the extremes. Males can be quite a bit smaller than females in accipiters, causing the three species (Goshawk being the third) to overlap in size.

Yesterday morning, for example, a hawk I took to be Sharp-shinned (and, one hopes, our familiar Artemis) was the first bird out, and her presence kept the others hungry and on guard for a brief time just after dawn. The magpies went into vociferous hawk-mode in the afternoon, showing us what we thought was Cooper's again. Having a resident colony of pie-birds is proving an aid to observation!

Photo credits for this morning's good look go to The Husband. Finally, someone who's not camera-shy: She/he sat in the Russian-olive for a full half hour, while the light changed from rosy to standard Colorado-bright.

My slide show idea didn't work as well as I'd hoped, so scroll below for an almost animated sequence. Looking right, left, and down—where's breakfast! First four around 8:45 in early light; last four around 9:15 a.m.

Cooper's Hawk Accipiter cooperii (finally! A bird sci name that makes sense!)

Consulting our old friends Niedrach & Rockwell (1939), I find this:

Cooper's Hawk.       Accipiter cooperi (Bonaparte)
   Field Marks. Length 15-17.5 inches; similar to sharp-shinned hawk but larger; end of tail rounded instead of straight.
   Summer resident, not common; more numerous during migration. Upper Sonoran through Canadian Zone; most common in Transition.

   Owing to its characteristic habit of perching close to the trunk of densely foliaged trees, this species is inconspicuous. It is seldom seen any distance from tree growth. A few pairs nest regularly on the table-land south of Denver, where, in June 1937, Bailey and Niedrach secured photographs of adults and young in their nest among the scrub oaks; others build in the evergreens near Bergen Park and south of Idaho Springs. Cooper's hawks are very fast upon the wing, and as they are not particularly shy, are often observed over the city. A few winter, but the majority leave for the south by the last of October, and do not return until early April. This hawk is a large edition of the sharp-shin and because of its size, takes much larger game. Near habitations it is a persistent poultry-killer, and consequently has aroused the animosity of farmers.

The latter, if true, should have me fearful for the chickens!

Morning in Warm Tones

After more than 28 years in this spot, the morning views still captivate me. When the sun first hits the rocks...








Expect wonders!

January 8, 2010.

What a way to start the day!

No Resolutions

Perhaps I should have warned you I've been contemplating a new look for Foothills Fancies this year. Or at least a new color scheme, something a bit more wintry. It'll take me a while to get used to this, but here it is.

The entire day has been "lost" in fiddling around with the computer. Fun, even enlightening, but not productive, in the traditional sense of the word. It's been a kind of hole-up, watch-the-temperature-drop, and go-for-the-cabin-fever kind of day anyway.

I can't tell you all the amazing things I'm planning to blog about in 2010, but I can show you. Maybe. (Hey, a girl can dream.) We'll be crossing our fingers, but not making any promises. Life has a way of intervening, sometimes with unexpected opportunities that can take over.

2009 was that kind of a year, so I'm learning not to make predictions. As blogging years go here at FF, the results weren't half bad, at least numerically. (No comment on overall quality.) Sixty-one posts here makes it a close third (out of four years), but 2009 did set one new record! It's the first year where at least one post managed to appear in each calendar month. Wow... no extended hiatuses, despite all that's been going on. I know that's stretching, but I'll look for achievement where I can!

Just so you know, though, even living in "exciting times," I'd rather be blogging more often. Whatever's going on, I do take daily pleasure in checking out the informative and entertaining and top-notch work the rest of you are posting. Thanks for all the good times and great reading!

Nature Moments

But first, a public service announcement: The last Berry-Go-Round of 2009 is up over at Agricultural Biodiversity. Some great reading for a cold day!

Photo du jour (eastish). The sun has begun its northward trek at last! I missed the peak color for this morning's shot; took me a minute to find the camera.

My recent trip across Colorado (12/27-12/30) brought several noteworthy Nature Moments, undocumented except in memory and this brief list.

• Spectacular "mare's tails" above the southwest horizon most of the way
  
• No eagles, but lots of hawks, including
  
• One, in Montrose, I'm convinced was a Swainson's (a surprise! wintering in Colorado?)
  
• One Great Blue Heron, ditto—a most pleasant surprise
  
• A small flock of turkeys on the roadbank west of Ridgway
  
• One starry morning, see below
  
• And, of course, the trip home
  

Starry times: Forgetting to check the skies at a reasonable time during a long evening catching up with my sister, who lives up in the hills (only recently on the grid), I woke at 5 a.m. and glanced out. Not my usual view, and so many stars that the patterns I've been learning were obscured. Though captivated, it took me several minutes to figure out "where" I was. (Who knew Gemini had feet?! And, yes, Virginia, there really is a Milky Way!) When you're used to looking into an urban sky at 10ish p.m., everything seems off in the early a.m. of a more pristine sky!

The sight was so incredible that I made the 100-mile (160 km) round-trip again the next night! Alas, my only reward other than my sister's company was a night of cloudy skies.

This story will continue in a subsequent post, but one more Nature Moment should be listed here.

On Monday, I was called away from the computer by a loud wrangling in the backyard. Usually "bird noises" fade after a few seconds, before I can get there, but this went on. Something must be happening. At the southwest corner of the house, the elm tree was filled with a dozen or so magpies having a most vociferous conversation of a disturbing kind. I walked west and peeked around the corner (toward the chicken coop), seeing nothing but a vague dark flash.

Fearing for the chickens, I went back through the house to the north side, and was treated to the sight of a large raptor swooping east. Nothing in talons, thankfully. He/she landed in another elm tree on the northeast. Three crows harassed the buteo south toward the road; I followed back through the house to the east door, picking up binocs on the way (gates in the yard make it quicker to go through than around the house). The hawk perched on the wires, and the crows settled nearby. The magpies had quieted, but the crows now kept up the chase. When they herded the buteo east to the next power pole, I got the ID: Red-tailed Hawk, probably one of our local year-round residents. He/she soon left for happier hunting elsewhere.

I appreciate that this bird is no longer known to us as the chicken hawk of past years. I'm glad we have descriptive names now, instead of naming them by what they eat (or don't, as some names seem erroneous) and, as in older times, killing them accordingly. No more (or not so much) the chicken hawk, sparrow hawk, or duck hawk, now Red-tail, Kestrel, and Peregrine. We forget sometimes how much has changed along with those labels.

With Extreme Prejudice

Even a plant-lover, and I do consider myself such, can be challenged by some species, and the mellowest of us can be pressed into trophy hunting when circumstances are right. Summer is the season for bagging the biggest baddest trophies in our neck of the woods. Each year I've been going after my limit, but of course, you never run out of this bad boy. Its beauties, and I'll grant there are some, are only petal-deep.

The object of my disaffection and prejudice last season, as in years past, is Dalmatian Toadflax (variously Linaria dalmatica, Linaria genistifolia ssp. dalmatica, etc.) The experts say "don't pull it—it just makes it come back stronger," but that never made sense to me. So I started an experiment in my own neighborhood, ruthlessly attacking every sprig I could find while out walking around the block, especially after rain. Pulling weeds is so satisfying when the ground is wet, and you really feel like you're getting results! When it's dry, and stems snap off at ground level, you have to suspect your efforts are futile.

Hypothesis: Control of Dalmatian toadflax can be achieved by repeated, diligent hand-pulling.

Methods: Repeated diligent hand-pulling, wherever, whenever, but especially in the immediate home territory.

Goal: A reduction in the local population, or (at the least) a drastic decline in recruitment of new individuals by seed. If one can only keep them from flowering, that has to help, right?

Results: Bags of garbage, at least the inflorescences of which have to be treated like the hazardous waste they are, and the opportunity to have roadsides free of these yellow snapdragons! And, I truly believe, considerable success in knocking local populations back and preventing their expansion.

Thus the "bagging" of trophies is literal here, and like any good hunter, I felt compelled to document my success—so let's back out a little on the photo above for the traditional shot: June 16, 2009, selections from my daily limit. (No, I resisted the impulse to have my picture taken holding them by the roots...)

---

That this Eurasian species has taken over most of the United States is documented here, by the USDA Plants database. Grey color indicates its non-native status in the U.S.







In Colorado, I suspect it occurs in many more counties than shown here in the USDA map.









Posted for the current edition of Berry-Go-Round. More on this species and its control a bit later.

News for Carnival Lovers

Carnivals in the blog world are, in my book, a much more pleasant experience than those crowded, noisy events we have in the "real" world. (Oh wait, maybe I'm thinking of circuses.)

In any case, we have two new blog carnivals to anticipate with the New Year. First is House of Herps, devoted to our favorite scaly and slimy beings, the reptiles and amphibians. The first edition will be out in... oh! This very week—on or before Friday. Good cold-blooded reading for the weekend. Why a herp carnival? Noting the lack, the founders say:

So we decided to change that. Amber of Birder’s Lounge and I (Jason of xenogere) have conspired together to kick off a celebration of all things herpetological.

The invention of House of Herps was aided and abetted by Ted of Beetles in the Bush. Now that someone's taken up the herp challenge, Ted's inspired to do the same for his favorite insects, the beetles, at An Inordinate Fondness. That carnival will launch in February.

Please note: Nature bloggers are welcome at these carnivals; they're not just for specialists!

Here at home, I haven't been entirely neglecting my nature observations. Inspired by the Geminids, I've been doing a bit of stargazing and learning a few new constellations. In the works are some Awesome Watcher-style Graphics, so we'll see. Nor have I forgotten the spider post I'm supposed to be working on. Hmmm...

I did manage to submit a post from last summer for House of Herps, and there may be hope of a new plant post before the next Berry-Go-Round rolls around. And, of course, now I'm going to have to start learning beetles! Well, come summer, that is.

Here's my entry, from back last spring, for House of Herps, which is now up at House of Herps #1.

Skywatch: Mystery Clouds

Last week, before the onslaught of dense clouds and cold weather we've been having, I kept trying to capture a Colorado "true blue" sky. My timing was never right, as the best ones occur in morning hours, off to the northwest, while south and east tend to be more washed out.

Then this unusual formation caught my eye—several broad streaks radiating from an area to the east, behind the hogback, like faint streams of sediment in an otherwise clear stream. The only explanation I can offer is contrails, spread laterally by winds aloft, or what, according to Wikipedia, would be called decaying contrails. This is suggested by comparison with the relatively coherent trail to the right.



A sky without contrails, or artificial clouds, would have been standard not so very long ago. Here's a better view of the hogback, one of my all-time-favorite geographic features, showing the west, or scarp, face of the Dakota Group sandstones that create the ridge.

Posted for Skywatch Friday, where many more skies await you.

Quick List: the Birds

After four days of cold and snow, the cats have tired of the bird channel and are getting antsy being "cooped up." Elder Cat ventured out for a few brief moments—it's all of 5 degrees F (and -15 C) out there—then was happy to return to the woodstove.

At a glance outside this frigid morning, I can see:

• Northern Flicker
  
• Downy Woodpecker
  
• Steller's Jay
  
• Western Scrub-Jay
  
• Black-billed Magpie
  
• Black-capped Chickadee
  
• European Starling
  
• Spotted Towhee
  
• American Tree Sparrow
  
• White-crowned Sparrow
  
• Dark-eyed Junco: all flavors, and dozens
  
• Red-winged Blackbird, also numerous
  
• House Finch
  
• House Sparrow

(The Rosy Finch of Sunday returned yesterday, but I haven't spotted her today.)


Not bad. If I sat and watched, I'd probably do better. Oddly, only a single Starling puts its species on this list. When I fed the chickens, I found out why: All of them, an entire flock, were inside the coop. By propping the door open, ducking my head, and making for the most distant corner, I was able to shoo most of them out. In cold weather, this becomes part of the afternoon routine, but it seems like there were 200 or so this morning. I wouldn't mind them taking shelter so much (who can blame them?), but in those numbers, they intimidate the chickens, devour their food, and foul everything in range.

Today there were a few dozen who were unshooable, trying to wedge themselves in corners. This gives me the opportunity to move them by hand, and them a chance to fly directly into my face and thereby also ensure in the panic of their passing that my winter coat is ready for the laundry. Just delightful; memories of Alfred Hitchcock come to mind.

The puzzle is how did they discover this cozy spot and how did they get in there? I may never solve the first, but there's only one way in. My imagination is challenged by the thought of 200 starlings marching up a ramp and into a hatch less than a foot square!

Snowy Sunday brings Visitors

As is often the case here at FF, a snowy day means a great chance for bird watching. The feathered host was busy at the feeders early; scores of red-wings, the regular finches and juncos, a very busy place. When suddenly the view is reduced to nothing but magpies, expect to find a winged hunter somewhere about. Looking west, I was rewarded with a glimpse of the (or one of the) local Sharp-shinned Hawk. (This photo, however, is from a couple weeks ago.)


Today brought two unusual guests among the exceptionally diverse* hordes. The Husband called me to the window to figure out a cryptic visitor. Clearly a Gray-crowned Rosy Finch, but where were her companions? The only other visit we've recorded from these was a huge flock that descended from the sky during another white-out storm many years ago.

While we watched her, a female Evening Grosbeak , also solitary, dropped in again. It's only been three weeks since they last showed up, for the second time in as many decades. Kinda makes you wonder what's going on out there.






This little Rosy girl, or perhaps an immature male?, stuffed her beak with sunflower seeds as fast as she could pick them up! Hungry, a bit? When he saw this photo, Husband said, "what's wrong with her beak?" That's not beak, it's a sunflower seed in the middle... She was gulping them as fast as she could.

I'm not one to look a gift bird in the beak, though. I even managed, briefly, to catch them both in the same frame while they perched in the ash tree, though you have to use your imagination, or trust me on the ID.


More and better images of Rosy Finches, also more diagnostic, here at Google Images, as we clearly have a problem with backlighting, especially when there's snow.

*Husband also glimpsed ALL THREE Jays, Eastern, Scrub, and Steller's, in one quick view this afternoon, but the best I've done today is two.



Gray-crowned Rosy Finch: Leucosticte tephrocotis

Rockwell & Wetmore:

Flying about over the rock slides we see some plump brownish birds, with black, pink-tipped wings and tail - leucostictes, or rosy finch. Found in summer only above timberline and in winter seldom descending below 8,000 feet elevation. Four species occur in Colorado, one of which, the brown capped leucosticte, is not known outside of the state boundaries. The nest and eggs were unknown to science until a few years ago.
—from Denver Municipal Facts, Vol. 2, No. 3, March 1919

Happy Buy Nothing Day!

All day yesterday the MiL teased me about getting up early this morning to go shopping! The Black Friday hype even reached her, and she doesn't drive, rarely shops or spends money... and, happily, wouldn't go to the Maul with me if I did ask her.

I'm not sure she understood when I explained about
Buy Nothing Day, a bright spot in the "let's-start-Christmas-before-we-get-through-Halloween" madness that is fall in our cultural milieu.* Putting Pilgrim associations far aside, Thanksgiving is a holiday that has redeeming social value and is connected to the Earth much in the way of an old pagan harvest festival. Unfortunately, as only grocery stores get much economic boost from it, this moment to stop and consider one's blessings is in danger of being overrun by the more critical need to keep the economy humming along. I'm with the folks at Adbusters, who say:

There’s only one way to avoid the collapse of this human experiment of ours on Planet Earth: we have to consume less.

*Wikipedia will fill you in on the downside of Buy Nothing Day, a holiday for the 'haves' perhaps, but where else can we find criticism of Black Friday?

As for me, I've reached that age where I have the basic stuff I need and, the Darling Husband would say, too much of most of it. I need to develop skills in "enlightenment" instead—lightening my load on the planet by finding homes for some of the "stuff" I've managed to accumulate these last 30 years or so. (A DH quote: "You don't help the environment by turning the house into a landfill.")

It's true: A victim of early Earth Day conditioning [There is no "away"], and knowing the fate of most trash, I don't throw things away like I should. (Some of it, for example, ends up on this beach in Hawai'i; photo right.) I'm convinced there must be someone out there who needs or appreciates these trinkets as much as I do—I just haven't located them yet! ( With the possible exception of my 24-year-old niece, who is at the "I want" stage, and makes a good repository for excess crockery and glassware, as well as tidbits from my yarn collection and other unfinished projects.)

I lean toward the recognition of "useful life left," even in items that are missing pieces or otherwise in need of repair. Yes, perhaps it could be taken to the thrift stores most of it came from in the first place, but some is even beyond that stage. Hesitation, resistance to disposal, also arises from reading Wendell Berry, who once remarked:

Our great fault as a people is that we do not take care of things. Our economy is such that we say we 'cannot afford' to take care of things: Labor is expensive, time is expensive, money is expensive, but materials—the stuff of creation—are so cheap that we cannot afford to take care of them.

Berry was not, of course, the first to notice this trend. In googling to find that quote again, I ran into an interesting "transhistorical and transcultural approach to trash," which contains (scroll down) a long timeline of trashy tidbits, including this one:

Our willingness to part with something before it is completely worn out is a phenomenon noticeable in no other society in history… It is soundly based on our economy of abundance. It must be further nurtured even though it runs contrary to one of the oldest inbred laws of humanity, the law of thrift.
- J. Gordon Lippincott, industrial designer, 1947

Ah, thrift... now there's a word you don't hear every day.

So, although my car is out of gas, there's an item on ebay I covet, and we're low on chicken feed, I'll be staying home today.

Out-of-Date Update: Grosbeaks

Feeling Wednesday's post on grosbeaks to be inadequate, I have delved into the matter a little further in order to bring us a more thorough look at these fascinating birds. Our five species are all members of the Fringillidae, and thus are related to sparrows, finches, and buntings in this largest family of North American birds. And the Cardinal (who knew?). All characterized by a short stout beak (hence gros-beak).

That's according to one of my semi-modern bird books (and I suspect the others concur in such a basic statement). So I consulted my two favorite local bird references for even more.

An Annotated List of the Birds of the Mountain Parks and Mount Evans region by Robert B. Rockwell and Alexander Wetmore. from Denver Municipal Facts, Vol. 2, No. 3, March 1919 (but based on a paper published in 1914)

The Birds of Denver and Mountain Parks, by Robert Niedrach and Robert B. Rockwell, Colorado Museum of Natural History, Popular Series No. 5, December 1939.

For the Black-headed Grosbeak

1919 Black-headed Grosbeak Zamelodia melanocephala
Summer resident. More common on the plains than in the mountains.

1939 Rocky Mountain Grosbeak Hedymeles melanocephalus papago Overholser.
Summer resident, common. Upper Sonoran and Transition Zones.

These fine songsters are common birds in our city parks and along shaded streams. They arrive from the south about the middle of May, nest during June, and depart for the south early in September. During the height of the breeding season they are readily observed in favorable locations; the males are in full song, and may be heard singing at all hours of the day. The nest is a flimsy structure of twigs, built usually in shrubs or low trees, and both male and female help with incubation.

For the Blue Grosbeak

1919 Western Blue Grosbeak Guiraca cerulea lazula
One record from Morrison.

1939 Western Blue Grosbeak Guiraca caerulea interfusa Dwight and Griscom.
Straggler, rare. Upper Sonoran Zone.

The only record for the Denver area is one taken by H.G. Smith east of Morrison (Cooke, 1898). Dille (1902) reported one just north of this area at Altona, Boulder County.

For the Evening Grosbeak

1919 No report

1939 Western Evening Grosbeak Hesperiphona vespertina brookei Grinnell.
Migrant, not common. Upper Sonoran through Canadian Zone.

For the Pine Grosbeak

1919 Rocky Mountain Pine Grosbeak Pinicola enucleator montana Only one record from Lookout Mountain.

1939 Rocky Mountain Pine Grosbeak. Pinicola enucleator montana Ridgway.
Resident, not common. Canadian and Hudsonian Zones in summer; rarely down to the Transition in winter.

The pine grosbeaks are birds of the evergreen forests; they are tame, and while busily feeding will pay little attention to one’s approach. Owing to the nature of their habitat, they are rarely observed during the summer. In the fall and winter, however, they gather in small flocks and occasionally may be seen, the beautiful rose-red males being especially conspicuous against the snow background. Definite records from the Denver area are very few. Rockwell and Wetmore (1914) took only one specimen, an immature male on November 7, 1909, on Lookout Mountain during twenty-three collecting trips made between March 28 and November 14.

For the Rose-breasted Grosbeak:

1919 No report.

1939 Rose-Breasted Grosbeak Hedymeles ludovicianus (Linnaeus)
Straggler, rare. Upper Sonoran Zone.

This strikingly marked bird has a propensity to wander far from its eastern range. Bailey and Niedrach (1938f) collected a male in worn plumage (no. 18900), May 20, 1938, near Daniels Park twenty miles south of Denver. This is the only specimen encountered within the Denver area, but it has been recorded as breeding at Longmont and observed at Loveland.

From these reports we learn that scientific names can change a great deal in 25 years (though the species epithet is often a good clue to identity), and that scientific writing used to be more entertaining to read. It also seems my chance of seeing a Blue Grosbeak is, perhaps, not as remote as I thought.

Historical accounts can also raise more questions than answers at times. For the record, here's the answer to one of them, as defined by Niedrach and Rockwell (in quotes, their summary of Typical Vegetation):

Upper Sonoran Zone is 3,500 to 5,500 ft (1,067 to 1,676 m) for Colorado, that is, Denver and plains habitats (grasslands, plains riparian, and wetlands)

Transition Zone is 5,500 to 8,000 ft (1,676 to 2,438 m) here, that is foothills and lower montane ("Scrub Oak, Yellow Pine, Douglas Fir")

Canadian Zone is 8,000 to 10,000 ft (2,438 to 3,048 m), or roughly upper montane to lower subalpine ("Quaking Aspen, Lodgepole, Engelmann Spruce")

Hudsonian Zone is 10,000 to 10,500 ft (3,048 to 3,200 m), upper subalpine and timberline ("Engelmann Spruce, Balsam Fir, Foxtail Pine")

Arctic-Alpine Zone is above 10,500 ft ( m), or alpine, above timberline ("Arctic Willows, Grassy Meadows, No Trees")

Alas, I think I see more questions coming out of that answer!

Evening--and Morning--Grosbeaks

Seeing grosbeaks turns out to be pretty easy (sometimes). As easy as inviting Bee Lady and Flame over for dinner! Unfortunately the evening appearance was over by the time they arrived on Sunday, so they had to accept our report. Monday a.m. the Evening Grosbeaks returned, and I was able to document the sighting with these charmingly fuzzy photos.

Always a rare thrill to see them; this was perhaps the second time in our 28 years here. But we don't see them in any great numbers. The seven or eight that showed up this weekend were a poor flock by grosbeak standards, but it was nice to have more than a lone stray stop by. Only males sport the jaunty yellow visor above the eye, and their plumage is much more dramatic in breeding season (and in better light than this early dawn).

In contrast, my first acquaintance with these startling birds, many years ago high in Coal Creek Canyon, was of a huge flock at a friend's winter feeder. ("Partial to sunflower seeds at feeding stations" says the bird book.) Larger than the usual finches and sparrows, they were quite a sight to witness! Evenings are, like the Pine Grosbeak also of our mountains, a winter species in our area. Our more usual visitor is the Black-headed Grosbeak of summer, which apparently I haven't blogged about beyond a casual mention at the link.

So of the five species of North American grosbeaks, we've now seen three here. The Rosies, like the Black-headed, are summer birds and rare. I can hope for a Pine Grosbeak some winter, but if (when?) I see the other summer species, a Blue Grosbeak, here I will be thoroughly stunned.

Nature Moments

In other news, yesterday's trip to bank and grocery store brought a nature moment worth recording, one of those passing flashes that sticks with you. Turning onto the northbound two lanes of Kipling Parkway, I noticed a quick flutter in the gutter at the side of the road. As I rounded the corner toward it, a Kestrel rose from the concrete, dangling a fresh rodent dinner in his talons. Yummy! Groceries! (The lower Kipling corridor, with its broad margins and regularly spaced light poles, is actually an excellent spot for raptor observations. Unfortunately, I usually have my hands on a steering wheel instead of a camera at those moments.)

Evening Grosbeak Hesperiphona vespertina