Tag Archives: Swallows

April 17, 2013

Nature Jottings, , ,

The male Mallard still alone at the Stockpond, and in the outmost mesquital beyond and nearer the River, a fine Bullock’s Oriole, a much later than usual arrival of this “neotropical”. Many Yellow-rumped Warblers in splendid and bright marriage garb, coming down to the pond edge for a drink, or hunting through the pasture grass pipit-like. This is too beautiful a bird to be tossed off with an, “Oh, just Butter-butts”, by the Life List Set that comes to Arizona to seek out our famous avian rarities. Normally that warbler’s numbers are larger earlier, and smaller by now, but this is turned on its head; they are everywhere.

Out in the deep winter pastures, another warbler: Yellowthroats are rising, flying off, and dropping into the grass, much like the Marsh Wrens who are not to be seen today.

Our little mixed herd of a couple dear old cows, steers and heifers for grassfed beef, and heifers we’ll keep, race out and kick up their heels in joy over coming into new grass that will be grazed for the first time, in this late afternoon of air that whispers change. The temperature twenty degrees lower than yesterday’s, the day cool but lively, and this beautiful sunset all is very quiet, so quiet the contented munching of the herd carries far and I bask in an all-is-well bucolic sweetness. The air all around and over them is electric, beryl-green, shot through with gold, Barn Swallows swirl and chitter through that air, and snap at the insects the cows as they move stir into flight. A moment of great contentment for those golondrinas, the cows, and me.

April 16, 2013

Nature Jottings, , ,

Nicely above 80 degrees this afternoon, and that brought out the Zebra-tailed Lizards that so love the dryness and heat of the desert edges, with sand too hot to stand on so they move as if in flight over it, tails a waggin’ and twitchin’ and frothin’ back and forth. The Marsh Wrens are still here, I thought they’d have left on yesterday’s 20 mph hot winds; there are a few Meadowlarks who didn’t get pushed out by those winds, either.

Many Barn Swallows, of a sudden flying and twittering over the pastures.

April 14, 2013

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[E]arly at the Stockpond, in the mobile bird blind of the pickup, on the radio the gorgeous music of Mexico’s “Age of Gold” coming out of Sonora and so well set to this grandscapes that were once not fenced off from that fair land. Hopelessly sad music, hopeless love for la Malaguena Salerosa, the cheesiest of organ arrangements that scream novella, and of course the tragically romantic, boleros in harmonies that drift over saloon doors of a cantina and into the street, Eydie Gorme singing that it is my inescapable fate to love her, corridos from The Revolution. White fluff from willows drifts past and lands on the water outside the truck windows. The track of a Turkey clearly marked in the dust makes the line from where the bird left the protection of the mesquital to cross the parking opening and down to the water’s edge; I haven’t yet seen one of these birds on the Mason place, but once in a while used to see them in the bed of the River to the south at Heaven Sent Ranch in the years I was a hand there. From the looks of those birds, I had thought then that they were Gould’s Turkey that had simply wandered north out of Sonora down the San Pedro. I wonder about this one.

Large flocks of Lark Sparrows, taking to the air in swirls as I wade through the grasses to open hydrants and set wheels for the day’s watering. I listened to a handsome one high in a mesquite top, by himself giving a concert like no other of his kind I’ve heard–I couldn’t tell it from the Summer Tanagers that were due to arrive from the south tomorrow. A Brewer’s Sparrow was also singing pretty notes in the mesquite saplings that are a constant battle to keep from taking over the grazing fields; right now is the end of that sparrow’s winter residence here and they usually disappear of a sudden. That summer song had me thinking they were restless now. That most exquisite bird of tropical hue and amazing grace arrived in massive number, hawking low over all the pastures: the Violet-green Swallow.

After having got three pastures’ irrigation up, I waited back at the Stockpond for the Great 2013 Wren Drive to start once the other Cascabel Wren Wranglers came along this morning–our eminent naturalists Ralph W. and Kathleen, and avid birder pard Bob E. Kathleen had suggested we play gamekeepers and walk in a line across the grasses, sort of beat the bush and see what flies up so more can be learned about this wren phenomenon that becomes by the day more astonishing. One of us might circle out and around to push a bird back towards the others … here at the water, though, I had merely to watch.

Lots of male Black-chinned Hummingbirds came zooming in to the water, hanging suspended and making acrobatic moves of incredible agility, each trying to chase off the other four or five so he could have the pond alone else he might not have enough water to drink! Sometimes this is out in the middle where the birds will drop and hover, drop again, hover, reach the water in this stair-step fashion and daintily break the surface of the pond with a fine bill-tip. At the edges where the water is only inches deep, the hummers drop themselves at hover right down onto the water, and slide themselves back and forth forcing the water to clean their keels, even landing for moments with wings whirring so they don’t sink; they look like tiny airboats. Some land in little pockets of shallow water that are cupped in the floating green algae, while keeping only the slightest of wing movement going so’s not to lose their balance. None of these things would go on for very long, not with their wing mates coming in at a divebomb to knock them out of the way with a chatter and whizz, “Hummbres, it’s goin’ on High Noon and this pond ain’t big enough for the five of us!”

On the strength of the experience of last week’s flushing of the Marsh Wrens by the moving wheel line, and the ease with which I saw those wrens a couple days ago, I’d promised the Wren Wranglers a good show but the little we saw turned out to be hard won. None of the birds showed themselves but for brief flashes of russet and brown and we were left with the frustration rather than the mystery now lost once I’d got that identity on them. Well, didn’t really matter to us, who all know that naturalists the country over dream of this place, and dream of being out in it of a morning just like this one. Not ones to give up, though, we moved on to other winter pastures to the north where there turned out to be few of the wrens but rather many more frustrating sparrows of who knew what species. How much time remains before all these LBBs (“Little Brown Birds”) give the place over to summer flycatchers, when the oats, barley, rye and wheat give the place over to bermudagrass and the main cattle herd comes back down to its lushness from higher, wild ranges? We used Kathleen’s roundup brushbeating until we got one of those elusive sparrows to light in a bare mesquite sprout, and we could get finally one i.d, Savannah Sparrow, which in past winters were much more numerous and might well have been so this whole winter but hidden themselves much more, too. Then too, wintering White-crowned Sparrow have been much less seen at least at Mason’s than in other years; we did come on a few of them today.

A Summer Tanager glows in a bare tree, when we return to the Stockpond and bid farewell to each other after a most enjoyable morning. The bird is a day early! That Lark Sparrow that was singing like one of that tanager kind must’ve heard him.

April 12, 2013

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One Mallard, the male, on the water today. A pair of Yellow Warblers are in chase with each other, around and around the Stockpond, and around … and around …

Another kingbird, I think a Western by its voice, arrived. Rough-winged Swallows have been increasing, but none over the pastures this whole day. There are a few Meadowlarks, though. Many Vesper Sparrows in the weedy edges and on the barbed wire crossfences, surely they are about to become more scarce; this was the most abundant of the wintering sparrows this year. The wrens, ah yes, the wrens, still tease in the pasture of lush winter graze, to which they’ve all moved over from a couple risers to the south. Seems they prefer yet-to-be-eaten-off, above-the-knee-deep bluegreen oats and barley, the cattle having gone into the wrens’ old area and taken it down to about one foot tall with all the efficiency of a tractor mower, leaving the stumpy culms from the tips of which will sprout a new shoot and then sets of leaves.

A fearless and friendly Gray Flycatcher pops up here and there as I do one chore or another, on a fenceline or in the mesquite tangled edges, pumping its tail as the species so distinctly does. They must be on the move, I hadn’t seen one the whole of winter here. Another species, an insect, came along today, one that in all other years I have seen in every month: the Tarantula Hawk. Those January days of a cold that froze over the Stockpond must’ve had an effect on their movements, if not their survival. It’s the first I’ve seen since Christmas.

Field Bindweed coming into bloom in the pastures–a noxious plant, but pretty as any hanging basket flower in a garden center and cattle are mad for it. Pat often wishes there were enough of it to bale, and use later.

A Red-tailed Hawk is acting like no other in my acquaintance, though the behavior is reported in mountainous territory with knife-edge ridges and strong updrafts. It was back again today, facing into the wind with all the moves of a Kestrel–barely flapping, suspended in one place with tail fanned out widely and using it brilliantly as rudder, hangs high up there for a long time, then drops like a stone from that place stationary in the strong spring gusts and onto some witless creature on the ground.

April 9, 2013

Nature Jottings, , ,

I arrive at the Stockpond and scare off a put-out, cranky Green Heron, have a glimpse of it for only a few seconds–well I’m grumbling too over a temperature that hovers at freezing. This, too, is Sonoran spring. A front came over us in the night, blue sky gone, but not exactly cloudy either: all is silver and glowing, the light, the air itself, it is stunning, like being in the Waiting Room for Eternity. The birds trickle north in ones and rarely twos, their kinds arriving today for the first time, and maybe regretting their haste as a little drift of sleet begins to pelt the brim of my Stetson … a lone Barn Swallow (“about time, friend Swallow!” I send thought to it on what wings I have, the species is so late this year); a lone Swainson’s Hawk has arrived and with a flourish of masterful flying, dips, parries, folded wings and mournful whistle, he escapes the harassment of a Redtail and is then gone into that silver air above me. A lone Cassin’s Kingbird, gorgeous in this strangest of light around me, whurp-whurpping from a fencepost where he might stay for the rest of the summer once he stops regretting leaving Old Mexico. The sleet sets in, the mid-seventies of yesterday too long gone and it will be a mercy if I forget them. The ice balls bounce off my shoulders as I open an irrigation hydrant and have water shoot up through the frigid air and into my face out of the tottering equipment. Oh my yes! … the vida vaquero loco, romantica, libre.

[…]

As the irrigation water rolls from my face after hitting me squarely in both eyes, I hear my father telling that poem of an April bedtime more than fifty years ago, hear him quivering out the “poor thing” part to add just that extra fear, pathos and doubt, and hear myself crying back, “No Daddy–no! … will he make it to spring??” I wonder if I will. I hope that Cassin’s Kingbird sticks it out.

April 2, 2013

Nature Jottings, , , ,

The Lucy’s Warblers and Bell’s Vireos are still way too thin in the mesquite branches, but a few were singing this morning, lightening the heart. Those mesquite they love are now barely sprouted out, but soon the air above the lanes of the pastures will be suffused in a pale green light, when the sun slants through the half-unfurled and still tiny leaflets there is then a holy and shimmering space, one lit by old stained glass windows.

In the uppermost grazing pasture, a plant native to all the sweep of our Great Southwest from Chihuahua and Sonora and Baja, north to the Trans Pecos and across to the Mojave–Desert Evening Primrose (Oenothera primiveris)–have a flower or two above their beautifully scalloped leaves spotted with deep purple. Another native though considerably more weedy, Horse Nettle (Silver-leaf Nightshade) is germinating, the plants still tiny. They won’t stay that way long.

For the last couple of weeks the swallows have been appearing sporadically, in numbers barely increasing, but suddenly today the air was alive with Rough-wingeds over the southmost pasture we call “#1”. In that same lush and deep winter grass of barley, oats, wheat and rye, a visitor, Katy, today caught a glimpse of one of the mystery wrens that pop up and give a tantalizing seconds-long view and then drop into the dense blades. This time one of the pretty little birds stayed for a moment in the open at the edge, only about ten feet away from Katy, and she saw without binoculars that its upper parts were spotted with white. I walked through the area widely late in the afternoon, but my footfalls didn’t make a single wren rise, flit, drop out of sight–did they all leave for the north suddenly?

March 31, 2013

Nature Jottings, , , ,

Black-chinned Hummingbirds are in their spectacular mating aerial dances at El Potrero. As they swing up and down on the wing they purr and putt, the quavering sounds grow louder and dimmer with the swing of the bird on its pendulum course, closer and then away and back again. Did the animation folks who created the Jetsons in the 1960s use this for the sound effect of the futuristic personal flying cars? No sightings or sounds of these hummers at Mason’s, either.

There is appearing a pattern here, of something that may have been happening with every spring, perhaps in reverse every autumn: the returning birds come north in their waves, and eddy and flow around (or over) places that take a little waiting for them to become more comfortable for them. El Potrero is warmer, more temperate than the Mason Pastures–certainly the thermometer readings show this and so singing and courting and avian housekeeping appear to start earlier those miles north at El Potrero. Do more birds come along from their wintering grounds at the right moment to occupy Mason’s areas directly, or are they already present somewhere east, west, north and they swirl on around back to Mason’s when conditions please? The number of species that are showing evidence of this keeps growing–something at least interesting is going on, but … what?

Winter seems about gone though of course we could (and probably will) have a couple snows yet on the higher country above us, and mornings that’ll make us grumble, “Oh this never happens!”, but yes, it always does happen. A lot of wintering birds appeared at Mason’s sparingly or not at all and now their season is winding down–they didn’t come far enough south because of global warming? Winter of 2011-2012 brought great and beautiful flocks of Lark Buntings to us; this year they appeared on only a couple of occasions and in much smaller numbers. Winter before last, often Western Bluebirds would alight all along the wheel line pipes and spokes around me, truly a glittering show and I’d hear their musical “phew! phheww!” overhead, and there were the many Mountain Bluebirds visiting and landing mostly on the open ground, but not a single of the latter species came along this winter. Both bluebird species can be pretty irregular, but the more to be expected flocks of American Pipit didn’t come this year to the irrigated grass, either, though I saw and heard a very few individuals–and no longspurs at all. Long before this time last year Tree Swallow and Violet-green Swallow were passing over our planted grass, but neither of these species has come through yet in 2013. With climate shifting northwards, what might the summer hold for birds on the place? What “Mexican” species might appear?

March 11, 2013

Nature Jottings, , , , , ,

Roadrunner giving out its deep descending cooing, territorial notes. It’s at this time that one can tell the bird is a cuckoo after all, from that tone and cadence of the sounds.

Black Phoebe always at the stock pond, flying out and snatching bugs and swinging back to a low branch over the water’s edge. In January when the pond had frozen deeply enough that one could walk over it, the bird often perched out on the ice, chipping at the surface and I’d guess, with no open water anywhere for days, was swallowing down tiny bits of ice.

Watched a Cooper’s Hawk swoop in on some Gambel’s Quail, picked out one it thought made an attractive lunch. The quail vanished in screaming panic through the thick mesquites, the hawk disappeared in close pursuit and off they went into history.

The immature Bald Eagle Ralph W. and I had a thrilling look at farther south a couple weeks ago came soaring high over the fields, and drifted north over the valley and out of sight.

Now a set of five Rough-winged Swallow in the sunset light of the pastures as I closed down the irrigation for the night … and as dusk came in, numbers of two different bats (Small Bat … Big Bat … who knows the correct spp.?) swooping in to drink from the stockpond. Poorwill everywhere in the headlights as I drove out along The Lane, and then others in the Cascabel Road. (Already abundant it had seemed, but they’ve about vanished again by this date of April 1st–though I am hearing them at night here and there …)

March 6, 2013

Nature Jottings, ,

White-winged Dove were cooing their summer notes, and Say’s Phoebe giving spring music on S-J’s Cascabel Pasture. This phoebe is common at Mason’s and pairs of them have been courting there for a while but haven’t been singing in this way, and at Mason’s the dove is neither to be seen nor heard yet. (Both these things will hold true right through to the end of the month …)

Two more Rough-winged Swallow over the Mason pastures in the late sun.

March 4, 2013

Nature Jottings,

A single Rough-winged Swallow appeared, heart-gladdening though of course this does not a summer make; it’s worthy of remark at this early date but expected to be downright common soon enough. Then a single full-plumaged Vermillion Flycatcher from out of nowhere–both these the first of their species I’ve seen anywhere this year and now I’m rethinking whether summer isn’t indeed being “made” today.

Tumbleweed seedlings just sprouting, in masses on south slope of a berm in #2 (north) pasture.