Humming right along

Here are some little friends we spotted at Perennial Favorites on Friday:
Who doesn't like hummingbirds? They're just so darn cute.
I wish we had more hummers in Denver proper. How are they where you live?

Talon show

I love raptors. We have hawks in the neighborhood, either Cooper's or sharp-shinned (which differ mainly in size, so it's hard to tell) and peregrine falcons, plus owls. I've seen other hawks, kestrels and possibly an eagle at the dog park.

So of course I was pleased to get a gander at these birds from Nature's Educators at the Denver County Fair.
This Harris's hawk named Zeus was given to the center by a falconer. Since he was raised by humans, he wouldn't know how to live in the wild. He was very interested in all the activity around him but was also remarkably relaxed.

The great horned owl, Athena, though, seemed pretty stressed out, panting heavily and getting all flappy.
Her handler said all the hustle and bustle of the fair was a little much for an animal that can hear the blood moving through your veins. See how her ears are turned down? She's trying to cut out some of the noise.

Athena is missing a wingtip and a talon, possibly after being electrocuted. She was found under a power line in Nebraska.

I had to share with her handler something I'd seen recently: Eagle Love Story: Injured Mates Reunited At Rehab Center. You should read it, too.

Spiked

Oh, those poor, sad pigeons. Evicted from their cozy nest under the back deck, they decided to try again – this time on a tiny ledge over the front door. I took this photo with my cellphone a couple of nights ago.

There was a narrow slot there into which the pigeons started packing nesting material. Big enough for eggs, I guess, if not for a whole pigeon.
Enter the bird spikes. They're not all that sharp, but they are enough to deter a pigeon from landing.
Even psycho zombie pigeons, if the box is to be believed.
Now they keep fluttering around the front door, occasionally landing on the ledge with Walter the fake pigeon. But they don't stay there long. The glass on the back makes them too nervous.

Where will they try to build next? Stay tuned.

Angry birds

The duplex next door used to be Pigeon Central, until the owners got bird spikes installed in most of the abundant nooks and perches. So what happened? The pigeons moved over here.

Two pigeons in particular, who set up housekeeping in the space between the kitchen roof and the upstairs deck. There was a gap just large enough for them to squeeze through on one end. They built a nest and raised at least one set of babies (Peep! peep! peep! Flutter flutter!).

Finally the Sergeant hauled out his air compressor and blasted air in from the opposite side of the hole. Out popped the pigeons and on popped a piece of wood to block access.

Oy. The dramatic cooing and flapping that has ensued! They might have had eggs, but not babies (no peeping). Still, they hang about projecting pathos, bobbling across the deck, attempting to hover around the edges, looking for access. Pigeons are not built to hover, but they do their damnedest.

It almost makes feel sorry for them. Well, no, I do feel sorry for them. But they'll just have to rebuild somewhere else.

Whose nest is this?

I see a bunch of these nests out at Chatfield State Park. They're very cleverly made baskets, dangling from the ends of branches. They're about the size of a baseball. Does anyone know what bird makes them? You can click the photo to see it larger.

It's only natural

After a few days of bitter, bitter cold, it's so nice to get out and really stretch your legs. The best place for us to do that is Chatfield State Park. It's a 20-minute drive, which is well worth it when we have the time. We only go on weekdays, though. Weekends are too crowded.

On the less-crowded side of the river we can usually spot some wildlife. There are lots of Canada geese, ducks, pelicans, seagulls and the occasional heron or egret. It's always cool to spot a raptor. I've seen this kestrel twice now, each time with a snack.
The picture above is from Dec. 12. The one below is from yesterday.
It's a treat to spot kingfishers, too, though I always get the kookaburra song stuck in my head when I see one. "Kookaburra sits in the old gum tree, merry merry king of the bush is he ..."

If I had a better camera or a digiscope I could get better shots, but then I wouldn't be able to just tuck it in my pocket for such walks. So I'm just happy the birds are identifiable!

Harrassed

I heard a commotion of crows across the street, so I went out to investigate.
When crows are yelling like this, you can be pretty sure there's a raptor around.

Sure enough, this fellow or gal had just downed a pigeon. Not sure what variety he/she is; likely a Cooper's or sharp-shinned hawk.
So much for dining in peace.

Raptor rapture

Bird-watching is not a hobby I've been tempted to pursue, at least not in the sense of keeping a life-list and going places specifically with species-spotting in mind. I don't even put out a bird feeder, knowing that it would be completely monopolized by pigeons and squirrels.

But I do try to keep my eyes open for interesting birds around here (witness previous posts on pigeons, flickers, hummingbirds and more).

So I was excited when I opened the back door this morning to let Sophie out, and this hawk flew from the ground up to the fence, then waited at least long enough for me to grab my camera.
I'll confess: at first I thought it was a peregrine falcon (we do have those around here, I know) but the head markings were wrong. Then I started looking at raptor ID websites and got more discouraged that I couldn't find anything just like this one. Golly, maybe it's not a raptor at all? Maybe it's just a mutant pigeon?

Happily, I found WhatBird.com and was able to get an answer within minutes that it is indeed a hawk of the Accipiter variety, either a Cooper's hawk or sharp-shinned hawk. It would appear the two are quite similar.

I'm just happy to know I wasn't crazy! And to see a hawk hangin' in the 'hood. Eat more pigeons, Mr. Hawk!

Birds on a wire

Usually pigeons hang out in this spot, but the other day a flock of blackbirds (grackles? starlings?) took over for the afternoon. The snowstorm was about to begin, and these birds were talking their heads off.
They line themselves up pretty precisely. I wonder if there's a particular pecking order they follow every time.

Coming in for a landing

I'm flying away home this morning. I hope my arrival is as smooth as this one.

The freshness of downy

Outside my backdoor there's a birch tree whose upper branches shade my deck. Squirrels like the tree, and they're amusing enough, but it's always nice to see someone else come visiting, like this efficient little downy woodpecker.
He seemed mostly unconcerned by my presence, but spent a lot of time tap-tap-tapping away on the opposite sides of the branches, just peeking around from time to time to see if I was still there.

His head was moving so fast it was hard to get a decent photo, especially on zoom.
This tree is slated to get a good trim in a few weeks, when the dying maple out front comes down. Yes, I finally got an affordable estimate on that: $880. Ouch. No word yet on whether we'll be able to save the beehive inside.

Architecture: You're doin' it wrong

I've posted before about my neighbors' problems with pigeons (and my own worry-free avian friend). Most of the time the pigeons like to hang out on top of the pillars by the front door. They build nests up there, too, and no amount of shooing chases them away for long. Nor do homemade bird spikes.

At nightfall, though, the pigeons seek out spots that are more secure for roosting (I'm guessing a raccoon could climb a pillar pretty easily). But they don't need to go far. In addition to the pillars, the builder thoughtfully included little decorative struts along the roof line, under the eaves. Ah, perfect!

It takes a fair amount of flapping and false tries for them to get up there, but once they're there, they settle in for a night of pooping and an early morning of cooing and burbling right outside the bedroom windows.

The neighbor on the other side invested in commercial bird spikes and borrowed a 28-foot ladder to get them up there. The cooing at 6 a.m. was driving him crazy.

Now new tenants are moving in on this side. Let's see how long it takes for them to go battty, too.

Bird and cat, redux

Last year I had a bird and cat post from California; a doomed baby mockingbird and the aged, talkative Cleo (who is now more aged and still talkative). On my most recent trip, I picked up another pair.
I snapped off one shot of this hummer at a feeder while I was hidden under a patio umbrella. I got lucky!

Not so lucky was Enver kitty, fated to be forever lusting after hummers from behind a screen, with never a chance to catch one. But he has no need to supplement his diet, happily.

Befowled

This morning I saw a guy walking slowly down the sidewalk across the street. He walked up to the stop sign and started reaching up. "Oh no!" I thought. "Another tagger! God damn it!"

Then I realized he was cleaning the sign. A schools employee doing his part to wipe out graffiti. I went over and told him about my experience yesterday. He laughed and said, "Good for you! Thank you!"

Whew. I'm not so confident of my ability to scare off adult taggers.

Meanwhile, my next-door neighbors have a problem with another kind of urban eyesore: pigeons.
This place was just built last year, and I count it among the styles of monster duplexes I abhor. Not only is it ugly, it has all kinds of nooks and crannies where pigeons love to roost.
I turned the guy on the far side onto BirdSpikes.net, and the ones he installed seem to be doing the trick. The folks on this side, though, tried to make their own, with nails pushed through cardboard. As you can see, they're not making much of a difference.

As soon as the nests were removed, the persistent pigeons started fluttering down to gather more bedding. Flapflapflap down. flapflapflap up, all day long. There's pigeon poop all over the porch, and the constant coo-coo-cooing right outside the bedrooms drives the residents nuts.

Neighbor borrowed a ladder today to put in some more spikes.

As soon as he went back inside, the pigeons returned, scoping out the changes, finding new nooks and adjusting accordingly.

Conversely, there's only one place on my house where a pigeon could conceivably roost out of the weather, and that's already occupied by one mute and unmoving fellow who causes no problems at all.

It occurs to me that I never named him. Any suggestions?

I'll eat that

I have peas! The first ones are maybe a couple of days from eating size. I planted them late, but happily we keep getting cool, rainy days mixed in with the hot. I'll plant more in the fall.
I bought some Rancho Gordo Cellini beans at the San Francisco Ferry Building Farmers Market. I'll cook up most of them, but I thought I'd see if some would sprout, too.
Yep!
The tomatillos I got from my friend Susan are blooming. I love them in salsa.
And I can start putting some arugula in my salads. If I don't eat it all straight from the garden like Alecto.
The chard also went in late, but is ready for sauteeing now. I planted "Bright Lights," so there's red ...
And yellow. (Also some green.)
Not for eating, but for admiring, a graciously donated iris still in its pot. I have to find a good place to plant it.
And also not for eating, but sweet to see: a downy woodpecker mama who has a nest in this tree. I heard the babies squawking when I walked by and stopped to investigate. Mama flew up and wasn't too happy with my interest, so I just took a quick pic and moved on. (I had to crop way in so you could see her.)
Garden babies and bird babies ... it's all good!

Flicker set

The flickers have been busy drumming on metal roof vents to broadcast their presence and excavating holes in trees to make nests. They also continue to excavate Sophie's cast-off bones in my yard.
There are still molecules of protein in there, and maybe some ants, too, with our warming weather.
Tomorrow we're supposed to get 5-6 inches of snow in town. I always say we get our last big storm around April 10, and this one's coming in right on schedule.

But it'll be 60 again by Saturday.

Pigeon pursuit

There's a colony of pigeons that likes to hang out on the wires across the street to the south of my house. I took this photo of them from my dining room window in October.

Unlike then, today is sunny with a beautiful blue sky. I was on the front porch when suddenly a pigeon came hurtling over the front of it, swooped across the street to the schoolyard and slammed into the chain-link fence, recovered and flapped off again at high speed.

"What the ... ?!?" I just had time to think, before a peregrine falcon came hurtling after it in hot pursuit. The falcon turned neatly before it got to the fence, and they disappeared over some houses, the falcon only a few feet behind the pigeon.

Sorry pigeon, it looks like this will be your fate. (Don't click if you're squeamish.)

Forensic footprints

My backyard is full of bones. And every single one has a spray of little footprints around it. Not from the dog, who has removed every molecule of marrow-y goodness she can, but from flickers. Those long pointy beaks are good bone-cleaners.

I wonder why, as birds who get most of their sustenance from bugs, they don't fly south. How many bugs can there be when it's 10 degrees out?

It's interesting that they will seek out the bones in the yard, but I never see them working on road kill. Why is a cow bone OK but dead squirrel not?

Conversely, why do I not have crows mobbing my yard? (And thank goodness I don't.)

Flicker

Hazy, blown-up shot through the dining room window. Just because.

Poor impulse control

This is why I shouldn't go to rummage sales. But with all this pigeon talk lately, I couldn't resist. It just made me laugh. And I found the perfect place for it. We'll see how many people notice it.