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oladulce
Super Nomad
Posts: 1625
Registered: 5-30-2005
Location: bcs
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Cactus wrens do a great job of cleaning the bugs from your radiator. Watch how they'll go directly to the front of your truck looking for goodies.
Like their mockingbird cousins, they're very vocal when you get too close to their nest but I've yet to have any dive bomb me like mockingbirds do. We
have a bunch that nest in the cholla forests behind us and when we take our gatos for walks "our"wrens send out an alarm and suddenly wrens from our
neighbors yards come sqwaking and they continue with the racket until we leave the area.
They walk around the cactus spines like it's nothing. I love to hear their distant calling to each other in the desert and their spots are cool.
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DianaT
Select Nomad
Posts: 10020
Registered: 12-17-2004
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I am liking these Cactus Wrens more and more---guess I will have to bother them with taking more pictures. 
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lingililingili
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Posts: 449
Registered: 2-24-2008
Location: La Paz, Bahia Asuncion
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Love the pics Diana
•Life is just one damned thing after another
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oladulce
Super Nomad
Posts: 1625
Registered: 5-30-2005
Location: bcs
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| Quote: | Originally posted by tehag
Sorry if this is redundant, but here is a site that may help to identify some of our local birds, butterflies, dragonflies, lizards, etc.:
http://bcsbirds.com |
Great website Tehag!
I really like the thumbnail pictures of the common Baja birds. Alot easier to scan through the photos to find the ID of a bird you've seen than to try
and look it up in a typical bird book.
Did you look for the sea bird you were talking about DianaT? Description?
If it's a small shorebird, never mind. Sandpipers and plovers all look the same to me and I gave up trying to memorize the difference.
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DianaT
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Registered: 12-17-2004
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| Quote: | Originally posted by oladulce
Did you look for the sea bird you were talking about DianaT? Description?
If it's a small shorebird, never mind. Sandpipers and plovers all look the same to me and I gave up trying to memorize the difference.
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Not yet--it was not on the beach yesterday or today, but it will be back----all white and it was swimming. Maybe tomorrow, I hope and then off to
that great website---love it!
I will say, however we saw something really strange yesterday. There were four what looked like white birds in somewhat of a formation, but they were
flying REALLY high, higher than we have ever seen a bird fly. It was so high that we could not even make out that they were birds and they
disappeared upward out of sight-----
By now, you probably known what we are thinking----Beam me up!
Unless tehag or someone can tell me about birds that fly so high that they look like fuzzy white round things and are high enough they should need
oxygen masks----we will keep wondering.
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Skipjack Joe
Elite Nomad
Posts: 8084
Registered: 7-12-2004
Location: Bahia Asuncion
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| Quote: | Originally posted by oladulce
Cactus wrens do a great job of cleaning the bugs from your radiator. Watch how they'll go directly to the front of your truck looking for goodies.
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I wanted to share an experience related to their intelligence.
It was around 1975, I believe. Nick and I had just graduated and decided to drive across the country, coast to coast. There were many long tedious
hours on the highway, however, where you just maintained your speed. Having little to do I just focused on the road ahead. After a while I noticed
that there always seemed to be brewer's blackbirds in our lane on the highway ahead of us. As the car would approach them they would run off, always
reaching the curb as we reached them. I looked in the rear view mirror and would see them running back out to the same area we saw them initially.
What on earth?, I wondered. Curiosity got the better of me finally and I pulled over to try to understand. I got down and looked, and found to my
suprise that there were small bugs here and there laying dead on the highway.
The birds had learned that passing vehicles would inadvertently hit a bug now and then and were easy meals. They had staked out their territory.
You can see this behavior along many of our blue highways in the west. It's quite common.
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vgabndo
Ultra Nomad
Posts: 3461
Registered: 12-8-2003
Location: Mt. Shasta, CA
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Mood: Checking-off my bucket list.
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Skipjack, I have read that there is a whole ecosystem that begins with those road-kill bugs and extends right up to mammals with foxes and coyotes
feeding on the rodents who also favor the free meals.
I was surprised recently to have to slow frequently for Common Coots (Mudhens) on the road. Unless they have some unlikely mourning behavior, it
appears they are cannibalistic and feed on their road killed bretheren! This on the margins of the Klamath National Wildlife Refuge on or near the
southern Oregon border.
I'm intrigued by the possible ecosystems created near my home by wide separations between the north and southbound lanes of I-5 ajacent to 6000' Black
Butte. (which would be a national park if it were in Kansas!) It is illegal to park except for emergencies and pedestrians are forbidden so it is
unlikely that more than a very few humans have intruded into this 20 + acre space for the last three decades.
[Edited on 10-15-2009 by vgabndo]
Undoubtedly, there are people who cannot afford to give the anchor of sanity even the slightest tug. Sam Harris
"The situation is far too dire for pessimism."
Bill Kauth
Carl Sagan said, "We are a way for the cosmos to know itself."
PEACE, LOVE AND FISH TACOS
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Skipjack Joe
Elite Nomad
Posts: 8084
Registered: 7-12-2004
Location: Bahia Asuncion
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You're right, Vag. That Modoc County is really great. The desert around the refuge is loaded with great horned owls and they're real easy to watch. It
turned out that the paved road going through Lava Beds was a magnet for them. The desert mice and rats were totally vulnerable on the asphalt. So
these big birds would just sit on the telephone poles and wait. All we had to do was park our car around 10PM and the show would begin.
Well, for some, that's entertainment.
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DianaT
Select Nomad
Posts: 10020
Registered: 12-17-2004
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| Quote: | Originally posted by vgabndo
I'm intrigued by the possible ecosystems created near my home by wide separations between the north and southbound lanes of I-5 ajacent to 6000' Black
Butte. (which would be a national park if it were in Kansas!) It is illegal to park except for emergencies and pedestrians are forbidden so it is
unlikely that more than a very few humans have intruded into this 20 + acre space for the last three decades.
[Edited on 10-15-2009 by vgabndo] |
That is an interesting thought-- would be interesting to see over a long term study how and what develops under those circumstances.
Skipjack, shoot, I even find watching the little common Cactus Wrens running around my yard to say nothing about the watching the behavior of the
pelicans and vultures.
Now, owls, a highway and mice? That would be fun, except of course for the mice. 
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vgabndo
Ultra Nomad
Posts: 3461
Registered: 12-8-2003
Location: Mt. Shasta, CA
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Mood: Checking-off my bucket list.
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Things are really changing in Modoc country. I remember thirty years ago on a Audobon Christmas Bird Count standing in the snow and without taking a
step, but by turning in a circle with my binoculars I counted AT LEAST 400 Bald Eagles. (1973?) These days, by driving around, I may count 30. It is
probably related to the reduction in the populations of Snow and Canada geese. I shot a lot of video there back in the VHS days. There were times
when the flocks of geese would suddenly take wing and when they swept overhead they actually changed the f-stop on the camera. "Darkening the sky" was
no exageration. It is also a unique sound.
I too have had my very best horned owl sightings there, and burrowing owls also.
[Edited on 10-15-2009 by vgabndo]
Undoubtedly, there are people who cannot afford to give the anchor of sanity even the slightest tug. Sam Harris
"The situation is far too dire for pessimism."
Bill Kauth
Carl Sagan said, "We are a way for the cosmos to know itself."
PEACE, LOVE AND FISH TACOS
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tehag
Super Nomad
Posts: 1248
Registered: 1-8-2005
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Birds
Highway medians, golf courses, sewage canals, abandoned strip mines are all examples of the ironies that abound in the ongoing friction between humans
and other creatures. Three miles wide and a whole country long there exists in Asia one of the most pristine refuges on the planet. It is the old DMZ
between North and South Korea. Quite by accident, human conflict has resulted in the setting aside of an enormous swath of important land which in
these ensuing 50-plus years has returned to a natural condition the like of which is nearly impossible to find elsewhere on Earth.
Certainty is the child of ignorance, knowledge is the mother of doubt. Question everything!
http://bcsbirds.com |
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Skipjack Joe
Elite Nomad
Posts: 8084
Registered: 7-12-2004
Location: Bahia Asuncion
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| Quote: | Originally posted by vgabndo
I too have had my very best horned owl sightings there, and burrowing owls also.
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I'd like to see a burrowing owl some day.
How do you go about finding one (no jokes please)?
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vgabndo
Ultra Nomad
Posts: 3461
Registered: 12-8-2003
Location: Mt. Shasta, CA
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Mood: Checking-off my bucket list.
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For me, some luck and a lot of time sitting scanning the holes in levee banks with the binoculars. Due to the traffic through the Refuge,
interestingly, a vehicle is one of the best "blinds" I could have. It has been a long time since I could invest that amount of time "birdwatching".
My patience and the numb butt of old age are working against me.
Undoubtedly, there are people who cannot afford to give the anchor of sanity even the slightest tug. Sam Harris
"The situation is far too dire for pessimism."
Bill Kauth
Carl Sagan said, "We are a way for the cosmos to know itself."
PEACE, LOVE AND FISH TACOS
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duke62
Nomad
Posts: 112
Registered: 11-16-2007
Location: La Mesa & Erendira
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As a kid, saw them a lot of them (Burrowing Owls) when we moved from San Diego to Orange County for a couple of years, and lived on the edge of the
Irvine Ranch, back when Orange County's name was fitting. We were stupid and shot slingshots at them, but never hit one. I have never seen one since.
Me thinks they need a pretty specialized environment, the same, unfortunately, as tract developments.
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Desertsurfergal
Junior Nomad
Posts: 46
Registered: 1-30-2008
Location: Lake Havasu City, Az
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Mood: wishful..for Baja
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These are GREAT photos. I love birds. He might be a Wren??? Anyway, we do have burrowing owls in our wash behind the house here in Havasu. Cool
birds.
\"Life\'s a journey, not a destination...\" Aerosmith
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DianaT
Select Nomad
Posts: 10020
Registered: 12-17-2004
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Again, thanks---I am glad you enjoy the photos.
I sure would love to see some burrowing owls. I have seen a few, but that was a very long time ago.
Diane
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