Back from Hawaii

Maui Grey Francolin

In late July, we took a vacation on the island of Maui in Hawaii, and while we were there we kept an eye out for the local critters. We saw many, although few are native to the islands. Birds, lizards, goats and mongeese, to name a few.  Here is the noisiest of them, the grey francolin (Francolinus pondicerianus).

Frankolin Hen and Chicks, Top View

We noticed these birds soon after we arrived. It would be hard not to. They are one of the largest birds in the area,  and did not seem to mind humans coming within a few feet of them.   We were marveling at these birds in a Kihei park when an apparently inebriated local gave us a 5 minute dissertation on how noisy they are.  When we asked what they are called, he struggled to remember, but could not think of it.  But as he walked away, he yelled back,  "Oh yeah, I remember, they are 'Franklins'".

Francolin Chicks Learning to Squawk

The francolins were brought to Hawaii from India in the late 1950's to establish a flock of game birds.  They have flourished on the islands.  It appears they have no local predators, but if they continue to squawk at the top of their lungs at sunrise, just outside of the hotel rooms and condominiums of late sleeping vacationers, this might change!  Just as the sun comes up these guys can make one heck of a racket.  And there were several flocks of them scurrying around the gardens, lawns and open spaces near our hotel.  We saw a couple of litters of young as well.

They look a bit like partridge or quail, and are about the same size. If you plan to visit Maui, and like to get up with the sun, just leave your windows open and you'll have an authentic Maui alarm clock awakening.

Disabled Bluebird

Here is a picture I shot of a bluebird (Sialia mexicana) in the parking lot at Mission Peak Regional Preserve, in Alameda County, a few years ago.  I sent it to a photo contest run by the local newspaper, the Contra Costa Times.  It won the weekly contest and was published in the paper.  One of my few claims to fame.

In any case, this bird does not look disabled to me and flew off without a problem, so he should probably use one of the standard parking spaces next time.

Youtube has an interesting clip of a bluebird hovering in flight that you can watch here.  Also, Cornell has a camera inside a bluebird nest box, and you can view it here.

An Oriole Takes a Bath

When we were on vacation in New York in May, we drove out to the easternmost tip of Long Island, to Montauk Point.  We were hoping to get a picture of a Montauk Monster for this blog, but alas, none were to be seen. We took a long, meandering drive through the burgeoning vineyard country out in western Suffolk County, in farm land that has managed to hold on against the tide of suburban sprawl.

Out at The End, as Montauk is known, we got these pictures of Baltimore orioles (Icterus galbula), one taking a bath in a mud puddle, the other watching from an awkward perch on a thicket of dead vines.

The orioles are impressive birds with their bright orange coloring and a pretty song that reminds me of a meadow lark  or red-winged blackbird.  There are no orioles in California so they are a special treat for us.

Locals say they are not common on most of Long Island, but they are commonly seen in apple and other fruit orchards in upstate New York.  They eat bugs, not fruit, so they are welcomed by the farmers.

Perhaps this pair was on a migratory trip down south and just stopping by a favorite tourist destination.

The Spotted Towhees Eggs Hatched

They've hatched!

I went down the path in our backyard  yesterday to pick up the trail camera so we could move it to a new location.  As I approached the brush with the spotted towhee nest we wrote about two weeks ago, I couldn't resist taking a quick peek to see if the eggs were still there, or if they had hatched.  I pulled back the brush just enough to see 4 little birds with mouths wider than their heads, as still as statues and starring back up at me.

I let the brush settle back in place and quickly scurried off to retrieve the trail camera.  I was ecstatic. We had not scared off the mother bird as we had feared a couple of weeks ago.  She had returned to the nest and continued to incubate the eggs.  Not only did she finish incubating, but these little guys look very well fed, and perhaps almost ready to fledge.  Another generation of critters for our neighborhood.

This is how the nest looked 18 days earlier.

Since they look so healthy, and since it appears the mother cannot be scared off that easily,  I decided to take another photo for this blog. I got my camera ready, and as I went back up the path, I stopped for a moment, pulled back the brush again and took a couple of quick pictures. The best ones are  here.

We can't wait to see the babies take flight and, hopefully, make their way up to our bird feeder. To be continued....

A clutch of Spotted Towhee Eggs

Spotted Towhee nest with a clutch of 4 eggs

A couple of days ago we were walking down the steep trail to the back of our property to change the SD card in the trail camera (formerly known as the game camera).  As we approached the end of the trail, I saw a spotted towhee (Pipilo maculatus) fly out from under a thicket of grass, ferns and monkey flower plants not more than 2 feet from where I had stepped.  We thought it was strange that the bird had stayed in the brush until I got that close, and wondered if she had a nest there.  We looked around a bit and sure enough, there was a nest on the ground cradling 4 dappled eggs.  We quickly left the scene and went on to the trail camera, marveling at our find.

The nest was under this thicket, invisible to all who pass by

Then we noticed our two cats had followed down the trail!  Evidently they did not notice the bird or the nest, and stayed at our side as we lazed in the sun well away from the nest.  Rather than taking the trail back  with the cats following us right past the nest, we herded the cats up a different route to give the nesting bird some peace.

We decided to try to photograph the nest for this blog, so the next day we went back down the trail.  We watched carefully to see if the towhee would fly from the nest as we approached, but we never saw her leave.  We did find the nest again and I took 2 quick photos and quickly left the scene.  Since we didn't see the mama towhee, we are worried we may have scared her off for good the first day we stopped at the nest.

According to the Cornell Lab of Ornithology, the incubation period for towhee eggs is 12-13 days and the nesting period is 10-12 days, so we will take another look at the nest 25 days after we first discovered it, and see if the eggs have hatched and the little birds have flown.

Crow Vs. Hawk: Dogfight

We have been watching some amazing aerial acrobatics the past few days.  The crows and the hawks have been going at each other like 12 year olds in a middle school playground.  Why can't they just get along?  I was able to get a few photos of the action, but it wasn't easy. Their maneuvers occur at light speed.  We have seen them fly upside-down with talons extended, swoop low under trees or between houses, dive with wings retracted, and twist and turn better than Snoopy and the Red Baron. They've even swooped down just above our car as we drove down the hill where the battle began. We have seen several crows gang up on one hawk and have seen a second hawk join in to a fight to help his wingman.

A few weeks ago we wrote that the new red-shouldered hawks and the crows were getting along nicely, but as you can see from these pictures, the honeymoon is over.  It seems to be a fair fight when these two go at it, but I notice one of the red-shouldered seems to be missing a couple of wing and tail feathers, and the crows seem to have all of theirs, so perhaps the crows have a bit of an advantage.

With the red-tails, it is a different story.  The crows have an edge in maneuvering if not in soaring to higher altitudes.  I don't have any pictures of the red tails here because they turn their red tails and run as soon as the fight starts.  I have seen them fight back a few times, and I pity the fool crow who gets a taste of their talons. But so far the crows seem to be much more nimble in flight and can avoid any counter attack.

A Tale of Two Towhees

California Towhee

California Towhee

The most drab, mundane and unappreciated bird in our neighborhood is the California Towhee (Pipilo crissalis).  Their plumage is nothing to write home about, and their song is just as undistinguished.  Hardly anybody notices them, just another bird in the yard.  However, once you take notice of them, you will see them everywhere. They are one of the most common birds of the Bay Area.

California Towhees are native to this area and historically lived in dry chaparral areas.  They have adapted very well to the suburban environment.  They are seed eaters and make their nests in low shrubs, includig poison oak bushes.  The Cornell Lab of Ornithology says that they commonly attack their reflections in windows and car mirrors, but I have never seen them do that.

Spotted Towhee

Spotted Towhee

Spotted Towhee

Their cousin, the Spotted Towhee (Pipilo maculatus), formerly called the Rufus Sided Towhee, is a much more handsome bird but more rare than the California variety.  I have seen them around our yard from time to time, but it has been difficult to get a good picture of them because they are a lot more skittish than their drab cousins. During a late March rainy day, a couple of them visited our feeder and stuck around long enough for me to get a good shot.  Then this week I noticed one making a nest near an open space park and got a couple more photos to share.

The spotted towhee is just a bit smaller than the California towhee, and it seems that they are a bit lower in the pecking order as well.  Those bland towhee will bully and chase off their dapper cousins, at least around our bird feeder.

Dance of the Mockingbird

Mockingbirds (Mimus polyglottos) are one of my favorite birds, but I know they are not everybody's.  My friend Sara has a mockingbird that will sit in a tree right outside her bedroom window and sing at the top of its lungs all night long.  She said she could kill it.  But I like the way they sing, and I can sit and listen for hours. Well, 5 or 10 minutes anyway.  I used to hear them at night and fall asleep while I listened to their many songs.

Once upon a time when I was a kid, I was walking through an open field approaching a barbed wire fence.  As I approached I heard a frog croaking at the base of the fence and I noticed a bird sitting on the top wire, directly above the frog.  "Croak-croak" went the frog, then "croak-croak" went the bird, a very good imitation of the frog.  I was amazed.  Yes, it was a mockingbird, mocking the frog.  Some mockingbirds will sing like a robin for a minute, then sing like a sparrow for another.  Then they change to a titmouse or oriole or nuthatch.  Some have amazing repetoirs.

We haven't heard many mockingbirds around our house here in the hills, probably because there aren't many berry bushes nearby, and mockingbirds do like berries.  But last evening when we got home from work, the mocker pictured here was sitting at the top of a pine tree singing his heart out and performing an aerial show. Every minute or two he would leap up off his perch, do a somersault or simply flutter about and then land again on the same perch.  Why was he doing this dance?  Probably so I could get some good pictures for this blog!

New Hawks in Town

We have some new neighbors. A trio of red-shouldered hawks (buteo lineatus) showed up about two weeks ago.  They have been hanging around ever since with a big noisy presence that is hard to ignore, not that we would want to. The Cornell website "All About Birds" says these hawks are one of the most vocal hawk varieties in the United States, and we can attest to that.

These critters screech loudly and often during the day. It's a wonder they catch anything to eat since every gopher, pigeon and snake in the county must be able to hear them.

They ride the updrafts on the hillside, and then swoop and play with each other.  Later they will land in a nearby Monterey pine and screech at each other some more.  This behavior closely resembles a mating ritual called a "Sky Dance" as described by Kari Kirschbaum of The University of Michigan .   It is strange that there are three of them, perhaps a oiseau "menage a trois"? 


The ravens here will chase after every red-tail hawk that comes by, but they have been leaving these red-shouldereds alone, even though they are a smaller bird by a good five inches in length and about 10 inches in wingspan.  We're not sure if the ravens do not consider them a threat, or if the red-shouldereds are more agile and not so easy to pick on without getting picked at back.


Red-shouldered hawks, red-tail hawks and other Buteo's are called buzzards in Europe.  Here in the USA we think of a 'buzzard' as a another name for a turkey vulture, but this is not correct.  It seems that early settlers, in colonial times, mistakenly called our soaring vultures 'buzzards', and the name has stuck.  I got this factoid from the Turkey Vulture Society web page.  No kidding, there is a Turkey Vulture Society!

We hope they are building a nest nearby, but we have not seen it.  We'll be watching with binoculars in hand.

These Birds Can't Read

Here are a few photos I took last week.

Fishing?  Who's fishing?  We don't see no one fishing."

The first one is of American White Pelicans (Pelecanus erythrorhynchos) at San Pablo Reservoir, near Orinda, CA, USA.  I was sure surprised to see them here.  I thought pelicans only lived around salt water, but according to the Cornell University website All About Birds, they breed on inland lakes and return to the sea for the winter.  The strange flat protrusion on the top of their bills is called a 'horn' and grows on each year before breeding season.   After they breed, it drops off and the bill has a more normal shape.  If you can call anything about a pelican bill 'normal'.

This photo reminds of one of my favorite limericks, by Dixon Lanier Merritt:

What a wonderful bird is the pelican,
His beak can hold more than his bellican.
  He can hold in his beak
  Enough food for a week,
But I'll be darned if I know how the hellican.

"Rules don't apply to me."

This second photo is of an American Coot (Fulica americana) in Lake Anza inTilden Park, near Berkeley, CA, USA.  The coots are strange birds.  They run on the water for 20 to 30 meters when trying to get airborne.  And they make some of the strangest calls of any waterfowl, a very unique screechy-clicky sound.  This guy is completely ignoring the "no swimming / no wading" buoy.

Turkey Plays Chicken

We wrote about turkeys last month (click here to see the post), and mentioned a turkey in Walnut Creek that was playing chicken with cars on a residential street.   I dug up some video I took of that bird, edited it a bit, and put it on YouTube.  Take a look, some scenes are truly hilarious.  And see if you can spot the cameo appearance by Santa Claus.

The locals called the turkey 'George'.  But just like the old saying, 'if you play with fire, you're going to get burned', George met his match a few weeks after I took that video.  I read about it in the local paper (in a news article, not the obits).   Maybe we should nominate George for a Darwin award?

We were recently reminded of this encounter because we saw turkeys roaming the streets of El Cerrito, CA, USA, last week.  These free-ranging turkeys, a tom and three hens, were not interested in playing chicken with the large steel critters that drove by.  The hens just kept to their own business.  The tom stopped to talk to a local before moving along as well. Maybe they just had more horse sense.

Those Nutty Nuthatches

There's a new bird in town, or perhaps I just haven't noticed them before.  Red Breasted Nuthatches, Sitta canadensis.  They are quite amusing to watch as they creep up and down the live oaks and monterey pines nearby.  Just like Spiderman, they crawl upside down on the underside of branches as easy as on the top.  I saw one find a bug or a nut or something in the crevice of the bark of a tree and then fly off with it in its beak.  We also watched a pair flittering about, possibly fighting over territory or mates?  Or perhaps it was simply a mating ritual?  They were chattering the whole time, but I could not understand a word they said.

These birds were not shy, they stuck to their work, inspecting every crevice in the bark of the tree as I snapped these photos.  

Wild Turkeys

Turkeys are another wild critter that has adapted well to the suburban landscape.  The local species, Meleagris gallopavo, was introduced (or perhaps reintroduced) to Northern California by the local fish and game department in the 1960's and 1970's, and their numbers are increasing.

I grew up in an area with a couple of domestic turkey farms and knew some turkey farmers.  They used to say that turkeys are so stupid that if you leave them out in the rain, they will stare up with their mouths open and drown.  I doubt this is true, probably just an urban (or rural?) myth, but turkeys are not very bright.  There was a turkey in Walnut Creek, CA, that would stand in the middle of the road, forcing cars to go around him.  He would strut and ruffle his feathers and play chicken with the oncoming cars.  Some said he was flirting with the cars, as if to attract them as a mate!   I know that car designers go to great lengths to make their cars look sexy, so perhaps they succeeded with this demographic.

One thing I noticed in these photos is the strange red conical feature above his beak. It's called a 'snood'.  The snood will grow to several inches long and droop over his bill when the turkey is a courting. The flap of skin under his chin is called a 'wattle', and the red growths on his neck are called 'Caruncles.' Who makes up these names?

This guy was wandering down Skyline Boulevard in Oakland a few months ago, possibly looking for a mate amoung the BMW's or Mercedes that inhabit the area.  A few months later, we saw the governor of California (governor-elect at the time), Jerry Brown, jogging along the same stretch of road. Yes, politicians and turkeys sometimes have a lot in common.

Egrets eat Gophers?

I was sitting in my car eating lunch in a gravel parking lot at the Coyote Hills Regional Park, near Newark, CA.  (see http://www.ebparks.org/parks/coyote_hills)  The local regional parks are a great place to be when you have a few minutes or a few hours to kill.  Many interesting critters come and go, including humans.  Also, as a bonus, they usually have restrooms by the parking lot, and these are sometimes difficult, but important, to find when you are out and about all day.

I was watching a large egret, a 'great egret' according to my field guide, poking around a small creek that led to a large marshy area.  A friend of mine once wondered out loud how these birds evolved to be pure white.  They stand out like a sore thumb, and one would think that both their prey and their predators could easily see them, and thus they would be Darwined out of existence. But they seem to survive nicely, even thrive around the San Francisco Bay.

This also makes them difficult to photograph.  They are so white that if you use the standard camera settings they get washed out, with no details of their feathers or shading.  I always have to remember to adjust my camera by an f-stop or so below the automatic setting to get a decent photo of them.

I had my camera that day, and I did reduce the f-stop, and I started taking pictures of the elegant bird as it would stalk its prey by the creek, stepping one foot forward rather quickly, then standing motionless for a few seconds, then another foot forward.

After about 10 minutes of this, he jabbed his head into a marshy area and came up with rodent in his mouth!  A rodent?  I thought they ate fish!  And maybe frogs as well, but a rodent?  I continued to take pictures as he reoriented it in his beak and swallowed it down whole.  (See the slide show in the sidebar for more photos, and click on it for larger pictures) When I got home and was able to enlarge the photos, we saw that it was a gopher, and a rather large gopher, in fact.  Is this known?  That egrets will eat gophers? I wonder if we could get one to hunt in our garden!

Horned owls are a hoot

Last night, about 10:00 PM, we heard the distinctive 'Hoo-Hoo' of the local horned owls.  We turned out the lights and looked out the window just in time to see one silently swoop down from over our house, make a couple of graceful turns and land at the top of a pine tree behind our house. Just as he (or she?) landed a second owl fluttered up out of the same tree and flew off and out of sight. Their wing spans are wide in proportion to their relatively small bodies.  We watched the 1st owl sit in the tree, silhouetted by the lights of the neighborhoods by the bay, for several minutes before he took wing and silently flew off into the night sky.

It's amazing how silent and graceful these critters are.  The true stealth fliers.