FOS Kingbird and an Odd Couple -- 24 March 2009

One of my favorite things about spring is the anticipation of new bird arrivals from their wintering grounds. Swainson’s hawks, orioles, and others are cool, but for me, the bird that means spring at Kokopelli WA is the western kingbird. Unfortunately, I was not at work on the day (Friday the 20th) the first kingbird was spotted here, but I saw one on Monday the 23rd that I was able to snap a few crummy pics of. Since nobody told me that there had been any seen here yet, I still had the excitement of thinking this was the first. You can imagine my disappointment to find out I was only second. Crushing. That same day I saw two more.

They are a really beautiful bird with their gray uppers and lemon yellow underneath. Also distinctive is their black tail with fine white edging on the outer tail feathers. They are in the same family as the Say’s phoebe that I profiled here, and as I mentioned, they are rarely seen at Kokopelli on the same day. I believe our last phoebe sighting was on March 19th, so we only missed by one day this year!

I also liked this photo of a double crested cormorant and friend (red-eared slider). Usually you don’t see the crests on these birds, but in the breeding season you can spot them. This day was particularly windy, so the tufts were blowing around like a balding guy with a bad comb-over. I kept waiting for him to slick them back.

St. Patty's Photo Dump-- 17 March 2009

Since I got my new camera, I'm trying to be committed to organizing my photos every couple of months. So here are a few shots from the first couple of months of 2009 that didn't make the front page.

savannah sparrow

yellow-billed magpie--only in California

mourning dove


jackrabbit attacking disc

cottontail

California quail

box elder bugs

Anna's hummingbird in the middle of morning stretching

American pipit

Receding Floodwaters-- 6 March 2009

Now that a couple of weeks worth of rain have passed through, the floodwaters at Kokopelli WA are beginning to recede. Typically, the summer water levels at KWA are about two feet below sea level, held at bay by a dike with a top elevation of about 3.5 feet above sea level downstream of our property. This dike was constructed in the 50’s in order to make farming in the area a little bit easier. Our refuge is located at the bottom of a 50 square mile watershed. The watershed is all below 300 feet in elevation, so the only water receive is rainfall. But, 50 square miles of even moderate rainfall can add up in a hurry. Yesterday, our water elevation peaked at almost exactly 5 feet above sea level—quite a swing, but nowhere near our record level of just over 14 feet. As you can probably imagine, 16 foot swings in surface water elevation can create maintenance issues. We try to storm proof everything we can, but we always have some kind of spring clean-up to do ranging from repairing irrigation systems to removing trash and debris from water control structures to repairing blowouts on our dikes and roadways. The high water levels do make certain tasks easier though, such as trimming trees or repairing wood duck boxes from the comfort of a boat rather than a ladder.

staff gauge showing water at 5'--note how deep 14' would be!

The green behind the staff gauge is a summer road, the trees mark the summer creek bank, and behind that is another road!

this non-native red-eared slider didn't seem to mind the water. Catching a little sun.

Sometimes at this time of year, it’s hard for me to discern between winter and spring. One aspect about Kokopelli WA that differs greatly from the area I was raised is the concept of winter annuals. These are plants that germinate with the first rains and end up completing their cycle before spring really even gets started.

spring? or winter?

closer on the wild mustard

this groundsel is already done for the year

wild radish

I showed some photos of tree swallows utilizing our artificial nest boxes a while back, but these birds are also fond of natural tree cavities. In fact, when a tree dies or begins dying, it enters the period of its existence when it provides the most habitat value for other creatures. Insects begin infestations, providing food for others higher on the food chain, branches snap off leaving rotten cavities for nesting animals and dead snags provide high visibility perches for hunting raptors.

this dying cottonwood provides many cavities for the iridescent tree swallow

Wildlife Notes: Say’s Phoebes are still here—I saw one today. Also, the first Swainson’s Hawks of the spring showed up overhead. Yesterday, I saw two common ravens, which is a fairly rare bird for Kokopelli—this is probably the fifth record.

Species Spotlight, Vol. 1, Say's Phoebe, 4 March 2009

Today I am introducing a new feature of Field Notes… a column that I hope becomes a regular here called Species Spotlight. In each installment I will pick one species of a plant or animal and fill my entry with useless facts.

Species Spotlight, Vol. 1, Say’s Phoebe

you looking at me?

Order: Passeriformes

Family: Tyrannidae

Species: Sayornis saya

The Say’s phoebe inhabits Kokopelli WA only during the non-breeding season, although they do breed elsewhere in California. In fact, they will be leaving for the summer any day now. (They may already be gone as I haven't seen one this week.) A slim flycatcher barely over seven inches long, this bird fills roughly the same niche at Kokopelli during the winter as the Western Kingbird does during the breeding season. The Say’s phoebe is a slim, streamlined bird about 7.5 inches long. They are gray with a cinnamon belly and a black tail.

keeping a close eye on a swooping kestrel...

It feeds almost entirely on insects and regurgitates pellets containing the exoskeletons of its unfortunate victims. (Sort of like I do when I forget to take the toothpick out of the club sandwich at Bert’s Diner.) Like other tyrant flycatchers, the Say’s phoebe catches insects on the wing, aided by a powerful ligament connecting the upper and lower jaw which lets them snap their bill shut on flying prey. They also have well-developed rictal bristles, or hair-like feathers protruding from the base of their bill. There are many theories as to the purpose of these bristles, but apparently assisting in prey capture is not one of them. Several studies have been done by biologists who, jealous that they can’t grow any facial hair of their own, clip the bristles off of these poor birds and are able to observe them feeding with no trouble.

In this photo you can see the (unclipped) rictal bristles

References:

Patuxent Bird Identification InfoCenter

Birders Handbook: A Field Guide to the Natural History of North American Birds

The Sibley Guide to Birds

Signs of Spring- 20 February 2009

Our group of biologists at Kokopelli Wildlife Area have a kind of joke about one of the mitigation measures we commonly have to comply with during capital improvement projects. It's a measure designed to reduce impacts to nesting birds. The measure basically requires that any removal of trees associated with a project must be completed prior to February 15th because after that day, the breeding season has started. The joke is that on February 15th at 12:00 AM, all birds are now nesting. I know, it's not a great joke, but we're biologists, not comedians. Anyway, on my drive today, there were several birds beginning the nesting process, so maybe the magical calendar is right.

Most of the ducks are paired up, double-crested cormorants are at their nests, and red-winged blackbirds are setting up territories. The first example I got some photos of were these tree swallows using one of our artificial nest boxes:

There were several others competing for this attractive condo.

One nest box down the trail, this red-tailed hawk seemed to be a little confused. Not only will she probably not fit inside, she doesn't even nest in cavities.

I also encountered two different nests of one of our earliest breeders, the great-horned owl. This particular bird has taken over a nest that belonged to a Swainson's Hawk last year.

While these birds are already knee deep in the breeding season, others still haven't even returned to their summer ranges yet. These long-billed curlews are staying busy trying to keep fat for their return flight home.

I was able to follow this beaver around for several minutes before he got too busy for me. I snapped a few crummy photos as well as captured a little video.

And here is the video--the first ever video clip posted to Field Notes... This is an historic moment. Sorry if it seems a little Pattersonesque--it's my first try.

Engineers and Vanity- 17 January 2009

This should actually be two separate posts, but since I don't seem to be able to blog as frequently as I'd hoped, I'm combining them into one.

At my refuge, we work with a variety of engineering staff on a regular basis. Our staff of wildlife biologists provide services to various construction projects such as environmental awareness training for the workers, biological monitoring during the project, and wildlife surveys to reduce the impacts of the project on the various wildlife and habitat at Kokopelli Wildlife Area. In so doing, we interact with everyone on the project from the security personnel to the equipment operators to the engineers who act as project managers. Most of the time this works out pretty good. There have been notable exceptions but I'm not going to discuss those today.

What brought this topic to my mind was when I was out making my rounds the other day and I noticed the aftermath of one of the projects that I was the biologist on. We have this utility line bissecting one of our large wetland cells and riparian areas and one of our jobs is to keep the trees in the area from encroaching on this corridor. A few years back, three of the poles needed replacement because they were rotten. I know this doesn't really sound like it would require the services of an engineer, but here at KWA, engineers are put in charge of all kinds of small projects. Basically, anytime you have to hire somebody to do some work, you can plan on having an engineer facilitate the process. Sometimes, even the best engineer gets a little "engineery" for lack of a better term.

I guess this guy thought that the project wasn't worthy of an engineer either, so he decided to add a little pop to the job. He decided that the row of fifty or so poles wouldn't possibly be able to function properly in the future unless each was individually numbered. It came out something like this:

You'll also notice that not only was it not good enough to merely number each pole, but also to name them "PL" which, to my knowledge, stands for pole, or maybe powerline. Brilliant. These letters are probably about 8" tall and they are possibly smelted from 98% pure sterling silver to avoid corrosion. I know what you're thinking: four symbols times fifty poles equals 200 characters. Wow. Especially at what, $7 or $8 bucks a pop? But is that really good enough? What if you're standing somewhere that you can't see the labeling? What do you do then? Circle the pole while hopelessly lost, looking for some kind of sign to tell you where you are? Which direction do you go? Clockwise? Counter?

Fortunately, this guy thought of everything:

Yes, that's right. You will only have to walk halfway around the pole to get your bearings.

On another note:

Many people assume that humans are the only animal that has the capacity for vanity. Actually, nature is full of examples of this superficial behavior. Look no further than peacocks, or even drake mallards. It's not often, however, that you see animals that are worried about their figure. I snapped this photo of a red-tailed hawk. I must have surprised him, because he didn't even bother to suck in his gut. I probably caught him in between smokes.

After he realized what was happening and saw that I had a camera, he decided to show off a little bit.

Now that's what a hawk should look like. But the take home message is this: the next time you start to worry about humanity and our superficial nature, just realize that we are fighting against something that's probably buried deep in our genetic code somewhere.

Close Ups On Gray- 7 January 2009

It's the glamorous season of report writing and I really needed to get out of the office today. I wanted to take some pictures, but we've had fog and drizzle for a few days straight. I have a hard time getting decent photos in this kind of lighting so I decided to concentrate on closeup work. This first picture is of one of the managed seasonal wetland cells at Kokopelli Wildlife Area--you can see what the weather was like. I know, not exactly a close-up, but I wanted you to feel what the weather was like. These seasonal wetland areas at Kokopelli are managed primarily for wintering waterfowl and migratory shorebird usage. We spend the summer growing up crops of desirable wetland plants, then we mow and disc areas to create open water in the winter and mudflats in the spring as the water recedes. We provide habitat for up to 20,000 ducks on any given winter day.
One of the good things about doing close ups for me is that plants and leaves don't move around nearly as much as birds or other critters. It makes it a little easier for me to get in close. Unless I happened to spend the previous night closing down the bars. I found a small grove of young cottonwood trees that we planted a few years ago and there were still some leaves hanging on.

cottonwood leaves and creeping wildrye seedhead

I took several photos of this leaf before I realized that it looked like the head of a goldeneye or bufflehead. It even has an eye.

Another of the same leaf but a little closer.


A patch of goldenrod caught my eye nearby as well.




And what would a group of photos be without the obligatory log reflected on water. I call this one: Log Reflected on Water.That's all I got for today. And, I know what you're probably thinking: Yet another blog entry padded by crummy photos with no real substance. If this guy doesn't want to write, why the hell did he start a blog and not just open up a Flickr account? Is Kraft macaroni really the cheesiest? Will I ever be able to recover these three minutes of my life?

Well, to be honest: get off my back, yes, and probably not.