What April Showers Brought.

My recollection of over thirty springs spent in Butte County is that by late April most of our grasslands are well on their way to turning light brown and the majority of our showiest wildflowers have withered. With the more-or-less regular waterings we’ve received this spring we can actually begin to understand what is meant by the old saying “April Showers Bring May Flowers”.

About 3 miles east of Chico, near where highway 32 meets old Humboldt Road, a sweeping left turn in the road has hosted an impressive bloom of lupines for the past month. The ongoing precipitation has kept them fresh and colorful, and a delight to drive by every day on my way to the valley from Forest Ranch. Something about the thin layer of soil atop a rocky base seems to encourage wildflower growth, perhaps it’s the heat generated by having the rock so near the surface.

In any case it’s been a rare treat, one that will be fondly remembered when most of the color leaves the hillsides for the long summer.

Leftovers

Click 'PLAY' button above for the associated video.
With the change in seasons from the cold months to the hot ones, species that wintered in the tropics come to our region to parent their young, while many of our wintering birds are heading north or upslope, others are what are called resident – existing year round in generally the same location. Here at the 2500 ft. elevation in Forest Ranch we catch many of the birds as they’re passing through, but are also glad for the ‘leftovers’.

One bird that is at our feeder throughout the winter months stays around long enough to nest then travels to higher elevation during the hottest months. At the feeders they congregate in groups of a dozen or so, but now they are generally seen singly or in pairs. The darker headed male issue a long sweet trill while the grayer headed female emits faint chip notes.

Dark-eyed juncos come in a variety of models…er… subspecies: by far the most common hereabouts is the Oregon subspecies, occasionally the gray and white ‘slate-colored’ subspecies is seen, pink-sided, white-winged and gray headed subspecies are found elsewhere. As Liam and I are out walking through the woods we often identify dark-eyed juncos as they flutter away by the ‘fanned-out’ bright white outer tail feathers (rectrices) on their otherwise black tail (see the preening bird in the attached video).

Song Searching

I'm attempting to record and post some of the spectacular bird song out there right now, like this Cassin's vireo. If there is sound attached to this post I succeeded - if not, check back later!
Click on the title to be taken to a site where the song will play...

Fragrant Birding.

One of the great ironies of bird-watching is that sometimes man-made facilities provide the best opportunity for viewing (could it be because many of the best natural areas are gone?). And not just any man-made facility…I speak specifically of that most odious of areas: the sewage treatment plant. In the Chico area the Chico Oxidation Ponds a.k.a. Wastewater Pollution Control Plant is no exception – the bird viewing is often some of the most productive in our area.

Altacal Audubon Society maintains a ‘hide’ or wildlife viewing blind at the corner of the largest pond. This blind has been off-limits for the past two years however as major remodeling of the facilities is underway. One of the benefits of this remodel is a wildlife friendly redesign of the ponds, with grading done to create differing water depths favored by a variety of water oriented birds, ‘loafing islands’ for predator resistant resting areas and native shrub and tree planting to benefit species that depend on certain vegetation types.

Depending on time of year, the ponds are some of the best places in the Chico area to see Canvasbacks, tri-colored blackbirds, American bitterns and a number of shorebird species such as sandpipers, dowitchers and phalaropes. A number of the counties rare bird records come from this site, including: ruddy turnstone, sanderling semi-palmated sandpiper, red phalarope, Franklin’s gull and Sabine’s gull.

A visit to the periphery of the facilities yesterday afternoon provided ‘first-of-season’ glimpses of singing blue grosbeaks, as well as wonderful scope views of cinnamon teal and red-heads.

Good Samaritans

Yesterday during the course of my ‘normal’ job, Joan - an associate of mine mentioned that she was on her way to see the ‘animal rehab lady’ – I knew immediately who she was referring to. She had found a dazed western screech owl by the side of the road, and currently had it in a roomy cotton ‘purse’ where it had been vocalizing on the front seat of her car until she could deliver it for rescue.

As most anyone in Butte County knows, the ‘rehab lady’ is Marilyn Gamette. For the last 35 years Marilyn has served as the ‘go-to’ person for orphaned ducklings and injured animals as the manager of the Bidwell Wildlife Rehabilitation Center (BWRC). In addition to caring for an average of a thousand animals a year, Marilyn also has also worked for the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service at the Sacramento National Wildlife Refuge near Willows and has headed up the annual California Junior Duck Stamp Competition.

Marilyn is passionate about helping all animals but owls are her specialty. She often takes her show on the road to festivals and events where her great horned owl Checkers captures the hearts and imaginations of children, helping to inspire them to be protectors of wildlife as well.

BWRC is a non-profit, completely volunteer run organization, which operates on support for the Butte County Fish and Game Commission, membership dues and donations.

Yesterdays peek at an owl in a purse was more than a chance encounter with an injured owl. It was a reminder of the special people in our community who take the time to assist and care for creatures great and small, like Joan and Marilyn.

Life Mammal!

Having spent a lot of time in the woods over the years we were thrilled this evening to add a new sighting to our life mammal lists.

At about 9:30 pm I went outside to put a box of books in my van. On the way back to the house I stopped momentarily near the base of a large incense cedar, backlit by the porch light. Out of the corner of my eye I caught movement and glanced up in time to see a silver form sail onto the cedar next to me. A smile came to my face thinking that I had gotten a look at one of the little gray western screech owls that frequent our property. My smile turned to astonishment as the creature scampered straight up the trunk of the tree!

The front door was still open and I called Liam to bring a flashlight, which he promptly delivered along with a pair of binoculars. Thirty feet above us, scampering from branch to branch, a slender gray mammal was caught in the beam of our torch….

This small, completely nocturnal animal is seen by few and has long been the subject of stories, jokes and tales. The first time I became aware that it lived in our area was about three years ago when our friend Dawn captured one in her nets during her northern saw-whet owl monitoring. According to Kaufman in Field Guide to Mammals of North America it is “common and widespread” but the Pacific Coast subspecies lives near the southernmost extension of it’s range. It resides in mixed conifer and deciduous woodlands and a major food source is fungi, it in turn is an important prey species for spotted owls.

If you haven’t guessed yet, Liam and I enjoyed the very rare treat of seeing a northern flying squirrel. Not actually a flyer, this foot long member of the rodentia order spreads a loose fold of skin called a patagium, allowing it to glide distances as far as 250 feet (though 20’-60’ is more common).

We feel blessed to have been given the opportunity to observe one of nature’s true wonders this evening.

But Wait There's More!

We thought that yesterday was pretty spectacular for newly arriving migrant birds but today was just as good!

This morning Liam, Alita and I met Dawn Garcia, Steve and daughter Raina King and Gerardo to conduct some migrant monitoring at the Big Chico Creek Ecological Reserve. As a master bander Dawn has operated a mist netting station here for several years, and Steve and Raina are experienced banders as well, so Liam and Alita assisted with net runs (checking a series of nets strung at strategic points along a trail) and processing (weighing, measuring, examining and releasing) the birds. Dawn and I headed down canyon to conduct counts at a series of eighteen different points.

Songs not heard for nearly a year wafted out of the forest and down from the tree-tops. Western tanagers and ash-throated flycatcher sang along the riparian corridor. An insect like refrain was heard, then lost, then heard again…a flycatcher certain but dusky or Hammond’s? A check of my trusty birdjam provided a perfect match to the vocalization of Hammond’s flycatcher – the first of many heard by Dawn and I. In a sunny meadow lined with large oaks a syncopated, metallic song came from the top of the largest of the trees, and the binoculars revealed the source – an electric blue Lazuli bunting. From across the same meadow a sing-songy, upbeat tune was diagnostic of the melody of a warbling vireo.

Back at the nets the banding crew had some exciting captures as well, and provided us with up-close, in-hand looks at Hammond’s flycatcher, the same bird Dawn and I had heard in the tree-tops - and an itinerant migrant, only stopping here shortly on it’s way to higher elevations. Other birds banded by the crew included orange-crowned warbler, Bewick’s wren, spotted towhee, and bushtit.

FOS: First-of-Season or “New Models Arriving Daily”

The timing of last weeks spring storm and accompanying winds from the south portended the arrival of the first batch of neotropical migrants to northern California. These bird species from Central and even South America began their northward journey weeks ago, and historical data points to early April as the week that the bulk of them cross the border into California and continue on up. These birds are specialists at conserving energy and so, as much as possible, they attempt to coordinate their flights with southerly winds that will cut down on the energy needed for their journeys.

This hypothesis was borne out this morning as I left the house at 6:30 am, binoculars in hand. Almost immediately I could hear new voices in the morning chorus. In a black oak on the undeveloped woodlot above our home a vaguely familiar song rang out. Suspecting the return of a perennial visitor I searched and then found the assertive little singer, Nashville warbler! The male of this mostly yellow songster has a light blue-gray head with a very distinct white eye-ring. After taking some long looks at the bird moving from branch to branch of trees and shrubs another voice caught my attention.

In the live oaks on the hillside below our house came one of the most distinctive songs of western woodlands. I concur with others who have compared the halting phrases as sounding like this bird is having a back-and-forth conversation with itself, something like: “Hell-o”…”How-are-you”…”well-thanks”…Hello-to-you-too”. I could make out movement in the trees and continued watching until the maker came out in the open near the top of the tree, confirming it’s identity as Cassin’s Vireo.

I was soon distracted again by a staccato, two-part, accelerating warble. To my right another yellow bird flitted through the young cedars, eventually revealing a small black ‘beanie’ – oval shaped spot on it’s crown…Wilson’s warbler!

What a morning! Over the course of the next hour I was treated to more individuals of each of the above species, joined by Bullock’s oriole, black-throated gray warbler, downy woodpecker, Steller’s jay and more. Two ‘heard birds’ never confirmed with visuals were potential ash-throated flycatcher and hermit warblers.

Stay tuned – this time of year “New Models Are Arriving Daily”! Whoops - Liam just ran in the door to say have me come listen to another first - western tanager!

Nashville Warbler photo by Birding Maine

Starting Life in a Sock!

Baby Bushtits spend their early life not unlike the children of the Old-Woman-in-the-shoe, except in this case it’s more like a hanging sock!

The classic image most of us have of a nest is the ‘shallow bowl’ style nest typical of American Robin and many other birds. A certain number of North American species however build more complicated nests that completely enclose or surround the eggs. Most are nearly round, with entry holes for the parents to enter and exit. They are constructed of a variety of materials: We’ve seen round Bullock’s Orioles nests made up of horsehair and baling twine; big, round American Dipper nests all of green moss and football shaped verdin nests in the desert of dried leaves and twigs. The ‘dangling stocking’ nest constructed by the diminutive bushtit though, made largely of spider web woven together with small leaves and moss is perhaps the most impressive display of creative home-building.

Liam and Alita and I filled an hour yesterday afternoon walking the perimeter of Teichert Pond. Our first sighting of note was about a dozen Canada Geese goslings, chaperoned by 6 adults, picking among the domestic lawn on the fringe of the nearby mall parking lot. Given the date and recent wind direction (from the south) I hoped to find some newly arrived migrant warblers among the pond-side riparian. We stopped along the north side of the pond where a lone olive tree often produces large numbers of birds. Instead of warblers, Liam pointed out two nests, one the traditional bowl shaped nest of a northern mockingbird at the top of the tree, the other, just above eye level, the pendulous basket of the bushtits.

I use the plural bushtit(s) because these tiny birds, their gender told apart only by the color of their eyes, collaborate on all aspects of the construction. Choosing a height anywhere from “6 to 35 ft.” above the ground they weave the ‘pocket’ up to 12 inches long of “mosses, lichens, leaves, cocoons, grasses” with spider silk to the twigs and branches of a tree or bush. The feat takes them 13-51 days – longer than it takes the eggs to incubate! Both expectant parents brood the eggs and spend the night in the nest.

Hopefully we hadn’t scared the parents off, bushtits are known to abandon nests too closely scrutinized by predators during construction. With this in mind we only stayed long enough to snap a photo and then departed.

Selected information for this post from Hal Harrison's Western Birds' Nests (Peterson Field Guide)

Skunked!

On a bike ride this afternoon in Forest Ranch Liam and I encountered an animal not normally seen out and about during midday. The fact that we smelled it before we saw it is a dead giveaway to it’s identity, but in fact something didn’t ‘smell right’ about the whole thing! There, running straight down the road in front of us, feathered tail held high was a handsome striped skunk Mephitis mephitis.

I immediately cautioned Liam to slow down, having encountered dazed and disoriented skunks before. Rabies is always a possibility when usually reclusive animals are found in the open. Following at a respectable distance we watched the skunk scurry along ahead of us until it found a roadside culvert to hide in. Our assessment: We think this skunk was not rabid but had been disturbed from it’s daytime hiding place, the lingering odor a remnant of that encounter, it’s desire to run from us and seek shelter a normal skunky behavior.

Formerly classified as members of the weasel family, the five species of skunks found in North America are now a family unto themselves. The most common and widespread of these is the striped skunk which is found in all lower 48 states. The western spotted skunk was previously widespread in the west but is now considered uncommon. Commonly referred to as nocturnal, striped skunk is in fact a crepuscular feeder, doing most of it’s foraging at dawn and dusk. While rabies can be locally common in skunk populations in fact raccoons are more likely to spread the disease.

What scared our skunk? Anything from a coyote to a bobcat might have surprised or disturbed it, although the intruder likely got the worst of it - most predators avoid the skunks effective defense, with the exception of owls and raptors who are apparently oblivious to it.

Counting Points

Biologists, wildlife researchers, ecologists and others use a variety of methods to count the number or variety of species within a selected area. These can include trapping, trackplate and camera monitoring for reptiles and small mammals and nighttime flashlight counts and stream surveys for frogs and toads. For birds there are transect surveys (recording birds observed or heard along a line), quadrant surveys (counting all birds within a designated space), nest searches to confirming breeding and production and the method perhaps most widely employed: point counts.

On Thursday of this week I was invited to conduct point counts at the Butte Creek Ecological Preserve, while Liam apprenticed under master bander (and friend) Dawn Garcia, mist netting and banding passerines (perching birds). As the banding crew prepared to put up their nets I walked to the first of 8 ‘points’ – designated spots used repeatedly to listen and watch for birds and record their presence.

The air was full of bird song even before I reached my point, and Dawn was first to catch the song of black-headed grosbeak, the first we had heard from this early arriving central American migrant this spring. Also heard were an early vocalizing blue-gray gnatcatcher and house wren.

Once at my point the protocol was specific: first I recorded the date, location and weather. Next I recorded which of the eight points I was observing and the specific start time. I then had a five minute window during which to record all birds seen and heard. These detections were broken down further into those which were detected during the first three minutes then the last two minutes, also whether they were noted inside or beyond fifty meters, and whether the birds were stationery or in flight. The birds were recorded by their 4 letter American Ornithologist Union banding code and hash marks were used to record each different detection.

While this sounds like fun (because it is) it can also be challenging to recognize, record, and keep track of which individuals are being heard where and whether or not they are birds already heard or new birds. Because there is so much going on during the count, listening, watching and writing, an experienced counter learns to depend on their ears for the majority of the detections. During the peak of the courting period the over-lapping songs of many different species can be quite a web of sound to try to untangle, and after 5 minutes a mental break is needed to ‘wipe the slate clean’ and prepare for the next point.

Conducting point counts well requires a lot of self training and testing. Liam and I spend hours testing each other with recorded bird songs and calls so that we can readily identify species likely to be encountered in our area. Even then common species can sometimes emit a sound not normal for them and it requires patience to track down the maker to confirm the species ID (after the five minutes is up). Only by doing this does one develop a larger repertoire of songs and calls. By being intimately familiar with the vocalizations of expected species, a newcomer or unexpected stray stands out and can likewise be tracked down to determine it’s identification.

You’re probably wondering which species were heard or seen on my survey? A partial list includes:

Bullock’s Oriole, House Finch, Black Phoebe, Yellow-rumped Warbler, Nuttall’s Woodpecker, White-crowned Sparrow, American Robin, American Crow, European Starling, California Towhee, Spotted Towhee, Acorn Woodpecker, Orange-crowned Warbler, California Quail, Turkey Vulture, Lesser Goldfinch, Wrentit, Wild Turkey, Band-tailed Pigeon, Western Scrub Jay, Purple Finch, Bushtit, Hutton’s Vireo, Oak Titmouse, Bewick’s Wren, Blue-gray Gnatcatcher, Anna’s Hummingbird, Northern Flicker, Brewer’s Blackbird, Dark-eyed Junco, Mourning Dove, Black-headed Grosbeak, Tree Swallow, Kildeer, Red-winged Blackbird, Brown-headed Cowbird, Red-shouldered Hawk, American Goldfinch, House Wren, Mallard, Wood Duck, White-breasted Nuthatch, Hermit Thrush, Downy Woodpecker.

Black and Blue

In recent weeks there has been a dramatic increase in the number of butterflies afield, most notably battus philenor aka Pipevine Swallowtail. Every year I’m amazed at how many of these uniquely colored butterflies grace our area, especially considering that I don’t see (or notice) an abundance of their host plant – pipevine or aristolochia Californica, in our area (but then I haven’t looked very hard for it either).

The large yellow zebra and tiger swallowtails (western tiger swallowtail locally) are the best known of this butterfly type, but Pipevine swallowtail is much more numerous here, especially in early spring. Their range is actually quite extensive, covering the entire southern half of the country from coast to coast. In the lowlands of Mexico adults can be found flying year-round.

B. philenor is a nectar drinker, preferring such California native flowers as lupines, California buckeye and yerba santa. The status of Pipevine swallowtails is good and they are generally not considered to be of elevated conservation concern. Right now they can be best found in the grassy hillsides of Upper Bidwell Park and other similar local habitats.

photo by Troy Bartlett

New Voices on the Ridge

Two new voices were heard yesterday on our ridge.

The first began about 6:15 and piped off every 20 seconds for about 45 minutes thereafter. ‘Piped’ is the closest I can come to describing the high pitched, extended, single call note of Mountain Quail. This large quail with the long, tall, erect top knot has a very limited range of western state mountains, including California, Nevada, Oregon and Washington. Additionally it is quite shy and is typically found in dense hillside brush, making it the target of bird ‘listers’ from around the world.

The second was a continuous ‘peenting’ coming from the very top of a tall pine in my neighbor’s yard. Suspecting the identity of the bird I grabbed my field-glasses and followed the sound. There, silhouetted against the lightening sky was a Townsend’s Solitaire. In contradiction to it’s ‘solitary’ name a second solitaire flew in and chased the first from it’s perch. This species, lovely in their very subtle shades of gray, are only here briefly, during their up/down slope migration in spring and fall.

More Looking Down

Liam and I are so used to looking UP at birds most of the time we’re in the field that we’ve resolved to learn much more about what’s below our feet. To that end we joined a hike led by resident naturalist Dr. Paul Maslin at the Big Chico Creek Ecological Reserve, joined by my wife Kathleen and daughter Alita.

Our first look down was of samples of the rock beneath our feet. At the lowest point in the reserve, down near Big Chico Creek, exposed benches of sandstone, sandwiched between layers of marine sediment packed with the shells of aquatic animals of 75 million years ago is known as the Chico formation. Above that rests a layer of glossy gray Lovejoy Basalt, and capping off the bluffs is the pock-marked aggregate known as the Tuscan formation – a ancient mud-flow full of the rocks it gathered as it oozed across the land.

Next we studied some of the plants found along a steep trail carved along the hillside with the help of Robert Fisher, hiking through slopes of hounds-tongue and gooseberry and finding small wonders like the flaming red larkspur and low-growing Hartwig’s ginger, with its deep red flowers hiding beneath the wide green leaves. Liam soaked up Robert’s identification tips on the plants we were seeing, while Alita snapped great photos of witch’s butter.

I must admit that I couldn’t resist turning my ear to the trees while my eyes were on the ground, and enjoying the ten-fold increase in vocalizing black-throated gray warblers!

Mystery Flower in my Yard is a 'Swiss Army Knife' of Uses!

For the last four years I’ve wondered at the subtly beautiful red mystery flowers in my yard. They start out as a ‘ferny’ type low growing plant, oddly clustered around an old stump and next to a Manzanita bush and grow into lovely deep red, ‘shaggy’ little flowers.

This year, with my North-state Naturalist blog in mind I determined once-and-for-all to find out just what sort of plant I had. First I went to my woefully inadequate Peterson Guide to Pacific States Wildflowers – ninety percent of the illustrations are black and white (I’ve been directed to obtain a Jepson Guide – the bible of flower identification). I couldn’t find anything resembling my little 7” flowers. Next I remembered that I had been given a glossy color book of Wildflowers of the Big Chico Creek Ecological Reserve by Dr. Paul Maslin…again I could not find my subject flower. My simple query was becoming quite a mystery! I went to numerous online wildflower ID sites, most of which are rather poorly designed for a search of this nature.

Desperate now to find an answer – and not yet ready to drop $85 on a Jepson, I emailed photos of my little friend to Dr. Maslin. I checked my email daily hoping for a response, but this guy spends like 24/7 with his nose in nature (when not building trails, firebreaks, and generally working his tail off maintaining the reserve) so the response was not forthcoming. Finally this morning I had a simple reply in my inbox…pedicularis densiflora…aka Indian Warrior. Yeah!

That got the ball rolling. Checking the internet I had numerous sites focusing on my little flower, actually a perennial herb. As it turns out there is a reason that it is so closely associated with the Manzanita in my yard – it is hemiparasitic, meaning it attaches itself by way of it’s roots to Manzanita, Chamise and possibly other western shrubs. More interesting is that it is listed on numerous sites as possessing psychoactive qualities, used for such medicinal applications as a tranquilzer, a muscle relaxant, a sedative and an aphrodisiac. How exciting to find this potential medicine chest right in my own backyard.

Even better, the website worldtwitcher.com focuses on P. densiflora’s attractiveness to birds as a source of nectar, especially hummingbirds!

Turns out my little flower is big on surprises!...just goes to prove that if you scratch the surface of almost any creature, you find out so much more than you might have expected!