Like a shooting star, a falcon-like bird streaked high across the eastern sky, flashing dark and light, then turned and dove or stooped breathtakingly fast toward the ground, pulled up, and disappeared from sight for a few seconds. Then it returned, lower and slower, and sailed directly over us as we stood up looking for it – a dark, sleek bird with long slender wings, a wedge-shaped tail and a round white head. A Mississippi Kite. It circled over us, gaining altitude in the gusty wind again, and slid out of sight to the west.

It seemed very early in the season to see a Mississippi Kite here, and sometimes we don’t see them at all, so this was a lucky sighting. We just happened to be out at the right time, and happened to be looking up in the right direction.

Mississippi Kites are falcon-like raptors known for their graceful, often acrobatic flight. In some areas of the central plains they are fairly common, sometimes nesting in colonies. They also nest in the southeastern coastal plain. Here we’re lucky to see a few each summer. They capture insect prey in flight, and sometimes small birds.

Right out of her travel kennel, she flew to perch at the far end of the flight cell where she was placed. It’s a little obvious that she needs some practice, but that’s expected. She’s been through a horrifying ordeal. She’ll be sharing a cell with other eagles in different levels of recovery. Most are either not flighted or are partially flighted, still working on building their strength and skills back.

The cuckoo was hidden somewhere deep inside the dense leaves of the oaks, dark green against an intensely blue sky. I stood beneath the trees for several minutes, trying to catch a glimpse of the long black and white-spotted tail, hoping it would call again – but no. Either it had flown without my seeing it, or it was staying hidden. Still, it was a bright spot in the day.

Several minutes later and much further up the road, along the old field, I heard a repeated, loud metallic chink! from the scrubby grove of large oaks that still survives near the dead-end of the road, just across from where the weeds have recently been mowed all around two billboards, to make sure they can be seen from the highway below.

A Blue Grosbeak flew from a thicket up to a branch on one of the oaks, where I had a beautiful view of its deep indigo-blue plumage, rusty-orange wing bars, and big silver beak. Switching his tail back and forth, he called out several more chinks! before flying away to a shrubby area beyond the end of the road.

The arrival of just two birds – colorful and striking though they are – returning from the tropics to the woods and fields around our neighborhood, seems a rather small thing against the backdrop of the devastating oil spill in the Gulf, and so much else that’s going on in the world. But it also seems perhaps even more important to note these things. Each bird that returns strikes me as one small piece of evidence, one more reason to do what we can to value and protect the natural world. A vivid reminder and example of how much we have to lose.

    Posting this from DFW Airport, as we wait for our flight home to the East Coast, where the juncos assuredly don’t look like this yellow-eyed fellow.

   We’ll be posting more in the days ahead on our amazing Southeast Arizona adventure - the birds; the incredible deserts, canyons, plants and critters; the lovely people we met.

   Unofficially, we saw more than 150 species of birds in 10 days, with 73 new “life birds” for Lisa, and 71 for Warren. Astounding.

   And we’ll be back at the Lovenest in the mid-Atlantic just in time for …. SPRING MIGRATION!

- W and L

Happy Earth Day to one and all! On Earth Day 2010, we were privileged to see these rare, endangered creatures, two Spotted Owls, roosting in Miller Canyon, in Arizona’s Huachuca mountains. Along with the incredible diversity of other birds, flowers and mammals, we saw today, this Spotted Owl Birdcouple was a reminder of the wonders of the natural world, and our responsibility to protect them.

There’s a lot of bad environmental news out there, but the fact that these birds still exist, and that a lot of people cared enough to hike up a mountain to see them - and might be touched enough to want to preserve them - is good news.

There’s a lot to celebrate, and a lot to do. More soon on our incredible birding marathon-adventure here in southeast Arizona. Tonight’s final thought:
 

Maginificent. Just like that Magnificent Hummingbird up there, that is how our Arizona birding vacation has been so far.

Lisa and I have been in Southeast Arizona for 4 days, the last 3 1/2 days, the last 2 at Cave Creek Canyon in the Chiricahua Mountains, and our heads are spinning with all we have seen - birds, amazing scenery, even ancient pictographs.

Bird-wise, we have racked up an incredible 91 species in the last 74 hours, including 41 life birds for Warren and 42 for Lisa. (Working on that harmony list). Elegant Trogon? Red-Faced Warbler? Zone-Tailed Jawk? 7 species of humminbirds? We’ve seen ‘em.

More posts and pictures soon.

What can we say? Not much after a 20-hour day, that began with a 3:15 am wake-up call to make an early flight out of Washington, DC.

    Worth it? You had to ask? First afternoon in Southeast Arizona, spent at Sweetwater Wetlands. 37 species of birds. Eight lifers for Lisa, seven for Warren (she caught me up one!). Including this beautiful drake Cinnamon Teal. Enchanting. Our appetite is whetted for more, much more…

Chik! Meew-chicoree-chik-chik-rasp-Chik!

The mew was very distinct, a good imitation of a Gray Catbird, but it wasn’t random. It was incorporated into a pattern that the vireo repeated several times while I watched. Each time the chik at the beginning and end of the song were both emphatic, and the two chik-chiks in the middle quick and close together. The rasp was a short, ringing buzz.

This might have been what’s described as a White-eyed Vireo’s rambling song. But it didn’t really sound like a Gray Catbird, except for the mew, and it wasn’t a long or rambling song with several imitations, but just this repeated and quite distinct pattern.

It was fun to have a good close-up look at the vireo in the little tree – the yellow spectacles, black streak from eye to bill, the white throat and breast and very faint tinge of yellow on the flanks, and two white wing bars. Not quite close enough to see the white of its eyes. It stayed in view for several minutes, singing, before flying away.

Earlier in the morning, a different White-eyed Vireo sang in the oaks in our back yard (about a mile away from the other) – the first time we’ve had one so close this season – and it also was singing a similar song that began and ended with a chik! and included a catbird-like mew. Later in the afternoon the same vireo (I think), switched to singing its more familiar chik-a-perioo-chik.

An epoxy putty is then mixed up. It’s very flexible for about 3-5 minutes and then it dries really hard. It’s placed on the pins to keep them from traveling up, down or all around during the healing process.

When the bones has healed, the putty can be broken off with wire cutters and the pins removed with out having to cut into the bird again.

The wing is now wrapped up to protect it from the bird, the bird from it and to hold the wing in position until it heals. Todd then uses a laser treatment to help the healing process.

As of the last report I got, the bird is standing and eating on it’s own. X-rays will be taken in a couple weeks to make sure the bone has healed and the fixitor is removed.

Meanwhile, Yellow-throated Vireo, Red-eyed Vireo, Northern Parula and Black-and-white Warbler continue to sing in the woods nearby, sometimes coming up into the trees around the house. Blue-gray Gnatcatchers call spee! One White-eyed Vireo sings among the weeds of the old field.

The squeaking calls of Brown-headed Nuthatches are heard fairly often, but I was surprised early this afternoon to hear the repeated yank-yank-yank calls of one, or maybe two, White-breasted Nuthatch that stayed in the vicinity for at least an hour.

Cedar Waxwings seem to have moved on further north – I haven’t seen them in several days now. But Ruby-crowned Kinglets, Yellow-rumped Warblers and White-throated Sparrows are still here, and singing – the Ruby-crowned Kinglets sing a quick, lively little tune from thickets and low trees; the Yellow-rumped Warblers a loose, musical trill that sounds like sparkles or bangles scattered all through the new-green leaves; and the whistled, bittersweet song of White-throated Sparrows drifts up from brushy, shrubby areas, especially at twilight.

Eastern Phoebe, Northern Cardinal, Carolina Wren, Northern Mockingbird, Brown Thrasher, Carolina Chickadee, Tufted Titmouse, Chipping Sparrow, Pine Warbler and Eastern Towhee all fill the air with song from early morning until late in the day. Downy and Red-bellied Woodpeckers are less noticeable than in the quiet winter months, but still around and active, and this morning a Pileated Woodpecker gave its cuk-cuk-cuk call from somewhere along the floor of the woods nearby.

Eastern Bluebirds are nesting in a nest box in our neighbor’s yard, while a pair of Carolina Chickadees seem to have moved into the bluebird box in our yard.

Lots of good stuff for our occasional round-up of birding and nature news, much of it contributed by McClatchy web editor Tish Wells and other friends from McClatchy’s Washington bureau. They are constantly sending me bird-related news, or asking me bird questions, which is nice.

That photo up there, taken by Laura Cardenas, is the first photographic evidence of the continued existence of the Santa Marta Sabrewing. The area where it lives in Colombia’s Santa Marta Mountains had been slated for development in 2006, but was purchased at the last minute with funding from the American Bird Conservancy, Conservation International and Fundacion Pro Aves, a Colombian organization.

A small, glowing-yellow Prothonotary Warbler, singing in the mucky bottomland near the North Oconee River, among a tangle of under-story shrubs and the frail white shimmer of silverbell blooms, was the highlight of a Saturday morning walk for me. The walk in the Whitehall Forest was sponsored by the Oconee Rivers Audubon Society, and the weather could not have been nicer – cool, sunny and bright, warming up as we walked through a variety of habitats, from bottomland forest with tall old trees, to open meadow-like power cuts, pine woods, upland hardwood forest, and scrubby early-succession fields.

From a spot at first hidden among the low shrubs and vines, the song of the Prothonotary Warbler rang out loud and clear – tsweet-tsweet-tsweet-tsweet-tsweet-tsweet-tsweet. After we searched for several minutes it was finally spotted, and cooperated, as if resigned to come out and give us a look in order to get rid of us. It hopped up onto a low branch and posed there, looking the part of its older name, the Golden Swamp Warbler, with its blue-gray wings, greenish back and brilliant deep-yellow, round head and breast glowing in a shaft of sunlight among the shady shrubs. As we watched, it tilted its head back, parted the long, pointed bill, and sang.

A signature bird of shrubby bottomland forests near rivers, creeks and beaver ponds in the South, Prothonotary Warblers have become less common here over the past two or three decades, mainly because of loss of the kind of habitat they need.

We also heard the songs of Yellow-throated, Red-eyed and White-eyed Vireos, Northern Parula, Yellow-rumped Warbler, Pine Warbler, Black-and-white Warbler, Louisiana Waterthrush, Blue-gray Gnatcatcher, Ruby-crowned Kinglet, and – one of my favorites – the piping, rising zoo-zoo-zoo-zoo-zoo-ZEEE of a Prairie Warbler; and the calls of White-breasted and Brown-headed Nuthatch.

We watched a Palm Warbler, with reddish-chestnut cap and yellow throat and breast, streaked red-brown on the sides, wag its tail on the low branch of a tree; and a vivid Yellow-throated Warbler – black and white and gray and lemon-gold – gathering nest materials from a clump of brownish debris suspended in the trees. At one point, a Sharp-shinned Hawk flew directly over, fairly low, giving us a perfect view of its compact shape, square-tipped tail and distinctive flap-flap-flap-glide pattern of flight. An Osprey soared over high, also giving everyone a glorious view of its long slender wings, and its white and dark patterns stretched out against a deep blue sky.

All in all, with a total of 49 species and clear views of a Yellow-throated Vireo, Louisiana Waterthrush and several other songbirds, it was a great morning of birding in a beautiful location. Thanks to trip leader Ed Maiorello and the Oconee Rivers Audubon Society!

Its head and back looked dark bluish-gray, its face was marked with a broad white stripe above the eye, and black around the eye and down the cheek, and a striking white patch on the side of the neck. Its belly was white, with dark streaks on the sides – and the yellow throat shined.

It looked as if it had gathered the gray clouds, wind and rain, with the clearing sky and glistening sun of the past few minutes together, and reshaped them into the form of a bird.