Western Screech Owl: Season 2, Chapter 3

Guest Post by Dan Weisz

Now that it is very hot each day, the female Western Screech Owl leaves the nest box shortly after sunset and spends up to ten minutes quenching her thirst.  She’ll get a drink, then look around for a while, then get another drink, and repeat.  The owls will lap later into her bill, then tip her head back to let it run down her throat.

On this night, after filling up with water, she found a nearby perch and relieved herself.  She squats down in order to do this.

This was a lucky shot.  The owl is “casting a pellet”.  Owls usually swallow their prey whole and break it down in their gizzard. The bones, teeth, fur and other indigestible material is compressed into a pellet shaped mass that is then disgorged by regurgitation. 

Later, she flew to the water dishes on the ground to take a bath.

A few night’s later, she was back on a perch and scratching herself.

Although this photo is blurry, it gives you a sense of what the owl looks like when she returns to her nest box.

I know that the eggs have hatched by the method the owl uses to drop down into the box.  Several weeks ago, when the owl dropped into the box after looking out of the opening, she just dropped down and disappeared quickly. For the past two weeks, she turns and looks down before descending. I am sure she is looking at the owlets so she doesn’t just step on their heads.

And then she slowly descends into the nest box.

The male leaves his daytime perch in our neighbor’s porch pillar around the same time the female leaves the box to take a drink.  I never see him drinking and usually he is out in the desert nearby hunting.  I rarely see him but often hear his calling from the desert.  One night this week he perched in my backyard.  When I moved, he straightened up and erected the feather tufts on his head.  That’s his disguise mode used to blend into the trees that are often behind him.  He has not spent as much time near me as his partner has.

A few night’s later, I saw the male again.  This time, he had caught some food.  He’s holding a Western Banded Gecko in his beak.  You can see a fresh wound in the gecko’s belly where the owl probably first caught him. Now, the owl is carefully holding the gecko by its skull and awaiting a call from the female to make the delivery to the nest.  

A Birding Trip to Botswana: Part 4

Guest column by Alan & Albert Adler
Read Part 1 and Part 2 and Part 3

The Road to Savuti

On the way to the Savuti camp, which is located in the Savuti Marsh, we saw among many other birds the Yellow-billed Kite (with its bill and wedge-shaped tail) and the shy Swainson’s Spurfowl (which should be renamed the Red-masked Spurfowl), and two unusual birds: Burchell’s Sandgrouse (with perfect camouflage) and the Black- crowned Tchagra (with a black eye stripe and a striking, white supercilium). We also saw the very distinctive White-browed Sparrow-weaver with its conspicuous white eyebrow and white wing bars. We saw an entire Common Ostrich family – parents with about 20 chicks stretched between them. At one point the female did a strange wing-flapping dance – perhaps just letting off steam from the stress of trying to keep so many chicks alive in a land of predators. Just before we arrived at Savuti camp, we saw the remains of “a tooth and claw” event: in the middle of the road a dead African Cape Buffalo was feasted upon by two kinds of vultures (the Lappet-faced and the White-backed and a couple of hyenas. We were looking for the African Hoopoe but Richard found the Green Wood Hoopoe (with its long decurved red-orange bill, iridescent green plumage and long tail and wings - both with beautiful, large white patches) and another absolutely unmistakable gorgeous bird, the Crimson-breasted Shrike (with a jet black back and wings with a big white wingbar).

Burchell’s Sandgrouse

Green Wood Hoopoe

Crimson-breasted Shrike

Savuti Marsh

We spent two days doing both morning and evening trips in order to explore the huge dry savannah area around the Savuti camp. Each morning on our trip we would awake to a cacophony of bird calls, but the Southern Pied Babbler (a white & black robin-sized bird with black wings, but not variegated enough to be named with the word “pied”) and/or the Arrowmarked Babbler seemed to be causing most of the noise, along with spurfowl. We saw two of the largest and arguably most famous birds in Africa: a pair of Secretarybirds (41 inches tall weighing as much as 11 pounds; with head plumes reminiscent of teenagers with spiky hairstyles and tail feathers which protrude beyond its legs while in flight; it catches its prey only while striding.)We could barely keep up with them as they paced their elegant way across the grassland. Then we got great views of the Kori Bustard (they weigh as much as 40 pounds - the heaviest flying African bird; the male displays by inflating its throat, drooping his wings, cocking his short tail, and strutting about. No wonder this is the official national bird of Botswana.) One was in the company of a dwarf mongoose and looked for all the world like he was taking his pet for a stroll. Distant views caught the Pallid Harrier and the Montagu’s Harrier, which being harriers, quickly glided away. All of these birds were wonderful to see through our spotting scope. But we got the most wonderful photo of a pale-morph Tawny Eagle, with its heavily feathered legs, looking unusually blonde.

Southern Pied Babbler

Secretarybird

Kori Bustard

Tawny Eagle

Other marsh birds that we liked were: the Northern Black Korhaan (the male with a black head, neck, and belly, red bill, and brown, barred back and wings), the Crested Francolin (with its black crest and white eyebrow), the Rufous-naped Lark (with its very distinctive call of tseep-tseeoo that was much admired by Richard), and the Double-banded Courser (besides its obvious bands it has chestnut color on the trailing edge of its wings when it flies.). We saw the knob on Knob-billed Duck, which only appears during breeding season.

Crested Francolin

Double-banded Courser

One morning in a hilly area not too far from camp, Richard cleverly spotted a Pearl-spotted Owlet (only 7-1/2 inches, with its two false black eye patches in the back of its head, it reminded us of the Ferruginous Pygmy-Owl (6-3/4 inches) from the front and especially because of the facial expression and the brown color of its body. Later in the day as the sun was rapidly going down, we saw the most exciting owl of the trip: the huge (24-1/2 inches) Verreaux’s Eagle-Owl, which we spotted across from our tent cabin just before a big rain storm, and then again early in the morning the next day, we saw him elsewhere looking rather comical because he was so wet and bedraggled. In both instances his pink eyelids were striking.

Pearl-spotted Owlet

Alan and Albert Adler have been residing in Tucson since 1998. Alan has been a lifelong birder, and from June 1999 through August 2002, he served as a writer and the volunteer editor of Tucson Audubon's Vermilion Flycatcher. In the spring of 2000, he was very pleased to report that the 32-page “newsletter”, as it was known then, was ranked 1^st among those from 10 other “very large” chapters, beating Seattle, Greater Denver, and Fairfax, Virginia in the competition held by the National Audubon Society.  For the past seven years, Alan has volunteered with the Lend A Hand Senior Assistance, Inc., twice serving as its co-President. Albert began birding as an adult and has worked as a pediatrician with the Tohono O’odahm tribe since August 1998. The photos that accompany the article were taken almost entirely by Albert.

Elf Owls in Saguaro National Park

Guest post by Dan Weisz

I participated in an Elf Owl survey conducted by Tucson Audubon this weekend in the Saguaro National Park. This survey is part of the IBA (Important Bird Area) Program at Tucson Audubon monitoring birds of greatest conservation concern (tucsonaudubon.org/iba).

Elf Owl by Jeremy Hayes

We walked one of the trails in Saguaro National Park East stopping every 200 feet, listening for owls and documenting what we heard. Elf Owls are the smallest owls in the world and we did hear a few and also got a glimpse of one. Here is one of the sounds we were listening for: https://www.xeno-canto.org/21427/embed and here is information on Elf Owls: https://neotropical.birds.cornell.edu/Species-Account/nb/species/elfowl/overview 

In addition, we also heard many coyotes and quite a few Western Screech Owls.

Below are some of the evening’s highlights. All of the owls pictured are Western Screech Owls. I got shots of two different owls but we saw and heard many.

 

This second owl sat for the longest time for us.

And here is a nice video of a Western Screech Owl, sitting in mesquite tree and calling. in the Tucson area, you can hear this sound at night:

https://macaulaylibrary.org/asset/435350 

On the way back to the cars, we did a bit of backlighting and found a few smaller friends:

This scorpion is called a stripe-tailed scorpion.  You can see the black stripes on the underside of his tail.  This is the most common scorpion in our area.

A Birding Trip to Botswana: Part 3

Guest column by Alan & Albert Adler
Read Part 1 and Part 2

The Khwai Area

Forty-five percent of all the land in Botswana has been set aside for wildlife; there will be no further development in reserved areas and in some cases villages have been moved. This was the case with the villagers of Khwai. They are Babukahkwe or river bushmen and speak their own language, though Setswana and English are also commonly spoken. Sango camp is adjacent to this small village with a population of less than 400 people. The camp provides employment and income for the community members who still live in huts built out of blocks cut from termite mounds (some mounds were 12 feet tall).

At the Sango camp, we were greeted by its friendly staff and whisked to our cabins. On our first evening at Sango, the three of us ate a candlelight dinner on the front porch of our cabin overlooking the Khwai River. The musical accompaniment was the loud grunts and groans of hippopotami patrolling the water in the Khwai River and streamside 50 yards from our door.

We spent three days in the Khwai area. The schedule for the rest of the trip: arising at 5 a.m., eating a light breakfast and beginning to bird from 6 to around 11 a.m. We then had a full lunch at the lodge and enjoyed a siesta until teatime at 4p.m., then we birded until 6:30 or 7 p.m., before having a delicious dinner. We ate all our meals with Richard by choice and didn’t socialize very much with other guests, who were mostly English and Germans interested in wildlife photography and looking for what is commonly known as “The Big 5”: lion, leopard, elephant, rhinoceros, and cape buffalo.

The Big 5 is a term left over from the days of hunting. Of note, Botswana has banned all game hunting since January 2014, though there had been a moratorium on hunting certain species for more than 13 years before. While the ban has generated a lot of mostly negative press, Richard felt that it made his job a lot easier, as animals were not as afraid or potentially as dangerous. With the overall steep decline of wildlife throughout the world, a place where a people have said “enough,” seems an oasis in a world gone mad for trophies and meat. We were more philosophically inclined towards the “Little 5”: the antlion, the leopard tortoise (we saw many of them), the elephant shrew; the rhinoceros beetle, and the buffalo weaver.

During our first morning in and around the Khwai village, we enjoyed watching the Red-billed Buffalo Weaver, but were sorry to see that their nests had already been abandoned before our arrival. And we saw both the Red-billed Firefinch (not so easily distinguished from the Jameson’s Firefinch, which we saw the next day) and the Red-billed Quelea, known to be the most numerous bird on the planet but in numbers far less than we expected (in the tens rather than in the hundreds or hundred thousands). However, the starlings (Cape, Meve’s, Greater Blue, and Burchell’s Starling) proved to be beyond our expectations, with a very different in appearance from the European Starlings found in North America in that they were a beautifully iridescent blue and did not flock together in large numbers. We felt right at home: identifying the ubiquitous Southern Grey-headed Sparrow; finding the Bennett’s Woodpecker on a tree in front of a house; and pursuing warbler-like birds, the Grey-backed Camaroptera and the Tawny-flanked Prinia in bushy areas far outside the village . We had to admit that the call of the ubiquitous Grey Go-away-bird indeed sounded like “Go away,” though our brief glimpse of the Broad-billed Roller didn’t convince us that it was as beautiful as the Lilac-breasted Roller. We were captivated by the lovely and confiding Levaillant’s Cuckoo and the Great-spotted Cuckoo. Our glimpses of the elusive Swamp Boubou with its haunting whistles reminded us in coloration of a very dark Loggerhead Shrike, while the glowing green back of the equally elusive Green-winged Pytilia against its vermilion head seemed in a class all its own. It was also here that Alan and Richard got a glimpse of what proved to be the most challenging bird for the two of us to see on the trip: the African Hoopoe.

Great-spotted Cuckoo

Bennett’s Woodpecker

Some of the most unusually shaped shore birds that we saw in Botswana were first seen during the trips that we took to explore the Khwai River riverbanks: the Marabou Stork (with what appears to be a huge goiter but is in reality a very large yellow gular sac hanging from its throat), the African Openbill (with a bill specially evolved to crush snails, somewhat like a nutcracker), and the Hamerkop (a wader that has a massive head with a crest and bill that appears more formidable than that of a Pileated Woodpecker). Of course, one must mention the Knob-billed Duck. An unusually shaped land bird which we observed was the Common Scimitarbill, a member of the Hoopoe family, all of which are known for their relatively long decurved bills; this dark blue bird with white patches on its wings, and its aptly named scimitar bill.

African Openbill

Knob-billed Duck

There were also beautiful small birds to enjoy: White-bellied Sunbirds kept the scimitarbill company, and the call of the Orange-breasted Bushshrike drew us from our post-prandial torpor to watch a pair cavorting in a tree a few steps from the door of our tent-cabin.

At Khwai three species of lapwings also caught our attention: the Blacksmith (with a black chest and white crown), the Long-toed Lapwing (with a white head and upper breast, red-orange legs, and not significantly long toes) and the Crowned Lapwing (with a black line through the eye, a white super cilium, and a black crown; red-orange legs, and a light grey back). A pair of latter birds was guarding a pair well-camouflaged eggs laid on the bare ground. We observed two species of jacana (the African Jacana - 9-inches with chestnut and black wings, a pale blue frontal shield, and a golden upper breast) and the (Lesser Jacana – 6-inches with dark grey and light grey wings, chestnut crown, and a completely white chest). And we spotted a Spotted Thick-knee, a wader, which reminded us of a 17-inch Cactus Wren with yellow legs, but with spots on the back not on the breast and stripes on the breast not on the back!

Blacksmith

Long-toed Lapwing

Crowned Lapwing

At Khwai we saw the striking world’s largest heron, hence named Goliath Heron (56 inches but only 11 pounds), the beautiful and surprisingly confiding Rufous-bellied Heron, the Squacco Heron (a very pale heron similar in color and posture to the Western Cattle Egret, which we also saw there), the African Darter (almost identical to the Anhinga of North America), the African Spoonbill (which is white and not as beautiful as the Roseate Spoonbill of North America), and the riveting Saddle-billed Stork (the world’s tallest stork with a red and black 14-inch bill that has a large yellow “saddle” at the junction of the bill with its black head. What appeared to be mates were perhaps the most confiding birds on the trip, posing for about a half an hour before taking off to soar majestically over our heads.) Small waterholes attracted a diversity of birds, herons, egrets, and specialties like Hadada Ibis, Egyptian Goose, and Woolly-necked Stork. We had no trouble finding the African Sacred Ibis (with its black head and white body), together with the Great Egret, but we really had to search for the Southern Ground Hornbill (the size of a turkey and almost as clumsy a flier.)

Goliath Heron

Rufous-bellied Heron

Squacco Heron

Saddle-billed Stork

African Sacred Ibis

Southern Ground Hornbill

We will always recall one early evening being up on a 15-foot high observation post in the Sango camp that overlooked the river, when we got fantastic looks at a Coppery-tailed Coucal (18-1/2 inches with an eerie call that echos for quite a distance) and a pair of African Paradise Flycatchers (the male is 14-3/4 inches with two 6-inch copper tail streamers. The next day we photographed the male with his enormous tail hanging out of a nest by a building in the camp.) From our post, as the light faded, we had a wonderful view with our Kowa land telescope of a young male elephant taking a bath in the river.

African Paradise Flycatcher

Eagles ruled in the Khwai area. We saw the Black-chested Snake Eagle whose name should be changed to the Black-headed Eagle as most of the chest is pure white, Brown Snake Eagle (no feathers on its legs), African Fish Eagle (very similar in appearance to the Bald Eagle), Lesser Spotted Eagle (very similar to the Tawny eagle but without heavily-feathered legs), and the Whalberg’s Eagle (with a slight crest. The Bateleur is an eagle with very short legs, some red facial skin, very white under the wings with black at the trailing edges, and an unmistakable rocking flight.

African Fish Eagle

One morning Richard arranged for us to be taken by a special guide Romeo who poled a boat called a mokoro the size of a large kayak on a lily-covered backwater in the Khwai area. We got good looks at and took photos of a tiny Malachite Kingfisher (blue, copper, white and malachite; 5-1/2 inches, with a bill that appears gigantic), the relatively huge Woodland Kingfisher, and a Black-headed Oriole.

Malachite Kingfisher

Woodland Kingfisher

Our stalwart guide was responsible for both finding and identifying more that 75% of the birds that we saw on the trip. He was “on it” 100% of the time, and we so much wanted to find a new species of bird for him. That happened in Sango when we found a Quailfinch (a small gray bird with a bright red bill, horizontal black and white barring on its chest, and a large white eye ring).

Richard is mostly well known for his ability to find large mammals (we didn’t know this until we googled him at home after the trip and found glowing reviews for him). During our trip we saw two reptiles: the Nile Monitor and the Leopard Tortoise and following mammals: serval, zebra, (many, many) impala (impossibly many), waterbuck, red lechwe, jackal, warthog, hyena, wildebeest, all 4 species of mongoose, baboon, tsesebe, kudu, cape buffalo, hippopotamus, giraffe, vervet monkeys, many elephants., and lots of lions. And Richard was quite conscientious about reminding us to stay near the vehicle when we were birding. He explained that although lions, for example, were capable of smelling our presence, they didn’t recognize humans when they were in the vehicle because they just perceived the vehicle, which to them was like a large rock

One morning we were watching hippopotami and noticed the symbiotic relationship they had with Red-billed Oxpeckers, who were gleaning insects around their eyes. Richard explained that hippos did not just stay in wet areas, but were capable of wandering around for long distances in the bush looking for waterholes. But we felt that big mammals were the sidelight of our trip, until one day when we were just outside the vehicle watching an African Stone Chat, a handsome bird that reminded us of a smaller version of a Spotted Towhee. Alan happened to look in the distance and saw that about 300 yards away a lion was walking toward us. Richard and Alan jumped into the cab of the vehicle while Albert remained sitting up in the back. We all watched it walking toward us, coming closer, and closer, and closer (within the shadow cast by our vehicle) until finally as it passed, it was so close that Alan could have easily reached out and stroked its mane! Albert took as many photos as she could before being immobilized by fear. The lion just marked its territory and moved on and we started to breathe again.

Red-billed Oxpeckers

Everyday at Khwai camp we were up around dawn and out until sunset and still felt there would have been much more to be seen. Birders less in need of a cup of coffee could have been out sooner and birders more inclined to lengthen the life list would have spent less time on each individual bird and added more variety. But when we had to leave, we were very, very pleased to have seen “tons of birds” after just three short days.

Alan and Albert Adler have been residing in Tucson since 1998. Alan has been a lifelong birder, and from June 1999 through August 2002, he served as a writer and the volunteer editor of Tucson Audubon's Vermilion Flycatcher. In the spring of 2000, he was very pleased to report that the 32-page “newsletter”, as it was known then, was ranked 1^st among those from 10 other “very large” chapters, beating Seattle, Greater Denver, and Fairfax, Virginia in the competition held by the National Audubon Society.  For the past seven years, Alan has volunteered with the Lend A Hand Senior Assistance, Inc., twice serving as its co-President. Albert began birding as an adult and has worked as a pediatrician with the Tohono O’odahm tribe since August 1998. The photos that accompany the article were taken almost entirely by Albert.

The Santa Ana National Wildlife Refuge

Guest post by Dan Weisz

I just returned from the Rio Grande Valley Birding Festival and really enjoyed seeing the varied habitat and the rich birdlife there.  The Festival is very well run.  The first day we visited the Santa Ana National Wildlife Refuge.  This area is famous for having the second highest bird count of any of the national wildlife refuges in the United States.  It is also now famous as the site where the new border wall that President Trump promised is going to be built.  The wall will rest on a levee that is one mile from the border and the vegetation will be cleared for 100 yards on either side of the wall, cutting right through the center of the refuge.  Here is the refuge’s webpage:  fws.gov/refuge/Santa_Ana/

A view of the water and thick vegetation in the Santa Ana Wildlife Refuge

A Golden Fronted Woodpecker on a snag as viewed from the top of an observation tower above the canopy.  It looks similar to our Gila Woodpeckers but with the added yellow feathers at the base of its upper bill and a golden nape (the back of its head).

Green Jays were everywhere we went over the weekend.  This one was in a group coming to seed feeders in the refuge.

Green Jays are colorful tropical birds found primarily in Mexico and South America.  Green Jays just makes their way into the US in southern Texas (see the range map below).

There is also a resident population of Green Parakeets and Red-crowned Parrots in Harlingen, the town that hosts the festival.  The Red-crowned Parrots are native to a small region of northeastern Mexico, but through illegal pet trade, escaped birds and released pets have established colonies of feral population in a number of cities in the United States.

We found them near sunset in a residential neighborhood of Harlingen.

South Padre Island is a popular destination for Spring Breakers, but it is also a popular stop-over for migrating birds and offers a year-round sub-tropical environment for many other birds.

In one park, we saw a female Tennessee Warbler enjoying fruits on a tree on its way to its wintering home.  This is a bird that summers in the Canadian boreal forest.  Check out the range map to see how far this little bird has already flown on its way south.