hairy woodpecker ~ 01/19/14 ~ Black Hill

 

hairy woodpecker

Picoides villosus

more information

Ta-da!  This has got to be one of the crappiest pics posted to Nature ID.  I digitally enhanced it as much as possible, too, which is something I rarely do.  Oh well, I think it's good enough to make a positive ID.  It's another new-to-me sp.

The first thing that caught our attention was the tree seemed to be dropping bits and pieces.  What the hey?  Turns out this woodpecker was pulling bits of bark off the tree trunk in between brief bouts of drilling.  Well, that's different.  Hey, where's the red head?  Usually, whenever I notice woodpeckers (rarely), they almost always have a red head, which I assume (probably inaccurately) are the clown-like acorn woodpeckers.  The last thing I noticed was that long white stripe.  Visually it didn't make sense to me that it was located in the middle of the back, because I kept wanting to believe it was on the edge of the wing, like with the sapsuckers.  It really confused me until I looked at my pictures and read up on an ID.  Turns out there's a smaller, cuter look-alike called the downy woodpecker (P. pubescens).  I liked the description on Cornell's site that said the larger hairy woodpecker has a "somewhat soldierly look".  True, true.  Oh, and that pulling bits of bark is to find tasty insects.  They're apparently pretty decent at pest management.  Btw, males do have a small patch of red on the back of the head.

Cool.  Slowly expanding my bird awareness...

peacock ~ 11/24/12 ~ Casa de Fruta

peacock / male Indian blue peafowl
Pavo cristatus

Well, we didn't have turkey this Thanksgiving holiday, but we did spot another phasianid on our way home.  There were 5 peacocks haphazardly crossing the road and creating a traffic jam at Casa de Fruta, a roadside attraction that has grown to monstrous proportions in the 35 years I've passed through here.  Andy and I conferred that it's been about that long since we last saw peacocks regularly.  They seem to have been in fashion back in the 1970's.  Friends of my parents had them in their yard, and I have a vague recollection of my mom not knowing how to get one off the car so we could leave.  While the name peacock is ostensibly gender specific, I had never given peafowl a second thought before and figured Nature ID is as good of an excuse as any to look them up.  There are two other kinds of peafowl, the green peafowl (Pavo muticus) and the Congo peafowl (Afropavo congensis).  The Indian blue originates obviously from India, where it is the national bird, as well as from Pakistan, Nepal, and Sri Lanka.  They have been introduced around the world.  In some places, feral populations have caused a nuisance with their calls and other issues with such a large bird.

acorn woodpecker ~ 06/09/11 ~ Pinnacles

female acorn woodpecker
Melanerpes formicivorus

We had a good laugh at how a couple birds were using the drinking fountain to get water. This acorn woodpecker chased the smaller songbirds away.

CA quail ~ 06/08/11 ~ Pinnacles

California quail
Callipepla californica

While I regularly see CA quail during hikes, I have only a handful of crappy pics. It helped for the photo above that this male quail is probably accustomed to lots of human traffic and was standing watch over its family in a prominent spot. Judging by the amount of poo dripped down the sign, this male quail uses this dump station perch regularly.

acorn woodpecker ~ 02/22/11 ~ J's place

acorn woodpecker
Melanerpes formicivorus

Whenever I go visit a friend across town on the ocean side of the peninsula, I make sure to put my point-and-shoot camera in my pocket. I often see birds there that I never see at home, even though we only live a few miles apart. She has birdbaths, feeders galore, and a bird watching station facing a picture window next to her kitchen, instead of the traditional dining room table, complete with a comfy chair, binoculars, nature journal, a pile of bird books, and a huge camera that definitely would not fit in anyone's pocket. Gotta love her! I took these pictures behind her house. It looks like these acorn woodpeckers are making a granary tree out of this dead Monterey pine. They're the funniest looking birds. As I was searching for information this morning, I discovered the distinctive laugh of one of my childhood favorite cartoons, Woody the Woodpecker, was modeled after the the acorn woodpecker (click on the scientific name above to hear its call). Fellow blogger Julie Zickefoose wrote an NPR article about this. There you go, a tidbit of information.

ps 08/07/11 - For another blogger who writes about the famous cartoon inspiration, check out Shooting My Universe.

crow and sea lettuce ~ 10/30/10 ~ Monterey Municipal Beach

American crow picking through sea lettuce
Corvus brachyrhynchos picking through Ulva sp.

It's posts like this that remind me why I truly like creating this blog. I've spent a very enjoyable morning searching online for crows and sea lettuce (an unusual combination)... and learning new things that I would have otherwise shrugged aside. If you're visiting Nature ID for the first time, make sure to click on the embedded links above in the common and scientific names.

I was surprised to discover there are at least 3 species of crows in North America, the others being the northwestern crow (Corvus caurinus) and the fish crow (Corvus ossifragus), and not to overlook the closely related common raven (Corvus corax) and Chihuahuan raven (Corvus cryptoleucus). Also, for recipes of sea lettuce, aka green laver, check out MBARI's site.

Oh! I guess I should mention this is the beach we usually do our nighttime grunion greeting in the summer. I've never seen the sea lettuce washed ashore like this, but autumn seems to be the time when the ocean sheds it summer growth, too. Interestingly enough, this was only a few beach miles away from Fort Ord Dunes State Park that we visited the same day.

ps 07/19/16 - From a recent news report, the green is Ulva lactuca.

turkey ~ 10/30/10 ~ Corral de Tierra

wild turkey
Meleagris gallopavo

Are you ready for the next holiday? It always seems to be autumn before I see turkeys out and about. I'm not sure exactly why, but our local turkeys appear skinnier than most online pics. Of course, I've seen the males puff up into their trademark Thanksgiving pose, but otherwise they look kind of prehistoric. It's a bit shocking to witness these huge birds take flight. I don't have much to say about wild turkeys, except that I know the domesticated ones found frozen and wrapped in plastic at the grocery are the same species.

Warning: if you're squeamish and prefer your food sanitized in plastic, then stop reading!
Years ago I was fortunate enough to meet a college classmate who was also a commercial turkey farmer returning to school with hopes to get out of the business. He invited us to his family’s annual Wednesday-before-Thanksgiving tradition of prepping the next day’s meal. He let us take a pick of his turkeys. We chose a "small" one at a live weight of around 36 lbs. and 28 lbs. fully plucked and gutted...
Thankfully, his teenage son did the kill and spill (lots of blood). He used a baseball bat to knock it out and then a sharp knife to cut its throat. After the blood let, we dunked the body into a huge cauldron of boiling water over a wood fire, by holding onto its legs. It was heavy. I enjoyed plucking the feathers, but I was surprised at how warm the body and guts still were when I reached in to pull out the innards.
In their backyard, they had a deep, dug-out pit with a metal barrel inserted, with the top lid flush with the ground, next to the cauldron fire. I think someone added coals to the pit throughout the night to slow-cook their turkeys… and it’s no wonder! We had to keep our prepped turkey wrapped in a garbage bag outside until the next morning, since we couldn’t fit it in our fridge. I ended up squeezing it into our oven at 6am to start the roasting in time for dinner.
It was the best turkey I ever ate! I liken the freshness to just-caught fish or just-cut vegetables. I find most elaborate recipes (including brining, save for religious purposes) are designed for the sole purpose to mask the “old” flavor of long-stored/frozen meats and vegetables.
What are you eating for Thanksgiving? I think I'm going to cook ham.

male Anna's hummingbird
Calypte anna

female Anna's hummingbird

Calypte anna

Yes! I finally have half-way decent pictures of Anna's. Haha! You can't see the brilliant red head of the male, but how often does the light shine just right? These two were at the farm stand on Carmel Valley Road and I suspect they are fairly accustomed to people; considering my impatience of taking photos, this is saying something that I could easily get within 10 feet. At home I'm still enjoying watching the high-speed chases and dives of the Anna's, although the weather is starting to turn towards cooler and potentially stormy. They apparently live here in Monterey year-round. I wonder what these tiny birds do during the fierce coastal winter storms.

So, I started looking up which other hummingbirds I might see in our local area at this time of year and gave it up for a headache. No one seems to agree as to species or timing. Stating something is a "migrant" doesn't provide much information other than, hey, you won't see it all year. Doh! Plus, I've found many seasonal generalities to be unreliable for the local area compared to my actual observations; what does "spring" mean when we have blooms in January and birds from June to August that shouldn't be here in the "summer"? I think the best site for Monterey County is still Don Roberson's Creagrus (hummingbirds are shown around the middle of the page). Interesting to note, for the many, many birding organizations and sites out there, very few offer identifying pictures of birds online in any kind of findable manner. Most sites list checklists, tables, links to other equally uninformative sites, and/or (groan) how to pay them money in the form of membership, support, or guided field trips. I'm a little turned off to birding and bird people right now. I suspect the hobby of birding is an extremly lucrative business. Maybe I should rename this blog "The Grumpy Katie, listen to me rant"?

ps 10/05/10 - I should clarify that I was looking for online sites that had specific, local information (at least within this county), updated (not merely repeating outdated, published information that's been around for 30 years or more), and with actual photographs. There are a handful of "good" bird sites for all of North America or for areas not local to coastal, central California - see my online ID resources page at the top of Nature ID for the best birding links I've found.

Perhaps it's my arrogance and/or ignorance, but we have an incredible amount of diversity here in Monterey County that seems to be often overlooked. Even if I go to the ocean side of the peninsula (literally the other side of town) or 5 miles inland (where it can be 20 degrees warmer), I'll see a whole slew of life that I don't see at home half a block from the bay shore. I've had expectations to find a plethora of information specific to our unique area and have been very disappointed. I wonder if other people find this to be true where they live, too?

ps 01/22/11 - I found The Biology Refugia's recent blog post to be particularly interesting and relevant as I figure out how I feel about birding and birders.

young or female Anna's hummingbird
Calypte anna

Back to my regularly scheduled blog program...

Thanks goes out to Don Roberson who confirmed this ID for me. In the past week, the hummingbirds around home have been rather frisky with high speed chases and spectacular dives. Does this mean they're mating in September? For another link to info on the sound made by Anna's at the bottom of the dive, check out Cornell's All About Birds.

ps - I'm posting this 09/21/10 and yesterday morning I said "hello" to a couple local nature photographers (Greg and Peter). I see them regularly at the Coast Guard Pier during my morning walks when I never take my point-and-shoot... well, because my hands are full with 2 lb. weights (a subject for another post). So, anyways, they were snapping pics of a young black-crowned night heron. I felt silly, but I had to ask what kind of bird it was, because it was mottled light brown with funny greenish-yellow legs. I'm hoping they'll post their pics to share. I've finally accepted the fact that photography or birding simply isn't my thing (as evidenced in the pic above), but I sure do appreciate the patience and dedication others have.

granary tree of an acorn woodpecker
granary tree of a Melanerpes formicivorus

ps 12/05/10 - After considering Blue Jay Barrens recent post of woodpecker holes, I'm back-posting this with a quick embedded link above. The tightly packed holes shown above are very different looking than what Steve featured on his blog. I usually see several granary trees grouped together.

ps - 03/04/11 - I edited the above and removed the embedded links, because Steve removed his blog from public access. Interesting idea... Say, do you notice one trunk is totally hole-ridden and the one next to it looks basically intact?

male Anna's hummingbird
Calypte anna

I'll admit... I am totally making a guess as to species. I have many other hummingbird pics, but they're all just as fuzzy as this one.

ps 06/17/10 - For an interesting article on Anna's J-shaped dive and the resulting chirp, check out UC Berkeley News.

pss 09/21/10 - Given the red crown, I'm positive about this ID now.

mourning dove ~ 07/02/09 ~ at home

mourning dove on coast Douglas fir
Zenaida macroura on Pseudotsuga menziesii var. menziesii
Pinaceae

Funny, but I always thought of these as "morning" doves since I hear them calling in the mornings. While we see them regularly on telephone wires around town, this was the first time I saw one from our balcony perched in the tree.

California quail
Callipepla californica

Their behavior is so cute. I love seeing them, but they go for cover rather quickly.

ps 04/21/10 - Didn't I say many of my pics are fuzzy? Not that I care that much about aesthetics while hiking and simply wanting to document what I see. For an absolutely gorgeous shot of a male California quail, see John Wall's Natural California blog.