# Birds ## Swallow-tailed Kite Both times I've seen a Swallow-tailed Kite it was, true to its name, floating and zig-zagging across the sky like a kite. When it first caught me eye in Florida there was a split second where I thought, hey, who's flying a kite out here in the woods? And then I saw the tail and knew, despite never having seen one before, I knew that this was a Swallow-tailed Kite. They hang and drift, darting and looping around in the sky, spurred by something I have never seen. I didn't have time to grab my binoculars either time I've seen one, I just watched it swoop and glide over the trees and off beyond the horizon. The Swallow-tailed Kite a bird of high contrast, stark black and white with nothing else so that both seem to gleam when the sun catches it. The bill is so sharply hooked you notice it even a considerable distance below. Then there's the unmistakable tail. You'll never hear a birder wondering if something was a swallow-tailed kite. You'd be hard pressed to come up with a more distinctive, soaring shape. This is the most graceful, elegant looking bird I think I've ever seen. The Audubon app calls it "our most beautiful bird of prey, striking in its shape, its pattern, and its extraordinarily graceful flight." Even the usually demure Sibley guide calls it "extremely graceful" and suggests looking for it "swooping gracefully" above marshes and lakes. It also says there are only about 1,000 nesting pairs in the United States, which doesn't seem like many to me. The U.S. could use more gracefulness in its skies. ## American redstart American redstart is one of those head scratching names. For whatever reason, it's not called a warbler. Nevertheless, despite the name, it is a warbler, not, as the name would lead you to expect, a relative of old world redstarts. In fact, it has nothing whatsoever to do with old world redstarts. Not the only poorly named bird to be sure -- a red breasted woodpecker does not have a red breast, magnolia warblers almost never go near magnolia trees, etc, etc. Redstarts are fun birds to watch. They love to flutter, tail spread, wings seemingly in slow motion, they hover and chase after insects. They almost look more like oversized butterflies than birds. Even the coloring is reminiscent of a monarch. They tend to move more like flycatchers than warblers, which tend to hop and bounce around, rather than flutter and hover like redstarts. ## Barred Owl The owl came so fast and so big my brain couldn't put together a coherent thought about it until it was already well past me. But I did manage to follow the gray streak into the thicket of tangled beech and oak limbs and then, there it was, staring back at me with a look of indignation on its face. My eyes were so bleary I could hardly focus on it. There was no way I could identify it at first, the only thing I could see were it's huge eyes, and it's massiveness. I tried to focus and see if there were ear tuffs, but there were not. The only thing I could think of that was anywhere near a great horned owl's size and lived in this area was a Barred Owl. It was huge and gray, grayer than a Barred Owl should be, but then it was early morning, the light was bad and my eyes bleary. I'd only been awake about 4 minutes. I hadn't had so much as a sip of coffee and wasn't actually birding even, I was driving to do some birding when the birds started for me. I watched the owl for about five minutes, it watched me for the same. I've never had a bird return my gaze with so knowing a stare. It wasn't unpleasant, it felt curious in an offhand, vaguely irritated way. But it most definitely stared back the whole time. After a while a truck pulling a fishing boat topped the hill and the owl dove off the branch, flapped it's massive wings once and somehow glided expertly through the tangle of tree limbs until it disappeared deeper into the woods. I continued to watch the tree. I didn't even acknowledge the truck as it went by -- other people with the temerity to exist while I'm trying to stare down an owl don't get acknowledged. I climbed back in the car. As I drove off toward the meadow I was hoping would hold larks and prairie chickens and grouse, I started thinking about all the other owls that must have seen me over the past 18 months of living out in the woods, all the others that sat silent and watched me and I never knew it. Owls as largely invisible to us, writes ornithologist and writer Bernd Heinrich, talking about a barred owl he once studied. What Heinrich doesn't address is that we're not invisible to them. They're out there, watching everything, and every now and then you get to watch them back. ## Bobolink The one and only time I have seen a bobolink was on the Bobolink Trail at Harrington State Park in Wisconsin, on the shores of Lake Michigan. The trail went back, away from the lake, back up a hill through a grassy meadow that overlooked some pastures and fields that eventually stretched out to the sort of postcard-perfect farmland pastorals that Wisconsin has in spade in the summer time. There were plenty of red-winged blackbirds wheeling about over the fields, but for the first mile or so I did not see any sign of the eponymous birds. And then I caught a flash of black and white whipping by the corner of my eye as I was watching the blackbirds. Then came the curious the bubbling, tinkling sound that, to someone anyway, sounds like the bird is saying "bobolink". It sounded like nothing of the sort to me, but then most bird names make no sense anymore (however much sense they might have made when they were bestowed). I moved up the trail a bit and discovered a pair of bobolinks fluttering about in the tall grass restoration area, favoring, it seemed anyway, the taller, thicker stalks of plant that were capable of holding their weight without teetering in the breeze. I couldn't tell what they were eating, but they were busy hunting something in the grass below, insects I assume. There were only the two, which, according to Sibley, means they were probably nesting, otherwise they would likely have been in a flock. The male is unmistakable, the yellow on the back of its head is so unusual it's almost disconcerting. It looks almost like it's missing half its head and you're staring at its brain. It's a strange color pattern anyway. I'm not aware of any other bird with a two-tone head divided in the same place, regardless of color. I was birding with family in this case, so after staring long enough to be sure of what I had seen, one of the kids dragged me along, leaving the bobolinks and their strange yellow heads behind. Despite crossing many a pastoral, prairie grass field in our travels through Wisconsin and Michigan, I have never seen another bobolink. ## Scarlet Tanager We had a couple camps in Tennessee where Summer Tanagers were regular visitors, chirping away in the woods even if we couldn't see them. One day I was sitting outside, drinking coffee and trying to work, but really watching birds a bit more than working. I saw a red streak up in a tree. I'd been watching the Summer tanagers for days, I almost didn't grab my binoculars to look, but I'm a birder, no bird is every boring, so I did. And you know what? It was a Summer Tanager with black wings. Wait, that's not right. Not a Summer Tanager. A Scarlet Tanager, probably the most singularly striking bird I've ever seen. Not only did I get a new bird, but it was a good reminder from nature -- never assume, never make the mistake of thinking the world is what you think it is. It is, independent of you, though you are part of it. Pay attention and it will show itself. ## Summer Tanager Birding will make you a believer of patterns. It will teach you that there is no such thing as coincidence, just patterns you can't discern. There's a difference. For example, you go your whole life without seeing a bird, and then suddenly, you're in the right place at the right time and there it is. That in an of itself is remarkable and satisfying, but often that's not the end of the story, often that's just the point at which you step into some pattern that begins to repeat. Often, the next thing you know, you see that bird everywhere you go. That was my experience with the Summer Tanager. I was sitting out one evening at Watson Mill State Park when I heard a call I didn't recognize. It was already well into twilight and I had put away my binoculars for the day, but I went back inside the bus and grabbed them. I scanned the trees a bit and tried the walk toward the sound, but I didn't see anything. I kept walking up a little rise toward a big pine that was off by itself. Out of the corner of my eye I saw a red streak flash by. I dismissed it as a Cardinal, but then some pattern recognizing part of my brains said no, that's not quite right. So I tracked it and brought the binoculars to my eyes and sure enough, not a Cardinal, a Summer Tanager. It moved through pretty quickly, but I got a good enough look to identify it. Despite it being spring I did not see a female with it. Two night later we were several hundred miles west and north, at a campground on the Natchez Trace when I saw another flash of red that wasn't quite Cardinal like and once again it turned out to be a Summer Tanager. This time though there was a female around too. They chattered in the wood right around our camp, the kids got to see them. Later that night Corrinne and I were sitting by the fire when it flew right up into the tree above the fire and watched us for a good five minutes, seemingly impervious to the smoke rise up past it. It was watching the female gather twigs on the ground behind us, if we registered at all in its world we didn't mean much to it. ## Brown Thrasher Most birders want to see the exotic, the magnificent. I'm not different. I want to see a painted bunting. I want to see a Trogan. A Quetzal, a Lady Gouldian Finch, a bee-eater, and all the rest of the world's insanely colorful birds. But I also love the more familiar birds, the birds I see all the time. I like to say hello to them, to ask them how they are. I don't understand a word of what they say, but I like the sound and I assume they can't understand a word I say either, but perhaps they like the sound. Or maybe they think *what is that weirdo barking at me about*? The brown thrasher isn't necessarily a looker, but they sure can sing when they're in the mood. I sat out one evening behind the bus listening to a brown thrasher sing for the better part of an hour. I'm pretty sure that in that time it never completely repeated a phrase of its song. Some of the time I watched it through binoculars, studying at the way the short brown and white featherers around its throat rise and fall with the melody line it sang. The bird sat at the very tip of a dead branch a couple of meters up, not far from my head. Every now and then he would stop and focus his beady black eye to regard me with a look that implied some suspicion, what was I up to? Had I paid my ticket to hear the show? It was the first day we were back in Georgia. Fifteen months of travel and we were right back where we started in a deciduous forest, mixed oak, beech, pecan and other hardwoods with clumps of pines here and there. Just beyond the campground there was a small reservoir, perfect habitat for red headed woodpeckers, one of my favorite birds. But it was not the woodpeckers that ended up impressing me that evening, it was the Brown Thrasher. The kids had a hard time falling asleep that night. It was our first long driving day in well over a month and they had not had a chance to get their energy out. In between getting glasses of water and patting backs to get them to sleep, I sat outside and listened to the thrasher. Occasionally he'd be joined by a nearby Carolina Warbler, but nothing, not even the cawing of crows or the short, sharp chip of cardinals, seemed to deter or influence his song in any way. Olivia asked me at one point, what are all those birds singing? Not birds I said, bird. One thrasher singing away until the light faded and it roosted down for the night. ## Violet Crowned hummingbird The white stands out against the green and brown tangle of Bamboo. Even without the darting erratic and eye catching movement, even without the striking red bill, even without the iridescent violet namesake atop its head, the white alone is enough to know a Violet Crowned hummingbird is in the courtyard. I see it in the mornings when I sit outside, drinking coffee, making notes about the previous day. I see it in the afternoon, passing by the upstairs window, I catch the white belly in the corner of my eye and stop, pulling back the drapes the housekeeper always pulls shut so I can once again see the outside world. The Violet Crowned hummingbird is sitting there, perched on a leaf of bamboo, barely bending it, seemingly regarding me just as the house sparrows and rock doves do throughout the day. They linger, the Violet Crowned does not. He hovers, perhaps snatching insects, I've never been able to tell, though there are very few flowers in the courtyard so if he's here for food it must be meat. Is it the same bird? A different bird each day? For the first month I never saw a hummingbird anywhere near here, then one day, there was the while belly flitting in the bamboo. Every day after that he came back. Something here he liked, I suspect it was not me though I could not shake the feeling he was watching me. Hummingbirds are more than birds in Mexico. They are omens, gods, creatures of the old world. Further south in Peru, out on the Nazca plain, there is an image of a hummingbird so large it's only recognizable from many hundreds of feet in the air, which has proved puzzling to everyone since since there's no way to get several thousand feet in the air and actually see the hummingbird. the hummingbird is 93 m (305 ft) long It seems safe to assume that the creators had completely different ways of looking at the world, literally and figuratively, if may be so bold. And yet they too celebrate the hummingbird. in southern Peru, ancient artists carved out an image of a hummingbird so large that it can only be recognized at about 1,000 feet in the air. These people recognized the sacredness of nature. They understood the magnitude of these tiny gifts, which are unique to the New World. Frida painting with hummingbird necklace (Chilam Balam of Chumayel). reference andrea. --- https://vivirmexicohermoso.wordpress.com/2015/12/09/the-hummingbird-in-mexican-culture/ Hummingbird has different names in Mexico depending on the region quindes, tucusitos, picaflores, chupamirtos, chuparrosas, huichichiquis, or by name in indigenous languages: huitzilli Nahuatl, Mayan x ts’unu’um, Tzunún in huasteco or Jun in Totonac, among others. The Aztecs or Mexica, recognized hummingbirds as brave and courageous fighters. It was admired because, despite its size, showed great strength and power to fly. Its beauty, color and accuracy were highly prized qualities besides. Notably, the Aztecs believed that this bird never died, and was the symbol * Huitzilopochtli, the god of war. In the Zapotec culture, it was in charge of drinking the blood of the sacrifices. * Huitzilopochtli was usually translated as ‘left-handed hummingbird “or” Southern Hummingbird’, although there is disagreement around the meaning since the Opochtli ‘left’ is not modified and the modifier to be right, so the translation literal would be ‘left Hummingbird’ In the Book of Chilam Balam of Chumayel “it is called the hummingbird as a referral from a Nahuatl name, Pizlimtec, which comes from Piltzintecuhtli, Sun Young (name also Xochipilli, Aztec goddess of music, song, flowers and plants hallucinogenic), and presented himself as the father of the sun of today’s universe, it generates when it had to restructure the earth after a cosmic cataclysm. This coincides with the Popol Vuh, where the sun of today appears after the creation of men corn (De la Garza, 1995) ” --- http://www.hummingbirdworld.com/h/native_american.htm On the Nazca plain in southern Peru, ancient artists carved out an image of a hummingbird so large that it can only be recognized at about 1,000 feet in the air. These people recognized the sacredness of nature. They understood the magnitude of these tiny gifts, which are unique to the New World. This massive image can't be far from the place where, in primordial times, the first hummingbird opened its eyes to the pale light of dawn. In Peru and other South American countries, at or near the equator, there is an amazing variety of hummingbirds. Probably all of them have not been discovered yet. We know of over 300. There is a common folk belief in Mexico that hummingbirds bring love and romance. In ancient times, stuffed hummingbirds were worn as lucky charms to bring success in matters of the heart. There is a legend from Mexico about a Taroscan Indian woman who was taught how to weave beautiful baskets by a grateful hummingbird to whom she had given sugar water during a drought. These baskets are now used in Day of the Dead Festivals. A Mayan legend says the hummingbird is actually the sun in disguise, and he is trying to court a beautiful woman, who is the moon. Another Mayan legend says the first two hummingbirds were created from the small feather scraps left over from the construction of other birds. The god who made the hummers was so pleased he had an elaborate wedding ceremony for them. First butterflies marked out a room, then flower petals fell on the ground to make a carpet; spiders spun webs to make a bridal pathway, then the sun sent down rays which caused the tiny groom to glow with dazzling reds and greens. The wedding guests noticed that whenever he turned away from the sun, he became drab again like the original gray feathers from which he was made. A third Mayan legend speaks of a hummingbird piercing the the tongue of ancient kings. When the blood was poured on sacred scrolls and burned, divine ancestors appeared in the smoke. In Central America, the Aztecs decorated their ceremonial cloaks with hummingbird feathers. The chieftains wore hummingbird earrings. Aztec priests had staves decorated with hummingbird feathers. They used these to suck evil out of people who had been cursed by sorcerers. An Aztec myth tells of a valiant warrior named Huitzil, who led them to a new homeland, then helped them defend it. This famous hero's full name was Huitzilopochtli, which means "hummingbird from the left." The "left" is the deep south, the location of the spirit world. The woman who gave birth to Huitzil was Coatlicul. She conceived him from a ball of feathers that fell from the sky. Huitzil wore a helmet shaped like a giant hummingbird. At a key moment in an important battle, Huitzil was killed. His body vanished and a green-backed hummingbird whirred up from the spot where he had fallen to inspire his followers to go on to victory. After Huitzil's death, he became a god. The Aztecs came to believe that every warrior slain in battle rose to the sky and orbited the sun for four years. Then they became hummingbirds. In the afterlife these transformed heroes fed on the flowers in the gardens of paradise, while engaging from time to time in mock battles to sharpen their skills. At night the hummingbird angels became soldiers again and followed Huitzil, fighting off the powers of the darkness, restoring warmth and light. As dawn broke, the hummingbirds went into a frenzy. The sun rewarded them for this by giving them a radiant sheen. In an Aztec ritual dancers formed a circle and sang a song which included these words: "I am the Shining One, bird, warrior and wizard." At the end of the ritual young men lifted young girls helping them to fly like hummingbirds. There is another Aztec legend which says the god of music and poetry took the form of a hummingbird and descended into the underworld to make love with a goddess, who then gave birth to the first flower. grape_1.gif (1301 bytes) One of the widespread beliefs is that hummingbirds, in some way, are messengers between words. As such they help shamans keep nature and spirit in balance. The Cochti have a story about ancient people who lost faith in the Great Mother. In anger, she deprived them of rain for four years. The people noticed that the only creature who thrived during this drought was Hummingbird. When they studies his habits, the shamans learned that Hummingbird had a secret passageway to the underworld. Periodically, he went there to gather honey. Further study revealed that this doorway was open to Hummingbird alone because he had never lost faith in the Great Mother. This information inspired the people to regain faith. After that the Great Mother took care of them. --- This good-sized hummingbird was not found nesting in the U.S. until 1959. It is now uncommon but regular in summer in a few sites in southeastern Arizona and extreme southwestern New Mexico. In places where flowers are not abundant, the Violet-crowned Hummingbird may be discovered flying about or hovering in the shady middle levels of tall trees, catching small insects in flight. Mostly nectar and insects. Takes nectar from flowers, and eats many small insects as well. Will also feed on sugar-water mixtures in hummingbird feeders. Distinguished from all other North American hummingbirds by its immaculate white underparts, iridescent bluish-violet crown, and red bill, the Violet-crowned Hummingbird reaches the northern end of its range in southeastern Arizona and southwestern New Mexico. There, it nests almost exclusively in the Arizona sycamore tree (Platanus wrightii), which, in the United States, is limited to the riparian zones of the arid Southwest. In Mexico, this hummingbird's range extends down the Pacific slope from Sonora through Jalisco to northwestern Oaxaca and in the interior Madrean Highlands from western Chihuahua south through Durango to Oaxaca. Within its Mexican range, it inhabits arid to semiarid scrub, thorn forests, riparian and oak woodlands, and parks and gardens. Fairly common in Mexico, it is uncommon and local in the United States. It is most easily identified by its white under plumage and iridescent bluish-violet crown (from where it gets its name). The back is emerald green. The tail is dark brown / olive green. ## Yellow Warbler Every campsite we stay in tends to have one or two species in abundance, birds that are around all day, regularly, and then the rest of the species tend to be passing through, sometimes very regularly, where we're camped as I type this there's a pair of black-throated green warblers that stop by every morning and evening at almost precisely 7AM and 7PM. At our campsite at Harrington Beach State Park the two regulars were yellow warblers and cedar waxwings. The yellow warblers were heard more than seen, though I did see them a good bit. Unlike most warblers the yellows would sit still long enough for me to photograph them (I have only manual focus lenses so fidgety, hoppy birds like warblers are generally impossible for me to photograph). All day every day though they were in the bushes singing. According to my Audubon guide it's usually easy to find the nests. I did not look for any, though I have no doubt they were around if for no other reason than there was an abundance of cowbirds around and yellow warbler nests are a favorite of cowbirds. Still it's the song that sticks out to me with the yellow warbler, the melodic, high-pitched, *sweet-sweet-sweet, sweeter-than-sweet* at all hours of the day and, up here, where it doesn't get dark until 11PM right now, well into what I could call night.