FIRST FIFTEEN
CENTRAL DEPRESSION BIRDS
To give you a feeling for the common birds here,
here's the list of the first ones I jot down as I randomly encounter them while exploring
my new location, beginning with a good one:
1) WHITE-TAILED KITE, atop a leafless
Cedro tree full of noisy Red-winged Blackbirds
2) RED-WINGED BLACKBIRDS, hundreds of them but very few showing red wing-patches,
only one uttering the pretty kong-ka-ree call
3) WHITE-WINGED DOVE, abundant, cooing all day long
4) INCA DOVE, abundant on dusty roads and cornfields
5) TURKEY VULTURE, common, circling all day
6) SOCIAL FLYCATCHER, several shrilly and monotonously repeating tcheea, tcheea,
tcheea all morning long
7) FERRUGINOUS PYGMY-OWL, monotonously calling with a pulsating whistle about
three whistles a second, easily imitated
8) HOUSE SPARROW, several around houses
9) WESTERN KINGBIRD, silent on electrical wire
10) PLAIN CHACHALACA, flock raucously calling at dawn
11) GOLDEN-FRONTED WOODPECKER, gorging marble-size figs in a dense, compact,
leathery-leafed tree
12) CLAY-COLORED THRUSH (Robin), doing same
13) WHITE-THROATED MAGPIE-JAY, four sailing in like Chinese kites to eat figs
with the above
14) BLUE-GRAY GNATCATCHER, buzzing, foraging tiny insects in feathery-leafed
acacia
15) CATTLE EGRET, among and atop grazing cattle
The only migrant winter-resident in the list is the Western Kingbird.
The most uncommon species is the first one sighted, the White-tailed Kite, ELANUS LEUCURUS
MAJUSCULUS which, though rare in most places, is extensively distributed from southern
Texas (disjunctly in California) to Nicaragua. It specializes in open country with
scattered trees, just likehere. In the big Cedro tree the mostly white kite with black
wing- patches posed like a silent, unmoving king above the swarming, noisy Red-winged
Blackbird hoards below him.
Definitely the most gorgeous bird in the list is the White-throated Magpie-Jay, whose
Latin name CALOCITTA FORMOSA says that it's a beautiful bird twice, in the roots
"calo" and "formosa." A magpie-jay is just a glorified jay. This
species is up to 22 inches long (56 cm) and glides through hot morning air with
breath-taking grace. The very long tail is one thing worth seeing, but the most
spectacular feature is the long, upside-down teardrop of a feather crowning the head like
a cocky French cavalier's ostrich plume. The species is distributed along the Pacific
Coast and a bit inland in places from southern Mexico to Costa Rica. I can't browse to
find you a picture to link to, but maybe you'll look up the name using a search engine.
You might enjoy reading my report, accompanied by a drawing, resulting from my encounter
with a Black- throated Magpie-Jay, either a close species or a subspecies of our
White-throated, in 1996, up north on the Pacific slope in the state of Chihuahua, at
http://www.backyardnature.net/mexbirds/05temori.htm. Scroll to about the middle of the
long page. |