Songbirds of the West: Personal Encounters

By Roland H. Wauer and Greg Lasley

Songbirds of the West includes more than four dozen songbirds that occur within the western United States. The majority are found in America’s western National Parks, especially in parks where the author worked for more than a quarter of a century. Big Bend National Park is where he encountered Black-capped and Gray Vireos, Vermilion Flycatchers, Curve-billed and Crissal Thrashers, Hepatic and Summer Tanagers, and Black-vented, Hooded and Scott’s Orioles.
Black-billed Magpies were encountered at Great Sand Dunes, Clark’s Nutcrackers at Crater Lake, Cave Swallows at Carlsbad Caverns, Cactus Wrens at Saguaro, Phainopeplas at Organ Pipe, Steller’s and Gray Jays at Yellowstone, Black-throated Gray Warblers at Mesa Verde, Townsend’s Solitaires at Timpanogos Cave, and Canyon and Rock Wrens at Zion. Great Kiskadees, Green Jays, and Altamira Orioles were encountered in the Lower Rio Grande Valley of Texas.
The discussion of each bird is based on the author’s personal encounters. These range from casual observations to scientific studies which were undertaken in both the U.S. and Mexico; still others involved visits to the West Indies. The bird’s life history, behavior and status are included.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Xlibris US
• Release date: Jul 24, 2019
• ISBN: 9781796046977

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Copyright © 2019 by Roland H. Wauer. 798331

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, or by any information storage and retrieval system, without permission in writing from the copyright owner.

The views expressed in this work are solely those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the views of the publisher, and the publisher hereby disclaims any responsibility for them.

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ISBN:    Softcover        978-1-7960-4698-4

    Hardcover        978-1-7960-4699-1

    EBook        978-1-7960-4697-7

Library of Congress Control Number:        2019910002

Rev. date: 07/24/2019

CONTENTS

Songbird Families and Representative Species in AOU Order

Introduction

Tyrant Flycatchers (Family Tyrannidae)

Great Kiskadee

Say’s Phoebe

Black Phoebe

Vermilion Flycatcher

Crows, Jays and allies (Family Corvidae)

Black-billed and Yellow-billed Magpies

Steller’s and Gray Jays

Clark’s Nutcracker

Blackbirds (Family Icteridae)

Bullock’s, Black-vented, Orchard, Hooded, Altamira, and Audubon’s Orioles

Fringilline and Cardueline Finches (Family Fringillidae)

House, Cassin’s, and Purple Finches

Painted, Indigo, Lazuli, and Varied Buntings

Emberizids/American Sparrows (Famiy Enberizidae)

Black-throated Sparrow

Cardinals and Allies (Family Cardinalidae)

Pyrrhuloxia

Tanagers (Family Thraupidae)

Western, Hepatic, and Summer Tanagers

Swallows (Family Hirunidinidae)

Cliff and Cave Swallows

Silky-Flycatchers (Family Pitogonatidae)

Phainopepla

Vireos (Family Vireonidae)

Black-capped and Gray Vireos

Wood Warblers (Family Parulidae)

Black-throated Gray Warbler

Wrens (Family Troglodytidae)

Cactus Wren

Bewick’s Wren

Mockingbirds and Thrashers (Family Mimidae)

Curve-billed, Crissal, California, LeConte’s, Brown, and Long-billed Thrashers

Long-tailed Tits (Family Aegithalidae)

Bushtit

Penduline Tits (Family Renizidae)

Verdin

Gnatcatchers (Family Sylividae)

Blue-gray and Black-tailed Gnatcatchers

Thrushes (Family Turdidae)

Townsend’s Solitaire

Western, Mountain, and Eastern Bluebirds

References

INTRODUCTION

The bond between birds and man is older than recorded history. Birds have always been an integral part of human culture: a symbol of the affinity between mankind and the rest of the natural world, in religion, in folklore, in magic, in art – from early cave paintings to the albatross that haunted Coleridge’s Ancient Mariner. Scientists today recognize them as pure indicators of the health of the environment. – Paul Brooks

I grew up in the West, in Idaho, within visual distance of the Grand Tetons in Wyoming. The Tetons was my earliest love! But birds became a second love that I was to claim the rest of my life. My spark bird was a robin that I killed with my bow and arrow when I was about 14 years old. On retrieving my arrow, I held that limp ball of bloody feathers that only seconds before had been a wonderful, living creature, representing a bird that I had seen and listened to many times before. With that one thoughtless action I had destroyed that vision. I felt ashamed! It was from that moment on that I evolved into a life-long birder. And perhaps, that incident also triggered an appreciation for all nature.

My second bird memory of note was watching ospreys at Jenny Lake in Grand Teton National Park. What an amazing bird! Since then I have had numerous additional osprey encounters all over North America; each one reminds me of that glorious day at Jenny Lake.

Much later, while working at Big Bend National Park, I became intrigued with that park’s signature bird, the Colima warbler. I spent considerable time studying Colimas; my observations eventually were published in scientific papers and also were included in Wild Critters I Have Known, an earlier volume to this book.

I have been extremely fortunate to have worked and\or lived in many of the finest national parks in the West: Bandelier, Big Bend, Crater Lake, Death Valley, Pinnacles, and Zion. And all during those years, I spent as much time as possible watching and recording birds. The results included two park-specific bird books, on Big Bend and Zion, and numerous articles in popular magazines and scientific journals. Birds have been a significant part of my entire life.

In later writings, following Wild Critters I have Known and a follow-up book titled Bighorn, Pelicans and Wild Turkeys, I included several of the birds that I had encountered over the years. They included (alphabetically): crested caracara; sandhill and whooping cranes; American dipper; mourning dove; bald eagle; scissor-tailed flycatcher; Harris’s, red-tailed and white-tailed hawks; buff-bellied hummingbird; American kestrel; green and belted kingfishers; green and Mexican jays; common and lesser nighthawks; osprey; barn, burrowing and great horned owls; brown and white pelicans; scaled quail; peregrine; ferruginous pygmy-owl; common raven; greater roadrunner; American robin; loggerhead shrike; black and white-throated swifts; wild turkey; black and turkey vultures; Colima warbler; acorn woodpecker; and canyon, Carolina, and rock wrens.

With the exception of the canyon, Carolina and rock wrens, Colima warbler, common raven, green and Mexican jays, robins, shrikes, and scissor-tailed flycatcher, none have been songbirds. And yet, I have had personal encounters with many, many additional songbirds. Some of those are now included in this volume, Songbirds of the West. In decided which species to include, since there are so many that occur throughout North America, I decided to include only those limited, or primarily so, to the western half of the country.

The western songbirds chosen, more or less in taxonomic order, as per the AOU [American Ornithological Union], include great kiskadee; Say’s and black phoebes; vermilion flycatcher; black-billed and yellow-billed magpies; Steller’s and gray jays; Clark’s nutcracker; Bullock’s, black-vented, orchard, hooded, Scott’s, Altamira, and Audubon’s orioles; house, Cassin’s, and purple finches; painted, indigo, lazuli, and varied buntings; black-throated sparrow; pyrrhuloxia; western, hepatic, and summer tanagers; cliff and cave swallows; phainopepla; black-capped and gray vireos; black-throated gray warbler; cactus wren; Bewick’s wren; curve-billed, crissal, California, LeConte’s, brown, and long-billed thrashers; bushtit; verdin; blue-gray and black-tailed gnatcatchers; Townsend’s solitaire; and western, mountain, and eastern bluebirds.

Also, I am fortunate to be able to include some marvelous photographs of the majority of the songbird species included. Those images were kindly provided by Greg Lasley, a good friend and excellent photographer. His help is very much appreciated!

GREAT KISKADEE

This is a tropical flycatcher that is found in the United States only in the Lower Rio Grande Valley of Texas. It is one of those Valley species that birders travel many miles to see. And what an amazing bird it is! Large for a flycatcher, the great kiskadee is more than nine inches in length, almost twice the size of the Empidonax flycatchers. But its contrasting plumage pattern and vocalizations are what makes this bird so very special.

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The great kiskadee is distinctively marked with a russet back and tail, bright yellow chest and belly, and a head pattern with a white collar, wide russet band that runs from the bill through the eyes, and a russet cap. And if that isn’t enough, its call is a slow but loud and deliberate kis-ka-dee, with emphasis on the kis and dee. It also gives a loud kreath call. Its name is obviously derived from its very distinct kis-ka-dee call.

Kent Rylander, in The Behavior of Texas Birds, added that its call is a "rapid, staccato, notes that rise in pitch. Song: a series of high notes (rendered as pit it it) followed by higher trills, usually sung at dawn."

Although the great kiskadee is found in the United States primarily along the Mexican border in south Texas, its range extends south through Mexico all the way to Argentina. It is most common in the Atlantic and Pacific lowlands; it is not a bird of the tropical highlands.

The majority of my encounters with this flycatcher has principally been in the Lower Rio Grande Valley of Texas. During the many years that I was able to camp at Bentsen-Rio Grande State Park, dawn calls of great kiskadees and plain chachalacas awoke me every morning. Although several other birds, including Altamira orioles and olive sparrows, that joined the dawn chorus, kiskadee and chachalaca calls were the loudest. A similar experience was repeated on each camping trip into Mexico. I wrote about the dawn chorus at Rancho Nuevo in Birder’s Mexico, thusly:

The loudest of the bird songs was coming from a thicket where a spot-breasted wren repeated its song over and over again…Off to the right was the drawn-out who whoo of a red-billed pigeon, and I could hear another a hundred yards ahead to the left. Plain chachalacas, at least four individuals, were also calling somewhere beyond. Two brown jays were screeching in the trees just ahead. An olive sparrow sang from some shrubs a few yards to the left…a ferruginous pygmy-owl added its repetitive single-noted whistle to the chorus. I also detected at least three masked tityras and a golden-fronted woodpecker calling from the same general area. The distinct call of a tufted titmouse, fairly close, was almost overlooked. Further off to the left I detected an elegant trogon…And about three hundred feet ahead, a great kiskadee joined in the dawn chorus.

I recall a similar morning along the Rio Cihuatán that runs between the Mexican states of Jalisco and Colima. Once a gallery forest, the streamsides were little more than scattered patches of what was once a significant habitat for a whole array of birds. I wrote about that morning in Birder’s Mexico:

We found a citreoline trogon in a small patch of trees surprisingly close to the main highway. And we found a ferruginous pygmy-owl perched on a small acacia, and being mobbed by a number of other birds. Included in this party were social and vermilion flycatchers, a pair of thick-billed kingbirds, and a great kiskadee.

All those flycatchers were diving and screaming at the lone pygmy-owl. But I was most impressed by the kiskadee that seemed to dominate the mobbing process. It made dive after dive at the pygmy-owl, even scrapping it’s back once or twice. Most of the times the pygmy-owl ducked just in time. It finally decided that enough was enough and it made a fast retreat into a nearby brushy area. The kiskadee followed it, screaming at it in kiskadee fashion, until the pygmy-owl was firmly hidden within the brush.

Early mornings in the tropics are like nowhere else. Bird songs are by far the dominant sounds. The dawn chorus may last for as little as twenty minutes or for more than an hour, depending upon the time of year and weather. Some birds sing their territorial song only during this brief period of the day, although they may call or sing other less expressive songs at various other times of day. Most bird songs are different than their calls. To hear the greatest number of bird songs at their peak, one must be out early to experience the dawn chorus.

Tropical naturalist William Beebe provided his impressions of the great kiskadee when he wrote: The kiskadee has nothing of delicacy or dainty grace. It is beautiful in rufous wings and brilliant yellow under plumage, it is regal with a crown of black, white, and orange…It is the harbinger of the dawn, but so it is an alarm clock.

One of the most extensive discussions of the kiskadee’s life history and behavior is by Timothy Brush in Nesting Birds of a Tropical Frontier; it includes all of the nesting birds known in the Lower Rio Grande Valley of Texas. Brush wrote that It is fun to watch Great Kiskadees at any time of year. Whether gleaning fruit in flight, chasing off a grackle or cowbird that comes too close to the nest, or making a shallow dive into the water to capture a fish or aquatic insect, kiskadees are always doing something interesting.

Brush also mentions kiskadee nests: Nests are large football-shaped domes, usually placed securely in a tree fork or wedged between a transformer and wooden telephone pole. Nests built among smaller branches of the outer canopy sometimes are pulled apart by strong winds, a regular condition in the Valley.

And Rylander stated that nests are usually buried in dense foliage, a large, bulky structure that is oval or football-shaped, with an entrance on the side. Incubation and parental behavior are poorly known, but both parents vigorously defend the nest against intruders.

I can attest to their vigorous defense of a nest. On finding a kiskadee nest along the entrance road to Santa Ana National Wildlife Refuge, and while trying to photograph that pair of nest-building kiskadees, I was attacked time and again by both birds. I remember being surprised by their loud cries at each dive that continued until I moved elsewhere; one individual even followed me for a hundred feet or more, chastising me for my intrusion.

Later