Woodpeckers – Bird Noetz

Jeepers! Honey Creepers

Leaving the present, and terrible, international situation for a bit. Thinking of more pleasant things….

For us, going to the tropics has been out of the question for the past two years-like a lot of people, I guess. Darn pandemic! We’ve certainly missed those evening breezes coming off the Caribbean, and the smells of Latin-American food being cooked down the beach somewhere. One night, in desperation, we even watched that Jeff Bridges movie from the 80’s, the one shot at Isla Mujeres and Tulum. We ordered in Mexican food, drank a few bottles of Sol, and had fun picking holes in the plot. Still, it’s not quite the same.

At least, I can rummage through my pictures of tropical birds. These are from Costa Rica, from the Cloud Forest at Monte Verde. The more observant reader might notice that not all images are of birds. Well, any port in a mountaintop storm.

On that trip, V and I spent a few nights at a lodge near the Cloud Forest Reserve. Our driver, on his first run ever, checked google maps, and picked what was likely the worst road in the region to get us there. When we arrived an hour or so after the regular van, we were as well-shaken as a protein drink. Later on, we took a (guided) jungle walk at night, which came complete with tarantulas, little rivers of Leaf-cutter Ants, a ghostly Olingo high in the trees, and sleeping Trogons.

The next night was so windy that we thought the roof of our bungalow was going to blow off. At dinnertime, we huddled in our puffer jackets eating pasta and drinking Red Tapir Ale, thinking fondly of the beach we’d left behind at Playa Hermosa. Our birding tour of the Cloud Forest almost didn’t happen-the guide being afraid that jungle trees might fall on us. In spite of rain and wind, however,we ventured out and ‘got’ our ‘target birds – the Resplendent Quetzal and one of the loudest birds in the world, the Three-Wattled Bellbird (hard to see, but easy to hear).

Cloud Forest Night

Augarten, Vienna

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Augarten Park, Vienna

I’m up early hoping to pick up a few Vienna birds before Augarten Park wakes up. The preschool isn’t yet open and early morning joggers are few. Likewise, the porcelain manufactory in Augarten Palace (established in the 18th century) is still closed. So is its pleasant cafe, which is too bad. You can buy a teacup in the shop for 500 euro (sans tea) here if that’s your thing.

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Flak Tower

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The formal lanes of trees can confuse a newcomer so I use the enormous World War Two flak towers looming over the western side of the gardens as reference points. The entrance to the street or ‘gasse’ we’re staying on is in the opposite direction. Hard to believe now that this area was subject to heavy fighting in 1945 when die-hard Nazis fought the Russians for these massive reinforced concrete anti-aircraft fortresses. You can still see bullet holes and shell craters on the upper levels. Nowadays, the towers provide vantage points for the occasional Peregrine Falcon but little else I think. No Peregrines today, which means birds in the formal gardens might be active. Nothing quietens bird life so much as a cruising falcon with the afterburners on. The park’s many Hooded Crows, cocky and self-assured, don’t seem bothered by much. I fancy they’d treat the rumour of a raptor with studied disdain.

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Hooded Crow

European Blackbird

In the cool of early morning I saw few birds and then only briefly but as the sun climbs higher more appear. Even so, an unseasonably warm October has helped trees keep their leaves and their avian residents are hard to spot — noisy but invisible. They have to get hungry and at last they do. A pair of busy Nuthatches investigate a crack in the trunk of a mighty oak. Nearby a squad of European Blackbirds work a patch of shrubbery. A European Robin appears. I still call them English Robins, because my English parents did. Cute little guys — the robins, I mean, not my parents. No relation to our Robins, these birds. Ours are thrushes and kinfolk to European Blackbirds, also thrushes. The Europeans are a kind of flycatcher.

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European Robin

It gets busier as the morning chill lifts. Great Tit fly across the gravelled lanes as they move between forest patches. And there are Blue Tit here too. Related to out Chickadees, they’re busy, hanging from branches and picking up insects lurking on the undersides of leaves. I see several Green Woodpeckers but these large birds vanish into the treetops before I can get a picture. A Great Spotted Woodpecker is more cooperative. This bird makes a guest appearance in the movie ‘The Big Year’ – a non-migratory European bird in western North America. Well, stranger things have happened. And then its time to go, a Viennese coffee and yet another Sacher Torte await. Yes, you can eat Sacher Torte for breakfast.

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Nuthatch

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Great Spotted Woodpecker

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Blue Tit

Madera Canyon: February 2018

I didn’t expect the Coatis. A troop has discovered the bird feeders at Santa Rita Lodge in Madera Canyon. Big ones, little ones. I’m here with my brother Steve, who flew down from Ontario for some Arizona birding. I know Coatimundis from my zoo days decades past. Mischievous, rubber-nosed, ring-tailed bandits, very engaging. Lots of personality. I still remember them lying on their backs, lapping eggs out of the shell, grunting at each other, recalling some caper or other. All those years ago. Seeing them again makes me wonder how ground-nesting birds manage to hatch out chicks at all. Is it possible to avoid the ever-searching, wiffling noses? Me, I think of them as old friends.

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Coatimundi

Early morning and the viewing chairs are already taken. Popular spot this. One of the best feeding stations anywhere, maintained by the kind folks at Santa Rita Lodge, supported hopefully by donations that help buy the enormous amounts of feed needed to constantly replenish the feeders. The Coatis won’t be welcome here, not those appetites on four legs.

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Pine Siskins

They don’t seem to bother these birds. A Rufous-crowned Sparrow in a tangle of dead wood. Rufous-winged Sparrows, Lesser Goldfinches, Siskins, Mexican Jays, Dark-eyed Juncos and a beautiful Yellow-eyed Junco work the feeders. A bright Hepatic Tanager puts in a brief appearance, its place on a half orange grabbed immediately by a clown-faced Acorn Woodpecker. An Arizona Woodpecker, a life bird for me, shows up. Lovely – with its chocolate-brown mantle. We hoped for a Painted Redstart on the trails but kept missing the bird everybody else seemed to see. A Red-naped Sapsucker posing photogenically eases our disappointment.

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