3 Unexpected Visitors to the Apple Tree This Week

January 5, 2007 on 8:56 pm | In Daily Local Birder |

Greetings!

If you’ve been reading the Birding Sonoma County bird since our launch one month ago, you’ll have noticed that our Gravenstein apple tree is our special touchstone for observing the common winter birds that are in our neighborhood. The following birds have been daily diners at the birdfeeder we keep stocked with organic sunflower seeds:

White-crowned Sparrow
Red-breasted Sapsucker
Housefinch
American Goldfinch
California Towhee
Dark-eyed Junco
Oak Titmouse
Chestnut-backed Chickadee
Rufous-sided Towhee
Ruby-crowned Kinglet
Yellow-rumped Warbler

Though we never tire of watching the fascinating actions and interactions of these constant companions, we were very excited this week when not one, but three, unusual visitors appeared in the old, bare branches.

The first was the Varied Thrush. If you read our detailed Varied Thrush post a few weeks ago, you’ll know that this bird is rivaled only by the Northern Oriole for bold color in Sonoma County, and indeed, his incredibly intricate black/orange/grey/white feathers may be the most interesting of the two showy wild birds. As we wrote, we discovered a very large flock of Varied Thrushes in the eucalyptus grove and conifer forests of Jack London State Park in Glen Ellen. We think of these fowls as forest birds. But, this week, at least one of these sylvan creatures was passing through the open countryside and made a brief stop in our tree. He didn’t seem interested in the seeds, so it may simply be that all of the activity going on at our birdfeeder enticed him to fly in for a closer look at the commotion. What a treat to see him in our own backyard. The Varied Thrush, Ixoreus naevius, will only be with us in Sonoma County during the winter months, so now is the time to scan local trees for that incomparable flash of Hallowe’en hues.

Bird number 2 is a dear favorite of mine, whom I hope to devote a full post to at some point: the White-breasted Nuthatch. This is Sonoma County’s largest nuthatch and to us, he looks very like a miniature penguin hopping up and down tree trunks, seemingly free of the edicts of gravity. Note his excellently strong beak. The name nuthatch is resultant of this bird’s habit of wedging nuts in cracks of trees so that he can hammer the shells open with that wonderful beak. Again, this is a bird we typically see on the trunks of evergreen trees, but I do believe he was watching some of our other backyard birds getting seeds from the ‘trunk’ of our tube feeder and he actually pulled up a perch and treated himself to a snack. I wished he would stay all day, but either he didn’t care for the seeds, or he had better places to be, because his visit lasted only a few minutes. The White-breasted Nuthatch, Sita Carolinensis, measures approximately 5 3/4″ from beak to tail and is a year-round bird in Sonoma County.

A week or two ago, my husband and I caught a glimpse of a pair of Nuttall’s Woodpeckers around the corner from our house. Today, what I’m assuming was the male of this same pair was in the apple tree when I woke up. He was inspecting the many holes left by our resident Red-breasted Sapsucker and I greatly enjoyed his agile circumnavigation of the trunk and branches. Like the White-breasted Nuthatch, he can cling to the underside of horizontal branches with no danger of falling.

Note the beautiful black and white ladder-like markings all down his back. As a child, I had heard of the Ladder-backed Woodpecker, and growing up on a creek in Santa Rosa, I wrongly supposed that this must be the name of the bird that was frequently in my backyard. I know now that the Ladder-backed Woodpecker is not a Sonoma County bird, and that when I see a completely striped back on a black/white woodpecker, it’s Nuttall’s. The female lacks the red crown, but both birds have the wonderful facial stripes. Sonoma County residents are extremely fortunate to be living in the very slim region of the western United States where Nuttall’s Woodpeckers exist, and they are here year-round.

I was thinking the other day, my husband and I are only 2 birds away from reaching our first big goal of 100 birds on our birding lifelist. What will I do when I have seen all of the wild birds that are common in Sonoma County? Will I feel at a loose end…bored, even? Upon reflection, the answer came rather quickly back to me that, of course, I can never be bored birding here. Checking a name off a list is fun, but it is spending time with the birds that is the real source of joy for me. It is only with patient observation that some of the most interesting characteristics of birds are revealed, and then beyond this is the even more exciting goal of become acquainted with individual birds. The constant presence of the Red-breasted Sapsucker in my apple tree this winter has made me feel like I have found a friend I can count on. I’ve spent countless hours just watching him, now, and he no longer flies away when I approach his proud post in the tree. Basically, what I’m saying is that there is listing, and then there are many, many deeper levels and layers of birding to be explored and enjoyed, and I look forward to the years to come, in hopes that my understanding of wild birds will see a meaningful increase with the passage of time.