A GARDEN FOR THE BIRDS
By Steve Brigham
A garden, of course, is so much more than plants -- it's animals too! And many of the most enjoyable animals in any garden are our little feathered friends. If you are a bird-lover, then San Diego County is the place to be, for just like our wild plants, we have more kinds of wild birds here than any other county in the U.S.A. Many of these birds are at home in our gardens, and whether they just visit for a few months a year or stay all year long, they are all great workers as well as great entertainment! From large hawks to tiny hummingbirds, each species is unique and special -- and they will feel at home at your home if you provide the things they like best for food, water, and shelter. Your birds will reward you with many great garden moments as you get to know each one, they'll fill your garden with beautiful songs, and they'll even keep your garden free of pests! Although I've spent a lot of time over the years studying plants, I've never really studied the technical aspects of birds too much, and so this essay is quite definitely from a layman's, not an expert point of view. But I do know that some of my best friends have feathers! And I do know a few things that they like...
Give Them What They Need...Some birds are strictly at home in the wild, and seldom venture into gardens. But particularly if you've got a large garden near a wild area, you'll find a lot of birds that will be happy to live with you. Even if you've got a small garden in the city or suburbs, there are many wonderful types of birds that will visit you if you give them what they need. The goal for your garden should be the most types of birds possible, and that means catering to many different lifestyles and preferences. The more diverse your habitat is, the more likely you'll accommodate a wide variety of birds -- and that means you need to grow lots of different kinds of plants!You'll find that each type of bird (and each individual bird as well) has its own particular needs -- favorite perches and nesting places are important, and so of course are food and water. Shelter is a big factor in their lives, and there are lots of birds that simply need trees to live -- and the bigger the trees, the better! Any property with lots of trees is going to have lots of birds. But shrubs are important, too, since many of our native birds are chaparral dwellers and prefer the cover of shrubs. During breeding season, each type of bird has its favorite type place to nest -- some are surprisingly adaptable, while others are quite specific. Once again, the more kinds of plants you grow, the more birds you'll please.
Another major factor is food. Knowing what each bird's favorite food is and taking steps to provide it will go a long way towards making lots of new friends! Although you can feed some kinds of birds with either bird seed or nectar at bird-feeding stations (this is commendable and will attract many individual birds to your garden as long as you are consistent with your service), most wild bird species have more-specialized dietary requirements. A well-planted garden, however, can provide the "natural" foods like special types of seed, nectar, berries, bugs, worms, and even rodents and lizards -- enough to please nearly every bird on your list. (If the food isn't there, the birds won't be, either!)
A third important requirement is water, which most irrigated gardens will naturally provide. Many of our wild birds don't drink huge quantities of water and can usually get what they need from the moisture on the plant leaves after irrigation, but other birds need more. Particularly in the summer, garden fountains and birdbaths are very important as a water source for many types of birds, but remember to keep the water fresh and shallow, since most garden birds can't swim!
And They'll Work For You!Some birds are strictly vegetarian, and there are some that are strictly meat-eaters. Like humans, however, most birds are a little bit of both. In the garden as well as in the wild, though, there are many types of birds that do us a great service just by eating their dinner! If it weren't for our friends such as hawks, owls, and roadrunners, we would be much more inundated with mice, rats, gophers, and ground squirrels than we already are! And if it weren't for the many, many birds everywhere that eat so many, many insects, we'd be inundated with bugs, too! And so apart from their beauty and song, there are a number of kinds of birds that we should accommodate in our gardens for the work they do as well. So let's look at them first.
Rodent ControlRodents can be a problem in any garden -- some years moreso than others. One natural and effective solution is cats, but the problem for some of us (myself included) is that because of the presence of coyotes, we can't let the cats out at "mouse time", which is from dusk to dawn. Although the coyotes themselves are pretty good at rodent control, a few of our larger birds are fantastic at it! If you've got gophers, or any other rodents for that matter, you should consider installing the Barn Owl nest boxes advertised on page XX of this newsletter (where you'll read that just one Barn Owl can kill up to 1,000 rodents each year!) Barn Owls are beautiful brown and white (males) or brown and tan (females) nocturnal birds with heart-shaped faces and a cute little screechy call at night. Unlike other owls, they prefer to both sleep and nest in a nesting structure such as the boxes sold. All you have to do is give this owl a home, and it will work for free! Another owl that is a great mouser is the Great Horned Owl, a giant brown owl with distinctive "ear tufts", a classic "hooting" call at night, and that famous "wise old owl" look. By day, this owl roosts in large trees, and by night it hunts for rodents -- like other owls, with the aid of its exceptional sense of hearing. The Great Horned Owl is perhaps the most majestic bird in my garden, and it is a real thrill to hear a pair of them calling to each other in the early morning hours. One thing you won't hear, however, is them flying -- all owls have extra-fluffy feathers make their flight practically silent, allowing them to ambush their prey from above.
Another able hunter and quite majestic in its own right is the Red-shouldered Hawk. Not quite as big as the Great Horned Owl, it takes over the rodent-control duties during the day, when the owls are sleeping. A brown and yellowish-tan bird with dark piercing eyes, it hunts from a high perch such as a tree, telephone pole, or telephone wire with the aid of its exceptional eyesight (even from a great distance, when you see a hawk staring at you, it can probably count the freckles on your face!) Red-shouldered hawks nest in high up in tall trees, and will often pick the tallest tree around to call home and return to it each year at breeding season (which is a good reason to grow tall trees). Although they mate for life, they're solitary birds when they're not breeding, and occupy distinct territories. With their relatively long tail feathers, they are more maneuverable than the larger Red-tailed Hawk, and so are more at-home in a garden with many large trees. The Red-shouldered Hawk is a loud, proud bird with an unmistakable high-pitched call, and is most effective in catching any rodent, including mice, gophers, and ground squirrels.
A third wild bird that helps us with rodent control is very different from the hawks and owls. It is the Greater Roadrunner (beep-beep!), a unique ground-dwelling member of the Cuckoo Family that thrives in our chaparral and visits nearby gardens as well. It's a fairly big brown-and-white-streaked bird with a long tail that diligently patrols a large territory on foot, although it can fly into a tree if it has to. Just like in the cartoons, the Roadrunner is always on the move -- it spends its day scooting along for a few yards, then stooping and looking, then scooting along another few yards. When it finds a lizard, a rodent, or even a snake, the battle is on -- and the Roadrunner usually wins! During mating season, you'll hear it make an impressive song of dove-like "cooing" notes. The Roadrunner is truly a special bird that may even be "friendly" (actually, it's just being curious) to you -- and all you have to do to enjoy it is live near its native chaparral and have a nice garden with lots of its favorite food!
Many of the most enjoyable animals in any garden are our little feathered friends. Although I'm not an "expert" on birds, I have gotten to know some of them pretty well over the years, at least from a layman's point of view. And so here's the second in this series on birds in our gardens.
PART TWO:The "Bug Squad"Don't get me wrong -- I've got nothing against bugs. So many of them are so beneficial to us in so many ways, and all are part of our ecosystem. But if it weren't for some key species of birds in our gardens, there would just be too many bugs! And that's why (in addition to their obvious cuteness) our feathery friends on the "Bug Squad" are so important!
Like humans, some birds are strictly vegetarian, some are mostly meat-eaters, and many are a little of both. Birds also have enormous appetites (the term "eat like a bird" is not very accurate) -- pound for pound, we'd have to eat 20 times what we usually do to match what some birds can eat in a day! Most carnivorous birds get their meat from "bugs" (I use this term here from the birds' perspective -- meaning anything that flies or crawls that they can manage to eat, including insects, worms, grubs, etc.) Some birds catch 'em in the air and some get 'em on the ground -- but whichever method they specialize in, they are all very good at what they do (and with their appetites they really eat a lot of bugs!)
No Bug Is Safe!Of the birds that catch 'em in the air, my favorite is the Black Phoebe. This is a charming 6" (total length, including tail feathers) black and white flycatcher that is a master at catching flying insects. It loves to perch on sprinkler heads, fences, or wires and dart into the air after an insect, which is quickly dispatched with a loud snap of the beak. The Black Phoebe has a cute call, and a cute habit of always flicking its tail when it makes its sharp one-syllable tsee -- loud enough perhaps to startle insects within range and make them take flight, which is an effective method that some birds use to hunt. Another very entertaining Flycatcher is Cassin's Kingbird, an 8" gray and yellow bird with black wings. These always seem to hang out in pairs on telephone wires (what did birds do before telephone wires?!), and are great airborne bug catchers. Colorful and comical, they call to each other all day with a loud chi-BEW (maybe celebrating each bug they've caught!)
The Voice Of The ChaparralNot all of the birds in the Bug Squad hunt from perches, and there are even some that hunt at night. One summer night a number of years ago, I first heard what sounded like a broken cuckoo clock in the native chaparral adjoining our garden. It just kept going and going. I knew that most birds went to sleep when it got dark, but was there actually a bird besides the owl and the occasional mockingbird that stayed up all night? Well, there is, and it's a charter member of the Bug Squad. The Common Poorwill is one of those birds you hear but seldom see. It calls a loud repeating poor-WILL, poor-WILL, poor-WILL that pierces the silence of the night. This 7" brown and grey nightjar is a "little-beaked bird", which like the more-familiar Swallows opens its mouth in flight and "vacuums" up bugs as it goes. The Common Poorwill is a ground dweller that is so well-camouflaged it is almost impossible to spot as it sits motionless in a patch of dirt at dusk -- but if you wait, you might see it suddenly pop into the air to catch a bug, then return to its spot.
Although the Common Poorwill may own the night, there is another bird that during the day anyway has earned the title "Voice Of The Chapparal", and it visits in the garden as well. This is the Wrentit, which is a little grey-brown bird that is likewise often heard but seldom seen. The male's loud piercing call is heard year-round and is distinctive -- it begins with a series of accelerating notes, then runs into a descending trill -- PIT, PIT, PIT, tr-r-r-r-r-r-r-r-r-r... It is a real joy to hear this bird sing, and also to see if you can see it!
One final chaparral dweller that sometimes visits us in the garden is also a singer, but often a shy one. The California Thrasher is a fairly large brown bird (12" long, including its long tail feathers) that has a long curved beak which it uses to dig for bugs. Thrashers are really kind of comical as they "thrash around" with their beaks, tossing aside sticks, leaves, and mulch as they go -- and in late summer and fall when there's not much food left in the chaparral, they often come into the garden and are rather tame. A member of the Mockingbird Family, the the Thrasher can imitate other birds and sounds when it sings, but unlike mockingbirds is a little shy about performing.
Hunting TechniquesIn the never-ending search for bugs, there are a number of effective hunting techniques that birds use. And speaking of mockingbirds, have you ever seen one hunt for bugs? Famous for its virtuoso singing performances, the Mockingbird has white patches on its wings and tail feathers that it flashes in courtship and territorial displays. But I have also seen mockingbirds hopping along the ground stop and extend their wings, then pick up a bug. By flashing those patches of white underneath their wings, it is thought that they actually can startle insects or worms into movement, making them easier to catch (sounds unusual, but it works for them!).
Another hunting technique that I've mentioned as used by the Black Phoebe is the "loud noise technique". This is also used by our friendly California Towhee, a medium-sized brown bird that is common in gardens as well as in the chaparral. The Towhee is a cheerful little bird that hops along the ground looking for bugs. Every so often, it emits a high-pitched cheep! that can startle bugs into movement and even bring worms to the soil surface. The Towhee also digs for bugs like the Thrasher does, but lacking a long beak does so with its feet in kind of a backwards hop, thereby moving leaves and mulch around and effectively uncovering dinner.
Wrens are charming little garden birds that busy, brave, and make a lot of chatter despite their tiny size. They will search anywhere for bugs -- including spider webs, which is a hunting secret shared by a few other small birds (including hummingbirds) that are maneuverable enough to do so. (With so many birds using their webs as "grocery stores", it's no wonder that many spiders spin a new web every day!)If you ever see a large flock of really tiny little grayish-brown birds in your garden (they're almost as small as hummingbirds) that are peeping up a storm, then you're probably seeing Bushtits. These are about the cutest birds imaginable, and they always travel in big groups. This in itself is an effective hunting technique, for if one bird moves ahead and finds some bugs it will tell the others. Because they feel safe in numbers, the Bushtits are rather fearless and will twitter all around you if you remain fairly still. They are very focused on their relentless examination of every single plant for bugs, and they often find bugs too small for us to notice. When you see a flock of Bushtits busy in your garden, you can bet that they're ridding your plants of aphids and the like, and you should thank them for this valuable service!
Finally, no discussion of bug-eating birds would be complete without mentioning the Woodpeckers. Entertaining and extremely specialized, they do their "shopping" in the trees, either by peeling bark away or actually drilling holes to find the bugs within. Woodpeckers even have specialized neck muscles and brain padding that prevents them from getting headaches! Our noisy and colonial Acorn Woodpecker has developed an entire culture based upon our native Oak Trees -- in the fall, they harvest and store acorns in trees so they can continue to eat them all winter. But they eat bugs, too -- and one of the reasons they store their acorns in trees is that they're actually "farming" native grubs that mature inside the harvested acorns (when the grubs emerge from the acorns, they're history!)
They Work For FreeAll the members of the "Bug Squad" do a great service to us by keeping insect populations in check. They are also just plain cute and fun to watch and live with. Although it would be nice to give them something in return, it's pretty difficult to feed them bugs! But you can help them simply by providing as complete an ecosystem as possible, with lots of different trees and shrubs. Big, old trees are essential for the happy life of so many kinds of birds, and so mature trees must be preserved and cared for at any cost. Other birds need our native chaparral vegetation, which also must always be preserved and may even be successfully imitated in the garden through the use of chaparral-type plants from around the world. By carefully observing and getting to know the birds in your garden, you'll realize that each one has its favorite foods, perches, routines, etc. -- never forget that they depend on you to maintain the quality of their habitat!
PART THREE:
Many of the most enjoyable animals in any garden are our little feathered friends. Although I'm not an "expert" on birds, I have gotten to know some of them pretty well over the years, at least from a layman's point of view. And so here's the third installment in this series on birds in our gardens. This month we'll take an in-depth look at a few of my favorite and most entertaining seasonal visitors to my garden -- each with its own time of year here -- and the plants they're most attracted to.
Here For The WinterIt's mid-August as I write this, just about time for my summer vacation. We're going to the mountains of Northern California this year, so maybe we'll see one of my favorite birds, the Cedar Waxwing. These stylish medium-sized birds are a beautiful blend of yellow, brown, and black with silky feathers and an aerodynamic crest that gives them a "fancy-hairstyle" look. In the summer and fall, they live and breed far north of here, feeding mainly on berries, which is their favorite food. But even if we didn't travel north this summer, we'll see the waxwings anyway before long, since in the winter they're going to visit us!
It seems amazing for just a 7" bird, but the Cedar Waxwings actually can travel over 2000 miles a year between their summer and winter homes in their relentless pursuit of ripening berries and comfortable temperatures. And although their traditional favorite foods have been native berries, in the past 20 years or so they have notably expanded their menu and their travelling to include the fruits of cultivated plants and gardens they never visited before. I never saw Cedar Waxwings in my garden until about ten years ago, when one winter day a flock of them showed up here for the first time. But they've returned every winter since then, and it isn't hard to figure out why. In the front of our property is a large old Indian Laurel Fig (Ficus retusa) which shades our house. In the wintertime and into spring, it is loaded with thousands of 1/2" purple figs -- and hungry Waxwings! This flock of about 50 birds spends each day perching in a nearby (conveniently deciduous) Pecan tree and flying back and forth to eat our figs. They just never get tired of eating figs -- each bird must eat 100 figs (or more) a day! (So many birds enjoy our Laurel Fig -- it's really a great tree to grow if you like birds!)
When the Waxwings are feeding in winter, they are both gregarious and noisy, with a high-pitched wheee from each bird blending into an entertaining chorus. By springtime, you can tell they're getting ready to travel, since the flock becomes even more cohesive and group flying practice begins. This is when they really start putting down the chow, and in between berries the entire group will fly together as one big fast-moving cloud. Then one day, they're gone -- headed north on their own summer vacation!
Here For The SummerOne of our most beautiful birds of all is a resident of tropical Mexico in the winter and travels to San Diego for the summer. Not too long after the Waxwings leave, we'll see the first flash of yellow from the Hooded Oriole, which like the Waxwings is expanding its range into gardens that have its favorite plants. Like the Waxwings, the Orioles were not always in my garden, but once they found it several years ago, they kept coming back each year. Our Hooded Orioles are bright yellow 8" birds with grey wings, further distinguished by a dark black "hood" on the head of the male birds. Happy in small family groups, they are the earliest birds to wake up and the last ones to go to sleep -- busy birds that punctuate their activities with an entertaining chatter of whistles, trills, and rattles all day long. Being tropical in nature, they love palm trees (fan palms especially) and other big-leaved plants -- and that's why they love my garden. You see, the Orioles don't come here each summer just for vacation, they come to have babies, too -- and big leaves are what they like for their elaborate hanging nests. These birds are master weavers, and build beautiful woven baskets of straw-colored fibers that are often attached to the underside of either palm or banana leaves. This provides great protection for the nest from rain (we know it doesn't rain much here in the summer, but the orioles don't take any chances!) and actually camouflages the nest quite well (you often won't know an oriole nest is even there until you hear the babies!).
Of course, the Hooded Orioles have to eat, too -- and so any garden that they choose to live in has to offer regular meals. Orioles will eat bugs, but what they really like is nectar. You can actually buy oriole feeders, which work like hummingbird feeders but are specially constructed for these larger birds (some orioles may learn to use hummingbird feeders, too, but this is largely a rather clumsy if comical affair!). In my garden, however, the orioles are quite happy with the nectar they get from the flowers of two large trees -- first the Weeping Bottlebrush (Callistemon viminalis) and then later in the summer the Natal Coral Tree (Erythrina humeana). Like the Waxwings, the orioles depend on their special food plants -- and if you plant these plants (and have some fan palms), the orioles will be happy to spend their summers in your garden, too!
Singing In The SpringSince they travel such long distances between their summer and winter homes, both the Waxwings and the Orioles breed later in the year than most of our birds. The time of the year when the most bird action occurs in our gardens is, of course, Spring. This is the breeding season for most of our birds -- and that means plenty of beautiful songs and courtship displays. No garden is complete without songbirds, and we have some great ones in San Diego County.
Some types of birds are very quiet, while other types are either talking or singing all the time. All birds in the garden typically have two different types of sounds that they make -- unique sounds that distinguish different species and may be used to identify them. A call is like talking and may be heard year 'round -- usually a simple sound that is used for day-to-day communication. A song, however, is frequently more complex and is used to establish territory and as a courtship display during breeding season -- in some species, songs are repeated over and over and over when it's time to sing. While all birds' songs are special, there are a few that really stand out to our ears because of their very melodious nature. Two examples of common garden birds that are famous for their complex songs are the Song Sparrow and the Mockingbird, both virtuosi in their own right. And if you're lucky enough to live near some undisturbed open grassland, you may be privileged to hear the beautiful music of the Western Meadowlark. In my spring garden though, there are two other birds that are my favorites for really singing their hearts out -- without them, it just wouldn't be spring!
The Common Yellowthroat is a beautiful 5" yellow bird with a bold black mask on the male somewhat like the Hooded Oriole. (Oddly enough, our local races of both the Hooded Oriole and Common Yellowthroat have the brightest yellow coloring of any variant in their respective species). You might even mistake the Yellowthroat for an oriole, but orioles are not here in early spring and no oriole ever sounded like this! The Yellowthroat is a bird I heard many times before I ever saw it, because of its habit of moving quickly from tree to tree. Its song is a loud ascending wichity-wichity-wichity-wich! spiral melody which carries a long distance as it echoes throughout the garden. Once it gets going, this bird does not stop -- all spring long. And then suddenly one day it's gone -- but they always come back each spring to sing again!
The champion singer as far as I'm concerned, however, is also the champion of being heard but seldom seen. This is a well-camouflaged 7" brown bird with cute white rings around its eyes that is normally shy and quiet. But when it comes time in the spring to sing, it really lets loose for a few weeks with a haunting song that echoes through the trees in such a way that it is often difficult to pinpoint exactly where the bird is. This master of song is the Swainson's Thrush, which favors moist woods and is at the southern end of its range here, and for the past several years it has decided that my garden is moist and woodsy enough for at least a seasonal home. The song of the Swainson's Thrush is remarkable -- a melodious whistling ascending spiral of notes that sounds like it is coming from every direction at once. Once you've heard it, you'll never forget it -- reason in itself for having the type of woodland garden that this bird enjoys!
Feeding In The FallSo many enjoyable birds are attracted to large trees -- where they're concerned it is true to say that "if you build a forest, they will come". But even if you don't have a forest, there are many birds that will be happy to dine at bird feeders, which is a great way to enjoy birds in any size garden. Fall is a good time to provide extra food and water for our feathered friends, and they will thank you just by being their cute little selves.
PART FOUR:
Our Autumn All-Star
Throughout this series on the wild birds in our gardens, a common theme has been that the birds are full of surprises. Just when you think you know a lot about a particular bird, you'll see a new behavior or hear a new song you've never heard before. Last month, I mentioned a few of my favorite (springtime) songbirds - and wouldn't you know it, within days after I had submitted my column there was a new virtuoso in the autumn garden with a command performance that was really impressive! Somewhere in the trees was a bird with a complex, ever-changing series of imitative songs that sounded like a Mockingbird - but was it? You'll have to go back to Part Two of this essay to remember the California Thrasher, a 12" brown chaparral-dweller who was introduced as a member of "The Bug Squad". I mentioned then that as a member of the Mockingbird family, the Thrasher can imitate a wide variety of sounds when it sings, but was usually a little shy about it (at least I'd never heard it sing much in my garden before). Well, not this year and not this Thrasher! At a time of year when there's not much singing going on, we've been serenaded every day since with a wonderful series of bird impressions that would make Rich Little proud! Because the Thrasher is larger than a Mockingbird, its vocal range is deeper and more resonant - and this particular bird sings even better than most Thrashers do. What a joy our "Caruso" has been - a great example of one of the most enjoyable aspects of garden birding, which is getting to know each individual bird in your garden as a unique person!
Feeding The Birds
There is no better way to see a lot of garden birds on a regular basis than to put out some bird seed - and to paraphrase a famous line, "if you feed them, they will come". Although not all birds eat seeds, a whole lot of them do, and many of these birds are quite friendly. Before long, you'll have a host of regular customers at your bird feeder and you'll be getting to know each one very well - so much so that you'll want to expand your seed menu to attract still more types of birds.
A basic wild bird seed mix is a good place to start, and the first visitors to your bird feeder will likely be finches and sparrows -- cute little brown birds with strong conical beaks that are tailor-made for seed-eating. These include the House Finch, the Song Sparrow, and if you live in the city probably also the introduced House Sparrow (also called the English Sparrow). All of these birds are gregarious, and will often crowd into a feeder without fear in entertaining fashion. Not all birds will be in your feeder, though, since a lot of action will also take place on the ground where such birds as the California Towhee, California Quail, and Mourning Dove will be busy eating all the seeds that fall to the ground. When you're ready to get fancier with your menu, you'll want to try more exotic fare such as flax seed, which will draw in a more-sophisticated crowd of natives such as the Lesser Goldfinch, an extremely cute little yellow and tan bird which seems to laugh its way through life with a wonderful series of chirps and whistles. If you've got a good menu, you just never know who's going to show up next -- once you really get going with your bird feeder, you're liable to see many new and different visitors at different times of year, and you'll be getting out your bird book on a regular basis to figure out who they are!
The main thing to remember about bird feeders is to always keep them full of fresh seed. Erratic feeding will only disappoint your customers, and you don't want to do that. Placement of the feeder is important, too - birds like to have things to perch on near the feeder (in case there is a waiting line, for example), but they also like a reasonably open spot so they don't have to worry about being ambushed by a predator while they're eating. Water is vitally important as well, and so a shallow birdbath nearby is a must. Once they become regular customers, most birds can eat a phenomenal amount of seeds every day - can you imagine how thirsty you'd get if you ate that many seeds? So remember to keep that water fresh every day, too!
Hooray For Hummers!
Probably our most popular birds are also our tiniest, and we are very lucky to live where they do. These are the hummingbirds - remarkable and captivating little birds that are notable for their bright colors and unique hovering flight. In San Diego County, we have two types of year 'round resident hummingbirds, the most common of which is the highly territorial Anna's Hummingbird (these are the ones that don't like to share the hummingbird feeder with anyone). Somewhat less "hyper" is the Costa's Hummingbird, the males of which have bright violet patches on the head and throat (as opposed to the Anna's rose-red). Other seasonal visitors include the Allen's Hummingbird and Black-chinned Hummingbird, which spend their winters far south of here. Hummingbirds do eat tiny bugs (which they catch in mid-air or sometimes grab from spider webs), but spend most of their time drinking nectar from flowers (and hummingbird feeders). If you have a hummingbird feeder, it is important to keep it clean and filled with fresh sugar solution (I use one part sugar to five parts water), for there is nothing quite so sad as the look on a hummingbird's face when it visits an empty feeder. Of course, hummingbirds are very capable at finding their own food, and that's where gardens play such an important role.
Imagine San Diego County as it was long, long ago - a completely natural place, undeveloped by humans and covered only in native plants. Hummingbirds were around in those days too, but since there's only so much nectar in the chaparral there probably weren't nearly as many of them as there are now. In today's world of gardens and flowers, the hummingbirds have prospered greatly, and the more nectar plants we plant the happier they'll be. What plants do hummingbirds like? Well, maybe the easier question is what plants don't they like, for they seem to like almost every flower that they see, from Abutilon to Zauschneria. But they do like some flowers more than others.
What's For Dinner?
As you might expect, just about any flower that hummingbirds naturally feed on in Central and South America are great nectar sources. Even some of our hummers live way down in Mexico for part of the year (don't ask me how such tiny birds fly so far, but they do), and when they see their favorite wild plants in our gardens they are very happy. A big group of favorites is Salvia, and right there you've got hundreds of different hummingbird-pleasers. Other New World plants that are very good include most varieties of Cuphea, Penstemon, Iochroma, Cestrum, Russelia, Fuchsia, Duranta, Ruellia, and Erythrina, just to name a few. The surprise, though, is that our hummingbirds also love many plants in our gardens that are not native to any hummingbird's natural range - in fact, these are some of their favorite plants of all. The South African Cape Honeysuckle (Tecomaria capensis) and Lion's Tail (Leonotis leonurus) are good examples - even though no hummingbird lives naturally within thousands of miles of these plants in nature, they are great hummingbird plants in our gardens (probably because they are similar enough to certain New World plants that the hummingbirds really do see them as their own).
Let's Try Something New!
Way back in the 1970's when I worked at the University of California, Santa Cruz Arboretum, we began importing what quickly became the largest collection of Australian plants outside of their native land. Featured in this collection were hundreds of varieties of Grevillea, which are shrubby members of the Protea Family. As they grew up and came into bloom for the first time, our many native hummingbirds were curious - for none of them had ever seen grevillea flowers before. Although the hummingbirds were attracted to these exotic flowers, at first they couldn't quite figure out how to get much nectar from them. But they kept trying, and gradually they did figure it out - and they told their friends! Within a year, hummingbirds from miles around were flocking to our grevillea collection as if it were the world's largest hummingbird feeder. It turns out that once they get to know them, our hummingbirds like grevilleas the best of all, even though in nature they live on opposite sides of the world!
In San Diego County, we can grow not just natives, and not just plants from the Americas, but a full range of flowering plants from all over the world that feed our tiny friends every month of the year. In my garden, we do have hummingbird feeders, but most of the time the hummers are so busy with their flowers that they hardly use them. In their minds, at least, we're the best restaurant in town - and your garden can be the same if you plant all of their favorite plants!
For More Information On Birds…
So many birds, so little time! Garden birding is so much fun and so rewarding - once you really "get into it", you'll never stop. If you like wild birds, there's a store just for you that you need to visit. It's called Wild Birds Unlimited, they've got everything a garden birder could want, and are a great source of information. They're in Carlsbad - call them for directions at (760) 720-1906. Of course, you'll need a bird identification book, and there a number of good ones. The one I use is the National Geographic Field Guide to the Birds of North America, but look at them all and decide which one you like best. Finally, the Internet (as always) is also a great place to visit for more information. You might want to start with Scott Streit's site at <http://www.bird-friends.com>, which features photos and songs of many of our San Diego County wild birds and is very nicely done.
By Steve Brigham
A garden, of course, is so much more than plants -- it's animals too! And many of the most enjoyable animals in any garden are our little feathered friends. If you are a bird-lover, then San Diego County is the place to be, for just like our wild plants, we have more kinds of wild birds here than any other county in the U.S.A. Many of these birds are at home in our gardens, and whether they just visit for a few months a year or stay all year long, they are all great workers as well as great entertainment! From large hawks to tiny hummingbirds, each species is unique and special -- and they will feel at home at your home if you provide the things they like best for food, water, and shelter. Your birds will reward you with many great garden moments as you get to know each one, they'll fill your garden with beautiful songs, and they'll even keep your garden free of pests! Although I've spent a lot of time over the years studying plants, I've never really studied the technical aspects of birds too much, and so this essay is quite definitely from a layman's, not an expert point of view. But I do know that some of my best friends have feathers! And I do know a few things that they like...
Give Them What They Need...Some birds are strictly at home in the wild, and seldom venture into gardens. But particularly if you've got a large garden near a wild area, you'll find a lot of birds that will be happy to live with you. Even if you've got a small garden in the city or suburbs, there are many wonderful types of birds that will visit you if you give them what they need. The goal for your garden should be the most types of birds possible, and that means catering to many different lifestyles and preferences. The more diverse your habitat is, the more likely you'll accommodate a wide variety of birds -- and that means you need to grow lots of different kinds of plants!You'll find that each type of bird (and each individual bird as well) has its own particular needs -- favorite perches and nesting places are important, and so of course are food and water. Shelter is a big factor in their lives, and there are lots of birds that simply need trees to live -- and the bigger the trees, the better! Any property with lots of trees is going to have lots of birds. But shrubs are important, too, since many of our native birds are chaparral dwellers and prefer the cover of shrubs. During breeding season, each type of bird has its favorite type place to nest -- some are surprisingly adaptable, while others are quite specific. Once again, the more kinds of plants you grow, the more birds you'll please.
Another major factor is food. Knowing what each bird's favorite food is and taking steps to provide it will go a long way towards making lots of new friends! Although you can feed some kinds of birds with either bird seed or nectar at bird-feeding stations (this is commendable and will attract many individual birds to your garden as long as you are consistent with your service), most wild bird species have more-specialized dietary requirements. A well-planted garden, however, can provide the "natural" foods like special types of seed, nectar, berries, bugs, worms, and even rodents and lizards -- enough to please nearly every bird on your list. (If the food isn't there, the birds won't be, either!)
A third important requirement is water, which most irrigated gardens will naturally provide. Many of our wild birds don't drink huge quantities of water and can usually get what they need from the moisture on the plant leaves after irrigation, but other birds need more. Particularly in the summer, garden fountains and birdbaths are very important as a water source for many types of birds, but remember to keep the water fresh and shallow, since most garden birds can't swim!
And They'll Work For You!Some birds are strictly vegetarian, and there are some that are strictly meat-eaters. Like humans, however, most birds are a little bit of both. In the garden as well as in the wild, though, there are many types of birds that do us a great service just by eating their dinner! If it weren't for our friends such as hawks, owls, and roadrunners, we would be much more inundated with mice, rats, gophers, and ground squirrels than we already are! And if it weren't for the many, many birds everywhere that eat so many, many insects, we'd be inundated with bugs, too! And so apart from their beauty and song, there are a number of kinds of birds that we should accommodate in our gardens for the work they do as well. So let's look at them first.
Rodent ControlRodents can be a problem in any garden -- some years moreso than others. One natural and effective solution is cats, but the problem for some of us (myself included) is that because of the presence of coyotes, we can't let the cats out at "mouse time", which is from dusk to dawn. Although the coyotes themselves are pretty good at rodent control, a few of our larger birds are fantastic at it! If you've got gophers, or any other rodents for that matter, you should consider installing the Barn Owl nest boxes advertised on page XX of this newsletter (where you'll read that just one Barn Owl can kill up to 1,000 rodents each year!) Barn Owls are beautiful brown and white (males) or brown and tan (females) nocturnal birds with heart-shaped faces and a cute little screechy call at night. Unlike other owls, they prefer to both sleep and nest in a nesting structure such as the boxes sold. All you have to do is give this owl a home, and it will work for free! Another owl that is a great mouser is the Great Horned Owl, a giant brown owl with distinctive "ear tufts", a classic "hooting" call at night, and that famous "wise old owl" look. By day, this owl roosts in large trees, and by night it hunts for rodents -- like other owls, with the aid of its exceptional sense of hearing. The Great Horned Owl is perhaps the most majestic bird in my garden, and it is a real thrill to hear a pair of them calling to each other in the early morning hours. One thing you won't hear, however, is them flying -- all owls have extra-fluffy feathers make their flight practically silent, allowing them to ambush their prey from above.
Another able hunter and quite majestic in its own right is the Red-shouldered Hawk. Not quite as big as the Great Horned Owl, it takes over the rodent-control duties during the day, when the owls are sleeping. A brown and yellowish-tan bird with dark piercing eyes, it hunts from a high perch such as a tree, telephone pole, or telephone wire with the aid of its exceptional eyesight (even from a great distance, when you see a hawk staring at you, it can probably count the freckles on your face!) Red-shouldered hawks nest in high up in tall trees, and will often pick the tallest tree around to call home and return to it each year at breeding season (which is a good reason to grow tall trees). Although they mate for life, they're solitary birds when they're not breeding, and occupy distinct territories. With their relatively long tail feathers, they are more maneuverable than the larger Red-tailed Hawk, and so are more at-home in a garden with many large trees. The Red-shouldered Hawk is a loud, proud bird with an unmistakable high-pitched call, and is most effective in catching any rodent, including mice, gophers, and ground squirrels.
A third wild bird that helps us with rodent control is very different from the hawks and owls. It is the Greater Roadrunner (beep-beep!), a unique ground-dwelling member of the Cuckoo Family that thrives in our chaparral and visits nearby gardens as well. It's a fairly big brown-and-white-streaked bird with a long tail that diligently patrols a large territory on foot, although it can fly into a tree if it has to. Just like in the cartoons, the Roadrunner is always on the move -- it spends its day scooting along for a few yards, then stooping and looking, then scooting along another few yards. When it finds a lizard, a rodent, or even a snake, the battle is on -- and the Roadrunner usually wins! During mating season, you'll hear it make an impressive song of dove-like "cooing" notes. The Roadrunner is truly a special bird that may even be "friendly" (actually, it's just being curious) to you -- and all you have to do to enjoy it is live near its native chaparral and have a nice garden with lots of its favorite food!
Many of the most enjoyable animals in any garden are our little feathered friends. Although I'm not an "expert" on birds, I have gotten to know some of them pretty well over the years, at least from a layman's point of view. And so here's the second in this series on birds in our gardens.
PART TWO:The "Bug Squad"Don't get me wrong -- I've got nothing against bugs. So many of them are so beneficial to us in so many ways, and all are part of our ecosystem. But if it weren't for some key species of birds in our gardens, there would just be too many bugs! And that's why (in addition to their obvious cuteness) our feathery friends on the "Bug Squad" are so important!
Like humans, some birds are strictly vegetarian, some are mostly meat-eaters, and many are a little of both. Birds also have enormous appetites (the term "eat like a bird" is not very accurate) -- pound for pound, we'd have to eat 20 times what we usually do to match what some birds can eat in a day! Most carnivorous birds get their meat from "bugs" (I use this term here from the birds' perspective -- meaning anything that flies or crawls that they can manage to eat, including insects, worms, grubs, etc.) Some birds catch 'em in the air and some get 'em on the ground -- but whichever method they specialize in, they are all very good at what they do (and with their appetites they really eat a lot of bugs!)
No Bug Is Safe!Of the birds that catch 'em in the air, my favorite is the Black Phoebe. This is a charming 6" (total length, including tail feathers) black and white flycatcher that is a master at catching flying insects. It loves to perch on sprinkler heads, fences, or wires and dart into the air after an insect, which is quickly dispatched with a loud snap of the beak. The Black Phoebe has a cute call, and a cute habit of always flicking its tail when it makes its sharp one-syllable tsee -- loud enough perhaps to startle insects within range and make them take flight, which is an effective method that some birds use to hunt. Another very entertaining Flycatcher is Cassin's Kingbird, an 8" gray and yellow bird with black wings. These always seem to hang out in pairs on telephone wires (what did birds do before telephone wires?!), and are great airborne bug catchers. Colorful and comical, they call to each other all day with a loud chi-BEW (maybe celebrating each bug they've caught!)
The Voice Of The ChaparralNot all of the birds in the Bug Squad hunt from perches, and there are even some that hunt at night. One summer night a number of years ago, I first heard what sounded like a broken cuckoo clock in the native chaparral adjoining our garden. It just kept going and going. I knew that most birds went to sleep when it got dark, but was there actually a bird besides the owl and the occasional mockingbird that stayed up all night? Well, there is, and it's a charter member of the Bug Squad. The Common Poorwill is one of those birds you hear but seldom see. It calls a loud repeating poor-WILL, poor-WILL, poor-WILL that pierces the silence of the night. This 7" brown and grey nightjar is a "little-beaked bird", which like the more-familiar Swallows opens its mouth in flight and "vacuums" up bugs as it goes. The Common Poorwill is a ground dweller that is so well-camouflaged it is almost impossible to spot as it sits motionless in a patch of dirt at dusk -- but if you wait, you might see it suddenly pop into the air to catch a bug, then return to its spot.
Although the Common Poorwill may own the night, there is another bird that during the day anyway has earned the title "Voice Of The Chapparal", and it visits in the garden as well. This is the Wrentit, which is a little grey-brown bird that is likewise often heard but seldom seen. The male's loud piercing call is heard year-round and is distinctive -- it begins with a series of accelerating notes, then runs into a descending trill -- PIT, PIT, PIT, tr-r-r-r-r-r-r-r-r-r... It is a real joy to hear this bird sing, and also to see if you can see it!
One final chaparral dweller that sometimes visits us in the garden is also a singer, but often a shy one. The California Thrasher is a fairly large brown bird (12" long, including its long tail feathers) that has a long curved beak which it uses to dig for bugs. Thrashers are really kind of comical as they "thrash around" with their beaks, tossing aside sticks, leaves, and mulch as they go -- and in late summer and fall when there's not much food left in the chaparral, they often come into the garden and are rather tame. A member of the Mockingbird Family, the the Thrasher can imitate other birds and sounds when it sings, but unlike mockingbirds is a little shy about performing.
Hunting TechniquesIn the never-ending search for bugs, there are a number of effective hunting techniques that birds use. And speaking of mockingbirds, have you ever seen one hunt for bugs? Famous for its virtuoso singing performances, the Mockingbird has white patches on its wings and tail feathers that it flashes in courtship and territorial displays. But I have also seen mockingbirds hopping along the ground stop and extend their wings, then pick up a bug. By flashing those patches of white underneath their wings, it is thought that they actually can startle insects or worms into movement, making them easier to catch (sounds unusual, but it works for them!).
Another hunting technique that I've mentioned as used by the Black Phoebe is the "loud noise technique". This is also used by our friendly California Towhee, a medium-sized brown bird that is common in gardens as well as in the chaparral. The Towhee is a cheerful little bird that hops along the ground looking for bugs. Every so often, it emits a high-pitched cheep! that can startle bugs into movement and even bring worms to the soil surface. The Towhee also digs for bugs like the Thrasher does, but lacking a long beak does so with its feet in kind of a backwards hop, thereby moving leaves and mulch around and effectively uncovering dinner.
Wrens are charming little garden birds that busy, brave, and make a lot of chatter despite their tiny size. They will search anywhere for bugs -- including spider webs, which is a hunting secret shared by a few other small birds (including hummingbirds) that are maneuverable enough to do so. (With so many birds using their webs as "grocery stores", it's no wonder that many spiders spin a new web every day!)If you ever see a large flock of really tiny little grayish-brown birds in your garden (they're almost as small as hummingbirds) that are peeping up a storm, then you're probably seeing Bushtits. These are about the cutest birds imaginable, and they always travel in big groups. This in itself is an effective hunting technique, for if one bird moves ahead and finds some bugs it will tell the others. Because they feel safe in numbers, the Bushtits are rather fearless and will twitter all around you if you remain fairly still. They are very focused on their relentless examination of every single plant for bugs, and they often find bugs too small for us to notice. When you see a flock of Bushtits busy in your garden, you can bet that they're ridding your plants of aphids and the like, and you should thank them for this valuable service!
Finally, no discussion of bug-eating birds would be complete without mentioning the Woodpeckers. Entertaining and extremely specialized, they do their "shopping" in the trees, either by peeling bark away or actually drilling holes to find the bugs within. Woodpeckers even have specialized neck muscles and brain padding that prevents them from getting headaches! Our noisy and colonial Acorn Woodpecker has developed an entire culture based upon our native Oak Trees -- in the fall, they harvest and store acorns in trees so they can continue to eat them all winter. But they eat bugs, too -- and one of the reasons they store their acorns in trees is that they're actually "farming" native grubs that mature inside the harvested acorns (when the grubs emerge from the acorns, they're history!)
They Work For FreeAll the members of the "Bug Squad" do a great service to us by keeping insect populations in check. They are also just plain cute and fun to watch and live with. Although it would be nice to give them something in return, it's pretty difficult to feed them bugs! But you can help them simply by providing as complete an ecosystem as possible, with lots of different trees and shrubs. Big, old trees are essential for the happy life of so many kinds of birds, and so mature trees must be preserved and cared for at any cost. Other birds need our native chaparral vegetation, which also must always be preserved and may even be successfully imitated in the garden through the use of chaparral-type plants from around the world. By carefully observing and getting to know the birds in your garden, you'll realize that each one has its favorite foods, perches, routines, etc. -- never forget that they depend on you to maintain the quality of their habitat!
PART THREE:
Many of the most enjoyable animals in any garden are our little feathered friends. Although I'm not an "expert" on birds, I have gotten to know some of them pretty well over the years, at least from a layman's point of view. And so here's the third installment in this series on birds in our gardens. This month we'll take an in-depth look at a few of my favorite and most entertaining seasonal visitors to my garden -- each with its own time of year here -- and the plants they're most attracted to.
Here For The WinterIt's mid-August as I write this, just about time for my summer vacation. We're going to the mountains of Northern California this year, so maybe we'll see one of my favorite birds, the Cedar Waxwing. These stylish medium-sized birds are a beautiful blend of yellow, brown, and black with silky feathers and an aerodynamic crest that gives them a "fancy-hairstyle" look. In the summer and fall, they live and breed far north of here, feeding mainly on berries, which is their favorite food. But even if we didn't travel north this summer, we'll see the waxwings anyway before long, since in the winter they're going to visit us!
It seems amazing for just a 7" bird, but the Cedar Waxwings actually can travel over 2000 miles a year between their summer and winter homes in their relentless pursuit of ripening berries and comfortable temperatures. And although their traditional favorite foods have been native berries, in the past 20 years or so they have notably expanded their menu and their travelling to include the fruits of cultivated plants and gardens they never visited before. I never saw Cedar Waxwings in my garden until about ten years ago, when one winter day a flock of them showed up here for the first time. But they've returned every winter since then, and it isn't hard to figure out why. In the front of our property is a large old Indian Laurel Fig (Ficus retusa) which shades our house. In the wintertime and into spring, it is loaded with thousands of 1/2" purple figs -- and hungry Waxwings! This flock of about 50 birds spends each day perching in a nearby (conveniently deciduous) Pecan tree and flying back and forth to eat our figs. They just never get tired of eating figs -- each bird must eat 100 figs (or more) a day! (So many birds enjoy our Laurel Fig -- it's really a great tree to grow if you like birds!)
When the Waxwings are feeding in winter, they are both gregarious and noisy, with a high-pitched wheee from each bird blending into an entertaining chorus. By springtime, you can tell they're getting ready to travel, since the flock becomes even more cohesive and group flying practice begins. This is when they really start putting down the chow, and in between berries the entire group will fly together as one big fast-moving cloud. Then one day, they're gone -- headed north on their own summer vacation!
Here For The SummerOne of our most beautiful birds of all is a resident of tropical Mexico in the winter and travels to San Diego for the summer. Not too long after the Waxwings leave, we'll see the first flash of yellow from the Hooded Oriole, which like the Waxwings is expanding its range into gardens that have its favorite plants. Like the Waxwings, the Orioles were not always in my garden, but once they found it several years ago, they kept coming back each year. Our Hooded Orioles are bright yellow 8" birds with grey wings, further distinguished by a dark black "hood" on the head of the male birds. Happy in small family groups, they are the earliest birds to wake up and the last ones to go to sleep -- busy birds that punctuate their activities with an entertaining chatter of whistles, trills, and rattles all day long. Being tropical in nature, they love palm trees (fan palms especially) and other big-leaved plants -- and that's why they love my garden. You see, the Orioles don't come here each summer just for vacation, they come to have babies, too -- and big leaves are what they like for their elaborate hanging nests. These birds are master weavers, and build beautiful woven baskets of straw-colored fibers that are often attached to the underside of either palm or banana leaves. This provides great protection for the nest from rain (we know it doesn't rain much here in the summer, but the orioles don't take any chances!) and actually camouflages the nest quite well (you often won't know an oriole nest is even there until you hear the babies!).
Of course, the Hooded Orioles have to eat, too -- and so any garden that they choose to live in has to offer regular meals. Orioles will eat bugs, but what they really like is nectar. You can actually buy oriole feeders, which work like hummingbird feeders but are specially constructed for these larger birds (some orioles may learn to use hummingbird feeders, too, but this is largely a rather clumsy if comical affair!). In my garden, however, the orioles are quite happy with the nectar they get from the flowers of two large trees -- first the Weeping Bottlebrush (Callistemon viminalis) and then later in the summer the Natal Coral Tree (Erythrina humeana). Like the Waxwings, the orioles depend on their special food plants -- and if you plant these plants (and have some fan palms), the orioles will be happy to spend their summers in your garden, too!
Singing In The SpringSince they travel such long distances between their summer and winter homes, both the Waxwings and the Orioles breed later in the year than most of our birds. The time of the year when the most bird action occurs in our gardens is, of course, Spring. This is the breeding season for most of our birds -- and that means plenty of beautiful songs and courtship displays. No garden is complete without songbirds, and we have some great ones in San Diego County.
Some types of birds are very quiet, while other types are either talking or singing all the time. All birds in the garden typically have two different types of sounds that they make -- unique sounds that distinguish different species and may be used to identify them. A call is like talking and may be heard year 'round -- usually a simple sound that is used for day-to-day communication. A song, however, is frequently more complex and is used to establish territory and as a courtship display during breeding season -- in some species, songs are repeated over and over and over when it's time to sing. While all birds' songs are special, there are a few that really stand out to our ears because of their very melodious nature. Two examples of common garden birds that are famous for their complex songs are the Song Sparrow and the Mockingbird, both virtuosi in their own right. And if you're lucky enough to live near some undisturbed open grassland, you may be privileged to hear the beautiful music of the Western Meadowlark. In my spring garden though, there are two other birds that are my favorites for really singing their hearts out -- without them, it just wouldn't be spring!
The Common Yellowthroat is a beautiful 5" yellow bird with a bold black mask on the male somewhat like the Hooded Oriole. (Oddly enough, our local races of both the Hooded Oriole and Common Yellowthroat have the brightest yellow coloring of any variant in their respective species). You might even mistake the Yellowthroat for an oriole, but orioles are not here in early spring and no oriole ever sounded like this! The Yellowthroat is a bird I heard many times before I ever saw it, because of its habit of moving quickly from tree to tree. Its song is a loud ascending wichity-wichity-wichity-wich! spiral melody which carries a long distance as it echoes throughout the garden. Once it gets going, this bird does not stop -- all spring long. And then suddenly one day it's gone -- but they always come back each spring to sing again!
The champion singer as far as I'm concerned, however, is also the champion of being heard but seldom seen. This is a well-camouflaged 7" brown bird with cute white rings around its eyes that is normally shy and quiet. But when it comes time in the spring to sing, it really lets loose for a few weeks with a haunting song that echoes through the trees in such a way that it is often difficult to pinpoint exactly where the bird is. This master of song is the Swainson's Thrush, which favors moist woods and is at the southern end of its range here, and for the past several years it has decided that my garden is moist and woodsy enough for at least a seasonal home. The song of the Swainson's Thrush is remarkable -- a melodious whistling ascending spiral of notes that sounds like it is coming from every direction at once. Once you've heard it, you'll never forget it -- reason in itself for having the type of woodland garden that this bird enjoys!
Feeding In The FallSo many enjoyable birds are attracted to large trees -- where they're concerned it is true to say that "if you build a forest, they will come". But even if you don't have a forest, there are many birds that will be happy to dine at bird feeders, which is a great way to enjoy birds in any size garden. Fall is a good time to provide extra food and water for our feathered friends, and they will thank you just by being their cute little selves.
PART FOUR:
Our Autumn All-Star
Throughout this series on the wild birds in our gardens, a common theme has been that the birds are full of surprises. Just when you think you know a lot about a particular bird, you'll see a new behavior or hear a new song you've never heard before. Last month, I mentioned a few of my favorite (springtime) songbirds - and wouldn't you know it, within days after I had submitted my column there was a new virtuoso in the autumn garden with a command performance that was really impressive! Somewhere in the trees was a bird with a complex, ever-changing series of imitative songs that sounded like a Mockingbird - but was it? You'll have to go back to Part Two of this essay to remember the California Thrasher, a 12" brown chaparral-dweller who was introduced as a member of "The Bug Squad". I mentioned then that as a member of the Mockingbird family, the Thrasher can imitate a wide variety of sounds when it sings, but was usually a little shy about it (at least I'd never heard it sing much in my garden before). Well, not this year and not this Thrasher! At a time of year when there's not much singing going on, we've been serenaded every day since with a wonderful series of bird impressions that would make Rich Little proud! Because the Thrasher is larger than a Mockingbird, its vocal range is deeper and more resonant - and this particular bird sings even better than most Thrashers do. What a joy our "Caruso" has been - a great example of one of the most enjoyable aspects of garden birding, which is getting to know each individual bird in your garden as a unique person!
Feeding The Birds
There is no better way to see a lot of garden birds on a regular basis than to put out some bird seed - and to paraphrase a famous line, "if you feed them, they will come". Although not all birds eat seeds, a whole lot of them do, and many of these birds are quite friendly. Before long, you'll have a host of regular customers at your bird feeder and you'll be getting to know each one very well - so much so that you'll want to expand your seed menu to attract still more types of birds.
A basic wild bird seed mix is a good place to start, and the first visitors to your bird feeder will likely be finches and sparrows -- cute little brown birds with strong conical beaks that are tailor-made for seed-eating. These include the House Finch, the Song Sparrow, and if you live in the city probably also the introduced House Sparrow (also called the English Sparrow). All of these birds are gregarious, and will often crowd into a feeder without fear in entertaining fashion. Not all birds will be in your feeder, though, since a lot of action will also take place on the ground where such birds as the California Towhee, California Quail, and Mourning Dove will be busy eating all the seeds that fall to the ground. When you're ready to get fancier with your menu, you'll want to try more exotic fare such as flax seed, which will draw in a more-sophisticated crowd of natives such as the Lesser Goldfinch, an extremely cute little yellow and tan bird which seems to laugh its way through life with a wonderful series of chirps and whistles. If you've got a good menu, you just never know who's going to show up next -- once you really get going with your bird feeder, you're liable to see many new and different visitors at different times of year, and you'll be getting out your bird book on a regular basis to figure out who they are!
The main thing to remember about bird feeders is to always keep them full of fresh seed. Erratic feeding will only disappoint your customers, and you don't want to do that. Placement of the feeder is important, too - birds like to have things to perch on near the feeder (in case there is a waiting line, for example), but they also like a reasonably open spot so they don't have to worry about being ambushed by a predator while they're eating. Water is vitally important as well, and so a shallow birdbath nearby is a must. Once they become regular customers, most birds can eat a phenomenal amount of seeds every day - can you imagine how thirsty you'd get if you ate that many seeds? So remember to keep that water fresh every day, too!
Hooray For Hummers!
Probably our most popular birds are also our tiniest, and we are very lucky to live where they do. These are the hummingbirds - remarkable and captivating little birds that are notable for their bright colors and unique hovering flight. In San Diego County, we have two types of year 'round resident hummingbirds, the most common of which is the highly territorial Anna's Hummingbird (these are the ones that don't like to share the hummingbird feeder with anyone). Somewhat less "hyper" is the Costa's Hummingbird, the males of which have bright violet patches on the head and throat (as opposed to the Anna's rose-red). Other seasonal visitors include the Allen's Hummingbird and Black-chinned Hummingbird, which spend their winters far south of here. Hummingbirds do eat tiny bugs (which they catch in mid-air or sometimes grab from spider webs), but spend most of their time drinking nectar from flowers (and hummingbird feeders). If you have a hummingbird feeder, it is important to keep it clean and filled with fresh sugar solution (I use one part sugar to five parts water), for there is nothing quite so sad as the look on a hummingbird's face when it visits an empty feeder. Of course, hummingbirds are very capable at finding their own food, and that's where gardens play such an important role.
Imagine San Diego County as it was long, long ago - a completely natural place, undeveloped by humans and covered only in native plants. Hummingbirds were around in those days too, but since there's only so much nectar in the chaparral there probably weren't nearly as many of them as there are now. In today's world of gardens and flowers, the hummingbirds have prospered greatly, and the more nectar plants we plant the happier they'll be. What plants do hummingbirds like? Well, maybe the easier question is what plants don't they like, for they seem to like almost every flower that they see, from Abutilon to Zauschneria. But they do like some flowers more than others.
What's For Dinner?
As you might expect, just about any flower that hummingbirds naturally feed on in Central and South America are great nectar sources. Even some of our hummers live way down in Mexico for part of the year (don't ask me how such tiny birds fly so far, but they do), and when they see their favorite wild plants in our gardens they are very happy. A big group of favorites is Salvia, and right there you've got hundreds of different hummingbird-pleasers. Other New World plants that are very good include most varieties of Cuphea, Penstemon, Iochroma, Cestrum, Russelia, Fuchsia, Duranta, Ruellia, and Erythrina, just to name a few. The surprise, though, is that our hummingbirds also love many plants in our gardens that are not native to any hummingbird's natural range - in fact, these are some of their favorite plants of all. The South African Cape Honeysuckle (Tecomaria capensis) and Lion's Tail (Leonotis leonurus) are good examples - even though no hummingbird lives naturally within thousands of miles of these plants in nature, they are great hummingbird plants in our gardens (probably because they are similar enough to certain New World plants that the hummingbirds really do see them as their own).
Let's Try Something New!
Way back in the 1970's when I worked at the University of California, Santa Cruz Arboretum, we began importing what quickly became the largest collection of Australian plants outside of their native land. Featured in this collection were hundreds of varieties of Grevillea, which are shrubby members of the Protea Family. As they grew up and came into bloom for the first time, our many native hummingbirds were curious - for none of them had ever seen grevillea flowers before. Although the hummingbirds were attracted to these exotic flowers, at first they couldn't quite figure out how to get much nectar from them. But they kept trying, and gradually they did figure it out - and they told their friends! Within a year, hummingbirds from miles around were flocking to our grevillea collection as if it were the world's largest hummingbird feeder. It turns out that once they get to know them, our hummingbirds like grevilleas the best of all, even though in nature they live on opposite sides of the world!
In San Diego County, we can grow not just natives, and not just plants from the Americas, but a full range of flowering plants from all over the world that feed our tiny friends every month of the year. In my garden, we do have hummingbird feeders, but most of the time the hummers are so busy with their flowers that they hardly use them. In their minds, at least, we're the best restaurant in town - and your garden can be the same if you plant all of their favorite plants!
For More Information On Birds…
So many birds, so little time! Garden birding is so much fun and so rewarding - once you really "get into it", you'll never stop. If you like wild birds, there's a store just for you that you need to visit. It's called Wild Birds Unlimited, they've got everything a garden birder could want, and are a great source of information. They're in Carlsbad - call them for directions at (760) 720-1906. Of course, you'll need a bird identification book, and there a number of good ones. The one I use is the National Geographic Field Guide to the Birds of North America, but look at them all and decide which one you like best. Finally, the Internet (as always) is also a great place to visit for more information. You might want to start with Scott Streit's site at <http://www.bird-friends.com>, which features photos and songs of many of our San Diego County wild birds and is very nicely done.
