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.