Last week I lead a store-sponsored bird walk to the Cottonwood Peninsula on the west side of Willow Lake. We had a wonderful bird walk, and saw a good variety of birds including a great horned owl, three species of swallows, Bullocks oriole, summer tanager, nesting cormorants, herons and four species of flycatchers—among other things.
One of the highlights was finding an active willow flycatcher’s nest, which I was able to get in the scope so all of the bird walk participants could see it. We also saw brown-headed cowbirds which reminded me of some of my experiences with cowbirds the previous week when I was traveling out of state.
In Utah, at the Farmington Bay Waterfowl Management Area, I watched a fledgling brown-headed cowbird relentlessly hounding a song sparrow, wanting to be fed. In South Dakota, in Custer National Forest, I saw the diminutive ruby-crowned kinglet feeding a fledgling brown-headed cowbird, and in Hot Springs, South Dakota, I saw a yellow-rumped warbler feeding a juvenile brown-headed cowbird.
Not familiar with cowbirds? There are two species in North America—brown-headed and bronzed. Cowbirds are a parasitic species—females lay their eggs in a wide range of other species nests. The host-species will sometimes accept the foreign egg and incubate it. Unsuspecting parents who are the victim of nest parasitism rear cowbirds as if they were their own young.
In The Sibley Guide To Birds, brown-headed cowbirds are listed as weighing 44 grams. By comparison, song sparrows weigh only 20 grams, yellow-rumped warblers weigh about 12 grams, and ruby-crowned kinglets weigh only 6.5 grams. Imagine the sight of seeing a tiny kinglet, weighing just over six grams, feeding its’ “offspring” weighing more than seven times it’s weight!
While cowbirds are native to North America, they are considered to be harmful to many song bird species. Young cowbirds frequently out-compete their nest mates for food, resulting in lower breeding success for the host species. If you observe a smaller bird feeding a larger bird, you are likely witnessing a harried “parent” caring for its foster child!
On a different note, there are two fantastic birding festivals coming up. Next week, July 28-30th, is the ninth annual Sedona Hummingbird Festival hosted by the International Hummingbird Society, headquartered in Sedona. Each year we attend as a vendor in the Hummingbird Market.
The festival is held in the Sedona Performing Arts Center on the campus of Sedona High School. In addition to presentations in the air-conditioned auditorium, there are numerous off-site events including early morning field trips, hummingbird banding, and garden tours each of the three days.
The primary purposes of the festival are education, advocacy for hummingbird preservation, and raising money for endangered hummingbird species in Central and South America. For more information on the festival visit their website at www.hummingbirdsociety.org/sedona-hummingbird-festival-2023
The following week is the annual Southwest Wings Birding and Nature Festival in Sierra Vista, Arizona. This festival is held in the library on the campus of Cochise Community College and starts on Wednesday August 2nd and runs through Saturday, August 5th. Southeastern Arizona is my personal favorite part of the state for bird watching. The proximity to Mexico creates the opportunity to see birds that cannot be seen anywhere else in the United States.
Festival activities include a pre-festival jamboree, field trips, seminars, live animals, a keynote speaker banquet and more. We will be in attendance, both as a vendor and as a guest lecturer, as well as guiding an early morning bird walk. For more information go to www.swwings.org.
Until next week, Happy Birding!
Eric Moore is the owner of The Lookout, in Prescott, where you will find a Hallmark Gold Crown Store, wild bird products, and Vortex and Swarovski optics. Eric has been an avid birder for over 55 years. Eric can be contacted at eric@thelookoutaz.com.
