ix264@sdcc6.UUCP (Tim McLarnan) (02/25/85)
I spent Sat., Feb. 23 with a group of people from
church in the Anza-Borrego Desert east of San Diego. This
is a desert basin to the east of the coastal mountains. It
is largely surrounded by mountains rising about 2000 feet
above the desert floor. The basin vegetation is mixed cactus
and chaparral, cut by frequent dry washes and with a few
small streams and oases.
While this was not basically a birding trip, a number
of species were seen anyway. A species list is:
Turkey Vulture California Thrasher
American Kestrel American Robin
California Quail Hermit Thrush
White-winged Dove Townsend's Solitaire
Mourning Dove Blue-Gray Gnatcatcher
Costa's Hummingbird Black-tailed Gnatcatcher
Anna's Hummingbird Phainopepla
Black Phoebe Yellow-rumped Warbler
Say's Phoebe Orange-crowned Warbler
Common Raven House Finch
Verdin Lesser Goldfinch
Canyon Wren Black-throated Sparrow
Rock Wren White-crowned Sparrow
Northern Mockingbird
The Townsend's Solitaire was quite a surprise in this
habitat, since it is basically a bird of the mountain
forests; but it is not entirely unprecedented in the
Anza-Borrego Desert.
Two Verdin nests were found which seemed new. These
are rigid balls of dry twigs with a small entrance hole in
one side. Verdins in general were behaving territorially,
and two males were seen displaying to females, one by
fluttering his wings and one by holding a down feather of a
larger bird in his beak and stiffly bowing, first to the
left and then to the right.
As a proposal for further discussion in this newsgroup,
I would be interested in any observations people make on
bird behavior as well as lists of species from trips. It is
easy for people who don't necessarily know what species
are rare in other regions of the country to appreciate an
observation of the form, "Today at my feeder I saw a sparrow
do the following odd thing." It is not always easy to know
what to get excited about in a list of birds from somewhere
else.
Of course, I think trip reports are still of great
value to us all. How else does one learn whether a Northern
Cardinal is exciting in California (yes) or a Western
Meadowlark is sensational in Illinois (no)?
But all of us see odd little things which might interest
others if they knew about them, and I would like to see
these things shared as well as the results of big
expeditions. Any comments?
____________________________________________
Tim McLarnan, Dept of Mathematics, UC San Diego,
..sdcc3!ma4cc or ..sdcc6!ix264