Bird-watching presents challenges even from the comfort of our porch chairs and backyards. While feeders and native landscaping attract a wide range of avian visitors, our successful efforts can sometimes lead to a bit of confusion. That is, many of these birds will also breed in your neighborhood with their offspring paying visits as soon as they're out of their nests. But will you recognize these fledglings and juveniles as the same species who munch on your seeds and peck at your suet most of the year?
It took studying a couple of photographs to identify a junior spotted towhee in my Prescott yard this past summer. No beady red eyes, no jet-black head, no cinnamon torso: he was just a plain, dark bird. It was likewise with another common sparrow in Arizona's pine forests, the dark-eyed junco. He scratched at the dirt and pebbles below my deck just like you'd expect of a junco but his streaked and mottled brown feathers made him look more like a house finch.
Interestingly these juvenile birds were solitary unlike the two young Woodhouse's scrub jay's that started frequenting my front yard in early July. Some of the noisiest birds around, these blue and slate birds squawk for the raw peanuts placed on my deck railing specifically for them. But this racket might be as much to get my attention as it is to deter the acorn woodpeckers in the ensuing competition for the nuts.
But early in the summer the regular pair of scrub jays partaking in my generosity had two smaller, mostly gray birds in tow. These companions had jay features - long, sleek torsos and tails with lengthy, straight beaks - but didn't show typical jay behavior.
The youngsters spent more time on the ground than in the trees, scraping and poking through dried leaves and pebbly stones. And they eyed the peanut butter suet, a favorite with most of my neighborhood birds; unlike their parents, they actually tried to snatch some. But jays don't seem to be able to hold on to the metal basket container and imbibe at the same time, a lesson these new visitors were learning. As for the peanuts, they had no idea that they were supposed to follow their parents' actions: grab the largest nut and stow it in the tight bend between two oak tree branches or hide it in a rocky crevice at the base of a ponderosa pine tree's trunk.
I watched these juveniles for almost two months as their gray head feathers turned mostly blue and their white eyebrows cemented into stern fixed expressions. They quickly gave up the idea of hanging from the suet feeder and seemed to find more interesting subjects higher in the trees over my cabin. Sometimes together in their nuclear family - but often not - the two scrub jays became more bold in their peanut forays, gliding from the nearby alligator juniper branch to my deck. Evading both the territorial acorn woodpecker and my curious eye, they perfected the art of snatching much more quickly than storing.
I might still be observing those individuals now but I can't tell exactly. As confusing as it is when you first see a young bird, he'll quickly mature to be as distinctive as any in his species, and also as identical. And with Woodhouse's scrub jays, even the sexes look the same.
Last week three or four of the birds showed up in my yard, cawing and begging for a handout. Dodging the dive-bombing woodpeckers, each one took his turn at retrieving his peanut successfully. Are any of them the early July newbies? As these birds seemed to each demonstrate a confidence born from weeks of practice, I'd like to think that at least one of them learned that skill in my home's outdoor classroom.
It took studying a couple of photographs to identify a junior spotted towhee in my Prescott yard this past summer. No beady red eyes, no jet-black head, no cinnamon torso: he was just a plain, dark bird. It was likewise with another common sparrow in Arizona's pine forests, the dark-eyed junco. He scratched at the dirt and pebbles below my deck just like you'd expect of a junco but his streaked and mottled brown feathers made him look more like a house finch.
Interestingly these juvenile birds were solitary unlike the two young Woodhouse's scrub jay's that started frequenting my front yard in early July. Some of the noisiest birds around, these blue and slate birds squawk for the raw peanuts placed on my deck railing specifically for them. But this racket might be as much to get my attention as it is to deter the acorn woodpeckers in the ensuing competition for the nuts.
But early in the summer the regular pair of scrub jays partaking in my generosity had two smaller, mostly gray birds in tow. These companions had jay features - long, sleek torsos and tails with lengthy, straight beaks - but didn't show typical jay behavior.
The youngsters spent more time on the ground than in the trees, scraping and poking through dried leaves and pebbly stones. And they eyed the peanut butter suet, a favorite with most of my neighborhood birds; unlike their parents, they actually tried to snatch some. But jays don't seem to be able to hold on to the metal basket container and imbibe at the same time, a lesson these new visitors were learning. As for the peanuts, they had no idea that they were supposed to follow their parents' actions: grab the largest nut and stow it in the tight bend between two oak tree branches or hide it in a rocky crevice at the base of a ponderosa pine tree's trunk.
I watched these juveniles for almost two months as their gray head feathers turned mostly blue and their white eyebrows cemented into stern fixed expressions. They quickly gave up the idea of hanging from the suet feeder and seemed to find more interesting subjects higher in the trees over my cabin. Sometimes together in their nuclear family - but often not - the two scrub jays became more bold in their peanut forays, gliding from the nearby alligator juniper branch to my deck. Evading both the territorial acorn woodpecker and my curious eye, they perfected the art of snatching much more quickly than storing.
I might still be observing those individuals now but I can't tell exactly. As confusing as it is when you first see a young bird, he'll quickly mature to be as distinctive as any in his species, and also as identical. And with Woodhouse's scrub jays, even the sexes look the same.
Last week three or four of the birds showed up in my yard, cawing and begging for a handout. Dodging the dive-bombing woodpeckers, each one took his turn at retrieving his peanut successfully. Are any of them the early July newbies? As these birds seemed to each demonstrate a confidence born from weeks of practice, I'd like to think that at least one of them learned that skill in my home's outdoor classroom.
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| Juvenile Woodhouse's scrub jay in my Prescott yard in early July. |
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| Juvenile Woodhouse's scrub jay in my Prescott yard in early July. |
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| Juvenile Woodhouse's scrub jay in my Prescott yard in early July. His rear feathers are already their distinctive blue. |
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| A young Woodhouse's scrub jay later in the summer. |
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| A young Woodhouse's scrub jay later in the summer. |
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| Mature Woodhouse's scrub jay. |
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