Even Parasites Need Some Love? Brown-headed Cowbirds at the Mojave National Preserve

Brood parasite is such an ugly pair of words. Birds who practice this form of raising their young are almost universally hated. That one bird species would survive by killing another seems so unfair, even though that is what predators do by definition. But it is what it is, and I finally got some pictures of a Brown-headed Cowbird (Molothrus ater) so we 'll be mentioning it today.

If you haven't heard of it before, brood parasitism is the reproductive strategy by which a species of bird lays its eggs in the nest of another species, forcing the victim species to raise the nestlings as one of their own. The Cowbird eggs tend to hatch earlier than their victims and the chicks grow faster. As such they can destroy the other eggs, or push the other nestlings out. The Cowbirds have laid eggs in the nests of some 220 other species.

Brown-headed Cowbirds are certainly a native species, long a part of the ecosystems of North America, but they have increased their range with the expansion of agriculture. This has happened because they prefer open fields where grazing animals disturb insects that can then be captured and eaten.

I finally got my first clear look at a Cowbird in an unlikely place, in the middle of the Mojave Desert at Hole in the Wall Campground. They are far more common back home in the Central Valley, but I've always managed to miss them in the large flocks of blackbirds with whom they tend to hang out.

I dunno, do you think people would like them better if we thought of them as unfortunate children who were abandoned by their parents, and they just need our understanding?

Black-tailed Gnatcatcher at Hole in the Wall, Mojave National Preserve

Here's a bird I never get to see on the home turf. Black-tailed Gnatcatchers (Polioptila melanura) are creatures of the desert southwest. We were on the second day of our Colorado Plateau field studies journey and had camped the previous night at Black Canyon in the Mojave National Preserve in eastern California. We were wandering around the visitor information center seeing what birds might be around.

The bird chases down insects and generally gets the moisture it needs from the food it consumes. They are true wilderness birds, rarely venturing into urbanized areas, but their numbers have suffered from habitat loss in desert regions of the southwest United States.

Cactus Wren at Hole in the Wall, Mojave National Preserve

I was exploring Banshee Canyon at Hole in the Wall in the Mojave National Preserve when I spotted another bird species of the desert, a Cactus Wren (Campylorhynchus brunneicapillus). The pictures aren't as sharp as I had hoped, but it was a great distance, and skies were overcast. Still, it was nice to see some new species as we started our exploration of the Colorado Plateau.

Oh, you think a picture of a Cactus Wren should have a cactus in it? Okay, the bird cooperated for a moment while it foraged on the desert floor...

The strange looking rocks are boulders of rhyolite tuff, a rock formed in huge explosive volcanic eruptions, like St. Helens, but hundreds of times larger. The eastern Mojave Desert is an excellent habitat for the wrens, as the slightly higher elevations there produce more vegetation and therefore more insects for the birds to track down. The bird doesn't need open water, deriving what it needs from the food it eats.

Black-throated Sparrow at Hole-in-the-Wall, Mojave National Preserve

The hiatus is over for a while at least. I've been on a tough road over the last two weeks, leading (and being led by) students all over the southwest. The trip was hectic, wonderful, and epic, but I was never able to go online with my laptop even once. The focus of the trip wasn't on birds, it was on geology and archaeology, but I was constantly on the alert for the possibility of seeing new birds in this new territory.

It didn't take long to add a new bird to my list. Our first night camping was at Hole-in-the-Wall in the Mojave National Preserve in eastern California. When the sun was rising, I heard a persistent new birdsong, and I scoured the slopes near camp trying to locate it. Eventually I found it and got a few distant pictures. It turned out to be a Black-throated Sparrow (Amphispiza bilineata). I would eventually find that it is a common bird of the desert southwest, but I'd never seen one in my home territory.

It wouldn't be right to call it a brightly colored bird, as it is white, black and gray, but the markings are certainly bold. It spent a lot of energy singing in the morning around our camp. It wasn't the last time I would see the bird on the trip. More on my other sightings later!

Bird of the Day: Sagebrush Sparrow in the Mojave National Preserve

Today's bird is a totally new one for me, and given the circumstances I'm not surprised that I've never seen it before. It's a Sagebrush Sparrow (Artemisiospiza nevadensis). They are apparently quite common, but hard to see, as they spend much of their time in the shrubs, and as you can see in these photographs, they blend in well with their surroundings. I wouldn't have even seen them except for the movement.

We were on our way home from a short trip in Arizona and stopped to stretch our legs at the Essex Road offramp on Interstate 40. This is one of the entrances to the Mojave National Preserve, one of the gems of our national park system. The park preserves a wide swath of the best parts of the Mojave Desert, with high mountains with relict fir forests, pediments with thick forests of Joshua Trees, and valley floors covered by some of the highest sand dunes in North America. The mountain range in the picture above is part of the Providence Mountains, which is famous for a number of cavern systems, including Mitchell Caverns. During the recent depression, the park was shut down, and vandals did their terrible work on the facilities. An effort is being made to reopen the caverns as soon as possible.

Meanwhile, the Sagebrush Sparrows were quietly moving along the shrubs near the freeway offramp. It was a while before I even noticed them. Although it won't surprise my birder friends, I have been astounded by the diversity of bird life in California that I've always overlooked in the past. There are a great many new birds out there to be discovered, some gaudy with bright colors, and others well-camouflaged in their drabness.