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For this post, I’m going to deviate a bit from the norm as every picture won’t be of Ryken (don’t worry, I’m including some). Lately, our family has tried to make a point of going to a local park called the Mojave Narrows. It really feels like an escape from the desert. There are two lakes, some wide open fields with horses, a small water park, and a lot more green than we usually see out here. Not only has it been fun for us to walk as a family and introduce Ryken to some new textures and smells (he loves grabbing the plants as we walk by), but it has been a lot of fun for us to start understanding how diverse the desert is when it comes to wildlife. After spending most of our lives in Orange County, we have a bit of a distorted view of what it means to live near animals. Dogs, cats, the random group of parrots someone let loose a few years ago, crows that eat Jack in the Box, and McDonald’s sparrows are pretty much all we knew when it came to the ‘wild’ animal. Every now and then, we’d have the joy of seeing an opossum eating cat food in the back yard or seeing a coyote early in the morning.

But that is nothing like we have here in the high desert. Late last week as I was driving home, I noticed a TON of what appeared to be hawks in flight. After doing a very brief bit of research the last time I saw this, I found it so odd that birds of prey would hang out together. When I got home, I saw this in the tree across the street:

Um. What the heck.

I could tell by the heads of some of the birds that these weren’t hawks. If anything, they sort of looked like…vultures? A few google searches later, I landed on this: Turkey Vultures (Cathartes aura). As it turns out, Turkey Vultures migrate through our area. I’ll be honest…it might be the most awesome thing ever. These birds are huge, with a wing span up to 72 inches wide…aka 6 feet! My love for these birds only grew when I found out a few wonderful facts about them. First, they lack a vocal organ, so the way they communicate is through grunts or low hisses. Awesome. Second, their ‘primary form of defense is regurgitating semi-digested meat’. Wow. Can this bird be any more amazing? I think not!

On the way home from work today, I saw a few more Turkey Vultures on their migratory path, and was struck by what a unique spot we are in to see birds traveling north to south, and south to north. It must have adjusted my eye a bit, because I saw a ton of crazy birds in the backyard! The first, though difficult to identify via my lousy photo, is a Red-shafted Northern Flicker (Colaptes auratus):

I had to shoot the photo through the back patio door’s double glass in order not to scare the bird away. I was able to salvage the photo enough to at least identify it. It’s worth clicking the wikipedia link on this bird just to see how spectacular this bird is. Really cool.

After seeing the Northern Flicker, I decided to go out with the camera and see what else was hanging around. The first thing I saw was a Cactus Wren (Campylorhynchus brunneicapillus) sitting on one of our patio chairs:

I think they are really cool looking birds that fit well in the desert. I’m tempted to plant a cactus garden to attract more – and maybe attract an owl. After I had seen the Wren, I started looking in the direction of the Northern Flicker to see if I could catch another glimpse. Out of the corner of my eye, I saw a bird flying right at me, then dart away. It was this little guy:

This sharp looking bird is the Black-throated Gray Warbler (Dendroica nigrescens). This guy was a blast to photograph because he didn’t care how close I got. At one point, I was standing on the grass eying him, and he started to charge at me. I was a bit freaked out even though I could probably swallow the thing whole he was so small. Just as I was about to jump out of the way, he changed directions and I saw that he was going after a moth. Really amazing how fast this thing was – not to mention the ability to snatch flying insects out of the sky! I caught one shot of him finishing off his dinner:

Sorry if that is considered gross. I thought it was a pretty sweet catch (pun intended). And yet another photo of this attention starved bird sharpening his beak (or something):

After this no-so-shy bird, we come to the bird I hate most – the jerk of the bird world – The Northern Mockingbird (Mimus polyglottos):

My hatred towards these birds is only because of how they used to torture one of our cats growing up. They would swoop down and snap at their back, then fly off. Though they can be obnoxious, they are pretty cool looking as well.

The last bird of the evening is one I posted about before – the Ladder-backed Woodpecker (Picoides scalaris):

Once I saw him, I was reminded that is hasn’t quite been a year yet that we have lived in our home. At this point last year, we were still trying to get the house finished up…which explains why I haven’t seen all these awesome birds before. I was probably scaring them off with a hammer.

I have a feeling a big part of what attracts all these birds to the house is the fact that we live in it. We’ve put a grass patch in the back yard, and, hopefully, are watering things enough to keep them alive. Monday night, Ryken was so kind as to help me get the sprinkler set up to make sure we keep the grass green, and the birds happy:

He is a really good worker, as he wanted to make sure the water was actually hitting the grass. The only way to do that is…

to stand between the grass and the water. What dedication to the cause! I asked him if the water was in fact reaching the ground, and he simply said:

‘Not while I was out there…it was only hitting me!’ Silly boy! I was quite pleased that he decided to play on the grass, however. Something struck me the other day as we were outside ‘playing’:

We really wanted grass so that he had a place to play in the backyard. As Amy and I learn over and over again with Ryken, so often the things we intend for a specific purpose don’t end up how we expect. Really no different than the box a toy comes in being more entertaining than the toy itself, the grass in the backyard is sometimes an obstical between Ryken and a good time in the backyard!

Thanks for putting up with all the bird photos, but I thought it would be fun to see a bit of the high desert from a different view. I know I am really excited about these kinds of things as they will be a great way to teach Ryken about migratory patterns, seasons, and wildlife. More than anything, I hope that he grows up to appreciate wherever he ends up. Moving from Orange County to the High Desert was hard adjustment for us at first, but now that we’ve been here just over two years, we are starting to see some of the amazing beauty the desert has to offer.

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