On Friday I mentioned that lazuli buntings somewhat resemble western bluebirds. 

Well, here’s a western bluebird…  what do you think?

In southern Nevada I can find western bluebirds and lazuli buntings within a few miles of each other because the mountains and valleys provide such strikingly different habitat.

In April the temperature can reach 80^oF in the desert valley of Las Vegas but there’s still snow on Mt. Charleston whose summit is at 11,918 feet.  (It snowed up there on Saturday.)

Weather permitting I usually find western bluebirds partway up the mountain.  They look a lot like their eastern cousins except that their entire head and throat are blue and they have rusty orange-blue on their backs or shoulders. 

Since they’re migrating right now, it’s hard to tell if the bluebirds plan to stay on Mt. Charleston or merely pass through on the way from their wintering grounds in Mexico to some location north of here. 

Perhaps they’ll go to the Seattle area where this one was photographed by Bill Parker.

(photo by William Parker)

I couldn’t resist sharing this beautiful photo Cris Hamilton displayed on her Facebook page last week. 

Cris photographed this Anna’s hummingbird in British Columbia, Canada.  I saw several of them at Clark County (Nevada) Wetlands Park yesterday.  One hundred years ago both sightings would have been impossible. 

Until the 1930’s Anna’s hummingbirds were found only on the Pacific slope from San Francisco to Baja California, but around that time they began branching out.  

They’re surprisingly hardy birds and quite willing to go where the food is.  They eat insects and nectar and are regular visitors to hummingbird feeders.  The feeders allowed them to expand their range northward to British Columbia and southeast to eastern Arizona. One even spent last winter in Shartlesville, Pennsylvania, nabbing insects at a nearby sewage treatment plant and sipping from heated hummingbird feeders, our first Pennsylvania record.

I’m usually lazy about identifying hummingbirds because we have only one species in Pennsylvania in the summer — “No need to look closely, it’s a ruby-throat.” — but when birding in southern Nevada I really have to look at them. It’s possible to see five species.  Costa’s are resident, black-chinned and Anna’s breed here, and calliope and rufous pass through in July. 

Now that an Anna’s hummingbird has graced Pennsylvania for the winter and rufous hummingbirds regularly visit PA in the fall, I ought to pay more attention at home, too.

(photo by Cris Hamilton)

Though this bird looks like a shiny black cardinal he’s really in the silky flycatcher family (Ptilogonatidae), the only one of his kind in North America.

This is a phainopepla (fay-no-PEP-la) and he doesn’t fit into any mold.  His behavior is like several songbirds rolled into one.

He perches high and flicks his long tail like a phoebe but he also makes somersault flights and flashes the white in his wings like a mockingbird.  Sometimes he even mimics other bird calls.

When he can, he eats flying insects but otherwise he feeds on the berries of desert mistletoe, a lifestyle quite similar to his closest relatives the waxwings.

He’s one-of-kind in his breeding habits too, choosing two different habitats based on time of year.  From February to April he breeds in the desert, from May to July he moves to the forest and breeds in oak and sycamore canyons. 

He’s always easy to find at Corn Creek, Nevada in April.

So where did he get his one-of-a-kind name?

Phainopepla is Greek for “shining robe.”

(photo from Wikimedia Commons.  Click on the photo to see the original)

It may be too early in April to find this bird in southern Nevada but I will try.

The lazuli bunting spends the winter in Mexico and summer in the western U.S.  In late April, the only time I’ve ever seen one, it’s passing through.

Lazuli buntings prefer weedy fields and grassy clearings so I look for them at Corn Creek Field Station at the Desert National Wildlife Refuge about 23 miles north of Las Vegas.  Corn Creek flows through the site and is the only water for many miles around so it’s a magnet for wildlife and a must-see location if you’re birding in southern Nevada.

Named for the beautiful blue gem, lapis lazuli, the male lazuli bunting’s color pattern resembles a male western bluebird but his size, beak, and wing bars set him apart.

The females, on the other hand, are an identification challenge because they look just like female indigo buntings.  Fortunately indigo and lazuli bunting ranges are almost completely separate.  Except for some overlap in Arizona, New Mexico and Colorado, the indigo bunting is the bunting of the east, the lazuli is the bunting of the west.

However, indigo and lazuli buntings can hybridize.  Imagine the identification challenge when confronted by a female hybrid.  Only an expert would know for sure — and that won’t be me!

(photo from Wikimedia Commons.  Click on the photo to see the original)

I guarantee you’ll never see this bird in western Pennsylvania.

This is a curve-billed thrasher, photographed by Pittsburgh native Steve Valasek who recently moved to New Mexico. 

It’s no surprise that this is one of the first birds Steve saw in the Southwest.  It’s common in desert brushland and is easy to find because it forages in the open, even in parks and suburban yards. 

The curve-billed thrasher also draws attention to himself by tossing leaves and debris with his long bill and singing a loud scratchy song that’s almost like a mockingbird’s. 

All of this ought to make the curve-billed thrasher quite easy to identify but he can be tricky because he resembles Bendire’s thrasher.  The clincher is his call note, a liquid “wit-a-wit” or “whit whit” that reminds me of a worried wood thrush (the “nominate species” call notes here).

From what I’ve just written you’d think I’ve seen a curve-billed thrasher, but I’ve never been to New Mexico so I’m looking forward to more of Steve’s pictures.  I’m sure he’ll be adding a lot of birds to his Life List.

(photo by Steve Valasek)