Bowie's back!

 No, not that guy.

This would be Bowie the very special female California scrub jay (Aphelocoma californica) I became very well acquainted with from mid-September, 2021 until the first week of February, 2022. I saw her on occasion for close to a year before that but... well, that story is here. From February 8th up until  February 15th I had not seen beak nor tail of dear Bowie. On the 15th I only happened to catch her in the front yard relocating an acorn she had stashed on the roof above my garage (I wish she'd stick with other places). I only had a moment to say hello. Then yesterday... It was a little after 10:00 in the morning and I was working on yesterday's blog entry when I heard a bunch of squawking in the backyard, just outside my office windows. I immediately dashed out. I needed to be certain it was her and wanted to make an observation as expeditiously as possible. I wanted to see her. I wanted to see that she was okay. I missed her. Once I saw it was indeed Bowie I stepped back inside and grabbed my camera.

What was she squawking at you might ask? Well, it was this pair of mockingbirds. I'm also very familiar with these two and much like scrub jays (with the exception of the very unique Bowie), male and female northern mockingbirds (Mimus polyglottos) are difficult to tell apart, unless you see them together. Males, in both cases, are larger. I believe this is the first time I have seen the mockingbirds together. I'm pretty certain the one on the left is the male. I'm also pretty sure he's the one I've seen and spoken to most frequently. Males have a wider range of vocalization and sing more frequently than females.

Bowie took off, at least I lost track of Bowie while the mockingbirds remained. Egg laying for both of these birds species can begin in March. For the mockingbirds my understanding is it depends on warmer than average temperatures. So far, for March, that's a toss-up. Today's temp went from 41ºf to 81ºf. I think we’re headed into generally warmer climes. The situation could be similar for the scrub jays. The best information I can get on them is they might start early March but nesting averages from late March to mid-June. To start, it takes about 10 days to build the nest, so that's possibly happening now... plus... moments ago, Bowie was back again and this time she hung out with me on the patio and got some peanuts. We probably spent close to 20 minutes together so I doubt she's dealing with a baby bird yet. Also, I haven't seen Mr. B since February 25th and they're supposed to do this stuff together. Yes, I will let you know if I see Mr. B.

Again on the utility pole this afternoon. However, when she heard me tambourine peanuts on a paper plate she came right down to the ficus trees off the patio.

 
Look at me, I'm a BIG girl!

That's your Bowie update for now. I think it would be great if I could spot a nest and follow that development. I'm keeping my eyes and ears open.

Introducing Bowie

 On July first I wrote a post about my situation at home with various birds making a mess kicking up Stan's dry cat food onto the patio. That activity has settled down immensely. Back then I also wrote...

Long ago Google figured out my interest in birds and I'm constantly reminded of this on YouTube. For several months now they have assisted in turning my attention toward Corvidae, corvids, more specifically, ravens and crows. I am particularly fascinated by the intelligence of these two families of birds.

As it turns out, I have my own "pet" corvid now. She's a California Scrub Jay, also known as a Western Scrub Jay, scientific name, Aphelocoma californica. Her name, given by me is, Bowie. While I always suspected Bowie was a female her name wasn't meant to be gender specific but was rather a reference to the shape of her beak, she has a curved or bowed beak. At least that was my first impression. Bowie has been a backyard visitor for about a year now. Every time she would show up and I tried to grab my camera, she'd be gone upon my return or she was simply inaccessible to my viewfinder while she avoided me inside the ficus trees which surround my patio. I never got a really good look at her beak until I took my first pictures of her back in September. There were a few occasions before that where I did searches for scrub jays with "curved" or "bent" beaks. It wasn't until I searched "deformed beak" that it all came together. I discovered this study at the USGS, Alaska Science Center, Beak Deformities in Landbirds. Then I looked a lot closer at Bowie's beak. The curve is in her lower mandible presumably due to growing up with a drastically shortened upper mandible. 

See...

I contacted the USGS via this web page, Beak Deformity and Banded Bird Observation Report, to submit information on Bowie, got an error and ended up sending info and a couple of images via email instead. I got a response thanking me and saying that my report would be entered in their database back on September 21st but see no evidence of that online. There's a multimedia section with photos of 39 birds here. 

Despite some scientific curiosity, overall I'm not so sure I want to know why this is happening. My speculation steers me toward human causes and quite honestly I've had enough of that knowledge in my life. Bowie's a special bird for me here and now and despite whatever anthropomorphic attributions I might be applying, Bowie is my friend.  

It took me awhile to finally decide to write this story partly based on my wanting to have more images, until last week when I discovered I had taken 770 photos of Bowie and her partner. Mostly Bowie. As of this post I have 881 images in Bowie's folder. 

These images are going in by order of date taken. At the beginning, in September, she was going through her annual molt. While a little scruffy, I think it makes her all the more charming. Here's Bowie...

This is the image first submitted to the USGS project, taken September 19, 2021.

These are from September 24th.

October 5th.

October 13th.

When she eats she needs to put her beak down almost completely on its left side. I set up a feeding area on the patio table when I noticed she would kick kibble out of Stan's dish onto the patio to enable this. She's quite effective at getting more than one piece of dry cat food in her beak. These were also taken on October 13th.

Bowie had gotten more and more accepting of my presence over the course of these photographs. She also became quite aware that I was responsible for the food she was eating. Her mate, Mr. Bowie (don't get confused, Bowie's name is Bowie, she's not Mrs. or Ms. Bowie) has not been especially trusting of me and photos were much fewer and far between. According to the National Audubon Society, "pairs typically stay together all year on their permanent territory." This is the first decent image I took of Mr. Bowie on October 13th. He's a handsome lad and as you can see his beak is quite normal.

 

 

Mr. Bowie again on October 30th.

 
On November 2nd it seemed I had a communication breakthrough with Bowie. On October 24th in anticipation of much needed rain the following day (we got .54") I put down wildflower seed throughout the property. Since then we've had several days of temperatures into the low 90ºs which meant I had to go outside with some frequency (as many as 4x daily) and dampen the ground with a hose and hand sprayer. Bowie must've taken note of this and since I was also cleaning and refilling the little birdbath (thank you Docken!) which hangs on one of the ficus she frequents, she became pretty darn vocal about it on November 2nd. The birdbath is near the east side of the yard, I always start spraying on the west side. On this occasion she squawked at me all the way to my cleaning and filling the birdbath. She was telling me to hurry up! As soon as I walked away from it she was in there having a grand old time. I rushed inside to grab my camera.

Two days later I was able to catch Mr. Bowie at the birdbath drinking and Bowie once again dining on the patio table.

That's all for now but I suspect there will be another post or two about Bowie and her activities here. I hope she sticks around. Also according to Audubon... "Mostly a permanent resident. May disperse some distance in winter, especially in dry years when the oaks produce poor acorn crops." Okay, later, I gotta go look for some acorns.