Gulls: What's so Special about a "Seagull"?

tgreybirds.com (California gulls)

   I am able to drink up sea water and expel the salt with a pair of salt glands located in my head above my eyes. Super salty water is absorbed from my bloodstream and excreted through the glands down my beak, trickling out my nostrils. Did you know I have this magic? Did you know we birds have nostrils?

 

www.kiwifoto.com

  I saw many gulls in their great colonies on the mudflats at Alviso Marina County Park. Ho-hum, seagulls; of course I kept my eyes peeled for something less ordinary. The ones pictured here, in an apparent embrace, are Western gulls, residents of the Pacific Coast. Many types of seagull (and people probably won't stop calling them that despite birders' urgency for accuracy) are birds I see daily without looking for them as they fly high overhead or float around on a city pond or take leftovers off the schoolyard. Birders are ever in pursuit of that rare sighting, but, for me, there is no ordinary bird. Gulls too possess their secrets.

http://www.pbase.com/tgrey/yard  Tom Grey has a helpful, friendly website with amazing photographs he took of many types of birds. Check this out!

Bushtits, or no see 'ums

North Coast Land Conservancy/Teresa

If you are reborn as a bushtit, you will never have to be alone. Bushtits travel in fluffed out little bands of ten, seventeen, twenty, forty, and then some. There isn't a creature such as the Lone Bushtit. They are the heart of sociability. They are dark, restless little forms like commas or apostrophes in a tree. Their bodies are small like several cotton balls stuck together with a longish tail tacked on. Psaltriparus minimus is their "proper," Latin name. Minimus would be a fitting name for one of those teensie chihuahuas or a parakeet, or maybe for a large pit bull or giant goldfish. "Minimus, down!" These birds are accomplished knitters binding thready green, grey knee socks in trees to hatch and raise their young inside. Their nests are long, coarse, flexible, spongy tapestries of moss, webs, animal hair and other filaments the pair weaves together on the outer limbs of trees. They are remarkable in the nest world and unique. The hanging shelters would seem to have been blown there and snagged by the tree except for the little cheeps and shaking of the lichen threads when the bushtitties are active. If I were a bushtit to-be, I would be warm, dry and happy in my sleeping bag, with its inner lining of feathers right where my bushtit tush fits. The parents climb in through a small opening at the top of the tube sock and pick their way down with insects for their nestlings. A perfect arrangement, in all.                                               

Sharp-shinned Hawk

http://www.pinterest.com/pin/132363676521127807

 I was walking at dusk by the Chinese statuary and birdbath sales yard near Kelley Park Zoo. I figured it was a bit dark to bird anymore and I wasn't likely to see anything "special" out in front of a 7-11 on a busy intersection. I wasn't paying any particular attention, but some swift motion, or it could have been a powerful presence, up to my left drew my eye. I looked up and there perched on a billboard was a Sharp-shinned Hawk taking a look on the birdbath and street scene below. I find the element of surprise keeps birdwatching new and exciting. Sometimes I surprise the bird and other times I am the one caught by surprise. Sharp-shinned Hawks are small birds of prey and they hunt passerines (perching birds) on the wing. They  also eat small mammals, an occasional reptile or amphibian, as well as large insects such as dragonflies. The "Sharpie" I saw was poised forward, his eyes fixed on the tree canopies for his end of day catch. He had handsome colors like the one here pictured with the rusty and white speckled breast and slate back. They have a reputation for taking food to-go from backyard birdfeeders, but wouldn't you? Hard to pass the buffet table without taking a nibble or two of the offerings...A bustling birdfeeder must be the Sharped shinned Hawk's idea of a QuickieMart stop.

howardsview.com (immature Sharp-shinned)