Habitat #2362

You probably couldn't tell it by looking at our backyard today, on this shortest day of the year, but the little bit of work we did to modify what we inherited paid off.

In the mail a month or so ago we received a "Texas Wildscapes" Backyard Wildlife Habitat certification, a "Best of Texas Backyard Habitat" certificate of merit, and a National Wildlife Federation "Backyard Wildlife Habitat" certification.

That's a lot of paper.

It was a useful exercise, helping us think-through decisions about what to plant and where; what to take out and what to leave. But to answer my buddy Vince's question: No. There's no tax break, no monetary reward ... just the satisfaction of knowing we are deliberately inviting wildlife into our little patch of Texas.

As the winter here progresses in fits and starts, House sparrows have finally shown-up. My favorite orange-fronted woodpecker has been MIA the past few weeks, but the chickadees and titmice and doves and wrens are still about.

The maple trees dropped their leaves after a short but showy color change. The Red oak is still hanging on to its russet cover.

The newest mammal sighted in the backyard, Canis lupus familiaris (Pete, the dog), apparently has deterred ol' brer' 'possum. Ed and Maria next door are pretty happy about that.

Murder most fowl

Patrick really wants to believe it was an accident. The evidence says it was not.

There's the blood splatter: a dark stain on weathered wood, and oak leaves speckled with red.

There are the feathers: primary and secondary flight feathers and the sort of small, downy feathers found close to a plump breast.

There are the signs of a struggle: scuffed and gouged leaf litter, near the scene of the crime (Patrick's playhouse).

It appears to me that the victim was a white-winged dove, one of the dozen or so pass through the yard regularly and even roost in our oaks.

I'm no detective, but I've read plenty of mystery novels. I know that to solve this crime, I must consider three things: motive, means and opportunity.

Motive: there are a couple of possible motives; hunger is a good one, and a fat dove is a pretty tempting meal. Doves, as previously noted, also are the thugs of the perching bird world. I suppose it's possible another animal finally just got fed up and extracted bloody revenge. But let's go with the first possibility as the most likely.

Means: Dispatching a dove requires a certain quickness, as well as sharpness of both tooth and claw. It's possible the bird was caught on the roost, in which case some climbing might be involved. It's also possible that the bird was ambushed on the ground, in which case stillness and patience come into play.

Opportunity: Well, the doves are here pretty much 'round-the-clock. When they roost, they are not particularly observant. So it could have happened just about any time, but I'm betting it was under the cover of darkness.

After careful consideration, I'm ruling-out the neighbor cat. He doesn't seem particularly motivated, comes into our backyard only rarely and I've never seen him muster the energy to be interested in a bird.

The possums that visit our backyard certainly have the means and opportunity, but they too seem much more opportunistic than savage. They'd rather grub around in the ground and pick up leavings than actually hunt something.

That leaves the raccoons. Great climbers, and they usually show up in gangs, and they have excellent eyesight, sense of smell and climbing ability.

Opinions?

More cool birds

I must be getting old. My brother reminded me this past weekend that I'd given him a hard time last year about sitting out back of his new house, drinking coffee and watching the birds.

"You're getting to be just like Dad," I said.

Seems like we're both getting to be just like Dad.

Papa lives in Longview, and from his back porch he watches several varieties of woodpeckers, mockingbirds and thrashers, jays and cardinals, doves and I'm-not-sure-what-else. He is engaged in a running battle with the squirrels. They have their own feeders in the yard, but still try to get to the bird food. His latest ploy is to smear the bird feeder poles with axle grease.

Pineywoods humor, I guess.

Our backyard bird count is up to ... 14 species, now, not counting the vultures that wheel overhead. With the arrival of the first real cold front of the year, I'm looking forward to seeing more northern species push through on their seasonal journey south.

A recent repeat visitor to the yard is a single golden-fronted woodpecker. It's quickly become my favorite, with its bright orange nape patch and finely detailed black-and-white back. It's the only bird in the yard that will take on the thuggish white-winged doves.

The other day, the woodpecker left the suet feeder and flew right at a dove parked on a nearby branch. There was a feathery explosion, the dove departed post-haste, and the woodpecker returned to the feeder.

I quietly applauded.

I often hear the golden-fronted woodpecker before I see him, a soft "churrrr-kek-kek-kek," or sometimes the knocking of his bill as he tests various oak limbs for soft spots and insects.

He's recently discovered the peanut butter I left smeared into the crevices of an oak tree. It was gone after three visits.

TPWD ornithologist Cliff Shackelford recently helped me identify another "new" bird to our backyard -- a pair of Lesser goldfinches. There are lots of small yellow birds in Texas -- finches, warblers, vireos -- and it's going to take me a while to sort them all out, I'm afraid.

Home for lunch one day last week, I counted 10 species of birds in the backyard at the same time. That was not only fun to watch, but pleasant to listen to as well; it was a riot of birdsong.

Another work colleague, Bruce, who produces TPWD's PBS show, suggested a neat trick using the call of the Eastern Screech Owl. Twice I've been able to call one of the resident owls in to the back porch by playing the "A" song (see "The Owl Pages" link in the column to the right).

Bruce suggested playing it during the day, beneath a low-hanging limb.

Songbirds of all types seem to be powerfully motivated to harass a raptor should they come across one, and owls are frequent targets of this mobbing behavior.

Sure 'nuff, by playing a loop of the owl song on my laptop (strategically placed underneath a low-lying bush), I soon had a dozen birds of half a dozen species lined-up in the vicinity. Pretty cool.

[Top to bottom: Golden-fronted woodpecker, Carolina chickadee, House finch, Lesser goldfhinches (with a female house finch), Carolina wren]