Early birds

Each morning in Mazatlan, I was wakened by white-winged doves, calling out their version of the rooster's crow, "Koo-koo-roo-koo-koo-o*," a peaceful sound, but persistent, repeated at short intervals all morning, a background to my morning chores and the walk into town for breakfast. "Koo-koo-roo-koo-koo-o!"

Later in the day, the song changed; now their voices sounded more like common city pigeons with sore throats. Listen to them here: the second and third recordings.

The doves were ubiquitous, hanging out in trees, on wires, on roofs, pecking at things on the ground, and even occasionally on the beach. Tame enough, but they were quick to fly away if I approached too closely.

White-winged dove, Zenaida asiatica.

White-winged Doves are brown overall, with a dark line on the cheek. A white stripe at the edge of the folded wing becomes, as the bird takes flight, a bright flash in the middle of a dark wing. The tail is tipped in white and set off with black stripes from the gray underside. Their faces are ornately marked with a black streak on the cheek, and blue skin around the red eyes. (Cornell)

The white wing patches are conspicuous in flight, but I was rarely able to aim the camera before the dove settled and the wings folded down again.

Caught on the hop

Distant photo, pocket camera. The blue eye-shadow shows up clearly here.

A courting couple, showing off the white-tipped tail feathers.

*Someone at the Cornell Lab of Ornithology hears the call as, "whoo-OOO-oo, ooo-oo".  This could be a matter of different ears, or an example of regional dialects in bird languages.

Reifel regulars

The second installment of Reifel Island photos, in no particular order:

Coot and his shadow.

I looked up voice recordings of the coot, on All About Birds (Cornell), because I was wondering how to spell the call I hear most often. Surprisingly, they have seven separate recordings, of various squeaks, clicks, and squawks, "krrps" and "priks", but not the note I was looking for; a hollow "glop" sound, sort of like a cork popping out of a wine bottle, or a like a booted foot, stuck in ankle-deep mud, reluctantly released;, a backwards "plop". That doesn't quite do it justice, though; the other calls are grating. This one is almost musical, a nice rounded tone, suddenly being cut off mid-note. Have you heard it? How would you describe it?

Cross-eyed eagle. Not his fault; he had a branch in his eye and I took it out.

Ma Wood Duck, showing off her many petticoats.

"Hurry, hurry! Someone has goodies!"

I am always surprised at the sharp hearing of the ducks. Even against a constant chorus of "Quack, quack, quack, oh quack-quack-quack-quack-QUACK!", as soon as someone a couple of ponds away rustles a bit of paper, ducks from all over drop what they're doing and race to the source. This time, all I had to do to wake up a hundred sleepy mallards was to slowly slide the bag of seeds out of my pocket.

Fat little towhee in a wild cherry tree. Or are those small crabapples?

Three more wood ducks and reflections.

More to come, tomorrow.