Featured
FeederWatcher:
David Smith
David was first introduced to birds back in the 50s when his parents bought a Peterson’s guide. Later, when he was in medical school and considering a residency in radiology, David’s advisor recommended that he take up bird watching because “it will teach you to recognize the important details within the background clutter.” After medical school, David focused on his career and on raising a family until about ten years ago when he and his wife, Shanna Rendon, set up feeders and began visiting their local Audubon sanctuary. Their son, Casey, encouraged David to return to his interest in photography. That’s when David began photographing the birds coming to his feeders. Now he is retired and has more time to pursue his photography as well as skiing and bike riding.
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 FeederWatching
With binoculars and camera nearby, David and Shanna watch their birds for about an hour each morning from two chairs near their picture window while drinking coffee and tea and discussing their plans for the day. The window overlooks high desert, shale hills, and gneiss and sandstone cliffs as well as their feeder station, which is just outside the window. |
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"We get a kick out of the Bushtits, but we have to be at the window at just the right time because the flock arrives, eats, and leaves in about a minute." |
| Bushtit by David Smith |
| Shanna is the better “spotter” says David. “With 30 years of experience in a hospital lab, most of that as a cytotechnologist (looking at specimens trying to distinguish the few malignant cells from the other 200,000 to 400,000 normal cells on a slide), she is detail oriented and can spot a small variation in color, size, or form marking an unusual bird that I might miss.” David and Shanna regard their careers “studying slides and x-rays as good training for the more relaxing pursuit of counting birds for FeederWatch,” David wrote. |
Habitat
David and Shanna first started FeederWatching in a lower, marshy woodland area about two miles away from their current home. Despite the close proximity, the habitat changed drastically when they moved about two years later to their current high desert location with pinyon pines and junipers. They found that far fewer common feeder birds, such as sparrows, chickadees, and titmice, visit their current site than their previous site, but they now are treated to Canyon Wrens, Pinyon Jays, and Gambel’s Quail.
Our feeder station is bounded at the back
by a stack wall of boulders, and this little guy
was exploring all the cavities." |
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Canyon Wren by David Smith |
Their current yard borders the Colorado National Monument on the western slope of the Rockies, near Utah, where the mountains meet the desert at about 5000 feet. An old buffalo fence marks the boundary to the monument—a remnant from the days when buffalo roamed this portion of the park. David described the front yard as suburban, with a sidewalk and people walking by, while the back is wide open and natural. |
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The temperature range from summer to winter is drastic, with extremes as high 105 degrees in summer and as low as 0 degrees in winter. They only receive about 9 inches of precipitation each year. Consequently the plant life is sparse and lacks variety, which limits the number of bird species that visit the feeders. |
Pinyon Jays by David Smith |
The birds
The most common bird at David and Shanna’s feeders is the junco, but the species with the biggest flock size—up to 100 at a time—is the Pinyon Jay. |
Other common visitors include Gambel’s Quail, Western Scrub-Jay, Bushtit, House Finch, Mourning Dove, and American and Lesser goldfinches. Cooper’s and a Sharp-shinned hawks also patrol the feeders daily.
At one point David and Shanna had three kinds of jays in a ten minute period—Steller’s Jay, Pinyon Jay, and Western Scrub-Jay. David was especially delighted to see the Steller’s Jay, which he used to see when he lived in the Santa Cruz Mountains in California, but this species rarely descends to the elevation of his current home. He also noticed that the Steller's Jays he has visiting now have more white around the face and over the eyebrows than the birds he saw in California, indicating that he is now seeing a an interior form of the species, which made the sighting even more exciting. |
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Steller's Jay by David Smith |
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David’s favorite feeder visitor is the Gambel’s Quail. "We are on the Quail Parkway,
used daily as the Gambel's Quail
commute from an adjacent arroyo
to a large grassy area on the other
side of the buffalo fence," David wrote. In the spring, the quail bring their chicks to David's window, up to sixteen in a clutch. "In the winter, they wade through the snow and toboggan down the slope to the feeding area."
A couple of years ago David and Shanna hosted two Orange-crowned Warblers for several months. The species had never been reported in the Grand Valley during the winter. |
| Gambel's Quail by David Smith |
Feeders
David and Shanna have tube feeders filled with nyjer seed and sunflower chips (David says he doesn’t like the mess of oiled sunflower seeds); platform feeders for chips, cracked corn, and peanuts; and a suet cage for peanut butter. On the ground they spread corn, sunflower chips, and peanuts. David makes homemade suet blocks from lard, peanut butter, cornmeal, flour, and seed that he forms into blocks and puts on his platform feeders. The feeder area also includes a heated bird bath. |
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"These guys can clean out the tray in a matter of minutes commonly packing three nuts in their crops while carrying two in their beaks." |
Western Scrub-Jay by David Smith |
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