RRedbird

Apologies for being a bit out of pocket as of late. All our field staff including me are ..well..out in the field. Among them, Brad and Jan are filling up their tins abroad and Linda and I are dealing with the wet and cold weather currently ravaging south Texas. Surprisingly, the birding has been pretty impressive given the conditions. My brother Ron flew down to join in some birding for a week and just got on the plane to return to Chicago where it is snowing with a windchill of -4 – okay, I’ll stop complaining about our weather. In Ron’s short time here we were able to find him just under 150 new birds for his Average Year tally. That puts him at roughly 100 in the top 100 eBirders by species for the Texas region (note, actual positioning can fluctuate during the day based on reporting). Pretty impressive, but not to be outdone, with my extended time in Texas I am officially at 165 bird species. That puts me around 48th place for the entire Texas region. That is 52 birds ahead of last year’s pace, which you will recall, ended with a tally of 325 (see the finally updated full 2024 stats here). Shockingly, that means in the 15 days so far this year I already have 55% of the annual goal of 300. Tells you how hard it gets to find new birds as the year progresses. I do want to give a shoutout to all the wonderful birders we have met down here, including Steve and Lisa who guided us through Santa Ana NWR yesterday. Always willing to strike up a conversation and assist with any sightings. Warms my heart to know the birding community bonds continue to be strong.

I suspect there are some out there that could have predicted today’s featured feathered friend. After the last post on the Phainopepla, it just seems appropriate to go with another incredibly hard bird to spell that also has a spectacular punk-do.

Hit the jump to read more about this chunky member of the Cardinalidae family

In the case of the Phainopepla, it is primarily an issue with getting the spelling right. It is also close enough to the pronunciation allowing you to pretty much muddle through it by simply sounding out each syllable as long as you know your physics – no, not Newton’s first law of motion (although everyone should know that), rather go with the ‘PH’ instead of the easy ‘F’ – college professors just trying to sound all fancy like. Throw those crutches out the window when it comes to our featured bird. Hell, after all these years of birding I can still barely pronounce it. This is the time you have to fall back on rote memorization or taking an ink pen and writing it on your wrist under your watch band should you be in some kind of academic “test” situation. Ugh, our legal department has demanded I state for the record we do not condone “cheat-aids” in academic settings – Never, eva eva (get caught hehehe).

Okay class, spell it with me P-Y-R-R-H-U-L-O-X-I-A. Yes, that is 5 vowels, 6 consonants and whole lot of cussing. The official pronunciation guide is pyr·​rhu·​lox·​ia (link here) but I recommend going with Peer-A-Lucks-Zee-Uh. Spit it out there with authority, don’t blink or hesitant and dare anyone to put their bird creds on the line and challenge you. If nothing else, they’ll let it go because they don’t want to take the chance of being spit on again.

Hard to spell, hard to say and personally, hard to find. The tri-fecta for frustration in the field. I was lucky enough to find one in Harlingen, Texas back in 2018 (link here for some pretty poor shots). Then nothing until our Arizona trip back in January 2024. That sounded so much better 15 days ago when I could slyly say “this year”. Ended up encountering this puffy punkster multiple times – once in Benson at an RV resort, a parking lot encounter at the Saguaro National Park and the newly added entry in my top places to bird..Catalina State Park outside Tucson.

For the curious, you are seeing color variations in the overall body due to lighting conditions and not gender. Both the male and female are gray toned. The main difference between the sexes is the amount of red accents. Males will have additional red markings around the eyes that dabbles down the neck and chest. Now, the real question is, how to distinguish the Pyrrhuloxia from the female Northern Cardinal.

Answer, it’s “beaksy” (rim hit, here all week!). Pyrrhuloxia have a thick yellow seed munching bill. Cardinals sport a red bill, which to me is a much better ensemble. Hard name to say, hard name to spell, and now hard to look at color palette – nothing is going right for this bird!

Actually, one positive thing you can say about these crest-stars is they are quite hardy. Residents of the dry southwestern deserts the males will beat the crap out of one another if one even looks in their direction during the hot months. According to Cornell, tempers calm down during winter months and they can be seen playing in organized pickle ball tournaments.

If you made it this far, you are probably considering asking Jeeves (that may have dated me), what Pyrrhuloxia means. I went ahead and did the work for you. Cornell had the answer. It comes from the “genus names Pyrrhula (bullfinches) and Loxia (crossbills). The roots mean ‘flame-colored’ and ‘crooked,’ and aptly describe the reddish bird with the crooked bill”. So there you have it – instead of calling it simply the Crossbull, we get a jumbled mess of alphabet soup.

Time to clear the tins and charge the batteries for tomorrow’s birding endeavors. Fingers crossed we will get a chance to see the SpaceX launch in the afternoon. Take it easy everyone!