Essays

Wild On The Prairie: Birds

Uncommon common birds -- Painted Buntings and Pyrrhuloxias
July 29, 2001

I love watching animals. Deciphering the meaning of their behavior is a great mental exercise, and a wonderful stress reliever. While doing so, I feel that I am in the presence of a Greater Power, and if I watch carefully enough I will see something that stimulates my thoughts. Sometimes, as I puzzle something out, I realize that the effort is also helping me to figure out another problem in my life. A preacher once told me that we go through life learning lessons, and if we do not learn a lesson the first time it is presented, it will be given to us again and again, until we do learn it. And strangely enough, I often find an answer to a totally unrelated problem by the actions of some bird or lizard or butterfly!

Even if that does not happen, I still have lots of fun watching. One of the prettiest birds on the Llano Estacado is the Painted Bunting. This red, blue, and chartreuse bird lives in dense mesquite thickets. Males sing from sun-up to sun-down, hidden in the depths of the brambles. A person would think that such a brightly colored bird would be easily seen, but only a few times a day does it emerge to find the highest perch from which to celebrate its territory. In years of adequate rainfall, a person can find the Buntings near patches of Plains Bristlegrass (Setaria leucopila).

In the summer, Bristlegrass can make up 70 percent of the diet of the Painted Bunting. It is the most utilized grass in the list of wildlife foods. 250 species of birds have been observed eating the large round seeds that pack the stem. Long hairs are interspersed between the seeds, hence the name. Another less common species of bristlegrass, knotroot bristlegrass, has bristles that are worse than Velcro and are the starting point of matted hair on dogs and long-haired cats.

A Painted Bunting stands on the ground and nibbles every seed that it can reach. A fully-loaded Bristlegrass seedhead often bends over, nearly touching the ground. As it eats, the stem becomes lighter and straightens up again. Then the bird flies up and grasps the stem in its beak and rides it to the ground. The tension of the stem causes it to start sliding through the beak of the bird, and many seeds are stripped from the panicle. The seeds scatter willy-nilly on the ground, and the bird has an easy job for a while. It then repeats the process until thirty minutes later, not a seed is left on the plant.

Science warns against anthropomorphizing animals and giving them more credit for intelligence than they deserve. For some people, the above behavior is explained by the word "instinct." No problem-solving ability is allowed for any animal species other than human. It does not matter that many species of bird and mammal have been observed using tools.

When I watch a Painted Bunting completely process a stem of Bristlegrass, I feel that I am witnessing conscious thought. I feel that the bird has figured out the most efficient way to harvest the crop. To me, a head cocked from several different directions, and then a launch that causes 100 seeds to come tumbling to the ground indicates active and creative resolution of a problem. I witness a tiny creature thoroughly completing a job, and utilizing a number of different techniques. From observing its efforts, I learn about the importance of trying many approaches to reach a goal, to not be thwarted by the failure of one or more attempts. I feel it is a lesson from Higher Power, passed on to me because I took the time to observe, think, reflect, and analyze.

Most folks recognize and can name a Cardinal. On the Llano Estacado we also have the Pyrrhuloxia, which some people call the Desert Cardinal. Pyrrhuloxias have yellow beaks instead of red, and their red underwings and the male's red vest is set against a suit of gray. Like the Painted Buntings, they prefer dense mesquite thickets. Both species were rare on the Llano Estacado in the buffalo prairie days, and these and other brushland species only became established here as mesquite thickets developed.

When Lum Medlin lived at Mustang Springs, mesquite surrounded the waterhole for a distance of five miles. Charlie Goodnight said that this was roughly the limit of the wild mustangs’ preferred grazing distance from water. Painted Buntings and Pyrrhuloxias probably lived in those thickets, along with Curve-billed Thrashers, Cactus Wrens, Bewick's Wrens, Packrats, Cottonrats, and other species of the mesquite thicket habitat. At that time, much of Llano had almost no woody plant species, due as much to yearly fires as to browsing and grazing of buffalo and prairie dogs.

In the winter, people sometimes notice flocks of thirty or more Pyrrhuloxias. "Why do female Cardinals get together in the winter?" someone asked us recently. At the Gone Native Arboretum, the "Ceremonial Grove" of Arizona Cypress and Eastern Red Cedar is the local Pyrrhuloxia nighttime winter roost. In the summer, one or two pairs will remain to nest, and they usually select the same bushes year after year. The most used site is a huge old mesquite 20 feet tall with branches that reach horizontally even farther.

Both parents feed the young and share the housekeeping duties of carrying away the fecal sacs. The male sings only at daybreak before beginning his feeding duties. My mother once heard a very strange song and spent twenty minutes trying to find out what bird it was, only to discover that a male Pyrrhuloxia was trying to continue singing with its mouth full of food or poop.

When the babies leave the nest, they follow the male as the female begins a second nest. The young constantly pursue him, screaming to be fed. My mom described what happens in an article in the July, 1973 The Phalarope. "He seldom had a moment to pick up a grass seed, because he was so busy catching insects. I was watching the male picking at a Bristlegrass seedhead when a young one came begging. The father turned and pecked in the young bird's general direction and scolded with a semi-whistling trill -- 'Here, watch me, this is easy, and this is what you eat. Just shut up and learn!'"

"Just shut up and learn!" What good advice that is! So often we humans are not receptive to the value of observing and analyzing. We want it easy, to be told how to do something. We think teachers should be lecturers with all the answers, not mentors that stimulate proactive intellectual pursuits.