Notes on a Few Birds of the Grand Canyon, Arizona

Abstract

The ground is cold as a marble pavement. The abundant leaves of the red-bud bear too intense a shade for a pre-sunlit morning; the dense clusters of seedpods hang luxuriantly from the twigs. Across the path, at the base of the bank, the Indian paint brush glows between the softer-toned blossoms of the mallow, and the yellow plume of the Stanleya, to which the hummingbirds have not yet darted. in a dark, little niche, overhung by grape-vines, one beautiful, solitary thistle poppy blooms. Suddenly, I hear a vibrant hum in the air, mingled with excited twitterings, and shrill squeaks. Buzz, buzz, buz-z-z ..... over the willow tips, over the tules, over the graceful stems of the tall, waxy-flowered dogbane. Then, I catch the gleam of two little sprites of the air-Black-chinned Hummingbirds (Archilochus alexandri), chasing one another with miraculous speed. The combat ceases as abruptly as it commenced. The contestants separate. One retires to a grape-vine swing and sits there quietly, occasionally shaking his ridiculous tail feathers; the other descends to the pool. He dips his little breast into the shallow water; he rises into the air; he drops again by gentle stages, twirling around after each descent, and squeaking ominously; he dips again, and submerging his tiny body to the chin, he trails through the pool like a fiery ship of green and violet. While he perches on a horizontal stem of dog-bane to dry his feathers, I gaze about me in quest of other birds. A male Black-headed Grosbeak (Zamnelodia melanocephala) is softly singing on a willow bough which overhangs the pool, while his mate is surreptitiously collecting a bundle of fiber from a dried plant on the opposite bank. Dark shapes flit constantly about the latter, and, by the aid of my field-glasses, I can discern several pairs of Desert Sparrows (Amphispiza bilineata deserticola) apparently nesting in the cactus and other growth on the hillside. The Black-throats' song, strung upon three tones, is rather thin and wiry, but especially suited to their environment. Far above these little sparrows, almost at the foot of the massive wall of rock which towers beyond them, several wild burros, escaped from cultivation , are leisurely grazing. Almost indistinguishable are they, in their coats of gray, from the boulders and brush amongst which they slowly move. As I watch them, an insect-like trill floats to me from a ledge of rock, lower down the hill-side, and, by carefully focusing my glasses upon the spot. I can descry the Rock Wren (Salpinctcs obsoletus), standing by a clump of cactus, and jerking her body up and down by what seems to be a well-managed system of wires. Very evidently, she is nesting in the fissure of rock, as she returns again and again to that particular spot, while her mate calls to her from some hidden point of vantage nearby. A rock squirrel runs along a ledge above her, sits up meditatively, drops again, and scampers into a crevice. And yet the sun has not risen behind me, over that austere barrier of rock. The air is still cold, and not a single lizard has stirred.