more. Do Arizonans want more traffic gridlock and air pollution? No doubt, by 2050 Arizona will be receiving subsidies like floated icebergs and desalinized ocean water.

Returning to the flycatcher: these birds moved into the former riparian habitat of both Horseshoe and Roosevelt Reservoirs during our recent drought years. The endangered birds were simply returning to the locations where they had lived earlier.

As the result of the recent Roosevelt Reservoir Habitat Conservation Plan (an agreement under the Endangered Species Act between SRP and the U.S. Fish & Wildlife Service), SRP agreed to temporarily not fill Horseshoe in 2003. The agreement allows SRP to fill those long dry portions of Roosevelt Reservoir and flood the 250 or more endangered flycatchers nesting there. In return for flooding out the endangered bird, SRP will purchase over $17 million in riparian habitat elsewhere.

As noted earlier, only degraded fragments of Arizona’s riverine habitats have survived dams, diversions, groundwater pumping and cattle grazing. Happily, Roosevelt’s Habitat Conservation Plan land requires SRP land purchases adjacent to the San Pedro, Verde and elsewhere to retire private riparian lands being destroyed by cattle grazing and by groundwater pumping adjacent to those aquifers (for growing water-greedy forage crops).

CATERING TO THE NEIGHBORS

By Ann McDermott

Over the years, one of my favorite wild neighbors has been the Western Screech Owl.  I’ve had a number of close encounters with it and look forward to more.  I hope the human population growth in my area won’t preclude that.   

I had often heard the ‘bouncing ball’ call of the owl long before I knew who it belonged to.  Especially on nights of the full moon, the calling would go on for extended periods of time.  Then I heard Troy Corman imitating a Western Screech Owl while trying to bring up small birds from the bushes during a birding outing, and I finally knew my neighbor’s identity.

I've been fortunate to have a few good sightings too.  Several times while out on a walk I have passed nearby and been pleased when it didn’t flush, but sat still and watched me through eyes closed to the merest slits so that the bright yellow of its irises wouldn’t beam right through its attempt at camouflage.  And that camouflage is just about perfect too. 

The cryptic gray/black/white plumage is tough to see up against the flaky bark of a mesquite trunk or even the gravel base of a driveway, where it once sat while my dogs walked right by it without noticing.  I marveled how they had not seen it, then marveled again when it continued to sit still as I walked by, only a few feet distant.  It sat as still as a garden gnome, as if it were perfectly safe perched in a tree, instead of perfectly vulnerable, perched in my driveway.  Without a doubt, its absolute motionlessness is what saved it from my dogs’ 

attention.  Only about seven inches tall, I really did wonder if my eyes were deceiving me.

Another time a human neighbor and her two-year old son paid a visit. They walked down my patio to my back door, passing by an owl sitting silent and still on the edge of a planter.  They stopped, pointed, amazed by the fact that it didn’t spook.  The son is now three and still points out where he saw that owl.

I have no explanation for these rare occasions of boldness on the Screech Owl’s part, but we’re all glad to have shared a moment with this tiny member of our community.

A neighbor friend of mine is a carpenter, and when Ken Kaufmanns published his specs for a Western Screech Owl box, I cut out the article and took it over to him.  My Christmas present last year was the finished owl box, hung in a palo verde near my home.  I do hope someone takes up residence this spring, though I haven’t seen evidence of that yet.  THAT’S a family I’d love to have next-door.

If anyone is interested in having a Western Screech Owl box made to Ken Kaufman¹s specifications, my friend, Bob Allen, can be reached at 623-584-1502.  He’s a talented carpenter, so if you have the specs for any owl box or bird house, he can make it for you.  Actually, if you want a wall unit for your living room, he can make that too.  But it’s the owl boxes that will bring in the most fascinating neighbors you could ever wish to have.

Enjoy spring and all those community members nesting in and around your house!

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5

AZ SPECIAL SPECIES - THREE-TOED WOODPECKER

By Jim Burns

Photo by Jim Burns

I know, I know.  Regular readers of this series will be very curious to see how I am going to stretch my oft-reiterated criteria for Arizona's special species--species found only here or more easily here than in any other state--to cover Three-toed Woodpecker.  Picoides tridactylus can, after all, be found in ten other states across the mountain west as well as eastward along the Canadian border from the Great Lakes to New England.  But, throughout that range it is an uncommon and nomadic bird, certainly never easy to find anywhere.

The answer lies in the nature of Nature.  Nature is not static.  Nature is dynamic and She abhors a vacuum.  Her agents of cataclysmic change--water, wind, and fire--periodically create vacuums which She seeks immediately to fill.  I would like this series and its criteria to be dynamic as well, responsive to those natural events which affect and change our state's avian life and how we relate to it.

At dusk on September 15, 2002 I stood in a small meadow in the center of the Leroux Burn on the south slope of the San Francisco Peaks outside Flagstaff.  Tapping was audible in every direction, subdued but constant, so pervasive through the specter of blackened pines it was spooky.  Glassing 360 degrees without changing my position I counted eight Three-toeds and three Hairy Woodpeckers, and I could hear (yes, this is actually possible!) two different bark beetles ratcheting away in their hidden catacombs nearby.

I was able to walk the perimeter of the Leroux Burn, which occurred in June, 2001, in a couple hours.  As forest fires go, Leroux would be merely a postage stamp on the vast face of last year's Rodeo-Chediski fire which would take days to explore by auto.  You can see where I'm going with this, and the Engraver Beetles are already there, some predating the fire, others having followed the smell of the burning wood chemicals to the smoke’s source.

No one is quite sure how Three-toeds find a fire site, but congregate they do, most likely settling in and raising larger broods wherever their nomadic wanderings intersect with concentrations of their beetle prey.  Beetles will be at their peak in the Rodeo-Chediski this summer and next.  Three-toeds will be too, and they should be easy to find with a little diligence.

Picoides tridactylus is one of our rare species actually named scientifically and commonly for an outstanding physical  

characteristic.  Like Black-backeds they lack the inner rear toe of other woodpeckers and, though theydo excavate into the wood for their nest holes, they flake bark rather than excavate when foraging, wood-boring beetle larva being the dietary staple.  The handful of nests I have found have all been at eye level in blackened snags of burned out pine, and the nest holes have had extensive areas of flaked bark around them.

In Arizona Three-toeds and Hairies are found in the same habitat, but Three-toeds are always quieter and less active than the latter, and will allow much closer approach, often seeming quite tame.  Outside of breeding season, mated pairs can be found together maintaining vocal contact and exchanging food items as they feed through an area.  I was once privileged to watch a family of four working a burn in Alaska, the adult male "teaching" a juvenile male, the adult female, a juvenile female, the young birds obviously going through trial and error trying to duplicate the parents' flake and forage techniques.

The Three-toed's contact call is a typical woodpecker "pik" reminiscent to me of a Ladder-back or the alarm call of an American Robin.  It is deeper and more resonant than that of a Downy, but much softer and lower than that of a Hairy.  Three-toeds are clinal across their range in the U.S., our Arizona population being part of the dorsalis race, the lightest overall with the least barring on its white back.  At first glance, females of Three-toed and Hairy can be confused, but Three-toeds will always have barring on the flanks whereas Arizona Hairies are all white below giving a much "cleaner" appearance.  The drumming of these two species reflects their personalities.  The Three-toed's is rather soft and deliberate, almost tentative compared to the louder, faster beat of a Hairy.

Prior to our state's recent fires the best places to find Three-toeds in Arizona were the Sunrise Campground off state route 260 between Pinetop and Greer, and on the Apache-Sitgreaves National Forest around Hannagan Meadows along U.S. 191 south of Alpine.  The accompanying photo was taken in September, 2002 in the Leroux burn, certainly a recent hotspot created for this species by dynamic and unforeseen natural forces.  For the next three years the vast Rodeo-Chediski footprint may well be the easiest place in the country to find this much sought, retiring yet tame, fire and infestation specialist of the north woods.