Desert Messenger

March 17, 2021 www.DesertMessenger.com 9 Got Drugs? Turn in your unused or expired medication for safe disposal Mon - Fri. 8am-5pm Quartzsite Police Department Gardening with Dennis It's for the birds! We can get the Shih tzu out of your carpet! 520-255-9081 MD CARPET CLEANING SERVING QUARTZSITE - BLYTHE Let's Talk Dirty! QUALITY BEADS AND JEWELRY American Indian Jewelry Pottery – Beads – Supplies Gemstone Jewelry Black Hills Gold Jewelry Hardies Beads & Jewelry 1250 W. Main Street - P O Box 1920 - Quartzsite, AZ 85346 Across the street from McDonalds 928-927-6381 OPEN! Tues. thru Sat. 9am-3pm Closed Sun & Mon By Alex Taft In the fall when all the winter visitors arrive, many purchase quail blocks and hummingbird feeders and bird seed. After all, visitors came here to escape the winter and birdsong is part of that expe- rience. In the summer when most of our visitors have left, the birds are on their own. So what do they do? They fi nd a yard with plenty of native plants and eat cactus fruit, pick at seeds on the ground from creosote, ironwood, palo verde and mesquite trees. In keeping with the goal of this series of articles, I wasn't sure how Dennis felt about all this since he spent a lot of time preventing birds from feasting on his garden and fruit trees. As I started my research on this subject, I found books about birds in the li- brary some of which were donated by Dennis, which ended my inter- nal confl ict over the subject of this article. I found a book, "Birds of the Southwestern Desert" by Gusse Thomas Smith who talks about all the birds who live in the Saguaro which she refers to as the "oldest continuously operated apartment house". It is home to owls, hawks, fl ycatchers, woodpeckers, pur- ple martins and occasionally, the mourning dove. Gambel Quail like any kind of grasses. Cactus wrens like Chollas for their home base and are happy with cactus fruit. Road- runners are meat eaters. If you have one in your yard, they usually have a routine and show up at approxi- mately the same time every day much like those who are in one of the local markets' what's-for-din- ner line just after 5:00 PM. I have seen roadrunners consume quail, lizards or bugs. They do eat snakes and there is quite a description of the process in the "Birds of the Southwestern Desert." The book describes how they take about three hours to kill a snake by dive-bomb- ing it, stabbing it at the base of the brain. According to the author, it takes another three hours to eat it, consuming it whole, head fi rst. Roadrunners are opportunists and nest under mesquite trees or palo verde trees, in abandoned shacks or by piling up a bunch of twigs, debris and grasses. The point to this long preamble is that if you want birds to visit, keep the native grasses, cactus, saguaro, palo verde, mesquite or ironwood trees and creosote bushes. If you like hummingbirds, they are drawn to color rather than scent. Some of the low water use plants that attract hummingbirds are oleanders, Baha rubellia (a deep blue petunia-like plant), Bottle Brush, desert willow trees, emu bushes, red or gold lan- tana, hesper aloe and yellow bells. Another good book on local birds is, "Watchable Birds of the Southwest" by Mary Taylor Gray. This book has photographs of the birds that make them easily identifi able. Whether you have an acre of land or live in an RV space, you can draw birds to you with the use of a few native plants or cactus. They will eat whether you are here or gone for the summer, or whether you have lugged bags of birdseed from the store or not and will be here when you return.

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