Birdchick Blog
Got to experience a ferruginous pygmy-owl today at King Ranch. We heard a few owls, but the birds were so hidden that I couldn't really get a photo. However, the males were tooting so loud I could take a video of the thicket and you can hear one of them singing away:
We started our birding in the fog this morning. We were in a newer park in the Weslaco area called Estero Llano Grande State Park. This where the northern jacana was located this time last year. Llano Grande has a wonderful deck overlooking a lake. When we arrived at dawn there was a heavy fog and you could hear ducks, dowitchers and kingbirds.
This made for incredible atmosphere, but lousy digiscoping. This is a green kingfisher perched on top of a martin house.
But there were great birds all around like this lark sparrow who was mid preen when I took this photo.
It was very eerie, out of nowhere in the fog, huge flocks of red-wing blackbirds began to descend all around us, coming in for food. You would hear this large squeaky and squawking sound then this cloud of black would just appear overhead.
Gradually the fog began to lift and you could make out more birds, like these three black-bellied whistling ducks. It's interesting, there's been a black-bellied whistling duck hanging out on a lake about fifteen minutes from where I live in Minneapolis (that's a rare bird for that area) but I knew I would be seeing them soon in Texas and couldn't motivate myself to go see the one in the Twin Cities.
As the fog was lifting, several dew covered spider webs revealed themselves.
And the webs became part of the natural scenery in photos. Above is a female vermilion flycatcher perched near a web. Even though she isn't as bright as the male, she's still very attractive.
As the fog cleared, we started getting much better looks at the waterfowl. This bird confused me at first, but I think it's a molting green-winged teal--you can still see some cinnamon color around its bill--and the green on the wing.
I was really enjoying the shorebirds too. Check out that sleeping black-necked stilt surrounded by long-billed dowitchers. Looks like something out of Dr. Seuss.
Speaking of Dr. Seuss birds, check out this American avocet--they were quite active, there were several who spent so much time chasing each other, it's a wonder that they ever got enough to eat. While I was watching this bird, I noticed some movement behind it. To my surprise and delight...
I saw a sora! This bird was lurking in the reeds and then stopped right before it got to the opening out onto the water. I aimed my scoped just a little in front the sora and focused it. I figured the sora was making sure the ares was predator free before it would walk out into the open. However, instead of walking the bird jumped in the air, flew over the boardwalk and landed in another set of reeds. Not the exact shot I wanted of a sora, but fun to watch the behavior.
This young kiskadee let our group get quite close and many of us had a chance to get a photo. The group stayed still until the kiskadee decided to fly off. You can still see the gape at the corners of this bird's mouth--it's not very old at all. Look how scruffy the tail is.
After Llano Grande we made a couple more stops, one being Frontera Audubon. I thought it was interesting to note that as one of our field trip leaders was crouching to get a better look at a bird, a cat came up and started rubbing on his leg and spotting scope tripod. Silly kitty, birders think you should be indoors, not hanging around a great birding park.
And here's is one of the star feeder birds in south Texas--the green jay. What a treat! But the park was loaded with plain chachalacas:
Boy, you think squirrels can take over bird feeders, you should see a huge flock of chachalacas in action. That made short work of many of the grapefruits set out to attract orioles and butterflies--and they are just all over. You would walk along the trails, have a sensation of being watched, scan the brush and then find a chachalaca casually staring at you through the brush from only a few feet away. I think they're plotting. What, I don't know.
Okay, and now I have to sleep for more birding fun tomorrow.
I'm blogging next to Blue Lizard.
I feel like we're being stalked by plain chachalacas. They are everywhere, lurking, watching, perhaps planning a massive attack. Do you see the one right in front of my scope? I'll put my camera to my scope so you can see:
There's what I got through the scope. Now compare this and see if you can find it in the first photo. Now back to my mojito.
One of the booths here (Bird Uganda Safaris) has an interesting give away. I was handed a clear plastic bag (sealed) full of a clear liquid. "Is this water?" I asked. Closer inspection revealed it to be Uganda Waragi (premium gin). Guess we know where the party booth is! Well, I have seen my requisite great kiskadee (above). More photos to come.
Part of the charm for many who visit the Rio Grande Valley for birding are the numerous butterflies and dragonflies. I never really understood the whole butterfly watching hobby, but being in Texas, it's really making sense--there are so many all over. Above is a cluster of Queen butterflies that I found on our trip this morning. I don't know what they were feeding on, but they were diggin' it.
Well, I have landed in Texas for the Rio Grande Valley Bird Fest. I am again helping out my friends at the birdJam booth. I haven't done much birding yet, but some parrots flew over our hotel and I discovered that Denese from birdJam is a little sentimental over great-tailed grackles. She remembers them fondly from the past and almost gets misty when we pass a tree full noisily roosting grackles. Yeah, she's not strange at all.
The Raptor Project family is here in Texas. Some may remember the awesome gyrfalcon story from a week ago. I wonder what kind of hunting the bird will do here? While they were setting up, they perched out their Asian black hornbill and John was kind enough to pose me near it for a photo. What a goofy looking bird with one dynamite beak! And for fun, I googled "hornbill" to see if I could come up with any interesting info and instead found a photo album of some guy vacationing with a hornbill...and let it clean his teeth...yeah, ew is right.
Well, I'm going to get some sleep and try to digiscope the crap out south Texas tomorrow.
How the heck did I miss this? David Sibley is blogging--he's not updating all the time, I think he had like 8 posts in September, but it's a start.
There's a video of Cinnamon and myself on Showcase Minnesota up over here.
Look who is looking bright eyed and feisty! Yes, it's injured peregrine #568! Today was just a plain busy day, I have to pack for my flight to Texas tomorrow and I had two programs back to back at The Raptor Center (the first was about 70 two year olds and then the second was a small group of senior citizens--talk about shift gears fast!). But in the middle of all that, I managed to pop down into clinic and get an update on the injured female tundrius peregrine falcon we have been following. Things are progressing well!
Here is an X-Ray that Alana took last week. If you recall from last time, they removed the large rod that was inside the leg stabilizing the bone, leaving in the two smaller titanium pins. When Alana took this X-Ray, she noticed that one of the pins had broken in two--note the pin on the bottom. That pin is located just below the healed up break. She's not sure how the bird managed to break the pin, but she decided to remove the remaining stabilizer. A tiny piece of one of the pins remained in the leg, but it will not harm the falcon in the long term (unless she goes through airport security).
The skin on the leg is pink and healthy and her feathers are growing back in (it looks much better than the first day that I saw her leg--bleh). She still has a long journey ahead. She will remain in a clinic cage awhile longer to make sure that she can move around and that the healed bone is stable. If all goes well, they will consider moving her to a flight room, but it's best to take the time to make sure everything is healed up.
All in all, very good news.
I get a weekly Barnes and Noble e-newsletter letting me know about specials and includes coupons. It came in this morning with the Online Holiday Catalog. I clicked on First Rate Reads For The Holidays and went to Humor section and mixed in with Stephen Colbert, David Sedaris, Garrison Keillor, and even Borat is Disapproving Rabbits.
JeffGyr along with the talents of Bill Schmoker and Jim Rapp has put together a video asking birders at Cape May Autumn Weekend what their "spark birds" were. For the non birders, a spark bird is the bird that got you hooked into birding. You may hear some familiar voices in there, including Mike from 10,000 Birds.
So, what's your spark bird?
A personal triumph for me:
Digiscoping an almost completely in focus ruby-crowned kinglet. How the heck did I manage that? Perhaps I am finally becoming one with my digiscoping equipment.
Holy cow! I think this is the most media that I have ever done in one day! I woke this morning just after 6am to a call from Darci, the producer of the Ian and Maregery show asking if I had a few minutes to go on air, after that at 6:45am, I got a call from the producer of Showcase MN, asking if I could fill in as guest host and this afternoon after 4:30pm, I have an interview on WLTE to promote the book--I'm all over the place.
I got a kick out of the crew at Showcase calling me the new diva because the show was just pretty much all about me. I was originally scheduled as a guest this morning and they decided to keep that segment, so I had to film teases for my segment and host--I didn't end up interviewing myself but I was all over--it was fun. They are so nice on that station and Corbin (one of the other hosts) was really sweet to tell me where to stand, making suggestions on what do--it's a real team effort which makes it fun. And what was the best part of my morning--my first interview was for Surdyk's--a local liquor store Non Birding Bill and I frequent! Their chef cracked open a bottle of champagne in the middle of the segment. Champagne at 10am! My goodness I have a glamorous lifestyle for a birder.
Okay, back to the original intent of this entry: frozen birds--and I don't mean frozen as in cold, I mean frozen as in just plain not moving.
This titmouse photo was taken a couple of weeks ago. The bird had been flitting around Mr. Neil's feeders and then just stopped here for several minutes and I got all sorts of fun photos of it. When birds stop moving, that is a pretty good sign that a predator is nearby. When bird's aren't moving, they know something is near that could eat them. I started to scan around the yard and noticed other birds not moving.
SIDE NOTE: I just looked out the window while typing this entry and noticed that it's snowing. Sigh.
You can almost hear this female downy woodpecker saying through pursed bill, "If I don't move, you can't see me at all." Now This strategy might work well if she were against a tree trunk, however, up against a finch feeder filled with Nyjer thistle and sunflower chips--she kind of sticks out like a sore thumb.
I mentioned earlier that the idea of a chickadee souped up on sugary donuts is a scary thought--a chickadee frozen in place is just as unnerving. Above this black-capped chickadee and white-breasted nuthatch doing their best statue impersonations. Some further scanning around the woods did reveal a small sharp-shinned hawk lurking in the trees. The hawk eventually moved on, but I'm sure if one of frozen songbirds had moved, it would have stimulated an attack from the hawk.
After the sharpie moved on, normal bird activity resumed and birds began flitting around like crazy. So keep an eye on those feeders. If you ever see a house finch stock still on a feeder, scan the trees, chances are that there is a hawk nearby.
