Bobolinks!

I have to do some work around cows this week.

I'm not going to lie, cows make me nervous.  Ungulates who stare at you and keep coming towards you are terrifying to me.  The only way they could be even scarier would be if they were bison.  That is just a lot of animal being controlled by an uncertain brain.  These are three of about three dozen cows that were surrounding me.  They just kept coming closer and closer with an expectant look.  Did they think I had food.  If I stepped wards them, they would back away, but some cows in the back of the her would run forward.  I tried mooing and that seemed to confuse them even further.

This one was really pushing its luck, "Oy, Bovine, back away from the carbon fiber tripod!"  The cows eventually went their way and left me alone, but I think being a five foot tall woman makes me feel uneasy about large cloven hoofed animals getting too close and too curious.  Has anyone made a horror movie about cows?  If not, they should.

Apart from the stress inducing cows, the big upside to my work this week is that I get to spend time in some of my favorite habitat--open grassland.  I'm surrounded by bobolinks, dickcissel, meadowlards and savannah sparrows.  Above is a female bobolink who scolded me as I walked to my work area.

Her brazen attitude on the fence made me realize that she must have had a nest nearby.  I made sure to watch where I placed my feet, the last thing I wanted to do was smush little baby bobolinks with my shoes.  Female bobolinks are crazy looking birds, they do not look like the males, they look more like sparrows.  Technically, bobolinks are considered blackbirds (for the moment, who knows will happen with future taxonomy changes).  If you get past the brownish colorization, you can kind of see a blackbird type of shape to these birds (think red-winged blackbird).

The male wasn't too far behind and flew in to chirp at me, also warning me that I was too close for comfort to his nest.  Out of habit, I pished at them and that set the male off in a frenzy of song above me.  I paused to listen to that crazy mechanical song.  I love that song, it's the general ringtone on my phone.  If this make wanted me to move a long, singing his song a few feet above my head was not the way to do it.

I love everything about these guys.  I love their song, their odd plumage (black on the bottom, blond wig on the back of the head, patches of white on the back).  This bird is too weird for color tv.  And check out those toe nails--they're so long!  I love these birds so much, they are worth putting up with a few dozen cows.

 

 

Autumn Bobolinks

I woke up in the dark on Sunday morning and was irritated.  I realized that I was awake and since it was still dark out, I assumed it must have been in the middle of the night.  Was it the humidity?  Was it the moon?  Was it that early evening cup of coffee?  All three could be causes of insomnia for me.  Since sleep wasn't coming, I decided to get up and do some writing (Non Birding Bill calls this my acorn gathering time, I generally say yes to a TON of freelance projects in the late summer to tide over the leaner months in winter).  I walked into the living room and was surprised to see the clock read 5:30 am. Waking up at that time would make sense since I went to bed early the night before...CRAP, it's dark at 5:30am--that means the days are getting seriously shorter. I said, "Screw writing." Then grabbed my digiscoping equipment and hit the road.  Gotta enjoy the warm weather and birds while it lasts.

I took in a ton of fall migrants, but my favorite birds were the flocks of bobolinks nibbling on grasses along some gravel roads.  I pulled over and was serenaded by late summer katydids while took photos of the yellow birds as they popped out and then down in the tall grasses.  I'm not sure if this is a male or female, this is the bobolink's non breeding plumage and they both look the same.  If you click on this link you can see what a male bobolink looks like during the breeding season--quite a dramatic change!

I sometimes have trouble remembering that bobolinks are thought to be in the blackbird family--especially in the fall.  They look like large yellowish sparrows.

This is my favorite photo--the bobolinks lurking and hiding while feeding.  The plumage makes sense while migrating.  These birds will also have to contend with the millions of raptors moving south this fall too.  They yellow and brown stripes will help them hide while they feed.

These bobolinks were near some flooded farm fields with lots of shorebirds, I actually went shorebird watching a couple of times last week, but shorebird id stresses me out and I haven't put the photos up yet.  I'll have to bite the bullet and get them up.  Their migration is full on.

If you haven't been out to enjoy some birds, get out there now.  Migration is on!