.It's taking me quite a time to sort through the photos from our Barcelona trip, even though good bird photos from the trip are disappointingly few and far between. I hope I'll be ready to do another Ebro Delta blog tomorrow.
In the meantime, I've been enjoying seeing what's turned up here over the past two weeks.Home
I've only been able to spend a few minutes in our yards today but I was thrilled to get plenty of opportunities to watch a very active Ruby-crowned Kinglet. They move around so quickly and unpredictably that they're really tough to photograph!
A Northern Mockingbird turned up at one suet feeder, making our male Downy Woodpecker move to the elm tree.
A little later, the elm was visited by our Yellow-bellied Sapsucker.
As always, the yard had several squirrels.
College
The start of the Nature Trail is fairly quiet, perhaps because the Cooper's Hawk is still haunting it.
However, the trees there have White-winged Doves, Northern Cardinals, Ruby-crowned Kinglets, Orange-crowned Warblers and Yellow-rumped Warblers. This morning also saw our FOS American Robin and a FOS Lincoln's Sparrow.
There are still plenty of dragonflies and butterflies around, too.
Our resident Red-tailed Hawks continue to spend a lot of time hanging out on the utility pylons.
The path from the Nature Trail to the soccer fields is lined with very noisy Sedge Wrens. An Eastern Phoebe is hunting along the path but frequently gets moved on by one or other of our innumerable Northern Mockingbirds.
N. Mockingbird
The trees where the path meets the soccer fields had a small flock of FOS American Golfinches today, as well as another Lincoln's Sparrow.
The Killdeer, European Starlings and Common Grackles are now having to share the soccer fields with a flock of a dozen Savannah Sparrows.
The retention ponds on Barker Cypress Road are quiet except for the Great Egret and Snowy Egret which enjoy fishing a few yards apart at the water's edge.
P.S. Walking through the undergrowth at work this morning, I enjoyed feeling that it is now much too cold for snakes. Then a groundskeeper told me that a 5 ft. rattler is currently spending its days along the path between the Nature Trail and the soccer fields!
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.The Ebro Delta is an area of marshland and lagoons a couple of hours south of Barcelona. Apart from being extremely beautiful, it's reckoned to be one of the best birdwatching sites in Europe.
We arrived there after dark, and in fog, on Friday night and stayed in the Delta Hotel in Deltebre.
The hotel provided us with excellent accommodation, service and meals. It had its own mini-lagoon, stocked with Mallards, and was adjacent to rice fields.
Saturday morning I was up and out at dawn, hoping to explore the lagoon at Canal Vell, one of the most highly recommended birding sites in the area.
Unfortunately, when I arrived there, I found that the lagoon was closed for hunting until 5:00 p.m. each day. As sunset was at about 5:30, this pretty much ruled out birdwatching there during our trip!
I had to make do with birding the nearby rice fields. As everywhere else at Ebro, these were busy with Gray Herons, Egrets and Gulls. One of my few interesting sightings was a roadside Kestrel.
Back at the hotel, the flooded rice fields had Gray Herons and Cattle Egrets.
Although the trees in the gardens had only House Sparrows, the entrance road had White Wagtails, a very common bird in Catalonia but one that I always really enjoyed watching.
So the first morning at Ebro was disappointing for birds. Would the afternoon be any better?
.We haven't had time for much real birding yet
but we have seen quite a few birds already.
The balcony of our daughter's apartment overlooks some small yards and these have a resident population of Collared Doves and House Sparrows. The two species co-exist without any problems.
They also share the space with 2-3 Black Redstarts, busy little birds that act rather like Robins.
We managed one trip out to one of the Llobregat reserves near the airport. Although construction work has caused most of the birds to move far away from the hides, there were still plenty of birds to watch, including scores of Lapwings.Closer to home, I've spent a couple of hours in Parque Guell, where the bird life is dominated by Magpies and Monk's Parakeets.
However, the park also has a lot of other, smaller birds: Great Tits, Robins, Serins, etc. I was also lucky enough to see some more interesting and new (to me) species: Nightingale, Firecrest and Treecreeper.
Long-tailed Tit
.Yesterday, as I was getting into my car to leave the college, a male Northern Harrier circled over me for several minutes. What a beautiful sight! But, of course, I didn't have my camera with me. Doh! Will I never learn?
I didn't make the same mistake this morning when I spent my coffee break doing some quick birding around the campus.
The soccer fields had a few more Savannah Sparrows today, and Yellow-rumped Warblers were busy in the trees along the path to the Natural Trail.
Yellow-rumped Warbler
How it gets its name
Then, when I scanned the surrounding area with binoculars, I noticed something odd in a distant tree.
Good grief! as Snoopy would say. My first reaction was to think it was the mother of all moths. Then the logical half of my brain kicked in and I thought, "Must be a lost kite."
I had walked 30 yards down the very muddy trail before I realized that it was actually a large bird with its wings completely spread, presumably to dry them out in the morning sunlight.
I had to get close enough to get a decent photo. So I plunged through wet thigh-high grass and brambles towards the tree. All the time I was muttering, "Make way, cottonmouths, person coming through." (Cottonmouths are really common on the campus.)
Amazingly, the Cooper's Hawk let me approach and take several more photos before it lifted off and flew away.
I've never seen this wing-spreading behavior from a hawk before, although you often see it with diving birds like Anhingas and Cormorants, or with Black and Turkey Vultures.
P.S.
On my way back to the office, I stopped to put the camera back in my car. No sooner had I locked the door than a shadow passed over. It was the male Harrier again. He circled a couple of times while I unlocked the car and grabbed the camera.Then just as I switched the camera on, he swooped off and disappeared behind the mobile classrooms. Doh! Will I never ever learn?
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.When I saw a Spotted Sandpiper on my drive to work, I just knew it was going to be good for birds at CyFair.Literally as soon as I stepped onto the soccer field, I was welcomed by Mourning Doves, Killdeer and a Loggerhead Shrike. Then a FOS bird: a Savannah Sparrow.
The Savannah Sparrow
One of the Mockingbirds
The path over to the Nature Trail was busy with butterflies: Monarchs, Gulf Fritillaries and Common Buckeyes. There were several wrens, too; the only one I saw clearly was a Sedge Wren.
The Nature Trail was very muddy and so I contented myself with walking only the first fifty yards. There was plenty to see, including more butterflies, an interesting spider web and lots of large dragonflies.
A Northern Cardinal was singing from a Chinese Tallow and three Chipping Sparrows were foraging below him. Then I had a brief glimpse of a different bird high in a tree. Yes! A Yellow-rumped Warbler. One of my favorite birds and the first of this season.
I grabbed a quick photo before the warbler disappeared, and then I spent the next five minutes trying unsuccessfully to see the bird again.
After giving up on the warbler, I sat down on one of the outdoor classroom benches. I immediately noticed that the bushes all around me were full of small birds: Yellow-rumped Warblers. It was wonderful to be able to watch them as they rummaged around in the undergrowth just feet away from me.
Well, time to head back to work.
On the way to my office, I some Great-tailed Grackles on the grass and in the trees around the parking lot. What beautiful and impressive birds they are!
And so to work.
.Our yards were just starting to fill up with birds again when we were hit by another major storm. The weather had improved by yesterday afternoon but few birds had returned. Apart from a few House Finches, a Ruby-crowned Kinglet and a skittish White-winged Dove, the only bird that came to our front yard yesterday afternoon was a Yellow-bellied Sapsucker. The same was true this morning.
We currently have at least two Sapsuckers. One of them is an adult male with a very red chin and throat. One of them appears to have much less red and so I'm wondering if it is a younger male.
I've noticed that the Sapsuckers are very leery of being watched. They will happily forage in our elm tree quite unperturbed while kids play right under the tree and cars drive by just a few yards away. I can even walk around or stand at the base of the tree without disturbing them. However, as soon as I start watching them or trying to take a photo, they fly off to another yard. So I assume that they notice when eyes are directed at them and they take this as a sign of danger.
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I had a free 90 minutes yesterday morning and so I jumped into the car and headed over from the college to Bear Creek Park in hopes of seeing a Vermilion Flycatcher. We're well outside the normal range of this stunning bird, but an adult male has wintered on the Bear Creek golf course for the past six years and was spotted there again the other day.At 9:20 I turned onto Golf Course Road and parked where I could see the area where the flycatcher always hangs out: the trees around the water hazard near the ninth hole.
By 9:30 I was feeling frustrated and antsy. I kept seeing patches of bright red in the trees but I was too far away to tell if I was seeing the flycatcher or a Northern Cardinal or just some brightly colored leaves. It didn't help that the light was poor and that I'd left my good binoculars at home and was using a cheap old pair that I keep in the car.
So I gave up on the flycatcher and drove into the park proper to bird N. Golbow Road.
We've had a lot of rain lately and large areas of the park were flooded. (As the local constable put it when he pulled up beside me for a chat, "You just have to pee in Bear Creek and the whole park floods.")
Many of the minor roads were closed to vehicles ...
picnic tables had become islands ...
and the restrooms were inaccessible.
I love it when Bear Creek is like this, because the flooded areas usually draw in large numbers of wading birds.
As soon as I started walking along Golbow, I saw several Great Egrets, Snowy Egrets and a Great Blue Heron. There were other birds, too. Carolina Chickadees, Tufted Titmice and Pine Warblers. I spotted a Downy Woodpecker, followed by a couple of Red-bellied Woodpeckers and my FOS Northern Flicker. Then I heard the unmistakeable call of a Pileated Woodpecker. The light was bad and the bird was too high up for a decent photo but the red crest was clearly visible.
A moment later it flew away, to be followed almost immediately by another Pileated.
We only get six woodpecker species in Houston and I'd now seen four of them in only 10 minutes. I decided that it would be really neat to see all six species on one day. Perhaps not quite as thrilling as seeing the "Big Five" mammals in South Africa's Kruger Park three years ago, but definitely worth doing.
So I turned back to where I had parked the car at the junction of Golbow and Dorpslauf Road. The area immediately southwest of the junction is the best place I know for woodpeckers and I was pretty confident that I would see a Red-headed Woodpecker there. The sixth bird, Yellow-bellied Sapsucker, might be tougher to locate but I would worry about that in due course.
I should have known. The very first bird I clapped eyes on was a Yellow-bellied Sapsucker. And at almost the same moment, I heard Red-headed Woodpeckers calling. Seeing the "little six" was going to be even easier than seeing the "Big Five" had been in Kruger.
Ten minutes later I was feeling very frustrated! I could hear Red-headeds calling everywhere around me but I couldn't see any of the birds. They were all in areas that I couldn't reach because of the floodwaters. (I was in my work clothes and it wouldn't do to return to the college looking like I'd been playing in the mud.)
Other birds were being a nuisance, too, by trying to distract me. Downy Woodpeckers, Eastern Bluebirds, Tufted Titmice and an Eastern Phoebe kept popping up on nearby branches and begging me to take their photos. The light was still terrible but I took a couple of photos just to get rid of the pesky little birds.
10:00 a.m. rolled around and still no Red-headed.
Then, at 10:05, I spotted one. No, two. They were too far away for photos but easy to identify. Here's a picture of one from an earlier visit to the same area.
All six woodpeckers in exactly 30 minutes. Not bad at all.
Since I was obviously on a roll, I just had to go back to the golf course to look for the Vermilion Flycatcher. Remember him? He's the reason I came over to Bear Park in the first place.
I sat in the car scanning the area near the ninth hole. There was a Great Egret. There were Killdeer. There was a Loggerhead Shrike. A Double-crested Cormorant flew over. A couple of Turkey Vultures circled above. Fifteen minutes ticked by. And there he was! Perched right on top of a tree, the red of his plumage spectacularly bright against the blue sky. No chance of a photo but, in case you're not familiar with the Vermilion Flycatcher, here's one I photographed in Big Bend National Park last year.
Six woodpeckers and a Vermilion Flycatcher, plus a dozen or more other species in a little over an hour. I love Bear Creek!
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N. Mockingbird
