Bird Baths

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If, like me, you enjoy watching birds taking a bath, you might like this series of photos of a Sanderling. I took the photos on Saturday on Bryan Beach.









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Beach Birds

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The weather was glorious last weekend and so the beaches around Quintana were crowded with people and vehicles. Given this, it wasn't surprising that birds were comparatively few and far between.

On Saturday afternoon Bryan Beach had only a couple of groups of shorebirds. As always, Sanderlings were the most common, busily crisscrossing the sand in search of food.


In addition to the American Oystercatcher whose photos I featured yesterday, there were a few Willets.


I was delighted to see my first-of-year Snowy Plovers, distinctive with their gray legs.


Some larger shorebirds had me puzzled for a while, until I realized that they were Red Knots, another first-of-year species for my trip list.


On Sunday morning we had a quick walk along Quintana Beach, where the sand was covered with shells, feathers and small crabs.




I searched among the groups of gulls for the Lesser-blacked Gulls that had been reported earlier in the week but all I saw were the usual Laughing Gulls. Mixed in with the gulls were a few terns, including a handful of Caspian Terns.


By now the beach was starting to fill up with people and so we left for home. Although our weekend hadn't produced the number of birds that I had hoped, we had both enjoyed the trip. After all, any Upper Texas Coast trip that produces Groove-billed Anis and Vermilion Flycatchers has to be regarded as rather special!
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Wordless Wednesday

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Quintana Neotropic Bird Sanctuary

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Although the Quintana sanctuary is small, it has gained a reputation as a bird magnet during both spring and fall migration. When we arrived, we soon realized that it is a magnet for mosquitoes, too. We've seen a lot of mosquitoes since we came to Texas but I don't think we've ever met any as aggressive and persistent as the ones at Quintana. Even the fact that we had doused ourselves liberally with "off" didn't deter them.

We sat down near one of the water features to have our lunch and over the next 30 minutes we saw a succession of good birds: several Ruby-throated Hummingbirds, a female Blue Grosbeak, Indigo Buntings and a Common Yellowthroat.

Unfortunately, most of the birds were not into posing for photos. Even more unfortunately, something had gone wrong with the focusing mechanism of my camera and I couldn't get sharp images of the birds that did come out into the open.


After our picnic, I walked the sanctuary's trails and saw more Indigo Buntings, together with some Brown-headed Cowbirds, a couple of Boat-tailed Grackles and an Eastern Wood-pewee (below).


A large black bird appeared too briefly for me to make an ID but I suspected it was a Groove-billed Ani, a bird that I'd never yet managed to see in almost 8 years in Texas.

A few minutes later I was walking past the observation tower when two ladies on the tower shouted down, "Hey, do you want to see an Ani?" I climbed the steps, passing the husband of one of the ladies on my way. Sure enough, there in a treetop was a Groove-billed Ani.

Thanks to my malfunctioning camera, the only photo I got was very blurry.


After chatting for a minute with the other birders - who it turned out knew me from some of my Internet and blog bird postings - I headed back down to the ground. No sooner had I reached the path than I heard another shout from above me: "Hey, Jeff, do you want to see two Anis?" I raced back up the steps and we all spent the next couple of minutes watching a pair of Anis moving around among the leaves.

If you're reading this, ladies, many thanks for providing me with a life bird and one of the highlights of my birding year!

With directions given by our fellow birders, Dee and I headed up the road to the Xeriscape Park. This was very quiet indeed but the visit was certainly worthwhile because it turned up one of my favorite birds: Vermilion Flycatcher.


Morning Visit

We returned to Quintana the following morning.


The sanctuary was quieter this time - except for mosquitoes - and all we saw was a Brown Thrasher.


Xeriscape Park was busier. A pair of male Vermilion Flycatchers was zooming around, spectacularly red in the morning light. A flock of Monk Parakeets passed noisily overhead, while off in the distance a Magnificent Frigatebird circled high in the sky. A couple of Laughing Gulls and several Brown Pelicans flew over, too.


We sat down by a water feature and were rewarded with quick views of a Clay-colored Sparrow and a Pine Warbler.

As we wanted to get back to Cypress by about noon and I wanted to have a quick look at Quintana Beach, we left the park, passing a dozen or more Scissor-tailed Flycatchers on our way.





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Just before we got to the Quintana Neotropic Bird Sanctuary on the weekend, we came across an Osprey perched on a tall utility post.

It was bending over and pulling pieces off some type of prey that it was holding with its talons.






Whatever it was trying to eat didn't seem to go down very easily.


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In fact, it wasn't until it have finally managed to swallow that the Osprey had time to look around and notice us.

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More Arrivals

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Fall is continuing to bring more birds into our area. Earlier this week, Bear Creek Park had lots of Pine Warblers and several Palm Warblers, a bird I've never before managed to see in Texas.

Closer to home, a Spotted Sandpiper has returned to an ornamental retention pond between my house and the Cy-Fair campus. It usually spends the fall and winter there.

On the campus, at least two Sedge Wrens have come back to their old haunts on the nature trail, where today I also saw my first Yellow-bellied Sapsucker of the season.


The Blue Jays, Lincoln's Sparrows and Common Yellowthroats that appeared some days ago were still very much in evidence this morning. This Yellowthroat spent a lot of time doing its morning grooming.




P.S.
Dee and I are going to take advantage of the current spell of great weather by spending the weekend in Brazoria County. We'll stay in Clute and drive over to Quintana, where we hope to see plenty of migrating songbirds, shorebirds and perhaps raptors. If we're lucky, we may even get to see the bobcat that hangs out near the Neotropic Bird Sanctuary there.

See you when we get back!
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At Home and at Work

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Our yards have seen an uptick in bird activity over the past week, with our Northern Cardinals being more in evidence than they have been for weeks.




Personally I think this is because they were reluctant to appear in public while their feathers were embarrassingly scruffy during molting.

Our Red-bellied Woodpeckers have been more frequent visitors, too.




This has made life more difficult for our loyal Downy Woodpeckers, which always have to give way at the suet feeder to the (much larger) Red-bellieds.


We haven't seen the arrival of any winter residents yet, although a Blue-gray Gnatcatcher popped in for a very brief visit the other day.

At Work

The situation on the CyFair campus is very different, with several winter residents and migrating birds having turned up over the past week. The first to arrive were Lincoln's Sparrows and a Ruby-crowned Kinglet. Then I spotted a group of three Common Yellowthroats.




Since Tuesday an American Kestrel has been hunting from a treetop near the boundary gully and yesterday a Blue-gray Gnatcatcher was busy foraging through the trees at the entrance to the nature trail.

Dragonflies and butterflies are everywhere, too, with the most common butterflies being Monarchs and Gulf Fritillaries.

Monarch

Now that fall is here, I really can't wait to do a walk around the campus when I get to work every day!
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Wordless Wednesday

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New Arrivals at LSC-CyFair

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Yesterday morning was beautifully cool at CyFair and I took advantage of the fall weather to do a brief walk around part of the campus. Unfortunately, I didn't take camera with me.

The trees and bushes behind the modular buildings produced my FOS (First of Season) Lincoln's Sparrows, confirmation that the summer really is over. The same area had lots of Northern Mockingbirds: I counted 8 in one 30-yard stretch.

My arrival at the start of the nature trail disturbed a Great Blue Heron, which had been resting in top of a Chinese Tallow tree. Both ponds were dry but the area around them was busy with Northern Cardinals. The Cardinals flew off when I made some pisshing noises but a FOS Ruby-crowned Kinglet came over to see who/what I was.

The rest of the nature trail was very quiet, except for a pair of Blue Jays. As this was only the second time I've seen Blue Jays on the campus in the 6 years that I've worked there, I assume that this pair was migrating through our area.
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New Visitor to Our Hummingbird Feeders

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Our hummingbird feeders have been attracting a lot of hummers over the past several weeks, as migrating birds have been moving from the north through our area.

Of course, as I've mentioned before, it isn't just hummingbirds that come to the feeders; our House Finches sometimes drink at the feeders, too.

On Saturday afternoon I had to add another species to the list of those that like sugar water. However, as you'll see from the photos below, the new species is not any kind of bird!


After drinking at the feeder for several minutes, this rat scuttled away along the fence.

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Sunday Afternoon in the Rockies

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If my six hours in Rocky Mountain National Park had produced great views of elk, they had been much less productive as regards birds. I had seen remarkable few - and most were birds I had already seen earlier in the year in Utah, such as White-crowned Sparrows, American Crows and Black-billed Magpies.

American Crow

Black-billed Magpie

In the woodland areas, where the lighting was very difficult for photos, all I spotted were several Northern Flickers, Hairy Woodpeckers and my first Steller's Jays of 2010.

Hairy Woodpecker

The bird below had me puzzled for a minute, until it flew off in a blaze of blue. It was a Mountain Bluebird, another new year bird.


While birds were few, small mammals were plentiful. Squirrels were busy in the trees while Chipmunks begged for handouts at several of the roadside pull-outs.




An hour's stop at the Beaver Meadows Visitor Center, just outside the park gates, was more productive for birds. Steller's Jays and White-crowned Sparrows were everywhere - but difficult to photograph!




Western Bluebirds were almost as uncooperative.


Mountain Chickadees were impossible - until one decided to check out my picnic table.




By far the most numerous birds were White-breasted Nuthatches, another new species for 2010. At one point, there were six or seven of them bustling around me.






A Final Site
On my way back to Denver, I stopped in for a quick walk around the Rocky Mountain Arsenal NWR, where I had seen a good selection of birds a couple of years earlier. Unfortunately, I wasn't so lucky this time.

The Visitor Center area had Northern Flickers, Black-capped Chickadees and House Finches, while Ladora Lake had only a Ring-billed Gull, two Canada Geese and a handful of Double-crested Cormorants.






The grassland areas were busy with prairie dogs but the only birds I spotted were Mourning Doves, Western Meadowlarks, Black-billed Magpies, an American Kestrel and a Swainson's Hawk.
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