Avian Oscars

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February is when film buffs gather in Hollywood for Oscar night. With that in mind, I thought this might be a good time to give awards to the birds who bring us so much pleasure throughout the year. So here goes with my first set of Avian Oscars.

Category: Most Colorful

Contenders: Painted Bunting, Blackburnian Warbler, Vermilion Flycatcher
Winner: And the winner is ... the male Vermilion Flycatcher. The plumage of other birds may have a bigger range of colors but the intensity of the Vermilion's red feathers has to be seen to be believed.

Category: Bird with the Biggest Personality

Contenders: Carolina Chickadee, Carolina Wren, Blue Jay, Northern Mockingbird
Winner: Lots of our local birds have big personalities but I think that, ounce for ounce, the Carolina Wren is a clear winner.

Category: Best Camouflage
Contenders: American Woodcock, Common Nighthawk, American Bittern, Great Horned Owl
Winner: Other birds may be harder to spot when they are on the ground or among reeds but the winner is ... the Great Horned Owl. For such big birds, they can be surprisingly difficult to see even when they're perched in trees right in front of you!

Category: Most Likely to Succeed

Contenders: European Starling, House Sparrow, Rock Pigeon

Winner: House Sparrows and Rock Pigeons are very adaptable and they thrive wherever humans live and work across North America. However, the clear winner is ... the European Starling. The ultimate survivor, the Starling seems to be equally at home in all kinds of habitat.

Category: Best Sound Effects

Contenders: Blue Jay, Northern Mockingbird
Winner: Blue Jays can produce eerily accurate imitations of the calls of Red-shouldered Hawks and other large predators but the winner is ... the Northern Mockingbird. No other bird can imitate such a wide range of bird calls/songs and even the noises made by car alarms and fire trucks!

Category: Most Elegant

Contenders: Great Egret, Cedar Waxwing, Magnificent Frigatebird. 
Winner: The winner is ... the Cedar Waxwing. The Great Egret and the Frigatebird are extremely graceful when they walk and fly respectively, but a perched Cedar Waxwing is simply the epitome of true elegance.

Category: Friendliest

Contenders: Carolina Chickadee, Blue-gray Gnatcatcher, Orange-crowned Warbler, Ruby-crowned Kinglet
Winner: All four are very friendly little birds, who usually seem to be remarkably unconcerned by the presence of humans. But the winner is ... the Ruby-crowned Kinglet. Kinglets think nothing of rummaging around on branches just inches away from people's faces.

Category: Grace under Pressure

Contenders: Red-tailed Hawk
Winner: No other bird deserves to even be included in this category because no other bird is subjected to as much abuse by other birds. Perched Red-tailed hawks are often subjected to the indignity of being bopped on the head by Mockingbirds. Flying Red-taileds are frequently mobbed by gangs of other birds. And, through it all, these Hawks behave with almost unfailing fortitude and grace. 

So what do you think? Which birds would you nominate and award prizes to in these categories?
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Busy Week

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This has been a very busy week for me because I started teaching an intensive teacher-training course. So I haven't had time for birdwatching, except for a few minutes grabbed here and there at home to look at the birds in our yards.

Keeping the feeders full has been a priority, since the birds really need plenty of food in this cold weather and they've been munching through it like nobody's business.

The main culprits have continued to American Goldfinches. We still have scores every day. Even though they haven't got their breeding plumage yet, they're very pretty little birds. I love watching them as they perch on branches and wait for a good time to move down onto the niger seed feeders.

 

The Orange-crowned Warbler seems to visit a suet feeder near our living-room windows every few minutes throughout the day. It's so used to us that we are able to watch it from only a couple of feet away. The other day it sat down on top of the suet feeder for ages.

Our male Ruby-crowned Kinglet also loves the suet. Like most Kinglets, he usually seems to be very unconcerned by our presence. In fact, he's often stays too close for me to get good photos.

When he first arrived, he used to raise his red crest fairly frequently. (Last winter he seemed to have it raised almost constantly.) However, I've only seen his crest a couple of times this year. Perhaps he feels more comfortable now.

Oops! I have to go and get ready for work again. It's a nuisance how work gets in the way of watching birds.
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Wordless Wednesday

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Baytown Visit

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Sunday morning we headed down to the Baytown Nature Center, mainly because I wanted to look for Hooded Mergansers, Northern Pintails and Night Herons.

The weather was pleasant at our home in Cypress but was much cooler and windier once we were south of I-10. It still surprises me how often the weather in Houston varies depending on which side of I-10 you happen to be!

Perhaps because it was Superbowl Sunday, the Nature Center was almost empty of people. Unfortunately, there weren't many birds around either. In an hour the only water birds we saw were two Mallards.

In the absence of ducks, we had to be satisfied with lots of views of Brown Pelicans, Snowy Egrets and Great Egrets.

 

 

There were several Great Blue Herons but no Night Herons.

The only shorebird we spotted was a single Greater Yellowlegs.

We came upon large flocks of American Robins everywhere we walked. There were some smaller flocks of Red-winged Blackbirds, too, some perched in trees and others bathing at the edges of ponds.

 

At one pond the Blackbirds were bathing by Savannah Sparrows and Yellow-rumped Warblers while a couple of Swamp Sparrows looked on.

 Swamp Sparrow

The best sighting of the day came when an Osprey flew over carrying a fish it had caught. As is the norm with Ospreys, the bird was carrying the fish with its head pointed forward so as to lesson the air drag.

 

Overall our visit was a little disappointing but we'll try to get down to Baytown again before the spring. Perhaps we'll be luckier with ducks next time. And who knows but we might be lucky enough to see one of the Bald Eagles that usually nest in the area.
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Cypress

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On Saturday it was good to get out of the house again after the big freeze. Dee and I went over to the college to take a walk around the retention ponds. As usual of late, these were busy with scores of Ring-necked Ducks accompanied by a few American Coots. At one point the ducks flew up when a juveniles Red-shouldered Hawk swooped over the water. The hawk then went to perch on a nearby post.

The ducks seemed less concerned when a Turkey Vulture flew low over the water.

The other birds around the ponds were the expected Great Blue Heron, Great Egret, Snowy Egret, Eastern Meadowlarks, White-winged Doves and Savannah Sparrows.

Our last sighting was of a Loggerhead Shrike perched near our car and trying to look dignified while being buffeted about by the wind.

 

 At Home

Back at home the yards were once again crowded with American Goldfinches. Some 70 of them were spread out on the various feeders, the bird bath and the ground. 

This time I was very excited to see that there were no fewer than five Pine Siskins mixed in with the Goldfinches.

We had a good range of our normal residents and other winter visitors, including the inevitable sprinkling of White-winged Doves.

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Before the Storm

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As the latest cold front moved through on Thursday, I braved the cold to do a brief walk along the campus nature trail. 

Once again the trees had lots of Cedar Waxwings; I counted 100. 

The area that used to be a pond is usually busy with warblers these days and Thursday was no exception. Pine Warblers were rummaging through the dead leaves.

There were plenty of Yellow-rumped Warblers, too, and many of these were joining the Pine Warblers on the ground. Everywhere I've been this winter seem to have seen more Yellow-rumped on the ground than in trees.

One of the Yellow-rumped did a little pirouette on a branch in front of me, ending up by showing me his rump.

 

 

Leaving the college at the end of the afternoon, I noticed that the southern retention pond still had dozens of Ring-necked Ducks. As they were near the roadway, I jumped out of the car to try for some photos. Of course, they took off before I even got to the right side of the car. Only one lingered for a moment.

Then it, too, panicked and lifted off. 

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Elegance Personified

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The other day someone asked me which is the most beautiful bird I've ever seen. I didn't know what to say, because there are so many beautiful species out there. Now, if they had asked which is the most elegant bird, I wouldn't have hesitated. To my eyes one species stands out above all the others when it comes to elegance: the Cedar Waxwing.

We currently have a small flock of Waxwings on the CyFair campus and I was watching them the other day as they foraged through some Chinese Tallow trees. They were too nervous for me to approach very close but my new lens let me get some reasonably clear photos as they perched high up in the trees.

Even Waxwings can't be elegant all the time, though. Sometimes they just have to sacrifice elegance to give an ear a good scratch.

And a good scratch might have to be followed up with a nice shaking up of those beautiful feathers.

 

But then it's back to being a fashion plate again.

Bonding Behavior

If you watch a group of Waxwings for a while, you'll notice that some of the birds are clearly in pairs. And in each of the pairs one bird will pick a berry, the partner will "beg" and the first bird will pass the berry over in what is obviously a bonding routine.

 

Of course, the feeding of one adult by another is a behavior that many bird species indulge in: We often see the male Northern Cardinals in our yards passing sunflower seeds to their partners, who then invariably eat the seeds. However, when I was watching the Waxwings on the campus, I noticed that their bonding display sometimes goes a step further. On several occasions, one bird passed a berry to its partner and then, rather than eating it, the second bird passed the berry back. So at least with Waxwings the bonding ritual isn't always a one-way street. 
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Wordless Wednesday

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Some People Are Remarkably Kind!

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Mr. and Mrs. Williams are well known to Houston birders, because they have a beautiful yard that regularly attracts lots of hummingbirds.  Recently, the yard has been busy with several Rufous Hummingbirds, as well as an Anna's (unusual for our area) and an Allen's (very unusual for our area). As a result, it has been visited by a stream of local birders.

Yesterday afternoon I called the Williams' house to ask if I could go to see their birds. Mrs. Williams answered and couldn't have been more gracious. She explained that she was busy preparing to cover their plants before the predicted cold spell hit. I told her that I was nearby and could drive over straight away if that was all right with her. She said that would be fine.

Fifteen minutes later I was at the house, where I was welcomed by Mrs. Williams, even though she and her daughter were rushing to prepare covers for their plants. 

I spent perhaps 45 minutes in the yard and, with some help, managed to see a male Rufous and to watch and photograph the Anna's.

 

 

I was surprised to find that the yard was busy with butterflies, too. There were lots of Monarchs and even a Giant Swallowtail.

When I left, Mrs. Williams told me that I should feel free to come back at any time after the expected freeze.

Texans are generally very friendly but, even so, I surprised by just how friendly and hospitable Mrs. Williams was to me, a total stranger. Some people really are remarkably kind!
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