A Mixed Weekend

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Saturday morning I was out of the house by 6:00 to head over to Longenbaugh Road to look for the Short-eared Owls that everyone had been seeing there for more than a week. I stood around for 90 minutes in thick fog before accepting that I wasn't going to be lucky.

Sunday evening I headed back to Longenbaugh to see if I would do better at dusk than I had done at dawn the previous day. Once again, no luck. By now I must be just about the only local birder who hasn't managed to see the owls!

Still, I had a little more luck at home on Sunday afternoon, when a cold front resulted in more bird activity in our yards than I've seen for quite a while.

As usual, there were a few House Sparrows and White-winged Doves (below) in our yards. I tend to think of White-winged Doves as pests but they really are rather striking-looking birds.

One of our resident Northern Mockingbirds made regular trips to a suet feeder.

In between visits to the suet feeder, it popped down to the birdbath for quick gulps of water.

I was pleased to see that we still have Red-breasted Nuthatches. They clearly enjoy suet, too.

I wasn't able to get any photos of our winter-resident Ruby-crowned Kinglet but I had a little more success with an Orange-crowned Warbler.

Dee saw an American Goldfinch in our yards more than a week ago but yesterday was the first time I got to see one.

Now that we're in the middle of a cold spell, I'm hoping that our yards will see an increase in bird activity. It would certainly be nice to see more American Goldfinches - particularly if they brought some Pine Sikins with them!
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Friday Fotos

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In my last posting I mentioned a couple of bird species that I've been finding hard to photograph this fall - Northern Harrier and House Wren. In fact, a third species has been giving me trouble, too - Eastern Meadowlarks.

Every time I venture out to the Katy Prairie I see Eastern Meadowlarks. Sometimes just a handful, sometimes scores. Many of them would be perched in bushes or on fence lines right by the road. However, until a week or so ago every Meadowlark I spotted would disappear as soon as I stopped the car to try for a photo. 

Then, at Warren Ranch Lake a Meadowlark on the ground let me take several more fairly close-up photos.

I finally was a little luckier when driving along Longenbaugh and one bird stayed long enough in a bush to let me take a couple of reasonably close shots.

BTW, at the same site I even managed to catch one of the birds in flight.

Not a great picture by any means but the first I've ever managed of a Meadowlark in flight. So I am making progress!

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Difficult Birds!

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Success with photographing birds usually depends on observing two main rules - getting out often enough to where the target species hang out and being patient until they approach near enough to where you are. I've been observing these rules lately and they've worked reasonably well for most birds that I've wanted to photograph but there are two species that I've had a lot of problems with.

The first difficult species has been the Northern Harrier. I see several Harriers every time I go out to the Katy Prairie and I've been seeing one fairly often on the CyFair campus. However, even though I've been very patient, all the Harriers that I've spotted have stayed well away from me. As a result, the photos I've gotten till now have been poor shots of distant birds, like the ones below. So I guess I'll just have to keep on being patient until a Harrier eventually comes close enough for me to get decent pictures!

The other difficult species has been the House Wren. Now I wouldn't mind if the problem was that there haven't been many of these Wrens around, but that certainly isn't the case. Every time I walk around the CyFair campus nature trail I hear at least one House Wren and frequently two or three. However, getting to see them and getting photos has been incredibly difficult. Sometimes the light has been too bad. Sometimes a bird has appeared and then disappeared before I could raise my camera. Sometimes I've only been able to see parts of a bird.

Last week I finally got lucky and managed to grab a couple of photos. They aren't great shots by any means but at least the images are recognizable.

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Prairie Birds

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As I forgot to report on a quick trip I took out to the Katy Prairie on November 24th, I'll give a quick summary here.

I was hoping for sparrows at the Cypress Creek bridge on Sharp Road. All I actually saw was a Downy Woodpecker that was looking rather agitated.

Further east on Sharp I came across a flock of several hundred Brown-headed Cowbirds. Most of the birds flew off when I pulled over but a couple of juveniles stayed behind.

The only interesting bird at the Bear Creek Bridge on Longenbaugh Road was an Inca Dove.

There were a couple of Vesper and Field Sparrows along Longenbaugh. However, they were greatly outnumbered by Savannah Sparrows.

I finally spotted the Ferruginous Hawk that had been hanging around in the area for weeks. The bird was too far away for photos and so I had to settle for photos of a nearby Red-tailed Hawk instead.

At the corner of Longenbaugh and Porter Road End I had to brake as a family of eight Northern Bobwhites crossed the road. They were the first Bobwhites I'd seen this year. And very handsome birds they were, too.

My final sighting was of the young Scissor-tailed Flycatcher that I'd been watching for weeks on Longenbaugh and that seemed to have decided not to leave when the other Scissor-taileds migrated in late October.

P.S.
There have been no reports of a Scissor-tailed in our area since November 24th, so I guess the Longenbaugh bird finally reaized it was time to head south.
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Friday Fotos

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Winter is the time for sparrows, many species of which are now moving into our area. I see large numbers of Savannah Sparrows every time I venture out onto the Katy Prairie and I've now seen quite a few other species, including White-crowned, Field, Vesper and White-throated. I've also started seeing a few of my favorite sparrow species, the Harris's Sparrow.

At 7.5 inches, the Harris's is our largest sparrow and its pink bill and black face make it easy to recognize.

As it happens, the one in the photos was in exactly the same place where I saw my first-ever Harris's Sparrow several years ago - right next to the Bear Creek bridge on Longenbaugh Road just east of Porter Road End. For all I know it could be the very same bird.
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You Never Know Quite When

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We invited friends over for Thanksgiving and I was looking forward to showing them some of the birds - particularly the Red-breasted Nuthatches - that constantly come to our feeders.

Wouldn't you know it! Although the weather on Thursday was beautiful, the only birds to visit the yards were male and female House Sparrows.

So our guests had to make do with a sighting of a Red-shouldered Hawk circling our house instead.

Of course, the next day, when our guests had left, our yards were full of visitors.

The Nuthatches were enjoying snacking on sunflower seeds.

The Orange-crowned Warblers preferred suet.

Our Ruby-crowned Kinglet went for the suet, too. (If you look carefully at the back of its neck, you can just see a tiny part of its ruby crown.)

We were even graced with a visit by a female Northern Cardinal.

We used to see several Cardinals every day but they have been almost totally absent for a couple of months. They may simply have been too busy raising another brood of babies to visit us. If so, I expect they'll start showing up again soon, bringing their youngsters with them.

Close Encounter
On Saturday I noticed that the Chickadees in the yard behind ours were making a terrible racket. I walked over the fence to see what was agitating them. Just as I reached the fence, a Cooper's Hawk swooped in and settled on a branch just 4 feet away. We both froze for a few seconds, no doubt equally shocked by the encounter. Then the hawk zoomed away. I think that's the closest I've ever gotten to a non-captive raptor.
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Brazos Bend: Part 2

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After 40 Acre Lake we had a picnic at Elm Lake, where a pair of Red-shouldered Hawks were keeping watch over the area.

Apart from the hawks and a large alligator, the lake was quiet.

On our way out of the park, we stopped to do a quick walk around Creekfield Lake.

A group of Black Vultures was clustered on the far bank.

Further along that bank a Roseate Spoonbill was bathing with half-a-dozen White Ibis.

A Tricolored Heron was hunting nearer to the path.

There were adult and young Common Gallinules also.

The Gallinules were unconcerned by a large group of Black-bellied Whistling Ducks grazing in the water.

Our last sighting was of an adult Whistling Duck keeping watch while its five young fed.

Whenever they were alarmed, most of the young birds rushed to be near their parent.

This will probably be our last visit to Brazos Bend for a while. For the rest of the year, any birding I do will probably be on the Katy Prairie, now that sparrows are turning up there in some numbers.
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