Bits and Pieces

.
CyFair Campus
It was too wet on Wednesday and Thursday for me to do any birding around the campus. However, this morning I noticed that the five Lesser Scaup on our retention ponds have been joined by another 75 or so Scaup. This is by far the largest number of ducks I've ever seen on the campus.

It was too wet and dark to photograph the ducks, so here's a photo of one of the other visitors that I've seen on campus this week.

Lincoln's Sparrow

Longest Migration
Scientists have known for years that Arctic Terns migrate from the Arctic to the Antarctic and back every year. However, sophisticated tracking devices attached to some of the birds have revealed new details of their amazing annual journey. We now know that the birds don't use the same route to head south. As the yellow lines in the diagram below shows, some fly down along the coast of Africa while others hug the coastline of Latin America. However, all of the birds follow the same S-shaped route back to the Arctic.



With a roundtrip length of 44,000 miles the routes the birds take are not the shortest possible, but they take advantage of prevailing wind systems and so help the birds to conserve energy.

Tokyo Crows
Tokyo residents are having a problem with crows. Over 20,000 Jungle Crows now live in or commute to the city, attracted by improperly stored garbage. City-dwellers have been complaining that the birds attack them or poop on their heads. The city's answer has been to set out large traps in different areas. The birds that are caught are then gassed.

I am very surprised to learn that Tokyo residents are so undisciplined with their garbage. However, given the way Japanese treat whales and other sea mammals, I'm not surprised that they are killing crows.

Surviving the Cold
Birds in Britain have been having a tough time with the snow and unusually low temperatures that have now persisted for weeks. Some birds have even had problems leaving their overnight perches because their tail feathers have frozen to the branches.

Birdwatchers throughout the island have been putting extra food out in their gardens and have been reporting large numbers of visits by birds that normally are very rarely seen at feeders. They are also reporting that many of the visitors are being unusually aggressive because they are having to compete for the available food with so many other birds.

Being Patient

.
I am ambivalent about Ruby-crowned Kinglets. I love them because they're such beautiful little birds with big personalities. But I also find them frustrating because they are so hard to photograph: They seem to be in a state of perpetual motion hopping from branch to branch and twig to twig.

Now that a male Ruby-crowned is a frequent visitor to the feeders outside our living-room window, I have been hoping to get a really good photo showing him and his ruby-colored crest.

Of course, he hasn't made it easy for me.

For one thing, he often hovers under the suet feeder rather than perching on it.


Or he perches partly in the sun and partly in the shade.


Or he poses nicely but with his crest hidden.


However, everything came together on Tuesday and I finally got a couple of the shots I wanted.




I've always admired the photos of wildlife that you see in magazines and books. Now I'm beginning to appreciate how much patience must be involved in getting those kinds of pictures.

Wordless Wednesday

.








.

Casual Birding

.

I left home a little earlier than usual yesterday and so had time to drive to work via Longenbaugh Road, where I was hoping to add a Crested Caracara to my year list. There are almost always Caracaras along Longenbaugh although Dee and I didn't see any when we birded there last week.

This visit was more typical and I saw a Caracara within two minutes of turning onto Longenbaugh. So that was year bird #61. It let me take a couple of photos ...

before flying off.

A quick drive along the rest of the road didn't turn up any other new birds but I did see lots of the area's typical birds, such as American Kestrels, Eastern Meadowlarks and Loggerhead Shrikes.

Loggerhead Shrike

There were plenty of sparrows, too. As far as I could tell, they were all Savannah Sparrows.

I stopped along Porter Road End to photograph a Red-tailed Hawk. When she flew off, she was accompanied by another Red-tailed, presumably her partner. Their flight path cut across that of another raptor, a Northern Harrier.

Red-tailed Hawk

CyFair Campus

Later in the morning I spent my coffee break doing a brief birding walk. The soccer fields had their usual complement of Mourning Doves, European Starlings, Common Grackles, Savannah Sparrows, Killdeer and Eastern Meadowlarks, while our resident Northern Mockingbirds were everywhere.

I reached the nature trail to find it was totally silent. I soon realized why it was so quiet when I came across a Cooper's Hawk in one of the trees. (Year bird #62.) Once the Cooper's had flown, Northern Cardinals and Yellow-rumped Warblers appeared. Then I was serenaded by a Carolina Wren, a common bird but one that I hadn't seen or heard on the campus since last spring.

The wren's calls were punctuated by the "phoebe, phoebe" calls of an Eastern Phoebe perched high in a tree.

I really like it when birds tell you their names. It makes IDing them so much easier!

A flyover by two Double-crested Cormorants added #63 to my year list.

Around Home

.
There wasn't much time for birding this weekend but I did manage an hour yesterday morning in Little Cypress Creek Preserve, which is just half-a-mile from our house.

With its ponds frozen over and the vegetation covered in frost, the preserve looked beautiful. The cold meant that mosquitoes weren't around and that the trails were less muddy than usual.


For some reason the site is never great for birds and yesterday was no exception. I'd hoped for sparrows but didn't see a single one. On the other hand, Yellow-rumped Warblers were abundant and I was often in the middle of small flocks of them.


An American Kestrel flew off just as I was trying to get a photo.


A Red-tailed Hawk stayed a little longer.


At Home
Back at home, another hard frost killed off more of our plants but also brought in more birds.

The biggest surprise was to see 60 White-winged Doves take over our front yard and feeders.




Later, American Goldfinches finally discovered our thistle sock. It has taken them weeks to work it out.


Having a seed and a suet feeder right outside our living-room window has meant that we see many more of the birds that visit us. Now that the regular visitors are used to us, it has also made it easier for me to photograph them. They often let us walk up to within three feet of them now.

Although lots of Chipping Sparrows drop in constantly, I never tire of watching them. They are such neat-and-tidy-looking birds. They perch on a wisteria while waiting their turn at the feeders and their plumage really stands out against the blue of our garden shed.


An Orange-crowned Warbler occasionally manages to push its way in.


A Carolina Wren has started using the feeders, too, although it never gets in quite the right position for a good photo.


One of our Ruby-crowned Kinglets was posed more photogenically.

.
As I walked across to a new colleague's office yesterday morning, I did a 10-minute diversion along the start of the campus nature trail.

It was so cold and blustery that most birds seem to be hunkered down. Several White-winged Doves and Yellow-rumped Warblers were huddled on the ground around the first small pond, while an Eastern Phoebe couldn't seem to decide whether to join them or to brave the cold and catch some bugs.

Things brightened up when a flock of about 100 Cedar Waxwings arrived and clustered in the tree tops. Some of them tried to feed on yaupon and other berries, but the wind was moving the branches around too much and most of the birds were content just to perch. A single American Robin was flying with the flock and looked very out-of-place among all the Waxwings.




It's a pity the Waxwings didn't show up in December. I could have used their photo on my Christmas cards.

Later, as I left my colleague's office to return to mine, I was treated to a close-up view of a Pine Warbler, year bird #60.

The amount of habitat on our campus is shrinking rapidly as the college expands, but it's still a great place to work if you're a birder!
.

.
It is very rare that I can do any weekday birding, except a little around the campus. So when the chance came up yesterday to spend half-an-hour in Bear Creek Park, I grabbed it with both hands. It turned out to be worthwhile.

My first stop in the park was the equestrian parking area just south of the junction of Bear Creek Road and South Golbow. It was a good choice: Even before I got out of the car, I saw two of the birds I was hoping to see: Red-bellied Woodpecker and American Robin.

A quick walk around the edge of the parking area also turned up the Red-shouldered Hawk that often hangs out there. Although the light was terrible and I had only my small camera with me, I managed to get one recognizable photo.


Next up was the junction of Golbow and Dopslauf, the best place I know anywhere in our region for woodpeckers. Sure enough, I immediately heard the distinctive call of a Red-headed Woodpecker. In the next 15 minutes I saw three Red-headed, 7 Red-bellied and two Downy Woodpeckers. I didn't see a Pileated Woodpecker but I added another new bird when two Carolina Chickadees sang a duet (or perhaps a duel) in front of me.

On my way out of the park, I swung by the golf course in hopes of seeing the Vermilion Flycatcher who spends his winters around the course's ninth hole. My luck held and I got a (very distant) look at him. What a stunning bird!

With the American Crow and Lesser Scaup that I saw on my drive to work on Tuesday, yesterday's birds take my list to 59 species.

Red-tailed
We currently have large numbers of Red-tailed Hawks in our area and on my way home yesterday afternoon I passed a pair who seemed to be busy flirting with each other. As there was nowhere to pull over, I had to settle for quick photos through the (very dirty) windshield.





Please Think of the Birds!
The weather forecast is for a very cold end to the week, with overnight temperatures falling to as low as 19F/-7C. I hope everyone around here is going to keep birdfeeders full and birdbaths unfrozen, because our winged friends are certainly facing a tough few days ahead.
.

The First Fifty (-One)

.
At lunchtime Monday I thought my 2010 bird list reached 50 species when I spotted about 20 Black-bellied Whistling Ducks on our local retention pond.

Black-bellied Whistling Ducks

It then turned out that my list had actually reached 51 species, because on Saturday I had misindentified a White-tailed Hawk.

So not a bad start to the year, considering that I have spent only a very few hours birdwatching. However, I'm going to have to fit in some more intensive birding in the next few weeks if I want to match my 2009 total of 100 species by the end of January.

I didn't use to bother with year lists. However, I find they serve a very useful purpose for a lazy birder like me: They help motivate me to get off my butt and look for/at birds.

Speaking of lists, I'm amazed to see that two common local residents are missing from mine. I haven't yet seen a Red-bellied Woodpecker or a Carolina Wren. In previous years both species were always in the first ten birds on my list. Red-bellied would be literally daily visitors to our yards and virtually any walk along the nature trail at CyFair would produce the sight or sound of a Carolina Wren. Last year I saw a Red-bellied in our yards perhaps half-a-dozen times and I don't think I saw or heard a Carolina at all on the nature trail.

The First Fifty (-One)
1/1/10
1. Chipping Sparrows
2. American Goldfinch
3. House Finches
4. Northern Mockingbird
5. Downy Woodpecker
6. Carolina Chickadee
7. Yellow-rumped Warbler
8. Blue Jay
9. Northern Cardinal
10. Ruby-crowned Kinglet
11. American Kestrel
12. Rock Dove/Pigeon
13. Common Grackle
14. European Starling
15. White-winged Dove
16. Great-tailed Grackle
1/2/10
17. Cedar Waxwing
18. Pied-billed Grebe
19. Canvasback
20. Great Egret
21. Great Blue Heron
22. Turkey Vulture
23. Black Vulture
24. Red-tailed Hawk
25. Northern Harrier
26. Killdeer
27. Mourning Dove
28. Eastern Phoebe
29. Loggerhead Shrike
30. Eastern Bluebird
31. Savannah Sparrow
32. Field Sparrow
33. Red-winged Blackbird
34. Eastern Meadowlark
35. Horned Lark
36. Vesper Sparrow
37. White-tailed Hawk
1/3/10
38. Yellow-bellied Sapsucker
39. Tufted Titmouse
40. House Sparrow
41. Lincoln’s Sparrow
42. Blue-gray Gnatcatcher
43. House Wren
44. Orange-crowned Warbler
1/4/10
45. Sedge Wren
46. Snow Goose
47. Snowy Egret
48. Little Blue Heron
49. American Coot
50. Laughing Gull
51. Black-bellied Whistling Duck
.

Lunchtime Sightings

.
Yesterday we drove out to have lunch with friends who live in Hempstead. It was a cold, gray day but our friends' feeders were very busy throughout our time at their house. The most common birds there were American Goldfinches, Northern Cardinals and Chipping Sparrows.

American Goldfinch

However, a nearby tree had my first Yellow-bellied Sapsucker of 2010 while the feeder activity attracted some other new 2010 birds: a House Wren, House Sparrows, Tufted Titmice, Lincoln's Sparrows and even a couple of Blue-gray Gnatcatchers.

Tufted Titmouse

Sometimes I really wish that we lived in the country rather than in the exburbs!
.

The Power of Suggestion

.
On Saturday I saw and photographed a Northern Harrier on Porter Road End. I've seen lots of Harriers, including many recently, and the bird sat still long enough for me to take several photos. And I saw a white rump as the bird flew off. So I had no doubts at all about the ID.

The trouble is, as one of my blog readers pointed out, the bird was not a Harrier. It was a White-tailed Hawk, a quite different and much more exciting bird.

How on earth did I manage to mis-indentify the bird in the field and even when I later looked at the photos?

Well, I suppose the two birds are both vaguely similar in size and appearance. However, I think the real reason for my mistake is that I was expecting to see a Harrier. There's usually a Harrier along Porter Road End and I had seen one there only a couple of days earlier. In fact, just seconds before the sighting, I was complaining to my wife about the absence of Harriers along the road. So when the hawk appeared, I didn't really examine it because I had already pre-identified it! All I worried about was trying to get good photos before it moved.

Of course, I should still have picked up on my mistake when I later sorted through and uploaded the photos. But I was so focused on cropping the photos and choosing between them that I never really looked at the bird itself.

I think this episode is interesting because it shows just how much what we see, in nature or in everyday life, is determined by what we expect to see. In this case, my determination to see a Harrier was such that I even persuaded myself that I had seen a white rump on a bird that actually has a white tail!
.

Quiet on the Prairie

.
Dee and I did a couple of hours birding on the Katy Prairie yesterday morning and it was surprisingly quiet. The trip started well when a Northern Harrier stayed perched on a hedge along Porter Road End while I took photos ...



until another car spooked him.





Correction: As I will clarify in my next post, the "Harrier" was actually a White-tailed Hawk!

Longenbaugh had its usual complement of Loggerhead Shrikes, American Kestrels and Eastern Meadolarks, as well as a couple of Eastern Phoebes.

Eastern Phoebe

However, perhaps because we didn't arrive until 10:30, sparrows were few and far between. The habitat in the immediate area of the Bear Creek bridge has been significantly degraded and held only a handful of Savannah and Field Sparrows, while the eastern section of the road had a couple of Vesper Sparrows.

Field Sparrow

We were pleased to see our first Eastern Bluebird for quite a while.

Eastern Bluebird

White-winged Doves seem not to have moved into this area in numbers yet and so Mourning Doves were everywhere.


Paul Rushing / Chain of Lakes Park looked beautiful in the late morning sun but it was surprisingly quiet for birds, except for Savannah Sparrows.



The lakes were empty except for three Pied-billed Grebes, a dozen Canvasbacks and a solitary Great Egret.

On every other visit I have made to the park, I have been subject to constant complaints from Killdeer. On this morning, we saw exactly two Killdeer, and they didn't appear until the end of our hour's walk, when we also came across a small group of Red-winged Blackbirds. Just across the road, a Northern Harrier was quartering the ground, scaring up several Meadowlarks.

We did a little better when we walked back to the car, as the grass between the cricket pitches and the baseball ground was being picked over by a small flock of Horned Larks, always a beautiful sight and one that you can usually count on seeing here.



The drive back to Cypress produced a few Black and Turkey Vultures - and lots of Red-tailed Hawks. (We saw more than twenty of the latter during the course of the morning.)

Year List
My year list started with 16 species on January 1st. The Katy Prairie trip added another 20 species.
.