Great Backyard Bird Count Coming Soon!

One of my favorite birding "events" of the year is the Great Backyard Bird Count (GBBC) that occurs mid-February every year.

This is a great project to do with your kids or grandkids as you only have to participate for 15 minutes. For homeschoolers, this is a great science project to show how field data is collected and compiled for use in various studies.

Want to participate? It's easy. Here is a link to instructions.

Again this year I will be doing the GBBC all four days and invite anyone who would like to come. I am a little restricted on time on Monday, February 18, but I plan to go anyway for a couple of hours. Here is where and when I intend to start each day:

Friday, February 15: 8:00 AM, Wichita Bluff Nature Area, off Seymour Highway. Meet in the parking lot. We'll walk the entire trail to Loop 11 and back (about 2.5 miles round trip). This will probably be the longest in terms of time, so expect around 3 or 4 hours, depending upon the birds. Although not a strenuous hike, it is the most hilly of the GBBC target places. People with limited mobility may find this difficult, but the trail is paved.

Saturday, February 16, 8:00 AM, Lake Arrowhead State Park. This is the regularly scheduled monthly bird walk. We usually walk about 1 mile. We take our time, so it normally takes around 1.5 hours. The ground is level, but there are places where we are not on a paved surface surface.

Saturday, February 16. TBD. I am thinking about heading from Lake Arrowhead to do a short walk along the Wichita Valley Rail Trail. I have been meaning to hike this trail and haven't yet. The trail is 5.6 miles and I don't have any intention of hiking the entire distance (especially as I would have to walk the return as well.) I thought I would hike a mile or so and then turn around. If someone wants to go, we can iron out the details. The trail is reported to be cinder and gravel.

Sunday, February 17, 8:00 AM. Circle Trail between Lucy Park and Williams Park. This is a very pretty section of the trail. We had some good birds here last year. This is not a strenuous walk. There are a couple of low-grade hills. The entire distance is paved. I have never measured the distance but I estimate the walk there and back would be around 2 - 2.5 miles.

Monday, February 18, 8:00 AM. I have some limitations on time on Monday, so my plan is to go to the Chat Trail in Lake Wichita Park and walk around the borrow pit as well. When the birds are cooperative, this is "the" birding location in Wichita Falls. This is a short hike on gravel and some on a paved surface. About a half mile total. If I have time, I may walk more of the trail toward the spillway or along the lake shoreline--weather dependent.

Contact me at green.wichitafalls@gmail.com if you would like to bird with me one of these days.

Good birding!

Bird Walk at Lake Arrowhead State Park

I'm a little late writing this post as the monthly bird walk at Lake Arrowhead State Park was Saturday, January 12 (well, okay, a lot late.)

Bonaparte's gull, photo by Dick Daniels
Wikimedia Commons

Forster's tern, photo by Dick Daniels
Wikimedia Commons

It was a cold day, but Lynn showed, so she and I checked out the birds. Admittedly, we didn't go as slowly as usual and finished the walk in just over an hour. That being said, we found some good birds. The best birds from my point of view were the Bonaparte's gulls and Forster's terns.


We had only one woodpecker, a northern flicker, seen within just a couple of minutes of me saying, "I haven't seen any flickers this winter."

Birds seen (not included on this list is a Wilson's snipe that Lynn caught on camera that I don't recall seeing--one of my favorites):

Canada goose
American coot
Northern shoveler
Gadwall
Double-crested cormorant
White pelican
Pied-billed grebe
Ring-billed gull
Bonaparte's gull
Forster's tern
Kildeer
Greater yellowlegs
Lesser yellowlegs
Western sandpiper
Northern flicker
Northern mockingbird
Northern cardinal
Eastern phoebe
Bewick's wren
Harris's sparrow
White-crowned sparrow
Orange-crowned warbler

Not a bad hour on a cold morning.

Don't forget the monthly bird walks at Lake Arrowhead SP are on the 2nd Saturday of each month, starting at 8 AM. Park entry fees apply--get there a little early as the ranger station won't be open yet, so you'll need to make out your fee envelope. We meet at the dump station area (2nd left after you enter the park, then the first right, on the left). Kids and novices are welcome.

Good birding!

Book Reviews: Gulls Simplified

Gulls are tricky to identify. Not only are the birds largely similar, but it takes multiple years for the birds to reach mature plumage and the plumage differs by age. To make things more fun, there can be a fair amount of variation within age groups.

For most of our birds, we learn male, female, immature, and possibly nonbreeding. If you live in an area where gulls are common, you would have a motivation to study and get good with identification. Here in the Wichita Falls, TX area, we only get gulls in the winter and 95% or more are ring-billed gulls. Consequently, many locals identify gulls as a "ring-billed gull" or "not a ring-billed gull." We really have to have time to study a gull to have a hope of making an accurate identification--and we are hoping we have adult plumage to work with. Many of us have more "gull species" than clearly identified species on trip lists.

Princeton University Press sent me a review copy of Gulls Simplified: A Comparative Approach to Identification, by Pete Dunne and Kevin Karlson. What makes it especially useful are the numerous pictures (330 color photos). The species accounts are focused on identification which is the purpose of the book. There are lots of pictures with a discussion of what field marks to look for and where you may get confused with another species. There isn't a lot of text, but there is some commentary on those traits that experienced birders notice that can make a difference in deciding between two species. For example, the Great Black-backed gull is referred to "chestier" than a Herring Gull and its gait is referred to as a "waddling sailor's gait." To a non-birder, this may not seem to be anything other than literary description, but it is precisely these things that allow a birder to identify similar species quickly in the field.

Overall, this is an excellent book to hone your gull identification skills. It isn't a book to take into the field, but a great supplemental reference to use when you get back to the house with your field notes and/or photos.

The list price for this book is $24.95. It is also available for less from other outlets (the least expensive I found in paperback was Barnes and Noble for $17.21).  The least expensive version is the Kindle edition, but I just don't care for my bird books in ebook format. But that is my preference. If you like ebooks, the Kindle version is $15.72 (and of course, you can have it immediately.)