Anyone with a Good Squirrel Recipe?

Momma Squirrel at Feeder

In general, I love my squirrels. I know many birdwatchers don't like squirrels because they eat a lot of bird food, which isn't cheap. However, I enjoy watching their antics, and they ensure the dogs get plenty of exercise trying to catch them.

Having said that, I have one squirrel that may find itself in a stew pot soon. I looked out my window the other morning, and there was one of my squirrels, sitting right in the center of my spider plant, munching away on one of the leaves. Since then, I have found leaves and sprigs of baby spiders on the ground under the planter. My spider plant is looking mangled at this point. I am rooting the babies in hopes that if the big plant succumbs to mistreatment, I'll be on the way to replacing it.

I am not sure what brought this on. That same plant hung outside all last summer with no problems. So far, they haven't bothered with any of the other pots on the patio. Right now, there are 7 pots out there and this is the only plant they have messed with. Any ideas? Anyone else having a similar issue?

By the way, note the bent up sunflower feeder. Something is pulling the feeder down at night (only this one) and bending it up trying to get into it. Raccoon, maybe?

Good birding!

March Birding at Lake Arrowhead State Park

Snow geese

Photo by Raymond Eichelberger on Unsplash

Saturday was the monthly bird outing at Lake Arrowhead State Park. The morning was beautiful. However, a

brisk wind, combined with 40 - 45 degree weather meant it was a little nippy to start. We had a new birder with 

us this month. She said birding was on her retirement bucket list. I can't imagine anything better.

This time of year is the beginning of the spring migration (although April should be even better). Purple Martins

are back, and our winter birds are still here. There have been reports of some summer birds showing up very early

(a summer tanager, for example). The highlight of my morning was a small flock of snow geese that flew over

our heads. A neotropic cormorant was also a good sighting. We also saw a beaver, and I saw some white-tailed deer.

I got to the park a little early and also birded West Arrowhead Rd that runs just outside the park boundary for a 

short time after we broke up, so my list includes those birds.

The birds I saw/heard included:

Canada goose

Snow goose

White pelican

Double-crested cormorant

Neotropic cormorant

Great blue heron

Ring-billed gull

Killdeer

Least sandpiper

Gadwall

Mallard

American Coot

Black vulture

Turkey vulture

Eastern phoebe

Ruby-crowned kinglet

Northern cardinal

Northern mockingbird

Carolina Chickadee

Eastern bluebird

Dark-eyed junco

Harris's sparrow

White-crowned sparrow

Field sparrow

Brown-headed cowbird

Great-tailed grackle

Red-winged blackbird

European starling

Overall, a very good morning. You're invited to come bird with us on the second Saturday of each

month. We start at 8:00 AM in the parking lot near the fishing pier. Beginners and kids welcome. We look

at more than just birds--plants, bugs, etc. This is a leisurely stroll of about 1 to 1.5 miles.

Good birding!

Birding is Good for You!

 

Me birding at Lake Arrowhead 
State Park (several years ago)

I was reading an article in the March 2024 American Birding Association magazine, Birding, titled, "The Birding Prescription." Although the ABA posts its magazines online, the March issue isn't posted yet, and it will be in a members only area of the website. I am fairly certain this isn't a magazine carried by the Wichita Falls Public Library, although I haven't looked at their magazine selection for some time.

I know I always feel better after being outside birdwatching (or watching birds through the window on days I can't/don't want to go anywhere). However, this article outlines the author's anecdotal experience with birding (or ornitherapy, as she calls it) when she was fighting breast cancer. After this, she summarizes results from multiple studies which indicate birdwatching has many positive affects on people. Here is a summary of the main points:

• Listening to bird song for 6 minutes can reduce anxiety and irrational thinking for up to 8 hours
• Although not necessarily birdwatching, 20 minutes of exposure to green spaces lowers cortisol (stress hormone)
• Participation in citizen science activities improves well-being (that's part of the reason members of our local Texas Master Naturalist chapter are such a positive group!)
• People who live in areas with higher bird diversity experience fewer hospital admissions for mood and anxiety disorders
• Birding can help restore attentiveness, reversing attention drain (attention restoration therapy)
• Offer social connections. Feelings of isolation and loneliness and lack of connections may increase the risk of premature death.

The author provides a list of references to the various studies she cites, so if you want to do more study on your own, you can do so.

Whether you agree with all of the assertions in her article or not, it doesn't cost anything to watch the birds. Try it our for yourself. I know some time birdwatching is always a pick me up for me.

Good birding!

Purple Martins Arriving Soon!

 

Purple martin house at Wild Bird Rescue

I have not personally seen any purple martin scouts yet, but there have been reports in our area and it is about time for them to show up. If you have a martin house, it's time to ensure it is clean and ready for this year's nesting season. Clean up the house and block the entrance until you see scouts. Otherwise, you will have a house full of starlings and house sparrows.

Lake Arrowhead SP Birding

Painted bunting at Lake 
Arrowhead SP

Every second Saturday there is a bird outing at Lake Arrowhead State Park. We wander about a mile over an hour or two (depending on the birds we see). Debra Halter and I, from the Rolling Plains Texas Master Naturalist chapter, lead the walk. 

Don't know the birds? No worries--you learn by going out with others. Bring the kids! We love to introduce kids to the natural world. Interests expand beyond birds? No problem. Master Naturalists are into everything and we often stop to look at plants, and spiders, and mussels, and bugs, and deer, and more. Mobility issues? We can easily stay on paved surfaces.

The bird in the photo top the left is a painted bunting. We won't see one this month, but it won't be long until they are back for the summer. (Of course, I say that and June McKee had a summer tanager at her feeder this week and posted a photo on Facebook. So, one never knows!)

The walk starts at 8 AM at the admin building parking lot (between the swim beach and the fishing pier). Just look for a small group with binoculars and cameras. Park entry fees apply ($4 per person). The park office doesn't open until 8:00, so give yourself a little extra time to stop at the self-pay table just inside the entrance.

Happy birding!

Great Backyard Bird Count Coming Up!

One of my favorite birding events is coming up February 16 - 19. The Great Backyard Bird Count is a joint citizen science project of the Cornell Lab of Ornithology,  National Audubon Society, and Birds Canada. It has found its way worldwide since tallies are now submitted through eBird.

The idea is to watch birds at home, your local parks, or wherever you happen to be for 15 minutes (or more) and submit your checklists through eBird. I usually try to hit up several local parks since I do Project Feederwatch in my yard every week. I might change my mind, but right now, I am thinking I will bird Lake Wichita Park on Friday, Lake Arrowhead SP on Saturday, Wichita Bluff Park on Sunday, and Lucy Park on Monday. I might throw in some short times at Williams Park and the Circle Trail at a couple of spots that are sometimes good birding.

This is a great project for kids. Since you only need to spend 15 minutes, even the little ones can stay focused. This would also be a good project for homeschoolers.

Good birding!

Just Ducky!

 

Prasan Shrestha, CC BY-SA 4.0, via Wikimedia Commons

We've had a couple of decent rains lately so I decided this morning I would go out looking for ducks. With the lack of water, I haven't had much luck recently.

As it turned out, it was a good morning. I have a number of chores that need to get done today, so I didn't take a lot of time. I started at the Lake Wichita spillway. The lake is still far from full, but it is coming up some. There were lots of ruddy ducks, some buffleheads, coots, gadwalls, mallard, Canada geese, and a lone northern shoveler.

Then I went down to the boat ramp and picked up some green-winged teal.

I took a run down W. Rathgeber Rd to get to Crestview cemetery. Although this road is a dump for glass bottles, there are a few small tanks along that road and the largest one had several ring-necked ducks. At Crestview I saw my favorite duck, the northern pintail (see the photo). They are such an elegant looking bird. Unfortunately, there was only the one, but I was happy to see him. That's the first one I have seen this winter.

Then I took a quick swing by Stone Lake. Not much going on there this morning, but I did add pied-billed grebes. Overall, a good morning.

Good birding!

Williams Park Surprise

Photo by Mathew Schwartz on Unsplash

I went over to Booker T. Washington elementary school this morning to meet with my Read 2 Learn 1st grader. Unfortunately, he wasn't at school today. Since I had some extra time, I went to Williams Park, which is just across Holliday Creek from the school.

Williams Park is not very big, but it has good understory for little dickey birds, and that was my focus for a quick stop. I was heading over to a brushy area near the Circle Trail. I had my eyes down, looking for little birds in the brush, and out of the corner of my eye, I say a large bird flush from a tree right on the trail. Initially, I thought it was probably a great horned owl as they are common in our area and it isn't uncommon to flush one out. It's a good thing I looked up, because it wasn't an owl, it was a mature bald eagle. We do get bald eagles here in the winter, although not in large numbers. I see them at Lake Arrowhead State Park most often, but I have seen one flying over SW Parkway, so you can observe them most anywhere.

Unfortunately, I wasn't prepared for this bird and he flew down the creek too quickly for me to get a picture with my cell phone. I did walk a ways down the trail in the direction he flew, but he apparently did not alight nearby. I did look at eBird and there is a record last year (with pictures) of a bald eagle in Williams Park.

I was at the park for 30 minutes. In addition to the eagle there was a Carolina chickadee, some dark-eyed juncos, blue jays, cardinals, great-tailed grackles, a savannah sparrow, white-winged dove, and a mourning dove.

I picked up more litter than saw birds. The main portion of the park looks good, but the edges are full of trash. I forgot to pull one of the trash bags I keep in the car to pick up litter on walks since I didn't plan to be there long, but easily picked up enough trash to fill at least one bag. There is still plenty of trash there is someone has some spare time.

BONUS: Like to draw? The Cornell University Lab of Ornithology had a webinar this week on drawing birds. I am totally incompetent when it comes to anything more complicated than a stick figure, but for those with a modicum more talent, you can see the recorded webinar here.

Good birding!

Feast or Famine

Chat Trail

The objective of birding is to see birds, but some days you have better luck than others. You can bird an area one day and see birds everywhere and the next, you get skunked. On Saturday, the 6th, I went out to the chat trail in Lake Wichita Park. As a rule, the chat trail is one of the best locations to see a variety of birds in Wichita Falls.  Not on Saturday. Winter is close and as you can see, there are few leaves on the trees. However, I didn't see much when I was there, partly because I went later than usual (11 AM - Noon). In the hour I was walking the trail, I saw: mallard ducks, Canada geese, rock pigeons, a red-tailed hawk, a northern flicker, northern cardinals, a blue jay, a house finch, a Lincoln's sparrow, white-crowned sparrows, and Harris's sparrows. Not the longest list, but I was happy with the exceptionally good look at the Lincoln's sparrow.

Circle Trail in Lucy Park

The next day, I decided to try Lucy Park. This used to be my favorite place to bird before the city tried to control flooding by denuding the park several years ago. I won't say I don't see some good birds on occasion, but it is no comparison to what it used to be. The loss of almost all of the understory and many of the older trees greatly impacted the bird habitat. But it is worth a walk now and again. The best areas now are the 3rd Street entrance to the falls and the fence line between the park and River Bend Nature Center. I turned in the other direction, toward the log cabin. Again, I was there later than my usual time (10:40 - 11:40) and saw just a few birds: a northern cardinal, a couple of blue jays, some Carolina chickadees, robins, dark-eyed juncos, a great-tailed grackle (yes, just one) and a solitary cedar waxwing. Initially, when I saw the waxwing in the cedar tree, I thought it was a titmouse, but once I got my binoculars on it, it was definitely a waxwing. I listened and looked around for more, but didn't see or hear any.

Standing water in the barrow pit

I skipped Monday, as it was raining (hurray!), but walked the chat trail again Tuesday. Work sucked up my morning, so since I didn't get to the park until around 3 PM, I decided just to walk and if I saw any birds, great. Since I decided to try the Conqueror Challenge for 2024 (365 miles), I focused on walking, but did see some incidental birds. And with the decent rain on Monday, there was a pool of water in the barrow pit--I haven't seen any standing water in there for months. Proof is in the picture to the left. A northern harrier was hawking around the pit, looking for a snack. There was a group of northern flickers hanging around also--both yellow-shafted and red-shafted. Besides those birds, there were several Eurasian collared doves, some white-winged doves, some robins and a cardinal. 

All-in-all, this week has been a bird famine, but it's still better than working.

Good birding!
 

ABA's Bird of the Year

By Andy Reago & Chrissy McClarren - Golden-winged Warbler, CC BY 2.0, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=63976506

The American Birding Association (ABA) names a Bird of the Year every January. This year's bird is the Golden-winged Warbler. A pretty bird, although not one that hangs out in our area. But that's ok. The bird does range through much of the eastern part of the country, to include Sabine Woods, a Texas Ornithological Society sanctuary in east Texas. 

I bring this up to highlight the ABA. I am a member because they do a lot of bird conservation. The magazine is beautiful and interesting, although it tends to be more technical than many other birding magazines. ABA also has an interesting bird podcast. I try not to read the book reviews--I would have to get another job to support my bird book habit. And more shelf space.

Warblers are challenging birds to identify, mostly because they are constantly on the move. I have a hard enough time catching a glimpse of them, let alone identify or take a picture of one. I used to go birding with a lady named Dorothy when I lived in Virginia. She could see a warbler for a second and tell  you what it was, but she had spent decades banding birds and had written a book about warblers, so there was a good reason for that. We were out one day and I asked her the identity of a duck out on the lake. She said, "It's a duck." She said she hadn't spent much time working on her identification skills with ducks, so she had a difficult time identifying them. I can honestly say, I do reasonably well with ducks, but other than a few very distinctive species, warblers stump me much of the time. But I enjoy watching them anyway.

Good birding!