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!