Catching Up on Recent Birding

 Yep. I'm behind. I have actually been out and doing some birding recently, although most has been incidental while walking the dogs. They are not the most patient when it comes to allowing me to look for birds. You can see in the photo at the left, Loki is ready to walk, not stand still and look for birds. This was a beautiful, crisp morning with frost. We did see some nice birds (briefly).

I have seen a lot of birds, even with all the "help" from the dogs.  I didn't post about the bird outing at Lake Arrowhead State Park on the 11th, so I'll start with that. It was a bit nippy when we started (around 26 degrees), but as usual in January, we had some good birds. Nothing special, but a nice variety. We saw Canada goose, white pelican, double-crested cormorant, mallard, green-winged teal, American coot, northern shoveler, killdeer, least sandpiper, ring-billed gull, yellow-shafted and red-shafted flicker, eastern/western meadowlark, Bewick's wren, northern cardinal, northern mockingbird, orange-crowned warbler, fox sparrow, white-crowned sparrow, song sparrow, Harris' sparrow, red-winged blackbird, great-tailed grackle, spotted towhee, dark-eyed junco, American pipit, and house finch.

Most of my birding lately has been at Lake Wichita Park, which is close to my house. Again, because of the dogs, I wasn't able to focus on birding, but still saw some good birds the last couple of weeks. Some notable birds (for me) were a repeat of the black phoebe (this time, at the west end of the pond at the end of the chat trail), a pair of Cooper's hawks talking (they are usually pretty quiet), a couple of long-billed dowitchers, and a great horned owl sitting atop a tree.

The weather is starting to warm up, which means summer won't be far behind, so get out and see the birds before it gets miserably hot!

Good birding!

Owl Serenade

I haven't been birding much over the summer. I hate hot weather, and the birds aren't thrilled with it either.

I finally decided I was going this morning. It was sprinkling and looked like the rain could get heavier, so I decided to go to the Chat Trail in Lake Wichita Park instead of the Nature Bluff section of the Circle Trail. The good thing about going birding when there is a little rain is you have the parks to yourself--Wichita Falls people don't go out in the rain.

The decision to go birding turned out to be a good one. I didn't see a lot of birds on the Chat Trail, but I saw some good ones.

When I got out of the car at the parking lot, I saw a large bird perched in some dead branches in the top of a tree a good way down the trail. It was a great horned owl, so things were starting out pretty nice. I am including a short video clip. I took it with my phone, so the picture is not the greatest. I also didn't do a very good job of holding the phone steady. If you listen carefully, you can hear him calling. But that wasn't the best part. I didn't catch it on video, but there was a second great horned owl in the wooded area behind me that occasionally called back.

Great horned owl

I was pretty stoked about this, but I walked further down the trail, near the bridge and heard another great horned owl in the wooded area over by the dam. Then heard another behind me again. All of a sudden, the one behind me flew over my head toward the owl calling by the dam. I got my binoculars on the one in flight and saw it fly into the trees and flush out the other owl.

That was four great horned owls. I don't think I have ever seen that many in one small area, ever. When I was coming back to the parking lot, the first great horned owl was still on the exposed branches, but he had been joined by an immature Mississippi kite and a Cooper's hawk. I was surprised by the Cooper's hawk, as it is a little early for them. The birds finally flushed the great horned owl and chased it back across the trail toward me, and there was a second Cooper's hawk in pursuit as well.

I didn't see a lot of birds this morning, but then I didn't stay out long--the rain did get a little heavier while I was out. I'm glad I decided to go. Here's the complete list.


Great egret
Green heron
Snowy egret
Canada goose
Double-crested cormorant
Black-necked stilt
Great horned owl
Mississippi kite
Cooper's hawk
Black-chinned hummingbird
Eurasian collared dove
Mourning dove
Rock pigeon
Belted kingfisher
Blue jay
Cardinal
Northern mockingbird
Barn swallow
American robin
Red-winged blackbird
House finch

Good birding!

Great Fall Birding!

Fall colors at Lake Wichita Park

I decided to make a stop at the Chat Trail in Lake Wichita Park after my Sunday morning grocery run. Honestly, I wasn't in a good mood, and almost decided to go straight home. However, I had no freezer items, and I haven't been out in a while, so thought I would take a quick little walk and get a little exercise, at least. I am so glad I went! I came home in a much better frame of mind and saw some great birds too! I hope I can find many of these again on the Christmas Bird Count on December 17.

Fall has finally arrived in our area. The temperature was in the 40s and it was a little overcast, but no wind, so a great day to be outside birding. We have a little color in the trees now.

Common yellowthroat. Photo by M. Nazelrod. Retrieved from Wikimedia Commons

When I pulled into the park, hundreds of cormorants and white pelicans were making their pilgramage to the settling pond on Fairway--I am sure some of them proceeded on, but I didn't stick around to watch. One of the highlights this morning was the common yellowthroat. If I see one, it is almost always along the chat trail or in the reeds around the barrow pit. I don't see them often. When I do, it is just one. This morning, I saw five! Three males and two females.  They are such pretty little birds.

Anotther favorite was the marsh wren. It is not uncommon to have one in the winter. However, I was able to see a total of four, and I am pretty sure there were others in the reeds, because they were chattering up a storm.

A large raft of 20 pied-billed grebes was on the barrow pit. I don't usually see that many together. And a Wilson's snipe rounded out the day. There were a lot of sparrows in the brushy areas--I hope they all turn up again in a couple of weeks.

Here is a complete list from this morning:

White pelican
Double-crested cormorant
Ring-billed gull
Great blue heron
Northern shoveler
Bufflehead
Mallard
American coot
Pied-billed grebe
Wilson's snipe
Downy woodpecker
Red-bellied woodpecker
Cooper's hawk
Northern harrier
Eurasian collared dove
Belted kingfisher
Marsh wren
Blue jay
Northern cardinal
Northern mockingbird
Ruby-crowned kinglet
Common yellowthroat
Yellow-rumped warbler
Orange-crowned warbler
Eastern phoebe
White-crowned sparrow
Lincoln's sparrow
Song sparrow
Savannah sparrow
American goldfinch
House finch
Cedar waxwing
Red-winged blackbird
American robin

All-in-all, a great hour and a half on the Chat Trail.

Good birding!

Sudden Death

Photo of sharp-shinned hawk by Steve Beradi, Wikimedia Commons

If you attract birds to a feeder, you also attract predators for those birds. I usually refill my feeders when I get back to the house after walking with a friend at 7:00 AM. By 7:30 AM, the feeders are generally covered with birds.

Late last week, I noticed there wasn't a single bird on the feeders, and I could hear a blue jay screaming out a warning call. These are sure indications that there is a predator around. I had been seeing the odd sharp-shinned hawk and Cooper's hawk buzzing through the yard at various times, but hadn't seen them catch anything, until this day.

The blue jay's call was too little, too late. A sharp-shinned hawk alighted on the top of our garage next to the feeders, just long enough to adjust the house sparrow in his talons before taking off to enjoy his meal. I have plenty of house sparrows pigging out at the feeders, so I didn't begrudge the hawk his meal. In fact, he can come back for seconds any time.

Both species are here in the winter and prey upon smaller birds, although I have seen a Cooper's hawk wrestling a pigeon nearly as big as it was. It is easy to confuse the sharp-shinned and Cooper's hawks. They look very similar. The sharp-shinned is smaller; however, there can be overlap in the size of a male Cooper's hawk and a female sharp-shinned hawk (in raptors, the female is larger), so size is not a definitive way to tell the difference. However, a sharp-shinned hawk seems slighter and more delicate overall.

In comparison, the sharp-shinned has a smaller head in proportion to its body than does a Cooper's hawk. The sharp-shinned as a more squared tail and a Cooper's a more rounded tail.

Either way, it is always exciting to see one of these graceful, fierce predators hunting. If I could just teach them to stick to the house sparrows!

Good birding!

Sandpiper Migration Underway

Although we are still in the height of summer in terms of heat, fall migration has started and sandpipers are passing through on their way south. I decided to try to beat the heat yesterday morning and got out at 7:00 AM--84 degrees--to the chat trail in Lake Wichita Park. I walked to the barrow pit in hopes there would still be some water, and consequently some birds.

I make no bones about the fact that I find shorebird identification difficult. I have to have a good view for a long time to be sure of any but the most distinctive shorebirds, especially the peeps (the smallest of the sandpipers.) Fortunately, I got both.

The first was a spotted sandpiper, easily told by the distintive bobbing motion it makes as it walks along the shore line. The photo below (courtesy of Mike Baird, Wikimedia Commons) doesn't show the spots on the underside. I has a lot more difficulty with the two small peeps. I easily spent 20 minutes watching them and working with my field guide to identify the Baird's sandpiper. (Photo below courtesy of the US Fish and Wildlife Service.)

The black-necked stilts are still present in decent numbers and easy to identify. There were also some blue-winged teal on the barrow pit.

Warblers are also beginning to come through on migration. I saw several yellow warblers along the trail and around the barrow pit (photo below from Wikimedia Commons.)

I was sitting on one of the benches along the trail looking over the barrow pit. The stilts were unusually quiet. Then all of a sudden all of the birds starting making noise. When I looked up, there was a Cooper's Hawk flying over the water, probably looking for breakfast. A couple of killdeer flew up and mobbed him into the trees. I don't recall seeing shorebirds mob predators before, but obviously they do.

A little later, I was trying to identify a little Empid (no luck there) when I had the chance to watch two black-chinned hummingbirds chasing each other all over the area.

On the way back to my truck, I watched a pair of orchard orioles searching through the willows for bugs. All in all, a good morning.

Good birding!

Jackpot at Lucy Park This Morning

Lucy Park Circle Trail near the park entrance.

I love the woods in the fall, so decided to go to Lucy Park for my Sunday bird walk. Am I glad I did.

Lucy Park is always a bit of a crap shoot for birds. Sometimes you don't see much and other times you hit the jackpot. Today I consider a jackpot day.

In Lucy Park it's guaranteed you will hear lots of cardinals, blue jays and robins. That held true this morning. I was happy when the first bird I saw was a Cooper's Hawk on a bare branch along the Circle Trail. I saw a second Cooper's later in the rear part of the park. I passed through a flock of Carolina Chickadees a little later. At my favorite intersection in Lucy Park I saw and heard a brown creeper. It has been a few years since I have seen a brown creeper--and if I am not mistaken, the last one I saw was also in Lucy Park. I wanted a better look but the tree the bird was using was in a patch of poison ivy. Although I haven't had much problem with poison ivy in the past, I felt that walking through a large patch of it on purpose was tempting fate more than was wise. I would have been happy at this point if I hadn't seen another bird.

A little further down, I passed an area with a lot of underbrush and heard some little birds. I decided to stop and try pishing. Some birds seem to find pishing irresistable. Sure enough, out popped four golden-crowned warblers, two chipping sparrows and a cardinal to see what the crazy birder was up to.

Down by the canoe launch I found my first flock of juncos of the season. I was coming back around to my truck at the entrance and heard a red-bellied woodpecker so I checked out one of the snags nearby and found two red-breasted nuthatches. It doesn't get much better than this.

In addition to the birds mentioned above, other birds seen this morning included: mallard, Canada goose, northern mockingbird, rock pigeon, white-winged dove, mourning dove, Eurasian collared dove, common grackle, great-tailed grackle, red-bellied woodpecker, northern flicker, house finch, and starling.

It looks like the last of the scissor-tailed flycatches have left. I haven't seen any in a few days.

Good birding!

Hunter at the Feeders

When I got up this AM, I had a bevy of birds at my feeders, especially doves. Among the doves, there were 10 white-winged doves, 1 lone mourning dove and 2 Eurasian collared doves. And then there were a dozen or so juncos, sparrows and finches. And then, suddenly, nothing. That happens occasionally--the birds get spooked and fly off, to start coming back almost immediately. That didn't happen; no birds came back for a couple of minutes. That usually means a predator is in the area.

Sure enough, a Cooper's hawk flew past the window and landed a tree in the front of the house. He sat there for a few mintes and then went across the street to a tree. Another Cooper's hawk then flew over the area. A Cooper's would love to have a white-winged dove, and I have a few to spare, so I wish them luck.

Good birding!