Birding 2013

I don't know why, but I can't help but put some significance on the first bird I see each year. It's as if I think that bird is a harbinger of the year. Intellectually I know that is not true, but that doesn't mean I don't feel that way regardless. For example, in 2011 my first bird was a house sparrow but that same day I spotted a whooping crane (a lifer), so it is demonstrably not true.

In 2012 we did the Wild Bird Rescue Big Day fundraiser and the first bird was a white-crowned sparrow, the start of a good count.

White-winged dove
Photo by Dan Pancamo via Wikimedia Commons

This year, the white-winged doves were first up. What does that say for my birding year in 2013? I must say, so far 2013 hasn't been very exciting on the birding front. However, if you want to see birds, you have to bird, and so far this year, I haven't been out much at all. But I intend to change that. I made some birding resolutions for 2013. Since I am known to be a little compulsive on my New Year's resolutions (especially after sharing them with you,) I am looking forward to a good year.

What are my birding resolutions this year?

• Attend two birding festivals. Right now I plan for those to be the Birdfest Texoma in May and the Rio Grande Valley Birding Festival in November. If I can fit in one of the Texas Ornithological Society (TOS) meetings, I will. But the Winter and Spring meetings don't fit my schedule, so we'll see about the Fall meeting.
• Be more consistent in keeping up this blog--in order to do that I have to get out and see some birds. I am shooting for a minimum of 1 blog post a week. I have done more than that in previous years, so it shouldn't be a problem.
• Update my sightings in eBird regularly. I can use eBird to keep track of the birds I see. After having lost my life list not once, but twice, this is a good thing. I can't replicate those earlier records, which is discouraging, but at least I can avoid a similar disaster.
• Add five counties to  my Texas Century Club count. This will force me to get out and bird, which is the only way to become a better birder. I am not as competitive as many people participating in this program, but I am using it as a way to encourage me to get out and bird.

I am planning for a great birding year. What are your birding resolutions this year?

Good birding!

Inca Dove

Inca Dove photo courtesy of Clinton and Charles Robertson.

Overall, the yard at our new house isn't very birdy--there isn't much in the way of understory right now. However, one of the nice surprises has been the pair of Inca dove that appear in my yard regularly. I usually don't see them, just hear the distinctive sound of their wings as they take off when I come out of the house. This morning though as I was sipping my tea on the back porch, I was able to watch the doves during the breakfast feeding frenzy at the feeder. The Inca's seem to come in before and after the masses of white-winged dove.

We in Wichita Falls, TX are just about as far north as the dove occurs--they are very sensitive to cold weather. Although the doves don't seem as common here as they used to be (purely anecdotal), they are expanding their range, according to Birds of North America Online. They seem to prefer to live around people. The species account in BNA (available only with a subscription) tells a lot of interesting facts about these doves. I was aware of their pyramid roosting to combat cold, but I did not know their metabolic rate is about 20% less than most passerines, which seems to help them cope with the hot environments in which they live and would indicate why they might be more sensitive to cold.

Such a sweet little dove--I hope you are able to enjoy them in your yard too.

Good birding!

A Morning at the New House

I took a little while to sit outside on my patio enjoying the morning before moving more stuff between the old house and the new. The white-winged doves are thick; I counted 25 on my garage roof. I also heard a mourning dove and Eurasian collared dove. So far, the birds have been the common yard birds--blue jays, robins, cardinals, house sparrows, starlings, chimney swifts, weatern kingbirds and common grackles. As you can tell, there is much to be done in improving the yard habitat for the birds. But at least there are birds. It's a start.

Good birding!

Dove News

Like everyone else, I had a passel of white-winged doves along with a couple of mourning doves at my feeders during the recent snow/ice storm. Surprisingly, I didn't get any Eurasian collared doves; I was disappointed to have no Inca doves come in. The Incas are not very cold tolerant, so I hope they did OK.

A fellow Texas Master Naturalist sent me a Facebook meesage that she had 9 dead mourning doves on her porch and a neighbor had 5. I wonder what's up with that? I didn't have any at my place. Someone also posted on OKBIRDS that they have had a lot of dove deaths, but they were related to the birds being lethargic, sheltering in a barn and being killed by cats and horses.

There was also a post on TEXBIRDS the other day about Eurasian collared doves that had some interesting information about the expansion of that species in the US. Fortunately, the author posted an article on the topic elsewhere I can share with you.

Good birding!

Yes! Tundra Swans

Six tundra swans were still hanging out at the far end of Bridwell tank on this cool, wet and windy morning. They are big enough to get a reasonable look with a good pair of binoculars, but a scope would have been nice.

It was good to see them. In addition, there were a few other birds hanging around the tank or on the other side of the road in Lake Arrowhead: gadwall, mallard, Canada geese, double-crested cormorant, great blue heron, white-crowned sparrow, American kestrel, red-tailed hawk and American coots. I also drove around to the boat ramp on the west side of Lake Arrowhead and picked up a couple of white pelicans. On the drive out and back, also saw numerous meadowlarks, great-tailed grackle, mourning doves, as well as a couple of killdeer and a northern harrier.

I got back and had a Harris's sparrow cleaning up under my feeders at home. I have seen this bird a few times now in the yard, but it appears I have only one. Darn it! There was also a white-winged dove perching on a swinging suet feeder, pecking at the suet. I have never seen them try suet before, but I am beginning to think those birds will try anything.

Good birding!

Wham!

Whenever you have lots of prey in a small area, you are going to have predators. Anyone who has fed birds has had the occasional predation loss, whether to cats or birds of prey. I look at the predation losses to birds of prey as just part of the birdwatching experience.

I was sitting in the living room reading and heard a loud "wham!" on one of the windows in the kitchen area. I thought to myself, "Well, there goes one of my birds hitting the window." But the noise was exceptionally loud, and I go to lengths to make sure my windows are not shiny clean to reduce reflection and window strikes.

I went to investigate and found a good sized puddle of blood on my back covered porch with a few feathers and a Cooper's hawk struggling to fly away with a large burden in its talons. Although I didn't get a clear look at what the Cooper's hawk was carrying, my guess is one of the obese white-winged doves that hang out in my yard. The hawk should be able to eat off of one of those birds for a week, at least. I'm assuming that the dove hit the window at speed in an attempt to evade the Cooper's Hawk, was stunned, which gave the Cooper's hawk the opportunity to ensure the bird was dead and under control for carrying away to a convenient place to perch and eat.

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!

Feeder Tragedy

One of the hazards of feeding birds is that predators sometimes snatch one of the birds you've been fattening up.

I went out to refill feeders and found evidence of at least an attempt to catch one of my doves. I did not find a carcass and dove feathers pull out very easily, so I cannot say for sure this guy is a goner. However, judging from the number of feathers in this area, if he wasn't a casualty, he's darn cold.

Since I didn't find evidence of a carcass, I would assume one of the feral cats that live in the field next to my house probably got lucky. If the cat caught one of the white-winged doves, he should be stuffed for a week.

Good birding!

Phantom Gluttons

I haven't been seeing all that many birds at my feeders, as my Project Feederwatch reports will attest, but I am certainly going through the food, especially the mixed seed. I bought 50 lbs of mixed seed just a couple of weeks ago and put out the last of it this morning.

Either I have some phantoms that like bird seed or some birds are visiting when I am not watching. Since the windows to the back and side of the house are not on the side where I have my office and require a trip to look out, that is entirely possible. Judging from the number of white-winged doves sitting on the wires and in the trees when I went out to fill up the feeders, my money is on them.

I can remember when I first moved to Wichita Falls, white-winged and Eurasian collared doves were not uncommon, but neither did one see them every day. How times have changed! Most birders consider both of these doves more pests than not. They travel in large flocks and can eat a LOT of bird seed.

The white-winged dove comes from Mexico and used to be seen almost entirely in the Rio Grande Valley area of Texas, However, the birds have expended their trange northward, seemingly following the I-35 corridor.

There is some speculation that these birds are out competing the mourning doves and Inca doves. I have great doubt about the Incas as I am sure they tend to eat smaller seed than the much larger White-winged and Eurasian doves. I could see an argument for mourning doves. But I don't have any factual evidence to back that up. The local chapter of Texas Master Naturalists sent in some data on the two populations a few years ago, but we weren't informed of any results of the study, which is unfortunate. There is an interesting set of papers from a Dove Symposium in 2004 that discusses this briefly but comes to no conclusions.

I can remember seeing many more mourning doves in town in years past, but perhaps it merely seemed that way because I wasn't seeing the hordes of white-winged and Eurasian, as I do today. Once you are in the county, the birds are primarily mourning doves.

Good birding!

White-winged Doves in Abundance

I looked out my dining room window earlier today to count birds for Project Feederwatch and had 22 white-winged doves. When I first moved to Wichita Falls, we rarely saw white-winged doves. A few years ago, Texas Parks and Wildlie asked Wild Bird Rescue to notify them any time we had a baby come in as there were few records of nesting in the area. Times have changed.

Both the white-winged dove and Eurasian collared dove populations have boomed in town over the past several years. They are by far the most numerous doves in town. They don't seem to care much for the rural life--mourning doves still predominate there. People who feed birds are beginning to get aggravated with the birds. Unlike other doves that feed on the ground on seed spilled by others from feeders, white-winged dove will land on the feeders themselves and stop other birds from eating. One would think that white-winged dove would be too big to sit on a tube feeder perch, but that is not the case--they are fairly agile for a large bird. And they love black-0il sunflower seed.

According to Bird of North American Online (one of my favorite internet sites), prior to 1980 white-winged doves were found primarily in the Rio Grande and since have expanded northward into Oklahoma (in fact, Wichita Falls is specifically listed as one of the expansion areas.)

They like pecan and live oak trees for nesting and usually have two broods a year (since they start in March and end in August/September in Wichita Falls, I would be surprised if some don't sneak in an extra one in this area, but I could not find any documented cases of that.)