Category: Nature

Project FeederWatch Week 15

The birds were especially active this weekend. They must feel spring approaching, and they are getting into the sing of things accordingly.

The American Goldfinches are starting to shift to their gold breeding plumage. I noticed one whose breast is already almost entirely gold. The rest are a splotchy goldish green color.

A third Carolina Chickadee came by and joined the two regulars. All three sang hard, trying to outchickadee the others.

A second male cardinal is also hanging around, and the two males spent a good chunk of Saturday morning chasing each other through the yard.

An American Robin made an appearance in the counts this week, and I saw a pair of Red-bellied Woodpeckers working the trees, though neither of them found the suet feeders.

The White-winged Doves are also increasing as it gets warmer.

For the second week in a row, I have not seen any Ruby-crowned Kinglets.

The Project FeederWatch Official Tally for Week15:

House Sparrow (2)
Chipping Sparrow (11)
House Finch (2)
Lesser Goldfinch (1)
American Goldfinch (8)
Carolina Wren (1)
Bewick’s Wren (2)
Orange-crowned Warbler (1)
Blue Jay (2)
Carolina Chickadee (3)
White-winged dove (13)
Northern Cardinal (2)
Red-bellied Woodpecker (2)
American Robin (1)
Northern Mockingbird (1)
Black-crested Titmouse (1)

Ladder-backed Woodpecker

February 17, 2009 • James Brush • 14 Comments

Ever since I started birding I wanted to see a woodpecker, so I was quite happy when I saw a Ladder-backed Woodpecker in a tree in my yard in Oct 2007. Since then, I’ve learned how to see these little guys and now, I’m getting to where I can find them on the trail fairly easily.

Yesterday, while doing my GBBC count by the pond, I heard the drumming and so walked in its general direction, stopped and waited for my ears to guide my eyes. It turns out, he was right in front of me, tapping away on the lower trunk of a tree, which gave me a new appreciation for the effectiveness with which his striped back camouflages him.

A Ladder-backed Woodpecker hides in plain sight

Once they start pecking, woodpeckers seem to be pretty single-minded birds and so as I was not deemed a threat, he let me get pretty close for a few pictures.

A Ladder-backed Woodpecker lets me get close

I watched him for a while as he pecked and tapped at the tree searching for bugs. They have a tendency to spiral around a tree, but this one stayed in place and let me take pictures. I guess he knew the only real threat was that I wouldn’t get a decent shot and there was no way he was going to be out of focus. Eventually I stopped shooting and just watched him do his thing, which is really the whole reason for going out to look for birds in the first place. Eventually, this tree grew tiresome and he flew off to the high branches of another one.

The info about Ladder-backed Woodpeckers on All About Birds is interesting. They eat mostly insects and arthropods that they pry and tap out of trees. The page also describes their habitat as “desert and desert scrub” neither of which really describes my neighborhood, though this is the northeastern portion of their range. They are considered year-round residents, and according to All About birds are declining in Texas. Despite any declines, here at the edge of their range, they are the woodpeckers I see most frequently in the neighborhood. The others are Red-bellied, Golden-fronted, and Downy Woodpeckers.

Update 2.21.09: Be sure to check out I and the Bird #94 at The Birder’s Report as well as The Weekly Woodpecker Roundup at Picus Blog.

Great Backyard Bird Count – Day 4

February 17, 2009 • James Brush • 3 Comments

Yesterday was grey and cool, the sky wanting to rain, but I walked down to the pond anyway for Day 4 of The Great Backyard Bird Count and managed to avoid the intermittent rain. It’s not my backyard, but it doesn’t have to be. I also brought the camera this time and got some decent pictures including some of my best of this Ladder-backed Woodpecker.

A Ladder-backed Woodpecker strikes a classic pose

The trail didn’t yield many birds. I searched for the bluebird and goldfinches I had seen on Friday, but they weren’t around, though I did get to watch a single Lesser Goldfinch sing from the top of a leafless tree. Most of the action was down on the pond.

I really enjoy watching the ducks paddle around the small pond. It’s especially amusing to watch the Gadwalls dabble like the one in the picture with his rear end in the air. They’ll bob like that for a short time before righting themselves.

I counted more Gadwalls than anything else, but I know I undercounted them. It’s hard to count ducks when they’re always moving around so I tend to err on the side of undercounting. Still, I didn’t realize how many there were.

Official GBBC Day 4 Tally:

Turkey Vulture (2)
American Crow (1)
Lesser Goldfinch (1)
Ring-necked Duck (20)
Eastern Phoebe (1)
Ladder-backed Woodpecker (1)
Yellow-rumped Warbler (2)
Gadwall (74)
American Wigeon (3)
Pied-billed Grebe (3)
Carolina Chickadee (1)
House Finch (1)

All in all this was a good Great Backyard Bird Count for me. Hopefully next year I’ll be better at this and will see even more birds.

Check out these other Great Backyard Bird Counters: Heather of the Hills and Austin birder Mikael at Birding on Broademead who got an awesome shot of an Osprey.

Project FeederWatch Week 14/Great Backyard Bird Count Days 2-3

February 16, 2009 • James Brush • 1 Comment

The birds and I pulled double duty this weekend as we were counting and being counted for both Project FeederWatch and The Great Backyard Bird Count. The two projects have slightly different rules, mainly in that PFW requires 1 count for 2 days while GBBC has separate counts for each day. Also, PFW counts should only include birds that come to the yard for things I provided (food, shelter, water, landscaping), whereas GBBC includes any birds seen in the count area, so I included the robins and crow I saw hanging out in the neighbors’ trees.

Mainly, I saw the usual suspects, although a raptor did fly low over the feeders on Saturday. It’s the second time I’ve seen one in the yard since December, but unless he’s eating House Sparrows, he’s not having much success as my counts haven’t changed much lately.

What kind of raptor? He moved faster than any bird I’ve ever seen so I didn’t get a great look at his markings. His wings were sharply pointed, his long tail wasn’t fanned out, and when he reached the neighbor’s house he did an abrupt rolling turn and was gone. Speed and pointed wings.

I immediately assumed him to be an accipiter, either a Cooper’s Hawk or a Sharp-shinned. These two are hard to distinguish, but I went to the guidebooks and searched online to see if I could do it. None of the pictures really looked like the bird I had seen. The wings were too pointed for one thing and the brief glimpse I got of his underside just didn’t look like the pictures. After flipping through to the falcon section, I saw a picture of a Merlin. That was my bird.

I read up on Merlins and found they do occasionally visit bird feeders, flying low and fast to grab prey on the wing. I also found this chart showing shapes of raptors in flight.

This brings up another issue. While I don’t begrudge birds of prey their meals, I don’t like the idea of my feeders becoming a buffet for all the local raptors. I’ll have to keep watch and see if the Merlin becomes a regular visitor. If so, I’ll bring the feeders in for a while.

Other than that, the only interesting thing about the weekend was the moment when I looked out an hour or so before the Merlin flyby and saw the feeders full of birds, each one holding perfectly still like little statues as if time had stopped in the backyard. I guess they saw the Merlin before I did.

I’m happy to report that American Goldfinches are continuing to bring friends and a few of them are starting to show traces of their gold breeding plumage.

Project FeederWatch Week 14:

American Goldfinch (7)
Black-crested Titmouse(2)
Carolina Chickadee (2)
House Finch (2)
Chipping Sparrow (20)
Orange-crowned Warbler (1)
House Sparrow (2)
White-winged Dove (9)
Carolina Wren (2)
Bewick’s Wren (2)
Mourning Dove (1)
Lesser Goldfinch (1)
Merlin (1)
Northern Cardinal (2)

Great Backyard Bird Count Day 2 (Saturday):

American Goldfinch (6)
Black-crested Titmouse(1)
Carolina Chickadee (2)
House Finch (2)
Chipping Sparrow (18)
Orange-crowned Warbler (1)
House Sparrow (2)
White-winged Dove (6)
Carolina Wren (2)
Bewick’s Wren (1)
Mourning Dove (1)
Lesser Goldfinch (1)
Merlin (1)
Northern Cardinal (2)

Great Backyard Bird Count Day 3 (Sunday):

American Goldfinch (7)
Black-crested Titmouse(2)
Carolina Chickadee (1)
House Finch (2)
Chipping Sparrow (20)
Orange-crowned Warbler (1)
House Sparrow (4)
White-winged Dove (9)
Carolina Wren (2)
Bewick’s Wren (2)
Mourning Dove (1)
Lesser Goldfinch (1)
Northern Cardinal (1)
Blue Jay (1)
American Crow (1)
American Robin (2)

Great Backyard Bird Count – Day 1

February 13, 2009 • James Brush • 4 Comments

It’s time again for the annual Great Backyard Bird Count, which doesn’t actually have to be done in a backyard. I’ll be birding all four days and submitting this weekend’s Project FeederWatch counts to the GBBC as well.

Last year, I had this to say by way of explaining the GBBC:

The Audubon Society and The Cornell Lab of Ornithology are sponsoring The Great Backyard Bird Count running from today through Feb 16. Anyone can participate. All you have to do is count birds over a span of at least 15 minutes and record the number of individuals you see. This helps the Audubon Society “create a real-time snapshot of where the birds are across the continent.” You don’t even have to do it in your backyard.

Today, I started out by going down to the pond since I’ve got my pond trail big year going. It’s also where I birded on Day 1 of the GBBC last year. I’m happy to report that I was able to ID substantially more birds this year. I guess I am getting better at this. I even saw an Eastern Bluebird, which while not a new bird is a new one for this trail.

I also finally got a really good look at the Least Grebes in the pond. Turns out they’re actually Pied-billed Grebes, the crafty devils. I’ll need to go back and change my ebird data for the past few weeks, but the upside is that I get a new life bird.

Still, a fine list for an hour’s stroll:

Turkey Vulture (3)
Northern Mockingbird (2)
House Finch (4)
Eastern Bluebird (1)
White-winged Dove (4)
Ladder-backed Woodpecker (2)
Gadwall (57)
Ring-necked Duck (41)
Pied-billed Grebe (3)
American Wigeon (2)
Black-crested Titmouse (2)
Chipping Sparrow (2)
Eastern Phoebe (1)
Mourning Dove (2)
Blue Jay (1)
American Crow (1)
Yellow-rumped Warbler (1)

No pictures today. Perhaps tomorrow I’ll bring the camera along on my GBBC adventures.

A Short Walk to the Pond

February 12, 2009 • James Brush • Leave a comment

It was beautiful out yesterday, a good day for a quick bit of birding along the pond trail. Saw some goldfinches – American and Lesser high in a leafless tree feasting on seeds. I watched them until they flew in brilliant yellow streaks across the sharpest of blue skies.

A few minutes later an accipiter flew overhead. He was almost gone before I even noticed him. Cooper’s or Sharp-shinned, I couldn’t tell and probably couldn’t even if I could have hit pause on life. Call him Stan. He was beautiful, quick and silent. He ducked and wove the air through the trees and was gone faster than a dream.

Probably heading to my house to eat the rest of the House Sparrows.

Project FeederWatch Week 13

February 9, 2009 • James Brush • 1 Comment

For Week 13 of Project FeederWatch, the Lesser Goldfinches decided to come around, which was especially exciting because they were a life bird for me, and my 10th for 2009. Goldfinches (Lesser and American) are both new to me and so I spent most of my feeder watching time this weekend watching them.

One of the best things about the Lesser Goldfinch is that they are permanent residents around here and so hopefully, they’ll keep coming to the feeder even after the Americans leave in the spring.

The nyjer bag seems to be the big draw (thanks again to my sister and her family for giving it to me for Christmas) and so I hung the fancy nyjer feeder, which hasn’t drawn a single goldfinch in the 2 years I’ve had it, above the bag. The bag is still favored, but some of the American Goldfinches finally discovered it, and not a moment too soon as the nyjer bag was getting a bit crowded.

At one time I saw 4 American Goldfinches and 2 Lesser chowing down on the nyjer seed. A few House Finches even came by, but they were more interested in the nearby hummingbird feeder, which I put back out this weekend on the off chance of seeing an early hummer.

The goldfinches are especially fun to watch because of their acrobatic nature: they seem as happy eating upside down as rightside up. The feeders are close to the window too, which makes photography sort of easy, but upon seeing these shots, I’m thinking I ought to clean the windows.

Other than the goldfinches, all of the usual suspects made appearances, the doves finally showing up just before dark on Sunday evening. At 16 species, this was my best count period for variety, though I’ve had higher numbers of individuals.

Two observations: Blue Jays only seem to come on Sundays. It is the only day of the week I’ve seen them the past few weeks. Doves are much scarcer than I thought they’d be. I knew the white-wing numbers decrease in the winter, but I never realized by how much.

And, now, the count…

White-winged Dove (1)
Mourning Dove (2)
Blue Jay (2)
Carolina Chickadee (1)
Black-crested Titmouse (2)
Carolina Wren (2)
Bewick’s Wren (1)
Ruby-crowned Kinglet (1)
Northern Mockingbird (1)
Orange-crowned Warbler (1)
Chipping Sparrow (11)
Northern Cardinal (2)
House Finch (2)
Lesser Goldfinch (2)
American Goldfinch (4)
House Sparrow (4)

Be sure to check out I and the Bird #93: The Compelling Nature of Birds at Vickie Henderson Art.

A Pond Trail Big Year?

February 4, 2009 • James Brush • 4 Comments

I spend a lot of time birding the trail that runs parallel to our street down to the pond. I usually stop at the pond (the trail goes on and connects to an extensive network of trails) and on school days, I typically turn around and head home. It’s a short (maybe half-mile) walk from the door to the pond and back. I typically see a good variety of birds but never counted the species.

This year, starting with curiosity about what kinds of overwintering ducks are on the pond, I began listing the birds I saw and entering my counts into ebird. If I do this for an entire year, I should have a good sense of what birds pass through here and at what times of the year. I’m also curious as to how many species I can find within this short range from my house.

Call it my pond trail big year. Or maybe, it’ll be a small or medium year. I don’t know what to expect, but that’s part of the fun.

I’m not shooting for any specific number since I have no idea what all species are around here. I just want to see how many I see. I’ve already ID’d some life birds on the trail and hopefully a few more will pop up over the next 11 months so there’s that to look forward to also.

Most important, is the excuse to get outside, enjoy nature and watch the world do its thing. Not that I need an excuse for that.

Here’s what I’ve seen so far:

Gadwall
American Wigeon
Northern Shoveler
Northern Pintail
Ring-necked Duck
Blue-winged Teal
Least Grebe Pied-billed Grebe
Great Blue Heron
Great Egret
Black Vulture
Turkey Vulture
White-winged Dove
Mourning Dove
Red-bellied Woodpecker
Ladder-backed Woodpecker
Eastern Phoebe
Blue Jay
American Crow
Carolina Chickadee
Black-crested Titmouse
Ruby-crowned Kinglet
Northern Mockingbird
Orange-crowned Warbler
Yellow-rumped Warbler
Northern Cardinal
House Finch
American Goldfinch

Project FeederWatch Week 12

February 2, 2009 • James Brush • Leave a comment

Between friends being in town and an interminable fever/chills cycle, I didn’t spend a whole lot of time doing my Project FeederWatch counts this weekend, but I did observe some interesting things.

The Blue Jays are suddenly showing interest in the suet feeders again. They were all over them last summer, but lost interest when it got cold out. Now that it’s a bit warmer (or at least was on Sunday) they’re interested again.

A Red-bellied Woodpecker made an appearance this weekend. This is the first one I’ve seen in the yard and thus the first time he’s shown up in my counts. I wonder if the Golden-fronted Woodpecker that used to come by regularly last summer will be back around soon.

The House Finches are coming around a bit more regularly. Probably looking for the hummingbird feeder, which I may put back up this week. After reading Dave Bonta’s haunting and beautiful “House Finch,” I checked for eye disease on them and the goldfinches, but fortunately found none. I keep my feeders clean and thus far have been fortunate not to have seen any infected finches, which you’re asked to report to PFW if you see it.

Cardinals seem to enjoy coming around every day except my count days. Perhaps they had all headed down to Florida for the Super Bowl.

After deleting the fever birds (you know, the penguin and the albatross I saw), I got this count:

Red-bellied Woodpecker (1)
Bewick’s Wren (1)
House Finch (2)
White-winged Dove (8)
American Goldfinch (2)
Orange-crowned Warbler (1)
Ruby-crowned Kinglet (1)
Chipping Sparrow (3)
Carolina Wren (2)
Carolina Chickadee (2)
Mourning Dove (1)
Black-crested Titmouse (1)
Blue Jay (2)
Northern Mockingbird (1)

Not many individuals, but a good variety of species.

Along a Neighborhood Trail on a Foggy Day

January 27, 2009 • James Brush • 2 Comments

Fog silences everything on the way down to the pond. The trees hold still, making way for the muted quacks from the ducks farther down.

I watch a flock of Blue Jays descend on a tree, screeching at something. I don’t see any owls or hawks, and eventually they leave, their work finished.

Above the trail, I notice a Great Blue Heron, solitary and watchful. My eyes drift from him to the shapes of the ducks drifting through the fog. One tree over, a Red-bellied Woodpecker squawks at the heron. I’ve never seen a Red-bellied Woodpecker in the neighborhood so I study him through the binoculars, his red nape leaping out of the surrounding gray.

I make a note in my bird book and watch him watch the heron, until, having had enough, the heron jumps off the tree and slowly flies up the creek back toward the bridge.

The trail disappears in both directions, and I walk back toward home, stopping along the way to admire the texture of some broken trunks. What happened to shear off these branches and leave the gaps in the trees? Was it sudden like lightning or just the slow erosion of time?

I can hear birds chirping in the reeds, but they’re not to be seen. The fog diffuses the sound and their voices could be coming from anywhere.

A gentle fog and
brief graying of the familiar
renders the world new