Hummingbirds Coming In

The hummingbird numbers are picking up steadily around my feeders. I counted five at a time a few minutes ago. We have a pretty steady northeast wind. It's probably blowing between 5 and 10 mph. It will be interesting to see if Gustav blows hummers our way. I grabbed the camera and got this shot of the dominant male on the feeders in our backyard.

Some notes on a hot summer day

This week, several of the juvenile Eastern Bluebirds were frequenting my birdbath. I grabbed the camera and took a couple of pictures through the glass of my porch door at about 35 ft. They aren't the clearest pictures, but you can see this young male getting his adult plumage. Check out the downy feathers still on him.

The cardinals, Blue Jays and Eurasian Collared-Doves had a great breeding year. The adults are bringing the juveniles to my feeders pretty regularly. It's fun to watch them. The testosterone levels in the cardinals must be dropping because the males are at least tolerant of each other at the feeders. I hear a Downy Woodpecker pretty regularly in the backyard, but have yet to see him at my feeders. When it gets cooler I'll start putting suet out again and see if he comes to that. I really hope the Yellow-bellied Sapsucker comes back to my suet this year.

I didn't go birding this weekend in the woods. It's still just a little early for fall migrants and it's really hot. Hopefully in the next couple of weeks I'll start birding regularly.

The hummingbirds are slowly increasing their numbers. It's becoming harder and harder for the dominant bird at my feeders to keep all the others off. Yesterday I saw her chase one bird off and three came in to get a drink. She successfully got all three of them away and maintained her dominance. She's back this morning. If Gustav moves into Louisiana like they are forecasting, that could be good for my hummingbird numbers. We'll get a north wind out of it and that has encouraged them to move south. After Katrina moved into LA three years ago, my hummingbird numbers exploded within a couple of days. Guess I should get the rest of my feeders ready to go!

White-winged Dove at My Feeder

I got home from work today and found three White-winged Doves at my feeders. Here's a picture of one of them.

I've had one White-winged Dove at my feeders last year. I've only seen one at a time, though. These are juveniles, as was the one last year. I've never seen an adult here. I suppose it's just a matter of time. It's amazing to me how much larger the Eurasian Collared-Doves are than the White-winged Doves.

Summertime Birding & Spring Report

I went out this morning and birded in the woods for the first time since June. With all the rain we've had over the past few days, there was a lot of standing water and the humidity is very high. The birds were more active than I anticipated. There were several of the spring migrants that hung around to breed in the area. I saw what I think is a family of five Great Crested Flycatchers hanging out together. I saw Red-eyed Vireos and Eastern Wood-Pewees feeding. Several juvenile Red-bellied Woodpeckers explored the trees in search of a meal. A Black-and-white Warbler mixed in with a flock of Carolina Chickadees. It was nice to get out and go birding this morning!

The hummingbirds aren't increasing much at the feeders. I'll see four to five at a time trying to get to them, but so far one dominant bird has done a pretty good job of holding the others at bay. Hopefully it won't be long before they show up in greater numbers.

Birds seen 8/22/08 (21 species): Black Vulture, Red-shouldered Hawk, Eurasian Collared-Dove, Mourning Dove, Yellow-billed Cuckoo, Ruby-throated Hummingbird, Red-bellied Woodpecker, Downy Woodpecker, Eastern Wood-Pewee, Great Crested Flycatcher, Red-eyed Vireo, Blue Jay, American Crow, Carolina Chickadee, Tufted Titmouse, Carolina Wren, Blue-gray Gnatcatcher, Eastern Bluebird, Black-and-white Warbler, Northern Cardinal, House Sparrow

Species Seen as of 8/22/08: 126
Species Seen as of 8/22/04: 113

I ran a report on my spring sightings and these are the migrants I saw this year on my property:

Cuckoo (1): Yellow-billed Cuckoo
Nighthawk (1): Common Nighthawk
Swift (1): Chimney Swift
Hummingbird (1): Ruby-throated Hummingbird
Flycatcher (4): Eastern Wood-Pewee, Acadian Flycatcher, Least Flycatcher, Great Crested Flycatcher
Vireo (3): Blue-headed Vireo, Philadelphia Vireo, Red-eyed Vireo
Swallow (6): Purple Martin, Tree Swallow, Northern Rough-winged Swallow, Bank Swallow, Cliff Swallow, Barn Swallow
Thrush (3): Veery, Gray-cheeked Thrush, Swainson's Thrush
Warbler (21): Blue-winged Warbler, Golden-winged Warbler, Tennessee Warbler, Orange-crowned Warbler, Northern Parula, Chestnut-sided Warbler, Magnolia Warbler, Black-throated Green Warbler, Blackburnian Warbler, Yellow-throated Warbler, Bay-breasted Warbler, Blackpoll Warbler, Cerulean Warbler, Black-and-white Warbler, American Redstart, Ovenbird, Kentucky Warbler, Common Yellowthroat, Hooded Warbler, Canada Warbler, Yellow-breasted Chat
Tanager (1): Summer Tanager
Grosbeak (1): Rose-breasted Grosbeak
Bunting (2): Indigo Bunting, Painted Bunting

Hummingbirds Increasing

Hummingbirds are definitely on the increase! I saw at least five around my house this afternoon and one visited my feeder at my office today. I hadn't seen one at that feeder before. I've got three feeders up at my house. It won't be long before they're really thick around them. I've heard reports from North Texas that they are on the move south. I love this time of year! Hummingbirds are migrating south. Cooler weather is just around the corner. My life slows down a bit. I am going to get back to my Friday morning bird walks around my property. Maybe I'll see some of those birds that I missed this spring.

Raptors!

I've seen several different raptors around these days. Along I-10 between FM 3180 and Hwy. 146, I regularly see Swainson's Hawk and Red-tailed Hawk. I occasionally see a Crested Caracara flying over. Around the house I see Red-shouldered Hawks that live around here. It shouldn't be too long before the Broad-winged Hawks begin to migrate south.

I saw three Ruby-throated Hummingbirds this morning at the house. I am going to put up my feeder pole in the morning and put up a couple of feeders. It will start to pick up really soon!

First Hummingbird of the Fall

This morning I looked out the window where I have my hummingbird feeder hanging and saw an adult male sitting on the fence about 15 ft. away from it. He came to the feeder and then took off. A few minutes later I looked out and saw what appeared to be a juvenile male sitting on the feeder. So, two individual hummers in a matter of minutes. Maybe it's getting time to set up my other feeders for all of the hummers I get in the fall.

Other interesting things going on around here include having up to twelve cardinals at my feeders at one time. There are several juveniles in that group. The males seem to have a bit of a testosterone surge still in them because any two adult males will have some kind of confrontation. The Eurasian Collared-doves seem to have had a successful breeding season. There are as many as eight of them around my feeders at a time. The bluebirds show up pretty regularly. I saw four of the juvenile bluebirds along with the male feeding from the fence in my yard yesterday. The swallows are migrating. I see them flying southwest most of the time. I've seen Barn, Tree and Cliff so far. Looks like I need to start getting out on Friday mornings for some birding since fall migration is up on us.

In case you're wondering how my Property Big Year is going, I'm at 126 for 2008. That's still 13 ahead of where I was this time in 2004, so I should have no trouble breaking that number. There are several birds that I missed in spring migration that I might get in the fall. I'll be posting my sightings from when I go out. I will probably have to wait until August 22 to start since I've got things going on today and next Friday.

I'm also going to expand the scope of what I write about on this blog. I'm going to include birds I see everywhere, not just on my property. I don't do a lot of birding in other places, but I get a fair amount in, even in the summer when I'm so busy. Hopefully with me blogging about all my bird sightings, I will update things a little more often.

More Tropical Storm Birds

There were a couple of other interesting bird sightings during the tropical storm on Tuesday. After the "eye" had passed over us, I went outside to check on a couple of things and to put some more seed out for the birds that were showing up in large numbers. I had ten cardinals, six Eurasian-collared Doves and four Blue Jays. The Carolina Chickadees were trying to figure out where their feeders went and never got the idea to head to the ground to pick up a seed. I put the feeders back out pretty quickly once I saw that. As I was putting the feeders back out, a flock of about 50 Tree Swallows flew over. They were flying against the wind so the entire flock was doing a zig-zag pattern as they flew. They flew right over my head, so I got great looks at them. I've seen a flock like that once, but it was in January several years ago. The other interesting sighting was the hundreds of Purple Martins that were soaring overhead. It sounded like I was standing next to a large colony with all of them calling. I tried counting at one point, but couldn't. I would estimate there were 150 to 250 martins at a time flying around.

I sure wish I could have gone down to Galveston to see if any pelagics had been pushed onshore by Edouard's winds. I guess I'll have to look at Texbirds and live vicariously through those who had the chance.

Tropical Storm Feeder Birds

Even with Tropical Storm Edouard, the birds were coming around the feeder. Cardinals were out there at first light this morning. I've heard chickadees and Blue Jays calling already.t I've recorded a 52.1 mph wind gust on my weather station. I took all my feeders down, but scattered sunflower seeds on the ground feeder for the birds. They don't seem too concerned about it. There are several White Ibis and a Little Blue Heron in the pasture behind the house taking advantage of the rain-soaked ground. The center of circulation has yet to pass us, so we'll see if we get more gusty winds and how the birds handle that. Just rain and a little wind so far, although the radar shows a little heavier stuff coming in soon.

Water on a Hot Summer Day

It's very dry around here right now. We received about 4 inches of rain from Hurricane Dolly, but it soaked up and didn't sit on top of the ground. Because of how dry it is, my birdbath is a great source of water for the birds. I've got a dripper rigged up on it. This morning when I looked out, there were five cardinals, two bluebirds, two Carolina Chickadees, one mockingbird and two Blue Jays sharing the water. The chickadees were clinging to the dripper hose and taking drinks from the water as it dripped out. It's fun to look out and see the birds taking drinks and bathing in the water.