Monday, October 25, 2010

Eastern Bluebird Photos

I set my BirdCam up on my birdbath since I've had several Eastern Bluebirds coming each evening. I got some great shots of them yesterday and today. Here are a few of them:













You can see all my birdbath photos taken with my BirdCam on my Facebook page. I really love having bluebirds around. They fly over a lot and make their churr call. I wonder how many of them in the winter are migrants and how many are residents. I keep hoping I'll have more than one nesting pair in the spring.

Winter migrants are showing up more and more. I had my FOS (First of Season) Yellow-rumped Warbler today. I thought he was going to come to my birdbath and have his picture taken with the BirdCam, but the bluebirds were too aggressive toward him and he left. An Eastern Phoebe called in the front yard this morning. A Northern Flicker was calling in the woods. I keep waiting to hear American Goldfinches, but so far haven't heard one. I'm also expecting to see Ruby-crowned Kinglets and Yellow-bellied Sapsuckers any day now.

My hummingbird garden is doing really well. The abutilon is blooming and is about 4 ft. tall now. My first firespike is about to bloom. The turk's cap has been blooming for several weeks now. One of my coworkers gave me some hemelia to put in there along with another plant that I can't remember the name of. It will be great next year. I'm looking forward to the plants being established next winter and hopefully I'll see a Rufous or other wintering hummingbird at it. I do still have a Ruby-throated Hummingbird coming to my feeders.

Sunday, October 17, 2010

Florida Vacation and Winter Migrants

We took a vacation to Florida from Oct. 7 to Oct. 14 and really had a great time. I didn't do much birding there except to watch what was around the resort and a very little bit at Merritt Island National Wildlife Refuge. With little effort, I did add two life birds to my list - Smooth-billed Ani (#370) and Florida Scrub Jay (#371). I didn't expect the Smooth-billed Ani, but four flew overhead calling which I was able to match up with the song from the Stokes CD that has bird songs for the eastern U.S. The Florida Scrub Jay is an endangered bird that occurs only in Florida. They need periodic fire to sweep across the land to keep the scrub habitat low. Before modern-day fire prevention, fires would clear the land once every two to five years. Now we don't allow wildfires, so much of the jay's habitat has been lost. The people at Merritt Island NWR periodically set controlled burns which keeps the habitat intact for the jays. I had to walk about 1/2 mile along a trail before I finally saw them. Two of them were flying from the ground to the top of a dead tree. When I stopped to look at them through my binoculars, about a million mosquitoes found my legs! We could see the Kennedy Space Center from the refuge, and I could see Space Shuttle Discovery on the launch pad waiting for its Nov. 1 launch. That was pretty exciting! Merritt Island NWR also is a place where Florida manatees are pretty common, so we went to one of the places where they frequent called Haulover Canal. Unfortunately, the manatees didn't cooperate with us and we didn't get to see them. In all of Florida, there were more Anhingas than I've ever seen. It seemed like there was one on every little pond we would pass. The resort where we stayed was built on a large lake with a couple of small ponds on the grounds. Great Blue Herons, Little Blue Herons and Great Egrets frequented the ponds. One day a couple of Wood Storks were probing the mud on one of the ponds. I wish I had more time to go birding, but it was fun in what little time I had.

The winter migrants continue to filter in here on our property. I went into the woods to mount my BirdCam on Friday evening and heard a Northern Flicker calling. On Saturday morning as I was leaving for work, an Eastern Phoebe called from the power lines in my front yard. I'm just waiting to see the Chipping Sparrows show up at my feeders and the Yellow-rumped Warblers to show up in the trees. According to reports on Texbirds (a birding listserv for Texas), Red-breasted Nuthatches are showing up in Texas. We don't get a lot of them every year, so this year seems like it could be an irruption year for them. If I could get one on my feeders in the woods, it would be a new property bird for me.

Monday, October 4, 2010

Feeders in the Woods

After finally getting the tire on my four-wheeler repaired, I took some seed down to the feeders in the woods. I haven't filled them in months. It was just too hot to walk down there! I'm pretty excited to see what finds them this winter. I hope Northern Flickers, Yellow-bellied Sapsuckers, Ruby-crowned Kinglets, Brown Creepers, Yellow-rumped Warblers, Pine Warblers and House Wrens find the suet and Bark Butter. It's possible, but not probable, that Golden-crowned Kinglets or nuthatches will show up down there. I'd love to see some Dark-eyed Juncos and White-throated Sparrows on the seed. Maybe even Brown Thrashers will find it. Once the birds begin using the feeders again, I'll put the BirdCam down there to see what is visiting.

I'm thinking of putting a ground feeder on the west side of the property along the road that the drilling company cleared and putting millet on it. My concern is that it will turn into a cow feeder instead of a bird feeder. I'll have to see what happens. Maybe I can put up a little fence around it to keep the cows out. I'd love to have a feeder there to see what sparrows and possibly towhees are there in the winter.

The hummingbirds appear to just about be gone. I'm going to take down most of the feeders and clean them up for next year. I'll leave a couple out for the next couple of weeks and see what happens. I really hope to get a wintering hummer this year. That would be a lot of fun!