Great Backyard Bird Count is coming!

The Great Backyard Bird Count is coming up on February 12-15, 2010. It is an excellent opportunity for anyone to get out and count the birds. Then submit your sightings to the GBBC website. Your sightings help the scientists at the Cornell Lab of Ornithology and Audubon monitor bird populations and migration patterns. This is also a great project to get kids involved in and introduce them to nature. Participating is easy. Determine where you want to count the birds (your backyard, favorite park, national wildlife refuge, etc.) and count the birds for a minimum of 15 minutes. Count only the highest number of birds you see at one time. Don't add your counts you observe throughout the day. For instance, if you see 4 cardinals at 10:00, 8 cardinals at 11:00 and 6 cardinals at 12:00, you would enter 8 as your count for cardinals. That insures that each bird is counted only once. There are also prizes for photographs, so take pictures of your birds during the count and submit them to the GBBC. It is very interesting to see the results of previous counts. Take some time and explore the website and then get outside and count the birds on Feb. 12-15. Have questions? Call your local Wild Birds Unlimited store and ask them. Thanks for counting the birds!

Property Birding, 1/18/10

I spent an hour and a half birding on our property today. The birds were active! I didn't see anything I wouldn't expect to be there. There were a few pretty neat things. I stopped by the Barred Owl box I put up last spring and there has been some kind of activity at it. I could clearly see that something has been going in and out of the entrance hole. I'm not ready to say it's for sure a Barred Owl, but it's promising! Also, a little further down the trail, I found a Red-shouldered Hawk constructing a nest. They nest every year close to us. When they have chicks in the nest, we can sit outside and watch them fly back and forth carrying prey to feed them. The last neat thing was watching an Osprey fly directly overhead while I was at the new pond.

I realized I keep putting things on here about where I was when I saw something and most people have not been out here to be familiar with our property. Here's a rough map of what our property looks like.


The yellow line shows our fence line. To the east is mature woods with oak, hackberry and ash. In the middle is pasture which is being slowly overrun by tallow trees. To the west is a neat mixture of grassland and cedar/pine woods. I do 90% of my birdwatching on the eastern part of the property. I do like to go to the cedar/pine woods to the west to find Barn Owls. The old pond will have Hooded Mergansers, Anhinga and other ducks on it. So far, the ducks haven't come to the new pond made by the drilling company. It's still pretty open and there isn't much cover for them. It's a wonderful place to go birding. As of today, I've seen 193 species of birds on it.

Birds seen 1/18/10 (36 species): Snow Goose, Double-crested Cormorant, Turkey Vulture, Osprey, Red-shouldered Hawk, Killdeer, Red-bellied Woodpecker, Downy Woodpecker, Northern Flicker, Pileated Woodpecker, Eastern Phoebe, White-eyed Vireo, Blue Jay, American Crow, Carolina Chickadee, Carolina Wren, Ruby-crowned Kinglet, Eastern Bluebird, Hermit Thrush, American Robin, Gray Catbird, European Starling, American Pipit, Cedar Waxwing, Orange-crowned Warbler, Yellow-rumped Warbler, Pine Warbler, Chipping Sparrow, Song Sparrow, White-throated Sparrow, Northern Cardinal, Red-winged Blackbird, Brewer's Blackbird, Brown-headed Cowbird, American Goldfinch, House Sparrow

Baytown Nature Center, 1/10/10

I decided to kill some time on Sunday at the Baytown Nature Center (BNC). For those of you who don't know the history of the BNC, here's a brief one. The area used to be called the Brownwood subdivision and in Baytown, it was the place to live. It is a peninsula surrounded by three bays. Because of underground water use and other reasons, the land began sinking. In 1961, Hurricane Carla caused damage to it, but the houses were rebuilt. In 1983, Hurricane Alicia all but wiped out the subdivision. The city of Baytown stepped in a bought all the property and made a nature center out of it. I still remember birding out there with abandoned houses along the streets, boats and other garbage piled up alongside the roads. The city has cleaned it up and it is a very nice place to go birding now. You can still see the roads that once took people to their homes, and in a few places you can see the concrete slabs where the houses once stood. But it is nature's again, and the birds don't disappoint! If you're interested in checking it out, it is site number UTC039 on the Great Texas Coastal Birding Trail. Check this website for more info. (If you go, don't turn on Shreck to get to the BNC as the directions on the website say. Continue south on Bayway and the entrance will be about 1/2 mile past Shreck on the right.) There is a $3 entrance fee at the gate.

It was cold on Sunday. I was glad to have my heavy coat! Most of the birds I saw were expected, but there were a couple of nice ones that I didn't necessarily expect. One of those was the Cave Swallow. There were several of them that were flying around with Tree Swallows. They were feeding over one of the freshwater ponds. The Cave Swallow has expanded its range over the past ten to fifteen years. When the BNC first became a nature center, it would have been rare here, but now you should expect to see them. There were two birds that weren't necessarily surprises, but were really nice to see. White-crowned Sparrows foraged alongside one of the streets. A Marsh Wren called incessantly from deep inside some reeds before finally coming out and giving me some great looks at him. There weren't as many ducks as I had hoped for. Black-bellied Whistling-duck (another bird that has expanded its range significantly over the last 20 years), Mallard, Northern Shoveler and Green-winged Teal were the only ducks I saw. Brown Pelicans dive-bombed fish in the bays. A Reddish Egret performed his dance trying to scare up prey in one of the tidal ponds. It was a fun day. I ended up with 48 species.

Birds Seen at the Baytown Nature Center, 1/10/10 (48 species): Black-bellied Whistling-Duck, Mallard, Northern Shoveler, Green-winged Teal, Pied-billed Grebe, Brown Pelican, Neotropic Cormorant, Great Blue Heron, Great Egret, Snowy Egret, Little Blue Heron, Reddish Egret, White Ibis, Roseate Spoonbill, Osprey, Cooper's Hawk, Red-shouldered Hawk, Red-tailed Hawk, Killdeer, Least Sandpiper, Laughing Gull, Ring-billed Gull, Herring Gull, Mourning Dove, Belted Kingfisher, Yellow-bellied Sapsucker, Eastern Phoebe, Blue Jay, Tree Swallow, Cave Swallow, Carolina Chickadee, Carolina Wren, House Wren, Marsh Wren, Ruby-crowned Kinglet, American Robin, Northern Mockingbird, Cedar Waxwing, Orange-crowned Warbler, Yellow-rumped Warbler, Song Sparrow, Lincoln's Sparrow, White-throated Sparrow, White-crowned Sparrow, Northern Cardinal, Red-winged Blackbird, Great-tailed Grackle, American Goldfinch

The birds were active today at the feeders. Maybe they know that we're going to get some cold weather at the end of the week and they're trying to fatten up some. I had more Pine Warblers at the feeders than I've seen. Until today, two were all I saw at a time. Today I had four. The American Goldfinches continue to increase in numbers at the feeders. I counted 53 today either on the feeders, on the ground beneath the feeders and in the tree above the feeders. A Sharp-shinned Hawk came in for a while and frightened all the birds away. I got a couple of shots of him through the fence while he was sitting on the brush pile.

The birds were interesting away from the feeders too. A pair of Red-shouldered Hawks flew around quite a bit and called to each other. A large flock of American Pipits flew in and landed in the pasture. They walked around foraging for quite a while. Eastern Bluebirds and Yellow-rumped Warblers flew around and came to my bird bath.

Birds seen 1/4/10 (16 species): Sharp-shinned Hawk, Red-shouldered Hawk, Red-bellied Woodpecker, American Crow, Eastern Bluebird, American Robin, American Pipit, Yellow-rumped Warbler, Pine Warbler, Chipping Sparrow, Northern Cardinal, Red-winged Blackbird, Brewer's Blackbird, Brown-headed Cowbird, American Goldfinch, House Sparrow

Dreary Day for Project FeederWatch

Sunday was a dreary day as far as weather is concerned. Fog blanketed the area for the majority of the day. But that didn't stop the birds from coming to the feeders. We added four more species to our Project FeederWatch list: Blue Jay, Brewer's Blackbird, Red-winged Blackbird and Brown-headed Cowbird. I never look forward to the blackbirds coming because I know they'll form enormous flocks that will empty my feeders all too quickly. Time to switch to safflower, I guess. I am thinking of trying to put the cage that excludes larger birds over a portion of my ground feeder to keep them off at least a little of it. The American Goldfinches began showing up in numbers. I had five at a time on my feeder yesterday. I have never had just one goldfinch on my feeders for two weeks before. That was kind of weird!

There were some interesting birds that didn't come to the feeders yesterday. A White Ibis poked around out in the pasture for most of the day. A Red-shouldered Hawk called loudly from a tallow tree in the pasture and gave us some great looks at him. I tried to get a picture, but this was the best I could do.
More Tree Swallows flew over. They were in a large flock. This time they were all heading southwest at a pretty good rate of speed instead of just hanging around over the pasture. A pair of Yellow-bellied Sapsuckers visited the hackberry tree behind the house. I hoped they would find the Bark Butter or the suet so they would continue to visit. Maybe they'll be back.

Birds Seen 12/13/09 (21 species): White Ibis, Red-shouldered Hawk, Eurasian Collared-Dove, Yellow-bellied Sapsucker, Eastern Phoebe, Blue Jay, American Crow, Tree Swallow, Carolina Chickadee, Eastern Bluebird, American Robin, Northern Mockingbird, European Starling, Yellow-rumped Warbler, Chipping Sparrow, Northern Cardinal, Red-winged Blackbird, Brewer's Blackbird, Brown-headed Cowbird, American Goldfinch, House Sparrow

Project FeederWatch 4th Weekend

This weekend of Project FeederWatch was a little slower. It rained nearly all weekend and the Sharp-shinned Hawk was around quite a bit. But, we were able to add three more birds to our PFW list - Carolina Chickadee, Eastern Bluebird and Pine Warbler bringing our species total to 13. The chickadees had never shown up at the feeders while we were watching them on previous PFW weekends. The bluebirds came in and enjoyed the birdbath. The Pine Warblers came to the suet and the seed cylinder with sunflower hearts and fruit. The Chipping Sparrow numbers were way down, probably due some to the House Sparrow numbers being way up. If it doesn't rain next weekend, I'm going to put out the trap for them and try to thin them out. They're starting to show interest in my martin housing and I'm not going to put up with that! A male Northern Cardinal visited the feeders yesterday and was missing the feathers around each of his eyes. I'm not sure what was going on there.

Tree Swallows flew over the pasture. There were literally hundreds of them. I'm not sure what they are catching out there, but they were certainly going after something! The Red-bellied Woodpecker still shows no interest in trying the feeders, although he's out there in the tree quite a bit. Hopefully he'll find them and be a regular. A Northern Flicker called from somewhere close yesterday. It would be fun to see him at the feeders as well.

Project FeederWatch 3rd Weekend

The third weekend of our Project FeederWatch was fun! On Sunday morning, we added four more species to our PFW list. A House Wren was checking out the brush pile. He spent quite a bit of time around it. Yellow-rumped Warblers, American Robins and Cedar Waxwings all used the birdbath. The Cedar Waxwings were the FOS of the winter season for me. There were about 50 of them in the tree in the backyard and about eight visited the birdbath. I hope they come back more often. The rest of the birds were pretty normal. The Chipping Sparrow population has increased quite a bit. We had 21 of them on the ground feeder at one time yesterday. An American Goldfinch visited the Nyjer feeder yesterday and was back this morning. Hopefully he'll hang around and bring his friends with him.

Birds that we didn't count on the PFW list included more Tree Swallows. There were 10 to 15 flying around over the pasture. Six Eastern Bluebirds were on the power lines out front. American Crows made their presence known around the area where the cows are fed. A Red-bellied Woodpecker dined on the tallow seeds.

This morning has been cold and wet. We haven't had many birds at the feeders. Several Yellow-rumped Warblers were in the hackberry tree behind the house. Fox squirrels have been at the ground feeder several times this morning and that makes the birds a little nervous to be there with them. I've also seen a Sharp-shinned Hawk make several passes over the yard and that will definitely make the birds nervous.

Birds Seen 11/29/09 (15 species): Sharp-shinned Hawk, Red-shouldered Hawk, Eurasian Collared-Dove, Red-bellied Woodpecker, American Crow, Tree Swallow, House Wren, Eastern Bluebird, American Robin, Cedar Waxwing, Yellow-rumped Warbler, Chipping Sparrow, Northern Cardinal, American Goldfinch, House Sparrow