Cool Mornings

I love the fall season when the first cool mornings arrive. I like to take my coffee outside and watch as the bird activity picks up. Cardinals are normally the first birds to arrive at my feeders. They are usually followed closely by Blue Jays and Red-bellied Woodpeckers. The Ruby-throated Hummingbirds buzz around my nectar feeders. They are down to the point now where one bird tries to dominate all the feeders. There are still enough around where she has a tough time with that, but she tries. I saw my first winter resident migrant this morning. A Brown Thrasher was in the thick yaupons along the fence line. If he hadn't made the "chip" call, I probably never would have seen him. Fall migration was really great in my yard on Sunday, Sept. 19. A male Baltimore Oriole caught my attention in the hackberry tree in my back yard. I got my binoculars to take a look at him and also found a Philadelphia Vireo and Black-and-white Warbler in the same tree. I normally don't get a lot of migrants in my backyard, so that was a lot of fun to see them. Also, an Indigo Bunting visited my ground feeder yesterday.

The hummingbirds were not as plentiful this year as they have been in years past. So far I've only gone through just over 20 lbs. of sugar. They aren't draining my feeders after a couple of days now either. Others have said they are having higher than average numbers of hummingbirds at their feeders. In a couple of weeks, the majority of them will have migrated out of here down to Mexico and Central America.

I've had a ton of fun with my BirdCam! I have put it on my birdbath to see what visits it during the day. Here's my favorite picture of a Eurasian Collared-Dove that just splashed the water to take a bath.
The birdbath as it was made was far too deep for birds to get in and bathe in it. I had tried putting bricks and other rocks in it to make it more shallow, but the birds never seemed to be comfortable getting in. So, I went to Home Depot and bought 40 lbs. of concrete and filled in the birdbath to make it more shallow. I added some of the rocks into the concrete to give the birds a little better footing. Now it goes from very shallow at the edges to about 1" deep in the middle. The birds have been using it like crazy now! So, if you're looking for a birdbath to add to your yard, and you actually want the birds to use it, go with the more shallow ones over the really deep ones.

Hummingbirds are migrating

The Ruby-throated Hummingbird migration has begun. Hummingbirds are showing up at feeders in Southeast Texas now. Their numbers will continue to increase as the birds, some that nested as far north as Canada, make their way south to the coast. Unlike in the spring, the hummingbirds follow a land route for their southward migration and do not fly straight across the Gulf of Mexico. So, all the adult birds that came through in the spring move southward along with the juveniles that hatched this year. The result is a lot of hummingbirds on the move! It is time to put your feeders out. The nectar solution is four parts water to one part plain white table sugar. Boil the water and add the sugar. Stir to dissolve the sugar. Let it cool and put it in your feeders. Change the nectar in your feeders every three days to prevent mold, mildew, fungus and bacteria from growing. Some of these can be lethal to the hummingbirds. Store excess nectar in your refrigerator for up to two weeks. Watch for mold in the nectar before filling your feeders. We should see hummingbirds at our feeders into October. A feeder can help hummingbirds keep up the energy they need to continue southward. Planting flowers in your backyard can help too. My hummingbird garden has turk's cap, abutilon and firespike. Next year it will have some red salvia.

I haven't been birding on the property in quite a while. It's just too hot and humid. The fall neotropical migration hasn't begun in full yet, so I will wait until September to get out and see what is going on.

I have seen quite a few Mississippi Kites flying around as they are about to begin their southward migration. Hawk Watches are gearing up for another season. If you've never checked out a hawk watch, you should go. There is one at Smith Point in Chambers County and one in Lake Jackson. You can see an unbelievable number of hawks and have people who are experienced in hawk identification help you learn how to be better too.

New Property Bird - #196

This one has kind of a funny story to go along with it. I was driving to work on Friday on FM 3180 about halfway between I-10 and FM 565. I saw something along the left side of the road on the shoulder. As I passed it, I realized it was two Fulvous Whistling-Ducks with two or three ducklings. The first thought I had was that they need to get off the road or they're going to get killed. My second thought was that I could get them, take them down to my pond and count them as a new property species. Deciding that would be unethical, and not to mention that it would put me really, really late for work, I went on. Saturday morning, I was walking to my car to leave for work and heard a high-pitched whistling above me. I looked up, expecting to see Black-bellied Whistling-Ducks and it was a flock of five Fulvous Whistling-Ducks. So, I got to count them on my property list without cheating!

The Ruby-throated Hummingbirds are beginning to show up. I've seen at least two individuals at my feeders. I'm trying to get pictures with the BirdCam, but that's proving to be a little frustrating! It seems they are so small they don't trigger the motion sensor even when it's set on the highest sensitivity. When I get it close enough for them to trigger it, it is too close and the pictures are out of focus. I did get a couple of shots of a female where you can really see the iridescence on her back. Hopefully I'll have more to post later.

A Quick Walk in the Woods

It had been a week since I filled my feeders in the woods. I want to keep them going so that when the fall migrants come through, they'll be attracted by the resident birds that visit them. I walked down and heard several birds still singing. At one point, there were several Indigo Buntings singing in an overgrown field with lots of dead snags. A juvenile male flew into a tree right above my head and investigated me closely before deciding he needed to get out of there! A female Orchard Oriole was getting nectar from trumpet creeper flowers. A juvenile White-eyed Vireo perched right in front of me and gave me a great look. Carolina Chickadees, Tufted Titmice and Carolina Wrens were all vocalizing quite a bit. A Pileated Woodpecker vocalized from somewhere deep in the woods. It was a quick walk because of all the mosquitoes, but a fun one to do a little summertime birding.

Quest for 200

With the recent addition of the Hairy Woodpecker to my property list, I have gotten excited about the possibility of having 200 species on my property list. The Hairy Woodpecker was #195. So, five more is all I need. Should be easy, right? Well, not really. I sat down and made a list of birds that would be possible here, but not probable. It's going to take some work (and a little luck!) to add those five! Here are the possibilities and where I might see them:

Gadwall - pond
American Wigeon - pond
Northern Shoveler - pond
Northern Pintail - pond
Ring-necked Duck - pond
Greater Scaup - pond
Lesser Scaup - pond
Northern Bobwhite - pasture
Pied-billed Grebe - pond
Wood Stork - pond, wet pasture
American Bittern - pond
Least Bittern - pond
Bonaparte's Gull - pond
Common Ground-Dove - feeders in the woods
Vermilion Flycatcher - pond
Red-breasted Nuthatch - feeders in the woods
Brown-headed Nuthatch - feeders in the woods
Winter Wren - woods, overgrown areas of the pasture
Marsh Wren - pond
Sprague's Pipit - pasture
Palm Warbler - pond, creek
Mourning Warbler - woods
Wilson's Warbler - woods
Grasshopper Sparrow - pasture, overgrown areas of the pasture
Le Conte's Sparrow - pasture, overgrown areas of the pasture
White-crowned Sparrow - pasture, overgrown areas of the pasture, feeders
Purple Finch - woods, feeders in the woods

If I had to predict which would be the first five I see, I would pick:
1. Wood Stork (more likely flying over)
2. White-crowned Sparrow (I have excellent habitat for them)
3. Gadwall
4. Bonaparte's Gull (flyover in the winter)
5. Mourning Warbler

The ducks, gulls and Wood Stork are all possible with birds flying over. Sometimes the ducks are pretty hard to identify when they are backlit by a bright sky.

The number of new birds on the property declines dramatically from year to year, which is to be expected. Here are the numbers of new species I've seen by year since 2003:
2003: 91
2004: 55
2005: 17
2006: 7
2007: 10
2008: 10
2009: 3
2010: 2

It could take a couple of years to get to the 200 mark. Some of the positives are that the new pond has a healthy growth of cattails all around it and has several trees growing around it. It looks like it will be more attractive to ducks and other birds that like water. There are lots of minnows in it now. I need to get some plants to put in the water that would be attractive to dabbling ducks. Having the feeders in the woods can make it a little easier to find some of the species down there, especially having the BirdCam set up to record what visits. So, I'm on a quest to get five more species to get to the 200 species mark.

With our four-wheeler having a flat tire, I've had to resort to walking to the feeders in the woods. It's a tough life, I know! But, it's given me the opportunity to listen for some of our summer residents that are still singing. Yellow-billed Cuckoos are everywhere and still calling. A Northern Parula was singing along the gully. An Indigo Bunting sang from the top of a tall weed and let me get a good look at him before he dropped and disappeared. I've also heard Red-eyed Vireos, Great Crested Flycatchers and all the resident birds (cardinals, Blue Jays, chickadees, titmice, woodpeckers).

On a non-bird note, I did add another mammal to my property list - nine-banded armadillo. He was foraging in the woods near the feeders yesterday when I went down to fill them. I don't know if they're getting more rare, but I am surprised this is the first one I've seen in the nearly seven years we've lived here. I don't see as many of them dead alongside the road as I used to, either.

BirdCam Fun!

I bought a Wingscapes Audubon BirdCam to put on my feeders down in the woods. I can't sit down there and watch the feeders, so I let the BirdCam take pictures of the birds that visit them. It's a motion-activated camera that only takes pictures when a bird moves in front of it. I was impressed with the quality of the photos. Even when I cropped them quite a bit, the clarity was still there without the pixels showing up. One of my feeders is simply a log about two feet long. I drilled a couple of 1" holes about 2" deep in it. I put Jim's Birdacious Bark Butter in it. Before I got the BirdCam, I knew something was eating it, but didn't know what. I was excited to find an adult female Red-bellied Woodpecker, a juvenile male Red-bellied Woodpecker and a Hairy Woodpecker. The Hairy Woodpecker was property bird #195 for me! I pointed the BirdCam to the tube feeder and got several pictures of Carolina Chickadees and Tufted Titmice. I decided to try the video function on it and pointed it at the log feeder again. I wasn't as impressed with the clarity of it. The videos are kind of grainy. Maybe I'm not doing something right on it. I'm really looking forward to this winter when Yellow-bellied Sapsuckers, Northern Flickers, Yellow-rumped Warblers, Ruby-crowned Kinglets and others might use the feeders. I could get some great shots of spring migrants in April, such as Indigo Buntings and Painted Buntings. Anyway, here are some of the pictures and a video taken with the BirdCam. (The noise in the video is the baffle being blown by the wind.)

Summertime Birding

Summertime in Southeast Texas can be boring as far as birdwatching goes. The excitement of spring migration is over. The birds that are here are breeding birds and they can be seen most of the time. But, summer holds rewards that no other time of year does. Watching cardinals feed their young ones at the feeder is one. The Red-bellied Woodpeckers have brought their young ones to the feeder and are teaching them how to find food. Purple Martins and Eastern Bluebirds have chicks in the nest. The Purple Martin chicks should fledge on June 24 and the bluebird chicks should fledge on June 27. It's so fun to watch the juvenile bluebirds as they learn to use the birdbath in my backyard. As the summer progresses, the anticipation for the fall Ruby-throated Hummingbird migration builds. We normally see their numbers greatly increase late August into September and October. Summer is just a different kind of activity. I think we try to convince ourselves that nothing is going on so we don't have to deal with the heat and mosquitoes.

I set up some feeders down in the woods. I had an extra pole and decided to use it for that purpose rather than holding our windchime. Within five days of putting it up, I noticed that several seeds were cracked and something had been eating the peanuts. I went down on Friday afternoon and watched them for a while. After fifteen minutes, a group of Tufted Titmice and Carolina Chickadees came through and visited the feeders. The titmice were feeding young ones. They were the only ones I saw at the feeders, although cardinals and woodpeckers were nearby. Hopefully I'll purchase an Audubon Wingscapes BirdCam soon and be able to put it down there to take pictures of the birds. While watching the feeders, a Yellow-billed Cuckoo was flying around in the canopy. I watched him catch a katydid and eat it. That was fun to observe him. I had hoped that he would catch an insect and take it to a nest, but he didn't. I'll go back down there soon and watch for him to do that.

The Eastern Bluebirds seem to be doing well. They fledged five in their first brood. Then they hatched five more eggs in the second brood. Unfortunately, House Sparrows got into the nest and killed the chicks. So, the bluebirds decided to try again and laid five more eggs. I purchased a Sparrow Spooker to keep the sparrows out of the nest. Four out of the five eggs hatched this time. The chicks look very healthy.

On my way to check the bluebird nest one day, a female Killdeer began performing her "broken wing" display. That is a defense display to lure potential predators away from the nest thinking they'll have an easy meal of an injured bird. I began to look closely where I was stepping and found four eggs neatly arranged on the ground. I put a marker near the nest to make sure they do not get destroyed by a lawnmower. I have no idea how long they've been there so I don't know when to expect them to hatch.

The three Purple Martin chicks are two weeks old now. They'll be in the nest for another nine days. I still only have one pair. This year was weird for martins returning. Many people reported the martins arrived very late at their colonies. That was the case here. Most of the time the adults return in February. It was early May when mine returned. I had given up on having martins this year. Hopefully next year will be more normal and I'll have several pairs.

We planted several shrubs yesterday. As I watered them in, several birds came and enjoyed a cool shower. Northern Cardinals, Northern Mockingbirds and House Sparrows bathed in the sprinkles. I need to set up my mister in the trees and give them a place to bathe. They love getting under the water dripping off the leaves. It also helps keep them cool on hot summer days.