Winter Migrants and Project FeederWatch

It's been a while since I wrote about anything happening on the property. Between the mosquitoes and being very busy, I didn't get out to see what was going on with fall migration this year on the property. But I did get to see some neat things that aren't terribly common on my property.

On September 17, I drove in from work and saw a flycatcher sitting at the top of a tree. I ran in and grabbed my binoculars and saw it was an Olive-sided Flycatcher. That was only the third sighting of one on the property. On October 8, I walked out to hear the first Eastern Phoebe of the season singing his name. A Great-crested Flycatcher was in the top of the hackberry tree in my backyard. A Crested Caracara flew over the house. That was the fourth sighting of a caracara. On November 3, I was driving down the driveway headed to work and a White-tailed Kite was flying over the yard. That was the second time I've seen one of them on the property. On November 4, a Brown Creeper began exploring the bark on a tallow tree in my backyard. That was only the third time I've seen one of them on the property. Then on November 6, I was sitting outside drinking my coffee while watching my feeders and a Rufous Hummingbird came up to my hummingbird feeders. That was the first time I've ever seen one on my property. That gives me 199 property species!

Winter residents are showing up. A Brown Thrasher visited my birdbath a few weeks ago. Yellow-rumped Warblers are eating the hackberries and visiting my birdbath with regularity. A Ruby-crowned Kinglet joined them in the hackberry tree looking for insects. Eastern Phoebes chase insects while announcing their presence with their "phoebe" call. Chipping Sparrows have begun visiting my feeder. I see Song Sparrows in the grassy areas of the pasture. I heard a Northern Flicker calling from the woods on Sunday morning. I love the fall season with all the birds that migrate into the area. It won't be long before the goldfinches show up at the feeders. House Wrens will show up soon. Pine Warblers will start visiting the suet in the coming weeks.

Project FeederWatch starts on November 13 for me. Sundays and Mondays will be my count days again this year. It looks like I'll be able to get off to a better start this year than I did last year. There are several birds visiting my feeders and birdbath already this year. Last year was pretty slow to start the season. Hopefully that will continue throughout the season.

Project FeederWatch Week 2

The numbers of birds are still down at the feeders, but they seem to be picking up a little bit. I have my BirdCam set up on my ground feeder on the west side of the property. The habitat there is great for sparrows and towhees. I checked it today and had a male and female Northern Cardinal and one picture of a White-throated Sparrow (below).


I hope that I'll finally see a White-crowned Sparrow on the property. I'd also love to get some pictures of Dark-eyed Juncos and Eastern Towhees.

Project FeederWatch Week 2 (10 species):
Eurasian Collared Dove - 5
Red-bellied Woodpecker - 1
Carolina Chickadee - 3
Tufted Titmouse - 2
Eastern Bluebird - 2
Pine Warbler - 1
Chipping Sparrow - 3
White-throated Sparrow - 1
Northern Cardinal - 2
House Sparrow - 20

I went into the woods this morning to mark the next trail I want to clear. It is hard to walk through there, but that makes it easier to see birds. Joshua and I marked the new trail and then walked to the trail we just finished clearing. As we were about to turn onto it, I heard a bird calling. I got closer and closer to it and finally a Brown Creeper climbed up a tree trunk. I have very rarely seen Brown Creepers on the property. A Yellow-bellied Sapsucker flew into a tree just behind the creeper. Hermit Thrushes were everywhere. There were more than I ever remember seeing. Yellow-rumped Warblers were in nearly every treetop. An Orange-crowned Warbler and two White-eyed Vireos flew around in some yaupon thickets. Except for fighting mosquitoes, it was a very fun day birding!

Time for Project FeederWatch

Project FeederWatch starts on Saturday, Nov. 13. I signed up again this year. It's fun to know that my observations are going to help the scientists at Cornell Lab of Ornithology understand the overall picture of the bird populations across the U.S. My count days will be Sundays and Mondays. If you're not familiar with Project FeederWatch (PFW), it is a program where people watch the birds for two consecutive days at their feeders, birdbaths, or anything they have put out specifically for birds and report the highest number at any given time. I am hoping that having the feeders in the woods and the ground feeder on the west side of my property will help the numbers of birds I see.

On Sunday, I noticed a sparrow that looked a little smaller than the House Sparrows at the ground feeder in my backyard. I grabbed my binoculars and saw the first Chipping Sparrow of the season. Several people have told me in the store that they have already had American Goldfinches coming to their feeder, so I went ahead and put out my thistle feeder. So far I haven't seen anything on it. I keep hoping every time I get my memory card from my BirdCam that I'll have a picture of a Red-breasted Nuthatch on the feeder, but no luck on that yet. The wintering birds have arrived in good numbers. Yesterday there were Yellow-rumped Warblers all over the place. Eastern Phoebes were calling. I saw a Hermit Thrush last week. Northern Flickers make their presence known with their cirr call. I still haven't seen any Ruby-crowned Kinglets or Yellow-bellied Sapsuckers.

The boys and I have begun clearing trails in the woods to make walking easier and give us access to different parts of the woods. As we go, I'm cutting wood for firewood. We got within 30 feet of finishing our first trail yesterday, but darkness got us before we could finish. We should be able to get that done on Sunday pretty quickly. There are several small tallow trees to cut out and one pretty good size one in the way. I'm hoping by spring migration to have several trails cut through the woods. It would be nice to be able to get to areas now where walking is nearly impossible because of all the blackberry vines and trees that have fallen.

Here are a couple of pictures of a Tufted Titmouse on one of the feeders in the woods. I just love these little birds!

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.

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.

Project FeederWatch

Project FeederWatch began this weekend. It's a six-month long survey of birds that visit feeders, water and other things provided by people for them. Our count starts today. This year, instead of just seeing what birds come, we're going to keep a record of which feeders they visit. It's an added piece of information for us to see which of our feeders are most commonly used and which aren't used very much. I think it's going to be a lot of fun for us.

I have seen most of the winter migrants in the area now. An Eastern Phoebe hangs out around the house quite a bit. Yellow-rumped Warblers are in the tops of the trees along with Ruby-crowned Kinglets. Occasionally I'll hear a Northern Flicker calling from in the woods. I sure wish one of them would find my feeders! That would be cool! I'm hoping the Yellow-bellied Sapsucker finds me again this year. It won't be long before the American Goldfinches begin coming to the feeders. They're in the area and a few people have them at their feeders already. That's a little earlier than usual. It will be interesting to see if the National Weather Service's prediction of a cooler, wetter winter comes true and how that influences the birds.

I have seen between ten and twelve Eastern Bluebirds around and in my yard over the past couple of weeks. I'm really hoping for two pairs of them to nest this spring. It's so fun to listen to their call as they're flying overhead.

It's daylight now, so I'm going to start watching the feeders!

In The Woods On A Brisk Fall Morning

I took a two-hour walk through the woods this morning to see how many winter migrants had come in. I wasn't disappointed! The Yellow-rumped Warblers are here in really good numbers. I also saw three Brown Thrashers, one Hermit Thrush, several Ruby-crowned Kinglets, a couple of Yellow-bellied Sapsuckers and an Eastern Phoebe. As much as I hate to admit it, the road that leads to the drilling site has provided some excellent habitat for brush-loving birds. I counted twelve Gray Catbirds, one House Wren and several White-throated Sparrows. It's excellent habitat for White-crowned Sparrows, so I'm going to keep my eyes open for them. I was also hoping to hear a Red-breasted Nuthatch with the irruption this year, but didn't hear or see one. Maybe one will make his way over this way during the winter.

Here's my complete list (25 species): Red-shouldered Hawk, Killdeer, Belted Kingfisher, Red-bellied Woodpecker, Yellow-bellied Sapsucker, Northern Flicker, Eastern Phoebe, White-eyed Vireo, Blue Jay, American Crow, Carolina Chickadee, Tufted Titmouse, Carolina Wren, House Wren, Ruby-crowned Kinglet, Blue-gray Gnatcatcher, Hermit Thrush, Gray Catbird, Northern Mockingbird, Brown Thrasher, Yellow-rumped Warbler, White-throated Sparrow, Northern Cardinal, Red-winged Blackbird, Common Grackle