Visitors at the suet feeder

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I set up my Novabird Birdcam to watch the suet feeder for the past couple of days. I thought I knew which birds were eating the suet, but it was interesting to catch them in action. By far, the most common bird on the feeder was the Downy Woodpecker, both male and female. And there may be young'uns in there too as I saw them feeding fledglings just this week.



In this one I actually got a two-fer. I'd bet it's an adult and a juvie.

The Downies seemed to be the only birds that will share with other species. The Carolina Wren would dare to venture a bite when the Downy was on the feeder.



Got some neat shots of the The Red-bellied Woodpeckers too -- Daddy, Momma, and Junior! He looks like a Bald-Headed Woodpecker!




In this last one, you can actually see how the Red-Bellied WP got its name -- although it's still stupid! They should have called him the Red Mohawk Woodpecker, don't you think??



My Woodpecker entourage would not be complete without the Red-headed Woodpeckers! Aren't they great? Can you tell which one's the female and which is the male?




Yeah, I have no idea which is which :-P They might both be the same bird! If you said the female is the one with her mouth full -- shame on you!

The Creepy Grackles like the suet, too. If only they weren't so darn, well, creepy!



What are YOU lookin' at??



The House Sparrows are steady visitors -- often in pairs. These may be adults and juvies too, come to think of it.

And then the Daddy HOSP.


The Mockingbirds are feeding their babies too -- noisy, raspy little buggers.


But this guy was a surprise on the suet feeder! I didn't know Blue Jays cared anything about suet.


meep-n-meep-n-meep...That's all Folks!

The Whimbrel

Another cool shorebird.
The Whimbrel does his thing

Spinning and waggling birds!

These were new birds for me...Wilson's Phalaropes. Love the way they stir up the mud to feed. They seem to use two techniques...

There's waggling...

And there's spinning!

Dickcissel sings

You can tell it's spring when even the shyest of birds hops on a post and sings his little heart out.

Here is the wonderful song of the Dickcissel

The elusive Clapper Rail

Rails are birds that are often heard and not seen. They live and hide and feed in the tall marsh grasses. In the spring, however, when they are feeding young, they seem to get more bold. Maybe they just have to get out of their comfort zone to find enough food to feed their large broods! A neat moment during the LOS weekend was seeing a pair of rails (probably King Rails?) try to move their brood of 10 chicks across the road! We stopped the car in the lane (it was not a busy road, thank goodness!) to watch them cross. One of the adults crossed, and a few of the chicks and then suddenly there was a car coming the opposite direction! The car didn't even slow down, but amazingly did not make pancakes out of any of the chicks. They all scurried back across where they came from though. It was a wonderful sight...and me without my camera!!!!

Here are some videos of Clapper Rails

Feeding young'uns (watch closely at the end for the fuzzy black chick!)

Why did the Clapper Rail cross the road?

Willet roll call!

Willets are common on the coast, working the shore. But evidently they have a protocol. It was quite amusing to see this Willet stand on a post and appear to call roll. He would holler and all the Willets in the area would respond.

One of the coolest birds ever!

The Scissor-tail Flycatcher is just one of my very favorite birds. What one earth possessed nature to give the bird a tail like this?? This is the closest I've ever been to one and I'd never seen the wonderful colors before. This bird was drying itself off after some brief showers. One of these days I'll get a great video of the bird flying and you can see that tail in action!

Peeking at a Woodpecker

One of my birding friends, Patti, sent me some fabulous pics of a pair of Pileated Woodpeckers that she found building a nest hole. She said the tree was very near the road and it might provide a good video opportunity.

We headed over there last Sunday morning. It was a great morning, cool and bright, and the birds were singing wonderfully. We found the spot and sure enough, there was the woodpecker, busy making the hole. Patti said that a few days previous the entrance hole wasn't even large enough for these birds to enter and now the bird was completely hidden inside! Obviously these are birds on a mission! We only saw one while we were there, and believe it was the male. He'd peck, peck, peck inside the hole and then spend several minutes tossing out wood shavings..ptooey. Seems like he'd need to stop and eat or at least take a water break, but he kept right at it.

The videos are a bit shaky as I was using lots of zoom and shooting with the video camera held up to the scope, which is hard to do and keep in the right place. Still, it's fun to see him up close as he works.

I'm going to try something new and upload the video to BirdCinema.com and link to it there. Let's see how this works...

First-of-Season Ruby-throated Hummingbird

The first male Ruby-Throated Hummingbird of the season visited my yard this year on March 8. He's all shiny and new, ready to impress the lady-birds! There's at least one female Rufous still around. I saw her sitting at the feeder this afternoon and he came up and challenged her. She just looked over her shoulder at him, shrugged, and kept on eating. Obviously there will be no hybridizing going on here :-)

Kissing Kestrels

Back in May of '06, I was in my office on the 11th floor of a building in downtown Baton Rouge when a movement caught the corner of my eye. It turned out to be a juvenile Kestrel (click there to see the blog entry) eating a house sparrow on my window sill! We got to watch him consume the whole bird, feathers, toenails and all. Last year I noticed the adult pair had returned but didn't see fledglings. This year, at the end of February, I noticed the pair was back.

They hang on out the antenna of a couple of buildings in downtown BTR, one of which is the building I work in. Because they are small birds, and far overhead, I'm sure they're not noticed by the folks on the street. However they can certainly distract me when I'm in a meeting on the 12th floor and one flies up and over!

Last Friday, when I left work, since I happened to have my camera and scope in the car, I decided to try to get some pictures. The parking garage is right next to one of the buildings that they regularly use. This put me perhaps 30-40 yards from the birds. I was able to observe them very well in the scope. In the hour that I watched, the male gathered four lizards for his lady bird and fed them to her. By the time, she got to the 4th (and perhaps there were others before that) she was full and just hung on the lizard for later.


Here are links to video of the Kestrels.

The first is a longer version which shows some close and longer range shots. The second is a shorter version which is more focused on the birds toward the end of the photo session (complete with lizard).

All of this is made even more interesting by the fact that American Kestrels are not supposed to nest this far south in Louisiana. I'll be looking for the nest in downtown BTR...maybe I'll be able to document the fledglings progress...

Caught in the act!

I aimed my birdcam at a hum feeder in the backyard for a few days after I noticed I might have a new hummer... I could swear I saw a male Rufous/Allen's! Two of them spent the winter with me last year, but neither returned this year. On Sunday though, I saw a little rusty male fending the ladies of the backyard feeder. So I set up the camera hoping I'd catch a glimpse of him. No luck. But I do think I have at least 3 birds using that feeder.

The first one I seem to be sharing with my neighbors the Piersons. The bird is banded and was caught and marked in their yard this year. They live about 1/2 block a way (as the hum flies). Not sure at this point if she's new this year or was a returnee from another year. (click on each picture to see a larger version)


The second one is not marked, and you can see a dark spot on her back where the feathers are imperfect. Her coloring seems a little rustier overall.

The third one has a perfectly feathered back, no mark on her head, and she's very uniformly green.

It might also be possible to tell the birds apart from the front by looking at their gorgets but I don't know that I'd be able to match the fronts and backs of the birds!

I am going to put the camera up at one of my other feeders tomorrow to see if I can figure out if I have more birds. I've found one thing that helps is that I put scotch tape over the ports on the side of the feeder away from the camera so they can't hide from me!

Another rare flycatcher in Louisiana!

so we went twitching today. Evidently in Britain when you chase a particular bird it's called "twitching". We chased after the Fork-Tailed Flycatcher that was found in south Louisiana. I'm not sure if it's the second record or the fourth record, but either way, it's a bird that does not belong here. It's native to either southern Mexico, Central America, or South America. Apparently this one got going the wrong way, found a bunch of other flycatchers to hang out with and is visiting us for a while. It was found with 17 Western Kingbirds and a Scissor-tailed Flycatcher. Nice :-) Thanks to Winston, Karen, and Bob for making the twitching trip, and thanks especially to Bob for this nice photo.


Here's a video that shows the bird up close and personal

And some links to other pictures taken by Beth Wiggins

http://imageevent.com/bethann1952/forktailedflycatcherothers

A tale of Two Flycatchers.

The First Flycatcher
Little Gray and Brown Bird

This past weekend was the Winter Louisiana Ornithological Society Meeting. The location was Alexandria, in central Louisiana. The standard protocol for the meetings include a reception and program Friday night, field trips on Saturday, and a banquet on Saturday night. Sometimes there are organized trips on Sunday morning as well. This particular meeting had several organized field trips with assigned guides -- actually more organization than I recall at other LOS meetings I've attended. So we signed up for Sat morning and afternoon and Sunday morning trips. And then the Gray Flycatcher came to town.

In the week before the LOS meeting, some astute birders in north Louisiana happened to notice a little Empidonax flycatcher that didn't quite fit the mold. Pictures were taken, discussion was had, and the conclusion was that this was a new State bird! A record--first Gray Flycatcher ever recorded in the state! The bird was located outside of Bossier City in north LA -- two hours beyond Alexandria for those of from Baton Rouge. How could we pass up the opportunity to see this bird?

Well, we couldn't. So my compadre Lainie and I headed out to see the bird on Sat morning -- foregoing the organized field trip. Took about 2 hrs to get there, and we spent another 2 hours locating the bird, filming the bird, and noting the other birds in the vicinity for the Winter Bird Atlas. Filming the bird involved entering the cow pasture, complete with suspicious cows, lots of cow patties and very damp fields. (I'm not sure permission has been obtained by birders to enter the property, so if you do, exercise caution and, whatever you do, don't leave the gate open!) The bird tends to work a short treeline -- sallying back and forth between small trees and even out to the field to perch on twiggy growth. He's being harrassed by Phoebes and Mockingbirds, but I saw him go after the Phoebe too, so it's a two way street!

Here's a link to a series of photos taken by the Boslers when they found the bird this weekend: Bosler's pics of Gray Flycatcher

I was also able to obtain some video of the bird. Now, something I failed to mention about the Saturday that we chased the bird was that it was COLD -- a very chilly, gray day. The landscape was very gray and brown...which made it very tough to photograph a little gray and brown bird! The camera doesn't seem to be able to distinguish the bird from its surroundings and focus on the bird. So...the videos are not great. There's one 2-second stretch near the end when the bird was only about 20 feet from me that's probably the best.

Video of Gray Flycatcher

The Second Flycatcher
A Bright Vermilion Bird!

The color vermilion is not used a whole lot. I'm sure people have trouble spelling it, and why use "vermilion" when "red" will do? Well, this little bird gives one a reason to use the word vermilion! There were dozens of Northern Cardinals in the immediate area of this bird, and I bet if he hadn't been there, people would have been impressed by the red birds. But the Vermilion Flycatcher puts them to shame -- he seems to just glow and reflect light! In fact, the homeowner who lives just across the street from the location he's chosen to over-winter remarked that she thought she'd been seeing a bit of contractor tape caught in the shrubs!

While this is not a rare bird, it's much more common in the southwest corner of Louisiana. According to the folks that found this bird, Vermilion Flycatchers have been found to overwinter in Central LA in small numbers. This one hadn't been reported yet though. If you want directions to find the bird, send me an email and I'll help you out...

And now...enjoy the Video of Vermilion Flycatcher

And more finches!

I tried my new birdcam to capture pics of the Goldfinches. I made a couple of strategic errors. I now have 1908 pictures of Goldfinches from just over 1 day of photography! There is such a thing as too much of a good thing.

Lessons learned:

If you know you're going to get lots of pics (and I pretty much expected that they'd be there till the Thistle ran out!) don't set the exposure for every 10 seconds! The camera gives the flexibility for longer intervals...use it.

10 seconds is not really 10 seconds. It seems to take a pic every 12-15 seconds as evidenced by the timestamp. Interesting. Is it detecting the motion and then waiting 2 seconds to click the shutter? Or after it clicks, does it wait 2 seconds to reset its timer? Don't know how I'll figure that one out.

1900 pictures is a LOT of pictures to have to look through to find the "good" ones!!

Don't try to cheat and get too much on camera. I have two sets of thistle feeders and a hum feeder within view of the camera. Thought if I set it up to see all 3 (even tho I thought hum feeder was too far away for clear focus...and it is) I'd get some interesting shots. Instead I have 1900 shots that I wish were better composed. You can see most of one thistle sock on left clearly....and some of more distant socks on right...center of frame is blurry hum feeder and a safflower feeders. I need to make up my mind where I want to aim the camera and don't get greedy!

Goldfinches start early and end early! They arrive shortly after dawn, but seem to quit feeding by mid-afternoon. The last pic with birds in it on Fri was at about 3:20pm. There was still plenty of light for another 2 hours (those feeders are on the west side of the house) but there were no pics. Things picked up again on Sat morning at 7:06a.m.

Goldfinches can go through a lot of thistle! Lots debris on the ground...is it Thistle hulls or whole seeds? Overflow birds will pick through it, so I suppose there's whole seed. Lots of waste. Thistle is pretty expensive, so I'm kinda glad I'm not feeding them this way year round!

I liked this picture because unlike most of the others, the goldfinches are all looking at the camera!

My new toy -- NovaBird bird cam

I got a new toy for Christmas. I actually got one for my dad, then decided he couldn't have all the fun, so ordered one for myself as well.

It's a 3MP camera mounted inside a waterproof housing with a motion-sensitive trigger. It also has nice features like a counter, the ability to date/time stamp your photos (or not, as you wish), a weatherproof battery pack, and a tripod mount. It does not come with an SD card, so you have to add your own. I'm sure that help keeps their cost down. I priced and compared motion-detection wildlife cameras (used mainly by hunters) with this and this was a good value for the money.

So...once you get it, you charge the battery pack for 24 hours. This is probably one of its detracting features...each time you recharge it's recommended you do so for 24 hours. Of course their solution is to buy a second battery pack. You set the time and date (instructions are pretty straightforward) and insert the SD card and turn it on. You also have some control over how often it takes pictures...10 seconds is the default but there are toggle switches for about 8 different settings.


For ease of moving the camera around, I mounted it on an extra tripod I had. I set it up the first time near one of my hummer feeders. Because the hum feeder was on a hook that swayed in the breeze, I got quite a few pics of an empty feeder. I deleted those, so I'll spare you :-) I then moved a feeder to the top of a pole and pointed the camera at that. Still got some "empty" pictures, but got a few good ones too. This is a series, so the bird stayed quite a few seconds to be photographed multiple times. Click on each picture to see the real detail!

Finches!

Goldfinches have arrived! I've had a trickle for the past month or two. One thistle feeder was sufficient, and it barely got any action. But this past week -- look out! They must have exhausted all the natural food supplies and started looking in people's yards. I added two new feeders. I like the thistle socks better -- easier to fill and can accommodate more birds as they just jostle for position. Unfortunately they also lose a lot of thistle, and it's not cheap! I'd like to say the doves do cleanup, but they must have better things to do around here, because the thistle on the ground appears to be going to waste...

My neighbors a mere half a block away have had Purple Finches in their yard at least the past 2 years. This year they reported the numbers of PUFI had gone up. Well, they found my yard. If you look closely in the picture you can see the Purple Finches on the plate type feeder hanging on the right. There are a couple of males, but mostly females. (Click on the picture to see a larger image)

Eye-talian Birds!

My daughter Adrienne and I just returned from a two-week trip to Italy. We picked up a rental car in Rome, drove to Florence, Venice, and Bologna and then back to Roma, with 2 or 3 night stays at B&B's in each city. Nice way to see the country. I think we got to do pretty much everything on our agenda. It occurred to me too late to try to do some birding while I was there. I found an Italian birding guide in the Venice area and contacted him about going on a field trip. Unfortunately I would have had to dedicate a whole day to it, and we just didn't have the time to spare. However, I did take a pair of binoculars with me and if I just *happened* to see a bird, well I did my best to make note of it and try to ID it. So I probably have a European bird list of 20-25 birds. I haven't figured them all out yet, but when I do, I'll list them here.

If you look closely here (lower left) you can see some ducks...Italian Mallards!

It's always a good day when you see an eagle

Did you know that Bald Eagles are one of the few birds found in all states? Maybe not Hawaii...I'll have to check on that. They nest here in Louisiana in the winter. An eagle is always an impressive sight. I saw this one down at the river by the Vet School right near the LSU campus. He perched and posed and then headed off upriver. A little later a younger bird flew by, scanning the river for fish.

Bald Eagle at the river

There aren't many cuter birds...

Can you find the bird in this picture?? The Winter Wren is a tee-nincy little bird. Most wrens are ground dwellers and this one is no exception. If you think you see a mouse and it turns out to be a bird, it could be a Winter Wren. This one was enjoying itself at Bluebonnet Swamp last Sunday.

Winter Wren at Bluebonnet Swamp






We don't get much of a fall here, so we have to enjoy any spots of color we can find...
This beautiful flower is a form of orchid called "Lady's Tresses" and it grows wild in the swamp...

Cool Birds you can find around Baton Rouge

This month's Birding with the Family class was entitled "More than Wal-mart Birds" or.... "Cool Birds you can find in/around Baton Rouge". The turnout for the class was light, only 5 folks, and no kids :-( But it was fun nonetheless. Keri and I "tag-teamed" the material, which worked out well. But the pressure was on for the field trip... With a title like "Cool Birds" I was pretty much under the gun to show these folks some cool birds! So we started down at the roost at City Park lake at dawn. Had a good showing... Great Blue Herons, Great Egret, Snowy Egret, Cattle Egret, Little Blue Heron, Tri-colored Heron, Double-crested Cormorant, and even a Green Heron and Black-crowned Night Heron to boot! Then we went to Bluebonnet Swamp. John H. was there to let us in early and also show us where the owls hang out. He's seen two Barred Owls hanging out consistently (Barbara and ??) and the Great-Horned Owl he's nicknamed "Harvey". Unfortunately, Harvey didn't show up, but Barbara showed up for us and posed for quite a few pictures. Nice!