Saturday, February 21, 2009

Bulletin #67 – SE Arizona #1 – Short-tailed Hawk and woodpeckers

David McDonald Photography
Friendswood Texas
February 20, 2009


Bulletin #67 – SE Arizona #1 – Short-tailed Hawk and woodpeckers

Hello friends,

(Note - Please click on the photo to see a full screen enlargement. You can also search for images in the box at top left)

I had a meeting in Phoenix AZ at the end of January on a Friday. Afterwards, I drove down to Tucson for the weekend to find more of the specialty birds that occur there.

With the help of a wonderful guide (Melody Kehl), I found 9 life birds and photographed a total of 13 new species. Her web site is -

http://ebiz.netopia.com/outdoor

The Short-tailed Hawk (Buteo brachyurus) is a small hawk (16”) that is perhaps the most difficult of all the North American hawks to find. It is a tropical species that occurs regularly only in Florida. There are sporadic sightings in south Texas and Arizona. I have looked for it in Florida without luck. In the Florida guide, they are listed as being difficult to see perched, as they sit quietly high in the canopy of trees and seldom on telephone poles or wires like other hawks. As soon as the air heats up in the morning, they ride thermals to great heights and can be seen as a speck in the sky.

As do other hawks, they have 2 color morphs, light and dark with the dark predominating (75%). The dark morph is all black, the light morph Pranty describes in the Florida guide as a ‘spectacular bird’. It has a black back and head, pure white underparts and rufous patch on the neck.

Well luck was with me on this trip. There had been 3 pairs breeding in 2008 in southeast Arizona in the mountains. One bird, instead of migrating back to Mexico for the winter, moved into a neighborhood in Tucson where it took up residence in a sycamore tree in a person’s yard. Sometimes he would fly and land on top of a cypress tree in the wide open.

The guide took me to the area in the late afternoon. We drove around several times until we spotted the bird in the sycamore tree. It was a light morph form and a lifer for me.

Here he is when we first found him in the sycamore tree.




He flew from there to the top of the cypress and sat in the wide open. The tree was perhaps 50’ tall, so I put a 2x extender on the lens to bring the bird in closer.

Here are a couple of photos, with the second one clearly showing the rufous neck patch. The late afternoon sun gives the breast a warm yellowish cast. I don’t think one could get better looks at this species!






The Arizona Woodpecker (Picoides arizonae) is the only brown-backed woodpecker in the USA. We found this male in Madera Canyon southeast of Tucson. The male has the red occipital patch. The female would not have the red patch. This was a lifer.

Here are 2 photos of the same bird.










Also at the same place was this female Acorn Woodpecker (Melanerpes formicivorus). The black and white face with black back is distinctive for this species.



Also in Madera Canyon were 2 species of sapsuckers. The first was a lifer for me, the Red-naped Sapsucker (Sphyrapicus nuchalis). This bird is a recent split from the Yellow-bellied Sapsucker in eastern North America. This female has a red crown patch, red throat and red patch on the nape of the neck.

The other was a female Williamson’s Sapsucker (Sphyrapicus thyroideus). She looks markedly different from the male who has a solid black back and black and white striped head. I photographed him in northern California last summer.

If you want to see the male for comparison, here is the link to his photo from Bulletin #43

http://www.pbase.com/davidmcd/image/99056113

The Gilded Flicker (Colaptes chrysoides) is an Arizona specialty bird, as it nests in the giant Saguaro Cactus. It is smaller (11”) than the Northern Flicker in the rest of North America. It drill out holes in the cactus and is the only creature to do so, but others use the abandoned holes for shelter and nesting. Some of the cacti we saw looked like Swiss cheese with a large number of cavities.

Here are the male and female on a telephone pole. The male has a red malar stripe and both have warm brown colored top of heads.







Here is a starling using an abandoned nest hole.


Lastly, here is a Northern Flicker (Colaptes auratus), on the ground in Madera Canyon, for comparison. The top of head is gray behind the eye. This is actually an interesting bird in that he has the red patch on the back of the neck like a yellow-shafted form and the red malar stripe of the red-shafted form. These 2 forms of the Northern Flicker interbreed where their ranges overlap. This is not strictly a hybrid as they are 2 different forms of the same species. For this, the term used is intergrade. So this is an intergrade male Northern Flicker. The bicolored bill with a black tip is also interesting.



All comments and suggestions are welcomed and appreciated.


Happy birding and photography

David McDonald
davidkmcd@comcast.net

photos copyright 2009 David McDonald

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Saturday, February 14, 2009

Bulletin #66 – Sarasota FL #3 - waders and water birds

David McDonald Photography
Friendswood Texas
February 14, 2009


Bulletin #66 – Sarasota Florida - waders and water birds

Hello friends,

I spent a week on Longboat Key in the Sarasota Florida area.

I used a guide here for a couple of mornings. His name is Rick Greenspun. His web site is -

http://www.sarasotabirdingguide.com/

Numerous Sandhill Cranes (Grus canadensis) winter in Florida. These large birds roost at night in ponds to avoid predators. My guide took me at dawn to see and photograph them.

This first photo shows a pair at first light with the pink sky reflecting on the pods, but the birds themselves aren’t in the sunlight as it hasn’t risen high enough above the horizon.

http://www.pbase.com/image/109090913

Several minutes later, the birds themselves are bathed in the sunlight.

http://www.pbase.com/davidmcd/image/109090924

Another common large wader is the Wood Stork (Mycteria americana). This huge white bird with black wings, bare black neck and large bill is unmistakable.

Here are a couple of photos – the first just as he was getting ready to take off and the second coming at me in a glide to land. Interesting, I didn’t realize that they had black tails, until I saw the first photo.

http://www.pbase.com/davidmcd/image/109090928 click ‘next’ once

I have seen numerous Anhingas (Anhinga anhinga) in Florida and Texas. This one was beside the Wood Stork in the first photo above (on a golf course!) I realized that he had a most colorful face. When I got home and checked the Sibley and other reference guides, none of them show a males breeding facial pattern. Many herons and cormorants get quite colorful in breeding season.

What is interesting is that the juvenile plumage that this bird shows, the brown neck, lasts for 3 years. But this bird also has the breeding white plume feathers on the neck. Look closely at the face. He has a bright blue iris, green face, bright orange bill and black throat. I suspect that this juvenile is going through puberty and starting to get the adult hormone surge to cause the breeding attributes, and will shortly molt to the adult male plumage that is all black. I have never seen a breeding plumaged Anhinga previously.

http://www.pbase.com/davidmcd/image/109090932

Brown Pelicans (Pelicanus occidentalis) are a joy to watch as they do their spectacular dives into the ocean to catch fish. They become quite used to humans and can be photographed fairly close up. But of course, with their huge size (51”) you don’t really need to be too close. In January, they are starting to molt to breeding plumage so all plumages can be seen side by side.

The breeding adult has a mahogany colored neck with yellow head.

http://www.pbase.com/davidmcd/image/109090934

The non-breeding adult just has a white neck.

http://www.pbase.com/davidmcd/image/109090935

The juvenile is all brown with a white belly. This one has a band on his left leg.

http://www.pbase.com/davidmcd/image/109090936


On the fishing pier with the juvenile above were some Royal Terns
(Sterna maxima). I was able to get some nice close-ups. These are non-breeding birds. The bushy black crest is easily seen.

http://www.pbase.com/davidmcd/image/109090940 click ‘next’ once

The next bird was a lifer. Northern Gannets (Morus bassanus) are seabirds of the North Atlantic off Canada, but in winter, they move south. Some come into the Gulf of Mexico and can be seen in Florida and Texas. This juvenile plumaged bird flew along the fishing pier. The adult birds would be white.

http://www.pbase.com/davidmcd/image/109090966

Lastly, off the end of the pier, there was a raft of Common Loons (Gavia immer). I counted 29 birds in the group. I have never seen more than 2-3 at a time previously. Here are a few of them.

http://www.pbase.com/davidmcd/image/109090971

All comments and suggestions are welcomed and appreciated.

Happy birding and photography,
David McDonald
davidkmcd@comcast.net
photos copyright 2009 David McDonald

Saturday, February 7, 2009

Bulletin #65 – Sarasota FL #2 - raptors

David McDonald Photography
Friendswood Texas
February 7, 2009


Bulletin #65 – Sarasota Florida raptors

Hello friends,

I spent a week on Longboat Key in the Sarasota Florida area.

I used a guide here for a couple of mornings. His name is Rick Greenspun. His web site is -

http://www.sarasotabirdingguide.com/

I found and photographed several new birds on this trip. One of these was the Grasshopper Sparrow (Ammodramus savannarum). There are 7 birds in this genus in the ABA area. All of them are relatively flat headed and tend to be secretive and hard to find. However, my guide knew a field where they were located and in the early morning they perch up for a short time and can be seen.

What struck me about this bird in the dawn light was the orange spot above the bill and the large eye-ring. The birds face and breast are caramel colored. This was a lifer for me.

http://www.pbase.com/image/108959554 click ‘next’ once

At the same location, we found a Palm Warbler (Dendroica palmarum). This is a very common bird in Florida in winter and rather uncommon in the Houston area. Again, the morning light makes the bird look overall quite brown and even the yellow undertail doesn’t show up. The light can certainly play some tricks when trying to ID birds in the field.

http://www.pbase.com/davidmcd/image/108959559

This is the same bird taken with flash.

http://www.pbase.com/davidmcd/image/108959560

Next, I have a group of introduced/exotic birds that are not native to USA. They are still birds and can provide good subjects to show off their plumage, even if birders consider them as non-desirables. I remember reading that Roger Tory Peterson once said that ‘he never sees good photos of a House Sparrow’.

The first is Rock Dove (Columba livia). This is the pigeon that is all over urban areas virtually around the world. It comes in many color variations from white to brown to black. Sibley shows 5 colors in his book.

The first is the natural wild color in Europe – gray with 2 black bars on the wings.

http://www.pbase.com/davidmcd/image/108959561

The next he calls ‘checkered’ with white spots on the wings. This illustrates the beautiful iridescence on the neck.

http://www.pbase.com/davidmcd/image/108959563

The Eurasian Collared-Dove (Streptopelia decaocto) is a recently introduced species that colonized Florida from the Bahamas where they were brought in for the pet trade. They were too big, so the dealer just let them go into the wild. The have rapidly spread across North America. They are a large (13”) pale dove with black collar, and square white-tipped tail.

http://www.pbase.com/davidmcd/image/108959564

The next is the Mute Swan (Cygnus olor). This European species was introduced into city parks and private ponds mostly in eastern North America and has become established. They have the beautiful S curved neck and hold their wings slightly above their body when swimming. I found a pair of them on a golf course in a water hazard. This was my first encounter with this bird since I started doing photography. The orange bill with big black knob is shown in the second photo.

http://www.pbase.com/davidmcd/image/108959565 click ‘next’ once

The last exotic species is a parrot. They are many species of escaped parrots in USA especially in California and Florids. The Black-hooded Parakeet (Nandayus nenday) is native to the Pantanal wetland in southwestern Brazil where I have seen them. They are several small established populations in Sarasota and St. Petersburg on the west coast of Florida. If you look in Sibley, he shows them with a bright yellow eye-ring. The birds I saw didn’t have any eye-ring and I looked at other photos online and they don’t seem to have the eye-ring either.

http://www.pbase.com/davidmcd/image/108959567

Lastly was the 2nd best bird on the trip. My wife and I went to the Botanical Gardens in Sarasota. I took my regular camera to take some photos of the orchids and flowers. Just inside the gardens was this Eastern Screech-Owl (Otus asio) sleeping on a palm frond just off the path 5’ off the ground. He drew quite a numbers on photographers and onlookers. Fortunately I had my big lens in the car and retrieved it for this photo. He finally opened his eyes and looked right at the camera. Thus his eyes appear to follow you. I love this perspective.

http://www.pbase.com/davidmcd/image/108959572

All comments and suggestions are welcomed and appreciated.

Happy birding and photography,

David McDonald
davidkmcd@comcast.net

photos copyright 2009 David McDonald