Bulletin #101 – Misc Texas birds

David McDonald Photography
Friendswood Texas

January 31, 2010

Bulletin #101 – Misc Texas birds

Hello friends,

Attwater Prairie Chicken NWR produced some other birds as well as the Sprague's Pipits that I showed in Bulletin 100. It was a very cold morning (18 degrees F) and many birds were quite sluggish and just content to get out of the wind and into the sunshine.

Here is an Eastern Phoebe (Sayornis phoebe). He sat on a branch along an embankment. He was unfazed that I drove up right beside him and took his photo out the car window from 15' away. Notice he is hunched down and has his feathers fluffed out for warmth.

There was also a large hawk in a tree, that was facing away from me. He was all brown and I couldn't ID him until I got home and looked closely at the photos. There are really no marks. However, the important finding that IDs the bird is the long primary wing extensions beyond the tail. This is a 1st year White-tailed Hawk (Buteo albicaudatus). The other unusual characteristic I have found with this species is that they are very trusting and one can approach them closer than other species of raptors.

Most of the water on the refuge had frozen. It led to some interesting sights. Here is a White-faced Ibis (Plegadis chihi) standing on a sheet of ice.

The few areas that had open water had huge numbers of ducks. When they flew up, there were so many that one could hear the noise from thousands of wings.

Many of you know that the shrikes are called butcher birds. They catch insects and small reptiles and then impale them on a thorn or barbed wire to store them. I have seen photos of these shrike pantries, but never seen it. This was my lucky day. I saw a Loggerhead Shrike (Lanius ludovicianus) sitting on a barbed wire fence. I noticed something glistening beside him. When I looked at it, it was a large grasshopper impaled on a barb. These large grasshoppers were the only insects that I saw moving that cold morning. Afterwards I found a second grasshopper on the fence in a different area of the preserve. Sort of a gruesome photo, but part of nature.

At LaFitte's Cove in Galveston, I found a pair of Roseate Spoonbills (Ajaia ajaja) feeding along the edge of the marsh. As I watched them and took photos, one bit the other on the leg as seen in the second photo.

There was an Orange-crowned Warbler (Vermivora celata) that was at arm's length away from the camera. They are among the plainest of the warblers with an overall olive coloration. However, some of them have gray heads like this one and the faint breast streaking can be clearly seen.





Yesterday I drove down to Beeville, Texas near Corpus Christi to see a female Northern Wheatear (Oenanthe oenanthe). This Eurasian species is found in Alaska and Canada's arctic islands in the summer and is supposed to winter in Africa. How this bird ended up in central Texas is a mystery. But that is one of the interesting thing about birding, is that you just never know what bird will show up. This is only the second record for Texas. In the field guides, it is in the same section as the thrush family (turdidae). In fact it is a member of the chats and old world flycatcher family (muscicapidae). It is a small (5.75") plump gray bird with white breast and faint rusty wash on the throat. This was a lifer for me.

Now some exciting news for all you birding/photography enthusiasts. I will be leading a 9 day bird photography tour to Costa Rica in conjunction with Lillian Scott-Baer of Baer Travel in March 2011. We have worked out an itinerary to visit La Selva Preserve, Savegre Mountain Hotel in the central mountains for Resplendant Quetzal and other montane species and Wilson Botanical Gardens (Las Cruces). We have also retained the services of local guide, Rudy Zamora, to accompany us and locate and ID the birds for us to photograph. We will also have beautiful flowers and hopefully some mammals - tamanduas, monkeys etc as well.

The price will be $1960 double to $2380 single. This includes hotels, all meals, guide, transportation in Costa Rica etc. The only other cost will be airfare to Costa Rica, items of a personal nature (alcoholic beverages, souvenirs etc), tips for guide and driver and $26 Costa Rica departure tax . Space is limited to 10 persons to maximize our opportunity to see and photograph the birds. I will have more details and the complete itinerary in February. I have birded in Costa Rica previously. It is a wonderful country to visit and the bird life is exceptional. I hope that you can join us.

All comments and suggestions are welcomed and appreciated.
Happy birding and photography,

David McDonald

email: davidkmcd@comcast.net

photos copyright 2010 David McDonald

To have these trip reports sent to your email, please email me at the above address and ask for subscribe.

Bulletin #100 – Misc birds of the Houston area

David McDonald Photography
Friendswood Texas
January 17, 2010

Bulletin #100 – Misc birds of the Houston area

Hello friends,

Well this certainly is a milestone for me - the 100th birding trip report sent to you loyal subscribers. I went looking back in the old documents to find when I began this endeavor, and #1 wasn't even numbered. That was May 12th 2007. I had sent some emails of photos to a couple of people I met a LaFitte's Cove in Galveston during spring migration a week or two before. They asked for more, and I started numbering the Bulletins then.

From the 2 original recipients, the list has grown to 150+. Thank you for the support and comments. I plan to continue to show you the beauty of nature and especially our birds, as well as hopefully educate you in bird identification.

One of my target birds for this winter is Sprague's Pipit (SPPI). This is a small (6.5") plain brown bird. According to the birding guide books, this bird winters across most of Texas and prefers short grassy fields. It is much less common than the American Pipit (AMPI). In fact, whenever a SPPI is found, it is listed on Texbirds while the AMPI is so common that it is seldom specifically listed.

I have never seen the SPPI, but when I asked experts how they tell them apart, it was leg color and voice. They said you mostly just flush the bird and hear it, as it flies away. There are a couple of National Wildlife Refuges south and west of Houston that do have SPPIs each winter, but I didn't think I would be able to find and ID this bird without hiring a guide.

I was at Anahuac NWR 2 weeks ago (not one of the 2 refuges above) and driving around the auto loop, in the flock of Savannah Sparrows, were 2 birds with extensive white in the tails, that I thought at first glance were Vesper Sparrows. When I looked closer though, they were pipits. I assumed that they were the common AMPI and drove on past them as I wasn't expecting to find a SPPI at Anahuac.

As I thought about these birds more, I thought they might be a SPPI s, so I got out the Sibley Field Guide and looked up SPPI. Sure enough, it said that they have extensive white on the tails, so I drove around the loop again and found the birds. I actually had to drive around the one-way loop several times to get these photos. I put them up on Texbirds and had the ID confirmed by the experts.

So here is my lifer Sprague's Pipit (Anthus spragueii). It is IDed by the orange-pink legs and the striped markings on the back. It also has buffy unstreaked flanks.

I hire birding guides often, when travelling, so as to maximize my available time to locate birds that I want to photograph. If the guide finds and IDs a bird by voice, I don't always feel confident in being able to ID the bird myself in the future. However, I have found that if I can figure out the identification of a difficult bird like the SPPI above by myself, then I really know the bird and its field marks and won't have a problem the next time.

The next weekend, I went to Attwater NWR west of Houston which is one of the refuges that usually has the SPPI. Sure enough, I found about 5 more of these birds along their auto route. I got out of the car to photograph them but they always flushed, so the next time around, I stayed in the car and took photos out the window. I was able to get to within 15 feet of the birds.
Look at the beautiful feather detail of this little bird.

For comparison, here is a photo of an American Pipit (Anthus rubescens) also at Attwater NWR the same day. There was a flock of about 2 dozen of them on a muddy edge of a pond. Notice the dark colored legs and grayish unstreaked back.

At LaFitte's Cove in Galveston, I saw a Northern Caracara (Caracara cheriway) in the woods for the first time. I snapped a couple of photos before he flew off and was amazed with this macabre picture. He has a mammalian foot in his mouth.







At Anahuac NWR, as well as the Sprague's Pipit above, I found an adult King Rail (Rallus elegans) at the edge of the reeds. His face is more brown than his cousin the Clapper Rail (Bulletin 98). Also, the King Rail is found in fresh water marshes and the Clapper only in salt water marshes. Also note that the dark streaks on the back are black in the King Rail and dark brown in the Clapper Rail.

A bright male Common Yellowthroat (Geothlypis trichas) was also in the marsh and gave a refreshing hint of spring to an otherwise dull winter day.

High Island had a Blue-headed Vireo (Vireo solitarius). This is one of our prettiest winter birds.

On the way home from Anahuac NWR that afternoon, I passed a skunk on the shoulder of the road and stopped for some photos. This was the first skunk I have found since I started doing photography, so I was excited to get the photos. It is a Striped Skunk (Mephitis mephitis), the most common skunk species in eastern North America. This is despite the fact that it has no stripes along it back, just the white cap on its head.

Now some exciting news for all you birding/photography enthusiasts. I will be leading a 9 day bird photography tour to Costa Rica in conjunction with Lillian Scott-Baer of Baer Travel in March 2011. We have worked out an itinerary to visit La Selva Preserve, Savegre Lodge in the central mountains for Resplendant Quetzal and other montane species and Wilson Botanical Gardens (Las Cruces). We have also retained the services of local guide, Rudy Zamora, to accompany us and locate and ID the birds for us to photograph. We will also have beautiful flowers and hopefully some mammals - tamanduas, monkeys etc as well.

The price will be $1960 double to $2380 single. This includes hotels, all meals, guide, transportation in Costa Rica etc. The only other cost will be airfare to Costa Rica, items of a personal nature (alcoholic beverages, souvenirs etc), tips for guide and driver and $26 Costa Rica departure tax . Space is limited to 10 persons to maximize our opportunity to see and photograph the birds. I will have more details and the complete itinerary in February. I have birded in Costa Rica previously. It is a wonderful country to visit and the bird life is exceptional. I hope that you can join us.

All comments and suggestions are welcomed and appreciated.

Happy birding and photography,

David McDonald

email: davidkmcd@comcast.net

photos copyright 2010 David McDonald

To have these trip reports sent to your email, please email me at the above address and ask for subscribe.

Bulletin #99 – 2009 in review

David McDonald Photography
Friendswood Texas
January 4, 2010

Bulletin #99 – 2009 in review

Hello friends,

2009 has been another exciting year for me. I also gave my first talk on photography, which as someone who has been doing photography seriously for only 4 years, I find amazing.

At the suggestion of the webmaster for the Houston Audubon Society, I started a blog, in which I post these bulletins online. Thus they are available on Google and other search engines. I have a gadget on the site with a map showing where the hits are coming from. I have received hits from 46 countries in my first year. On the Pbase photo web site, I had 128,000 hits in 2009 or about 300/day.

The obvious ones are the usual countries you would associate with birders (USA, Canada, UK, Ireland, Australia, New Zealand and most of western Europe). I have also received hits from Japan, Taiwan and Singapore, which with a growing middle class, also not surprising. But how about Turkey, Cyprus, Namibia, Ghana, Kenya, Iran, Iraq (?US serviceman), and Croatia?

Thanks to all of you who receive my reports and photos. I receive several comments after each bulletin is emailed and I appreciate that you take the time to comment. I have tried to add new items such as a book review in Bulletin #96 and a quiz in the same issue. If you have any suggestions that would make these bulletins more interesting to you, please let me know.

Special thanks to the superb guides I used this year who found lots of birds for me and were very patient, as I tried to get the right picture. I highly recommend them all.

· Melody Kehl in Tucson, Arizona. Her email is here
Her web site is here.
· Darrell Vollert in Chappell Hill, TX. His email is here.
His web site is here.
· Matt Brown in Patagonia, Arizona. His email is here.
His web site is here.
· Rick Greenspun in Sarasota, Florida. His email is here.
His web site is here.

I have now seen 1370 world species of birds with 42 lifers in 2009. I have photos of 531 species, an increase of almost 80 species in 2009. It required 2 trips to Arizona, and 1 each to Florida, Maine, the Rio Grande valley of Texas, and west Texas and Big Bend National Park, as well as many local excursions. There are another 150 or so birds to photograph just in the USA and Canada, but they will require trips further afield. I will be busy in 2010 , and have several trips planned already to look for and photograph those remaining target birds.

So for a summary of 2009, I’ll present my 10 favorite bird photos of the year, and some others. Some of these have been in previous bulletins, and some are shown for the first time. But, they all are special to me.

There are several reasons a photo might be special for me. The first is that rare time when a photo may transcend the snapshot and become a work of art. As these are all shot in the field and not staged, it doesn’t happen often. They all have uncluttered backgrounds that would detract from the subject.

Owls have become a favorite subject of mine due to their flat faces and thus mammalian looking eyes that look directly at you (I call them Mona Lisa eyes). I first discovered this with a Burrowing Owl in Texas 2 years ago.

On the Rio Grande Valley trip, I went to San Miguelito Ranch where Ferruginous Pygmy-Owls nest and can be easily seen. Contact owner Leticia Tijerina by email or phone 956-369-3118 to arrange a visit.

Also at the ranch, I photographed this sleeping Barn Owl. He appears to be leaning against a post.

Spring migration along the upper Texas coast produced some great warbler photos. It is so hard to catch these small hyperactive birds for any photo, but to find them on a bare branch with a nice uncluttered background is very uncommon and takes a lot of time and patience.

Here is a Worm-eating Warbler (Helmitheros vermivorus) with his striped head.

The next is a Chestnut-sided Warbler (Dendroica pensylvanica). He also posed out on a bare branch.

Another reason a photo would be special for me is the rarity of the bird and the time I spent to find and photo it. The next 3 fall into this category.

On the trip to the Rio Grande Valley in February 2009, there were several Mexican strays that had been present at various refuges. Each of these birds were the only bird of their species in the USA at the time. The first was a Rose-throated Becard (Pachyramphus aglaiae) at Estero Llano Grande State Park. I went with a park guide and we found the bird and I got several photos. Here is the best.

The other bird took almost a full day of walking around Frontera Audubon Sanctuary in Weslaco. Finally at dusk, the local guide came out and found the bird for us. Here is the female Crimson-collared Grosbeak (Rhodothraupis celaeno).

The Colima Warbler (Vermivora crissalis) is only present in the Chisos Mountains in Big Bend National Park in west Texas. To see the bird requires a strenuous 8 hour hike to about 7200 feet from base at 5400 feet on a 12 mile trail. We saw about a dozen birds, but they stayed pretty well hidden in the leafy trees. Finally I got a good photo with the last bird of the day. I won't have to drag the camera around the trail again.

I like all birds of course, but some bird families are special for me. One of these is the hummingbirds. These beautiful living jewels can be quite pugnacious in defending their territory or feeder. I still have 3 coming to my feeder, a Buff-bellied, a male Ruby-throated and a female Black-chinned. The Buff-bellied has taken up residence in the wilted hibiscus off the patio, and he seems to have driven off the smaller male Rufous that had been there. I haven't seen the Rufous in about 6 days.

So here are some of my favorite hummingbird photos of 2009.
Click on the link to see the photos. The first 2 were in my yard recently and the rest in Arizona in June.

Buff-bellied Hummingbird, Rufous Hummingbird, White-eared Hummingbird, Berylline Hummingbird, Magnificent Hummingbird, Broad-billed Hummingbird.

I wish everyone a happy, healthy and prosperous New Year.

Happy birding and photography,

David McDonald

email: davidkmcd@comcast.net

photos copyright 2009 David McDonald

To have these trip reports sent to your email, please email me at the above address and ask for subscribe.