Bulletin #140 - local birds

David McDonald Photography
Friendswood Texas
June 22, 2011

With the summer doldrums upon us, I have to look for local birds of interest to photograph. Of course, this is nesting season, so common birds can provide some interesting opportunities.

The first photo is of a Northern Cardinal nest with eggs. As you know, cowbirds are parasitic. This means that they lay their eggs in nests of other birds and the foster parents raise the cowbird chicks, often losing their own young in the process. This nest has 3 different types of eggs in it.

At 12 o'clock is the large spotted cardinal egg. The 2 smaller, but similar eggs at 3 and 9 o'clock are from a Brown-headed Cowbird. The plain white one at 6 o'clock is that of a Bronzed Cowbird. I rarely get to see birds nests with eggs, but this is a first for me to have 3 different species of birds eggs in a single nest.

This next photo is of a bird house outside our kitchen window. I bought this bird house about 14 years ago. It is made of resin to resemble an old straw hat. In all this time, we have never had any occupants until this year, when Carolina Wrens took up residence. They nest on our patio in hanging baskets etc anyway, so I didn't pay much attention to them until I heard some babies chirping and discovered that they were in the bird house. On Memorial Day weekend, I took a few photos out the window. I wanted to get more photos, but they fledged and were gone several days later. Here is a baby waiting at the entrance for food.

I am fortunate to have a large yard with many trees. Thus, I have the pleasure of having a family of Red-shouldered Hawks that spend a lot of time in my yard. They don't bother the small birds and seem to eat mostly lizards, crawfish etc on the ground. We are in the midst of the worst drought in the 34 years I have lived in Houston. Normally, we have 1" rain per week all year, but with La Nina in the Pacific, we have not had any rain since January, and are about 20" below normal for the year.

My bird bath with a drip is used constantly by birds and squirrels. Several weeks ago, I looked out to see the juvenile Red-shouldered Hawk in the bird bath. He really enjoyed himself and splashed around. I took these photos through the kitchen window.

Next to my amazement, an adult flew down and joined him in the bird bath. In the second photo, it looks like the parent is whispering in his ear or giving him a kiss.

 
Since then, I have seen the juvenile most days go to the bird bath, but I haven't seen and adult return for a drink.
 
The juvenile is quite tame and I can approach him to within 20 feet. The adult flies off when I'm 50 feet away. I was able to get a close up of the juvie on a branch over the bird bath on a day when it was 105 degrees and he had his mouth open like a panting dog. Notice the ridges on the palate inside to mouth!
 

 
Two years ago, we had another milder drought and the local ponds, ditches etc were dried up. I had Yellow-crowned Night-Herons walking around my yard looking for food. So I thought to but some live crawfish and put them out to see if I could feed them. It worked and I had a bird come every evening to feast on the crawfish and take them back to the nest. You can see these photos here.
 
This year, I decided to try my luck at feeding crawfish to these hawks. Sure enough, I put out 4-6 crawfish in the evening and they come down to catch and eat them. The juvenile usually just eats them on the lawn, but the adult catches one and flies into a tree to eat it.
 

 

Anyone can feed small birds with seed etc, but how many of you have been able to feed more unlikely customers like herons and hawks? I would be interested to hear of any stories you may have.

Happy birding and photography,

David McDonald
davidkmcdmd@yahoo.com

photos copyright 2011 David McDonald

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Bulletin #89 – Misc upper Texas coast birds

David McDonald Photography
Friendswood Texas
August 21, 2009

Bulletin #89 – Misc upper Texas coast birds

Hello friends,


This summer has been exceptionally hot and dry in Houston. In fact most of Texas is an a moderate to extreme drought. I have not been out in the field as it is just too hot. However, there have been a few interesting birds in the area and some at my house.

Two birds in the area are quite rare here. The first was an American Flamingo (Phoenicopterus ruber). This bird was found in Freeport Texas in mid May and was only there for 24 hours. Fortunately I got there in time for a photo.

The other unusual bird was a Brant goose (Branta bernicla). This dark goose is usually only found in cooler climates, yet there was one found in Brazoria NWR at the end of July.

One result of the drought was that many of the small ponds, ditches etc have dried up, so feeding spots for waders have decreased. Normally, I have a few Yellow-crowned Night-Herons (Nyctanassa violacea) in the neighborhood. They catch crawfish, tadpoles etc in these small watery areas. Because of the drought, I had 1-2 every evening in June and July just walking around on the my lawn. Occasionally, they picked up something in the grass.

Because, this is also crawfish season here, the stores had plenty of the live crustaceans in stock (people here eat them for those of you not from LA or TX). So I decided to try and experiment to see if they would eat them. I bought some and placed them along a path in the grass when the birds were present. The first evening, they just looked at them, but the next night one of the birds ate them. Subsequently, every night he would show up along the path between 6:30 and 7:30pm. I would put out some crawfish and he would eat them. He was obviously feeding young in the nest as he would fly away with 4 in his crop and return 15 minutes later. One night, he ate 16 of them in 4 separate trips. By the third week he was quite tame and I could walk to within 6 feet of him, as I set out his meal.

The method of eating the crawfish was always the same. He would break off the claws, then crush the exoskeleton from tail to head and then swallow it whole. On one occasion, a particularly large crawfish wouldn't go down. He was forced to regurgitate it. He didn't attempt to pull it apart and eat it piecemeal like a hawk would do. Instead he crushed it again and swallowed it whole. The second time it went down OK.

I was hoping to continue feeding him all summer and that he would bring the babies to feed once they fledged. Alas, the stores stopped stocking crawfish after mid-July. Also, fortunately, we started having some rain, so the natural sources of their food returned.

I had never read of anyone feeding these herons in this manner, so my experiment was a success.

Here are a couple of photos. The whole series I posted to Texbirds can be seen here. Click 'next' 8 times to see all 9 photos of him eating the crawfish. In the last 2, he is regurgitating the stuck one.

Spring and summer, bring babies to our local birds. I always have some Carolina Wrens (Thryothorus ludovicianus) nesting around the patio. When the babies fledge and leave the nest, there is about a 30 minute window when they can be seen. The parents take them away from the house. This year I was lucky as I had just arrived home from work and heard the commotion as the parents were calling the babies. There were only 2 babies. One actually got under the screen door into our verandah. I had to catch him and put him back outside.

Of course I grabbed the camera to photo the 2 fledgelings. They appear to be all legs and beak. There is just a stub of a tail. How cute can you get? - the miracle of life. Here's 4 photos of these adorable babies.

Happy birding and photography,

David McDonaldemail: davidkmcd@comcast.net

photos copyright 2009 David McDonald

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