Bulletin 292 - miscellaneous local birds from winter and spring

I did not get out as much recently due to work requirements and I guess some degree of boredom, as I already have pretty good photos of most local birds. I do take photos when a good opportunity pops up to improve my existing photos of various species. And also, having been to Ecuador and Colombia, it does not seem nearly as exciting here. So here are my interesting photos since the New Year.

The Burrowing Owl (Athene cunicularia)  returned to the same place at Anahuac NWR for a second winter.

Burrowing Owl

A funny looking leucistic American Coot (Fulica americana). A leucistic bird is one with some white feathers, but is not an albino.

American Coot - leucistic

I had a Buff-bellied Hummngbird (Amazilia yucatanensis) once again in my yard this winter, but he was not there regularly. I saw or heard him maybe a half dozen times, but at least I got a nice photo. Such a treat to have this bird as a winter visitor.

Buff-bellied Hummingbird

The cute 13" Bufflehead (Bucephala albeola) is our smallest duck in North America. The male appears almost all white with just some purple on his head. The female is all brown with a white stripe across her cheek. This pair was at LaFitte's Cove in Galveston.

Bufflehead - pair

This spring I got several good photos of various birds. Photographers are told to get the best photos, it is necessary to be at eye level with the subject. So a bird on a fence is a better photo than one on the ground or way up in a tree.

Here is a beautiful male Scissor-tailed Flycatcher (Tyranus forficatus).

Scissor-tailed Flycatcher - male

I also got a nice 13" Forster's Tern (Sterna forsteri) on a fence post. The small size and bicolored bill is the ID for this bird.

Forster's Tern - breeding

There were 2 birds that I saw in the ponds at LaFitte's Cove in Galveston this spring, that I do not recall having ever seen there before. The first was a 30" Reddish Egret (Egretta rufescens). This bird is normally in salt water rather than fresh water ponds. It is IDed by the gray body, shaggy reddish neck and pink bill with black tip.

Reddish Egret

Also, last weekend I saw Wilson's Phalaropes (Phalaropus tricolor) in the ponds at LaFitte's Cove for the first time. Phalaropes are sandpipers that swim. They are unusual for birds in that the female is more colorful and the male looks after the eggs and raising the babies.

Wilson's Phalarope - female

A 23" Glossy Ibis (Plegadis falcinellus) was found at LaFitte's Cove last weekend as well. This bird has raised considerable discussion on Texbirds as to whether it is a Glossy Ibis or aberrant White-faced Ibis or possibly a hybrid. The discussion is still ongoing, but it sure looks classic to me for a Glossy and a number of other experts who saw it. It has classic Glossy field marks with the dark face and eye, pale blue lines above and below the face and dark legs.

Glossy Ibis

And a second photo.

Glossy Ibis

I also got photos of a new turtle at High Island this year. This large turtle (estimated 10-12") had a very long neck with a streaking. I looked in my guide book and came up with the ID of a Chicken Turtle (Deirochelys reticularia). I confirmed the ID with a Texas reptile expert.

Chicken Turtle

And a close up of the head.

Chicken Turtle

Overall, spring migration was very quiet for the second year in a row. The most warbler species I saw in a day was 8. Normally mid teens is average and 20 or more is possible in a good day. I hope this is not indicative of a severe decline in the bird populations.

Happy birding and photography,

David McDonald
dkmmdpa@gmail.com

photos copyright 2006 - 2017 David McDonald

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Bulletin 220 - Best of 10 years #3 - waders, water and marsh birds

In this edition, I will look at my favorite photos of the groups that include cranes, waterfowl, herons and rails etc. Many ducks are beautiful in the breeding plumage. The first is the amazing Wood Duck. I photographed this bird in Hermann Park in downtown Houston in 2008.

Wood Duck - male

The next one is the Ruddy Duck. The male in breeding plumage is rusty red, with a black and white head, stiff black tail and blue bill. I saw this bird in Carmel California in 2007 and is the only one I have ever seen in this plumage.

Ruddy Duck - male

The next two birds were photographed in Barrow Alaska in 2010. The male King Eider has a colorful face.

King Eider - male

The Long-tailed Duck was formerly know as Oldsquaw. The breeding male here has a black head and neck with a white face. The body is brown and of course he has long spiky tail feathers.

Long-tailed Duck - male

The Nene is the state bird of Hawaii and it is a handsome goose. The easiest place to see it is on Kauai as there are no introduced mongoose. They can be seen around the resorts etc. On Hawaii and Maui, they are high up on the mountains to avoid predation by the mongoose, so are much more difficult to find.

Nene

The 52 " Whooping Crane is the tallest bird in North America. It is also one of the rarest birds in the world with a wild population less than 500 birds. In the 1941 the population fell to just 23 birds and a joint USA and Canada project was launched to save the species. They summer in northern Alberta and winter on the Texas coast. Attempts are being made to establish other flocks in Florida, Louisiana, and a migratory flock in Wisconsin that was taught to migrate to Florida using an ultralight aircraft as was pioneered in the movie 'Fly Away Home'. See the article in Wikipedia for more info on these efforts.

Whooping Crane
Aransas NWR - Texas

Herons and egrets are very common in the Houston area so we get kind of blase about seeing them, but I have selected 4 for inclusion in my favorites, 2 from my local area, and 2 from Panama.

The most difficult to find member of this family in the USA is the secretive 13" Least Bittern. Fortunately, Anahuac NWR is considered the best place in the USA to look for them. In the summer of 2008, my goal was to get a good photo of this bird. I went there Saturday and Sunday for 2 weekends in a row, but just got some mediocre photos. The next weekend, I tried again. I parked my car at the boardwalk and I guess this bird felt sorry for all my efforts as it climbed up on the reeds to eye level right in front of my car, 15 feet away.

Least Bittern - female

The Reddish Egret is a salt water bird. It occurs around the Gulf coast, and on the Pacific coast from Mexico southwards. Some of the birds are pure white however, and they are rare. Sibley says about 2-7% of the Gulf coast birds are white. None of the Pacific coast birds are. This bird was reported on Bolivar flats in July 2008, and I went the next weekend and found it. It is the only pure white morph bird I have ever seen. So how does one ID this all white bird as this species rather than some other common white heron or egret. First by the size, it is large 30" and much taller than 24" Cattle or Snowy Egrets. Also the location, along salt water. But the pink lower mandible is a clue as the Great Egret has a yellow bill. Also the shaggy plumes on the neck and chest are diagnostic for this species.

Reddish Egret - white morph

The Capped Heron is a really pretty bird with its blue skin around the eye, black cap, yellowish neck and long plumes. It is a South American bird whose range extends into Panama. We only saw this one bird, but he sat still and allowed multiple photos.

Capped Heron

The last heron is the Boat-billed Heron. This nocturnal bird uses stays hidden during the day, but the guide in Panama knew of a roosting place and we saw perhaps 20 birds, both adults and juveniles. It is similar to the common Black-crowned Night-Heron, but has the peculiar enormous bill. I think I had seen this bird only once before in Brazil.

Boat-billed Heron - adult

The rails, coots and gallinules make up a family of chicken-like marsh birds. The coots and gallinules are common and easily seen in the open. Rails, however, are secretive and in general hard to see as they stay in the reeds. My best rail photo in the USA is this Virginia Rail that I photographed in Carmel, California in 2010.

Virginia Rail

The most easily seen rail in the Central America is the 15" Gray-necked Wood-Rail. I had seen it several times before, but on the Costa Rica trip, I got my fist photo of this bird.

Gray-necked Wood-Rail

Happy birding and photography,

David McDonald
dkmmdpa@gmail.com

photos copyright 2006 - 2015 David McDonald

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

Bulletin 169 - Winter birds

The Upper Texas Coast (UTC) never ceases to amaze me with the rarities that show up here. In the last few years, we have had Ruff twice, first ABA record of Tropical Mockingbird, Fork-tailed Flycatcher, and 3 birds usually found in the arctic and Alaska that I missed on my Alaska trip in 2010. The first was lifer Smith's Longspur at New Years 2012, then a lifer Black-tailed Godwit last June and last month a juvenile Rough-legged Hawk on Galveston Island for my second sighting of that species.

The Rough-legged Hawk (Buteo lagopus)  is a large (21") buteo of the high arctic tundra in Canada and Alaska. It is listed as occasional in the UTC. However, I cannot remember in my 20 years birding, another mention of one, and there was no photo of it on the Houston Audubon web site. The males have dark streaks on the underside, but the juveniles and females have a black belly. This bird was easily seen over several weeks, as it hunted in the same area and returned to sit on top of a telephone pole. It was IDed as a female with the black belly, but when I posted my photos on Texbirds, an expert who has banded these hawks in Montana, sads it was a juvenile as the dark band was not on the underside of the tail. Notice the small bill and feet, an adaptation for the cold tundra. The legs have feathers and these can be seen in this photo.



Rough-legged hawk - juvenile on Galveston Island

Many ducks are found here in winter. I haven't shown many photos in the past couple of years, so yesterday I went out and took some.

Here is a male Northern Shoveler (Anas clypeata). The green head and brown and white body along with the huge bill make this guy an easy ID. However, in the photo, I had never seen the blue-gray feathers before. I checked Sibley and these are the upper wing coverts that usually are hidden unless the bird is in the air. So I always learn something new.

Northern Shoveler - male

In the last Bulletin, I showed and talked about the Redhead (Aythya americana). I had never seen them in the ponds at LaFitte's Cove on Galveston, but yesterday, there were almost a dozen birds. This male had his head stretched upwards in an unusual pose.

Redhead - male

Now look at this pair, swimming towards the camera. They have really fat cheeks, reminding me of chipmunks! I don't know whether all ducks have this peculiarly shaped head. I will have to watch more closely in the future.

Redhead - male

 Here is a female Lesser Scaup (Aythya affinis). She is all brownish except for the white spots behind the bill. Notice the small black spot on the end of the bill. This is called the nail and is very narrow like this in the Lesser Scaup and wider in ther Greater Scaup. Although some overlap occurs, it can be a good field mark to separate these species. It also happened to be my first photo of a female of this species.

Lesser Scaup - female

The last duck is probably my favorite, the smallest North American duck, the Bufflehead (Bucephala albeola). The males have black back, white body, dark iridescent head with a large white occipital quadrant.

Bufflehead - male

One of my favorite photos of ducks is when they rise out of the water and flap their wings. Here are a couple of photos of this duck doing just that.



Bufflehead - male

And another. In this one, despite the overcast day, you can get a hint of the iridescent purple on his head.



Bufflehead - male

So how do you get these neat action photos? If you have ever watched ducks for any length of time, occasionally they will bathe by ducking their head repeatedly under the water. After several times, they will always rise up like this and flap their wings back and forth a couple of times to dry off. So if you see a duck bathing, get ready to take some of these action shots.

Lastly as spring is here in Houston, our waders are getting their breeding plumage. For herons, they often change the color of the bare skin around the eye, as well as the bill getting very bright.

Here is a Reddish Egret (Egretta rufescens) with a bright blue patch of bare skin, and very pink base of the bill.

Reddish Egret - breeding

I just noticed that I crossed the 50,000 hits mark on this blog.

Happy birding and photography,

David McDonald
dkmmdpa@gail.com

photos copyright 2013 David McDonald

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