Bulletin #150 - Rio Grande Valley, Texas

I got away for a weekend in the RGV of Texas. This area along the Mexico border hosts a number of species and occasional tropical vagrants that occur nowhere else in the USA.

One of my target species was the Black-vented Oriole (Icterus wagleri). This species had been present for most of last winter but I wasn't able to get away to see it. Fortunately, the bird came back to Bentsen Rio Grande State Park in Mission Texas again this winter. The adults of the species are similarly colored with black hood, back, wings, undertail, and tail. He was very cooperative, coming frequently to the feeders and providing all the appreciative birders great views. Notice also there is no white on the wings.

Black-vented Oriole - adult

 2 other orange and black oriole species are regulars in the RGV. The large (10")  Altamira Oriole (Icterus gularis) is a favorite of everyone. They are orange with black throat, back, wings and tail. They wings also have white bars. This bird can be seen in many parks across the valley. It has an orange shoulder patch that differentiates this species from the next.

Altamira Oriole - adult

Altamira Oriole - adult

The immature of this species still has some orange feathers on his back.

Altamira Oriole - immature

The Hooded Oriole (Icterus cucullatus) is smaller but similar. It lacks the orange shoulder patch.


Hooded Oriole

The 4th oriole in the valley is the yellow and black Audubon's Oriole (Icterus graduacauda). This bird has black head, wings and tail. The back is yellow.

Audubon's Oriole - adult

The Green Jay (Cyanocorax yncas) is another colorful tropical species that causes oohs and aahs from the spectators. Again, this bird is widespread across the valley and readily seen at any park with feeders. Is is green bodied with yellow tail and black and blue face. It has to be seen to be believed and the guide books don't do it justice. Here is a group of 4 on a feeder at Bentsen Rio Grande State Park.

Green Jays

And here is one that took a bath in the water feature at Laguna Atascosa NWR and then perched 15 feet away to preen.

Green Jay

Another jay is the Brown Jay (Cyanocorax morio). This crow sized (16") jay was at Salineno for the first time in 5 years. Many years recently, it hasn't appeared in the USA anywhere. It isn't a showy bird, but a needed bird for listers in the USA. It has a cream belly and the rest of the bird is dark brown. This is an adult bird with the dark beak. The juveniles are similar, but the beak is yellow.

Brown Jay - adult

Brown Jay - adult

The last bird is another very colorful (and noisy) bird, the Great Kiskadee (Pitangus sulphuratus). Despite seeing it coming to bird feeders, it is a member of the flycatcher family. It has a striped head, reddish brown back and wings and incredible yellow underparts. Seeing a half dozen of these almost 10" birds together in a tree, is a real treat.

Great Kiskadee

Happy birding and photography,

David McDonald
dkmmdpa@gmail.com

photos copyright 2012 David McDonald

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LaFitte's Cove Bird Report 1-2-12

It was a beautiful sunny cool day with a moderate north wind. The wind kept some of the birds hidden in the woods. Sparrows were the most common birds present with Savannah, Harris's, Field and Chipping seen. Winter birds included a single Cedar Waxwing, American Robins, Eastern Phoebe, Yellow-rumped Warblers, Ruby-crowned Kinglets and this stunning male Black-headed Grosbeak that was first found last week. To locate the bird, it is feeding just behind the yellow rope on Jibstay Court just before the loop at the end of the street. There are some wispy bushes with white and pink flowers. It is eating the flowers and buds on these bushes. Here are 3 photos of this very cooperative bird.

 The ponds had a pair of Lesser Scaup, 7 female Buffleheads and numerous Northern Shovelers. I just saw a single Green-winged Teal today.

Raptors were Red-shouldered, Red-tailed and Northern Harrier. As I was looking for the grosbeak, this Osprey struggled againt the wind with a large fish.

Osprey with fish

As he came overhead he showed yesterdays lunch as well as todays.

Osprey with yesterdays and todays lunch

Elsewhere on the west end of the island, there were only Savannah Sparrows seen on Settegast Road. 8 Mile Road had a flock of 44 Sandhill Cranes.

Bulletin #149 - 2011 the year in review

At years end, I have always provided a top 10 of my favorite photos of the year. 2011 was a lot different as I was unable to travel and only made a single trip to Tucson AZ in November. Consequently, I added only 6 species to my photo list. I did get a number of rare species in the local area.

So my favorite photo has to be this Costa's Hummingbird. It is the same photo that I cropped and showed in an earler bulletin, but this one is very artistic to me. It looks like a watercolor. It was amazing to me that the whole flower stem was in focus as the depth of focus of my 500mm lens is only about 3 inches.

Costa's Hummingbird

Several Mexican strays appeared in the Houston area this year. The first was this Fork-tailed Flycatcher in January.

Fork-tailed Flycatcher

In March, a Yellow-faced Grassquit showed up at Goose Island State Park.

Yellow-faced Grassquit


At the end of the year, a couple of northern migrants showed up that were unexpected. This Harris's Sparrow on Galveston Island gave me my best photos of this species.

Harris's Sparrow

Yesterday, I ended the year with a lifer, a Smith's Longspur. This was a target bird on the 2010 Alaska trip, but we missed it. A small flock was found just before Christmas, about 20 miles from home. Normally they don't appear this far south and they are not even on the Upper Texas Coast bird checklist.

Smith's Longspur

Among the most difficult birds to photograph are the nocturnal birds - owls, nightjars etc. One has to be lucky to find them in daylight. Thus I consider this photo of a Chuck-will's-widow a very lucky capture. I happened to have my camersa ready when the bird flew into view and perched for a few moments before seeing me and flying off.

Chuck-will's-widow

I got a number of good photos of hawks and falcons this year that made my cut into the top 10. This beautiful Peregrine Falcon was having breakfast on a pole in Tucson.

Peregrine Falcon

The Prairie Falcon was a target bird for the Tucson trip and this was one of about 10 birds seen.

Prairie Falcon

Another falcon, a Merlin was finally seen and photographed in 2011. This dark taiga morph bird was also seen on the Tucson trip.

Merlin

Lastly, this adult and juvenile pair of Red-shouldered Hawks were photographed in my yard. Each has a foot in the air and the juvenile is looking over at the adult. I called this photo 'Learning to Dance' as it appears the juvenile is following the lead steps of his parent.

Learning to Dance
Red-shouldered Hawks

I am looking forward to 2012 and being able to travel more frequently. Thank you to all of you for all your comments last year. It makes worthwhile the time and effort to put these newsletters together.

Happy birding and photography,


David McDonald
davidkmcdmd@yahoo.com

photos copyright 2011 David McDonald

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

Bulletin #148 - local birds

I have had a few good photos of local birds over the past month.

(Click on the photo to enlarge it)

This winter has seemed to have an influx of western birds into the Houston area. There have been several Sage Thrashers, Green-tailed Towhees and Harris's Sparrows. I have only seen Harris's Sparrows (Zonotrichia querula) on 2 occasions, both times in the far west Houston area. I can never remember reports of them on Galveston Island. So I was very surprised to find this adult at LaFitte's Cove in November. This 7.5" bird is our largest sparrow. He is IDed by the black face and pink bill.

Harris's Sparrow - adult

A flock of 6-7 birds was found a short distance away. The 1st winter bird has a white throat.

Harris's Sparrow - 1st winter

Also at LaFitte's Cove was this very pale American Robin (Turdus migratorius). I suspect this is probably a first winter female.

American Robin

Another bird I had not previously seen in Galveston was the Monk Parakeet (Myiopsitta monachus). Usually one sees their bulky stick nests on transmission towers and the birds perched on wires. I was surprised to see a flock of about 20 birds on a grassy median in the road, as I drove through Galveston. I stopped and got out to take a photo, but the flock spooked and flew away. I couldn't refind them. 2 hours later as I drove back the same way, the birds were back on the ground in the same place. Fortunately, it was Sunday morning with no traffic and I just stopped the car and took some photos through the open window. This bird is IDed by the gray face and breast and bluish wings.

Monk Parakeet

Fortunately, the fall has brought us a normal amount of rain and all the usual wet areas and ponds have filled up again. I had 2 duck species at LaFitte's Cove that were unusual. The first was 2-3 female Buffleheads (Bucephala albeola). Buffleheads at 13" in length are our smallest ducks. The females are IDed by the small size, and brown head with a  horizontal white patch.

Bufflehead - female

The other was a small group of Lesser Scaup (Aythya affinis). The females are brown with a white patch at the base of the bill. The bird in front shows a peak or corner at the rear of the head. This is the most reliable field mark to differentiate Lesser from Greater Scaup.

Lesser Scaup - female

For only the second time in 14 years, I had some Eastern Bluebirds (Sialia sialis) in my yard. I happened to look out and see 3 birds in the bird bath. I got my camera ready and they returned several times to drink over the next couple of hours. Unfortunately they didn't stay around, but I did see one bird again several weeks later.

Eastern Bluebird - male

Eastern Bluebird - female

Happy birding and photography,
David McDonald
davidkmcdmd@yahoo.com

photos copyright 2011 David McDonald

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

Bulletin #147 - Southeast Arizona#3 - other birds

I spent a weekend in the Tucson, Arizona area with guide Melody Kehl. I was attempting to finish photographing the local birds, that I had missed on 3 previous visits.

I got some nice photos of the red-shafted form of the Northern Flicker (Colaptes auratus). I had not realized until I saw these birds that the red was under the tail as well as the wing linings. The male has a red malar stripe and the female in the second photo does not.

Northern Flicker - male

Northern Flicker - female

The two Meadowlarks occur in the Tucson area and it gave me a chance to get better photos and compare the differences. The Western Meadowlark (Sturnella neglecta) has a bright yellow throat and only has white on the edges of the tail. It took over an hour to finally get a closeup photo of this bird.

Western Meadowlark

The Eastern Meadowlark (Sturnella magna) that occurs in Arizona is known as Lillian's Meadowlark and may in fact be a separate species.In any event, the voices are different between the 2 species. The throat is white rather than yellow. Also, when the birds fly and fan the tail, it is mostly white with just a few central brown feathers. This is my best photo of a Lillian's subspecies.

Eastern Meadowlark (Lillian's)

A cute tiny (4.5") bird of the arid southwest is the Verdin (Auriparus flaviceps). This bird is all gray except for a yellow head and small red shoulder patch.The sexes are similar.

Verdin

This photo shows a bird eating the fruit of a prickly pear cactus.

Verdin

The western race of Yellow-rumped Warbler (Dendroica coronata) was formerly known as Audubon's Warbler. It differs from the eastern race by having a yellow throat.

Yellow-rumped Warbler - Audubon's

The only other warbler we found was a stray from the east - a Chestnut-sided Warbler (Dendroica pensylvanica). This is a first winter female bird as she has no brown sides at all.

Chestnut-sided Warbler

Several species of thrashers make their home in the arid southwest. The most common of these is the Curve-billed Thrasher (Toxostoma curvirostre). This large (11") bird is gray with a spotted breast, curved bill and yellow eye.

Curve-billed Thrasher

Lastly we had 2 species of goldfinches. The male Lesser Goldfinch (Carduelis psaltria) has a black face, wings and tail, green back and yellow underparts

Lesser Goldfinch - male

The male Lawrence's Golfinch (Carduelis lawrenci) is mostly gray with black face and yellow breast on wings.



Lawrence's Goldfinch - male

 Happy birding and photography,

David McDonald
davidkmcdmd@yahoo.com

photos copyright 2011 David McDonald
To have these trip reports sent to your email, please email me at the above address and ask for subscribe.

LaFitte's Cove Bird Report 12-11-11

Today was mostly sunny & cool with moderate breeze. I spent about 3 hours this morning at LaFitte's ansd elswhere on Galveston.

LaFitte's Cove was quite quiet. The woods had the usual  resident birds including the Brown Thrasher. The male Downy Woodpecker was seen, but not the female Ladder-backed. Winter birds were Ruby-crowned Kinglet, Orange-crowned and Yellow-rumped Warblers, Northern Flicker was heard and seen flying away. Several Sandhill Cranes were heard also. Raptors were Sharp-shinned Hawk and Northern Harrier. This very pale female American Robin was the most unusual bird in the woods.

American Robin - female

The ponds were also quiet except for many Green-winged Teal. There were also Northern Shovelers, Blue-winged Teal and 3 each of Bufflehead and Lesser Scaup. This is an increase of 1 each from last week. There were scarcely any shorebirds..about 12 yellowlegs and 2 peeps only! No dowitchers or willets were seen.

The resident Loggerhead Shrike posed on one of the signs by the gazebo.

Loggerhead Shrike

Elsewhere on Galveston Island today, Settegast Road had a flock of 6-7 Harris's Sparrows. Mostly they were 1st winter birds with the white throats like this one on a fence post.

Harris's Sparrow - 1st winter

This adult on the ground has a black throat and blacker face.

Harris's Sparrow - adult non-breeding

The flock enjoyed eating weed seeds.

Harris's Sparrow

A moment later he craned his neck up to look down on the weed.

Harris's Sparrow

Eight Mile and Sportsman's Road had usual birds. The docks had just 2 American Oystercatchers when I was there. The most unusual bird for me was a Spotted Sandpiper. I can't recall seeing one so late, but the checklist shows that they are here in small numbers in the winter.