Night Sounds

I just came in from taking down my bird feeders, after first spending 10 minutes trying to scare the coons out of my yard.  By the way, these are the two coons living in my attic that I just paid $500 for critter control to trap and relocate.  They obviously aren’t drawn to the Cheeto-baited trap sitting right outside the big hole they dug into my 2nd floor attic.   But as soon as the urge passed to chunk big rocks at ‘em, I spent a good while outside listening to the night sounds.  An Eastern Screech Owl trilled repeatedly at the edge of the woods, frogs peeped and an unidentified shorebird called several times overhead – single calls notes high above in the dark.

The species was unknown to me, but it makes me aware that something mysterious and special is happening right over our heads as we sit inside watching late night TV.   Now is the time of continent-wide movements of innumerable birds, the reverse cycle of migration south to winter homes.  Millions of songbirds, hawks, cranes and shorebirds are making incredible journeys, often calling to each other in similar simple notes – encouragement would be too anthropomorphic, but to properly label them as contact call sounds sterile. 

There is no one best time of the year to get outside and open up your ears.  If you can, pick a quieter time of night, after the traffic and city noises have lessened.  Let your eyes adjust to the darkness, pull up a lawn chair and just sit -  look at the stars, watch the moon rise and listen to the night sounds.   You may not be able to identify the sounds  you’re listening to, but that’s what makes the mystery.

Update on the Skimmer Deaths at Rockport Beach Park

Good news for next year’s nesting birds  at Rockport Beach Park.  The City of Rockport is making plans to add a gate and fencing to block off the nesting area during high water when birds are forced onto the roadway.   More warning signs will be placed around the area and a decrease in the speed limit of the small loop road will also add to the birds’ safety.   There have still not been any arrests made in the July 1st killing of 39 Black Skimmer chicks but the case is still active.

Senseless Killing – The Almost Epilogue

It looks like the police may be getting close to arresting the criminals responsible for the intentional killing of 39 Black Skimmer chicks at Rockport Beach rookery earlier this month.    Two teenagers are under investigation and may be facing charges very soon.  So why do I have an (unfounded but cynical) feeling that kids whose values include killing small animals (probably fueled on by a couple of 12-packs of cheap beer) might not really give a crap about all the carnage they caused?  I know most kids aren’t like this, but I just can’t understand this kind of behavior.   There aren’t many of us who can say we have no regrets about the stupid, immature things we did while under the influence of  some kind of  (a) intoxicants  (b) illegal substances  (c) hormonal elevation or  (d) all of the above, but the great majority of us didn’t descend to cruelty.   We just rolled houses, got the munchies, and puked in somebody’s yard.

Good on you Aransas Bird & Nature Club for posting such a generous reward for information in this incident.  I hope your offer leads to justice.

Senseless Killing

Imagine the newborn nursery of any moderate-sized hospital, with its squalling, squirming babies, hours hold and full of life.  Now imagine some hateful monster driving a pick-up truck through that nursery, killing 2 out of every 10.  That’s the kind of carnage that happened on the night of July 1st  when some #%$#! jerk moved a barricade and drove through the protected nesting seabird colony at Rockport Beach Park.   Thirty-nine Black Skimmer chicks and juveniles were killed, representing 20% of this year’s succesful breeding season.  Just sickening.  

Not knowing of the incident, my kids and I visited the colony on Saturday, July 3rd and found 2 dead Skimmer chicks, many dead Laughing Gull chicks, including 1 that died right before our eyes as we walked around the road that circles the outside of the colony – the roadway that was blocked to car traffic.  Were these some of the last victims, succumbing to stress?   Going in I expected to see some dead birds in a large colony and tried to explain this to my kids.  They couldn’t understand why I didn’t help the dying Laughing Gull – but it’s heartless to tell a young child the chick was an obvious goner or that people didn’t generally interfere in the natural life and death cycle of a colony.   My 10 year old kept urging me to just put it in the water to save it.  Sorry son, but it doesn’t work that way. 

This Laughing Gull chick was barely alive when we found it and died within a couple of minutes.

What isn’t a natural mortality factor is idiots in pickups intentionally going around barriers, and from speculation in the news article,  intentionally killing nesting birds just for the hell of it.  Pathetic. 

Another just yards away

 

One of the lucky survivors

Summer Happenings

This past weekend I dropped my kids off at their grandparents in Corpus Christi again for another weeklong stay.  The grandparents are in their mid-70′s so long visits work out best if they’re broken up a week at a time.   The worn out grandparents need some recovery time.  This coming week is football camp (uuchhh); two weeks ago it was a nature camp at the South Texas Botanical Gardens (I’ll post more on that fabulous birding spot in Corpus soon).   I can’t say enough good things about the parks & rec programs in Corpus; my kids have taken just about every sports camp offered down there for 3 summers and all have been great.   

Anyway, under the guise of “going to the beach”, I took them to Rockport about 25 mile away to find the Sooty Tern that’s been hanging around the nesting water bird colony there.   They know the deal – they get to do fun stuff, then mom gets to bird, though my end of the bargain is definitely hindered by whining and impatience.   

I’ve posted before about how much I like Rockport, going back to when I was a kid.   The fishing’s always great, and the public  beach  has definitely been improved.  It’s always been a very shallow, calm, safe little beach on Aransas Bay, great for young kids.  But the facilities in the 60′s and 70′s were dated or falling apart and the grassy areas a torturous hazard of sticker burrs and broken oyster shell.  Now it’s gone beach resort – with a big bathhouse, palapas on the beach and nice covered picnic tables.  The kids can even walk barefoot across the grass – no flip flops required.  Birding at Rockport Beach Park is always good, particularly in winter for ducks, and spring and fall migration for shorebirds.   Late spring and summer gets you up close looks at a very succesful water bird colony. 

Rockport Beach (notice the standing water and the whitecaps)

The kids got their swim and beachy stuff, which I did not join in –  I just patrolled the water’s edge, hollerin’ at my kids when they got too far out.  Calm, placid Rockport Beach was actually a bit rough since the area had been getting tropical storm force winds and rain just 2 days before from Hurricane Alex.  All that wave action can gouge out holes and drop offs that you don’t want to step into, or churn up debris you can step on, like my 10 year old who cut his foot pretty good on glass I suspect – the cut was too straight and neat to be oyster shell. 

The nesting bird colony is actually in the same park as the Rockport Beach.  One side of the park is the beach; the other side is the ski basin and the colony.   The nesting area is marked with cable fence boundaries, but by this time of the summer there are juvenile gulls and skimmers wandering all over the place; into the roadways, under the picnic tables, looking to stretch their legs away from the noisy, poopey, crowded nesting areas. 

Laughing Gull with 2 juveniles

I pacified the kids with big cups of shave ice (sweetened sickeningly with all kinds of unnatural flavorings) and we walked the little loop road around the posted perimeter of the nesting colony and up to the bird observation tower.  The Sooty Tern had been reported reliably for the past 2 weeks, sitting partially hidden in the salt grasses or flying around.  I looked for about 45 minutes but didn’t find it.  Maybe the storm blew it on its way.   However, just seeing the colony birds makes up for any disappointment.  It’s a pretty big nesting colony, covering I’d guesstimate, about 30 acres of marsh and flats, though the suitable nesting areas are actually much smaller.  There are masses of Laughing Gulls, Black Skimmers, Tricolored Herons, and Reddish Egrets, all fighting for space in this small area.   And the noise – my kids were covering their ears, keeping their heads down (you never look up when you’re being swarmed by gulls). 

An overview of part of the colony - it wraps around to the right and is bordered by the ski basin. The beach is at the horizon along the palm trees.

Immature Tricolored Herons

 I love Skimmers!  That is just about the coolest bird you can see.  The geometric sharpness of the immature plumage is really beautiful. 

In the photo below, one of the parents had just shoved a big fish into the mouth of this immature Skimmer and we watched it struggling to get it positioned just right to swallow. 

 

Long-billed Curlew

"Feed me, feed me, feed me!"

Well, that’s all for now.  Here’s a teaser for the next post – death, tragedy, and pathos.

Summer Flowers

The rain has been just perfect this year and the wildflowers are still going strong in some places.  The Indian Paintblankets behind my house are fighting for space with the tall summer grasses. 

Idle Fantasies

Just a little fantasy of mine….

Reuters

I want to put every BP and Halliburton executive in a wooden boat and set it afire with the oil-soaked bodies of dead and dying birds and sea turtles.  

I also fantasize about U.S. citizens outside the state of Louisiana protesting, picketing, and getting active on this issue.  Where is the wide-spread anger in this country? Why are we just sitting on our asses mutely accepting the fact that  entire ecosystems are dying and the way of life of tens of thousands of people have just been pissed away for oil? 

Does it take some photos to wake us up?  The righteous indignation of others?  Try going through these articles and slide shows and not want to cry or scream or punch something.  Then do something pro-active.  Write your newspaper, write your representative, let someone know how you feel about this and what you want them to do.  Idle fantasies might be comforting, but they’re just that – fantasies.  This will not be easy and there is no comfort in it for anyone.  Disaster, recovery and change are devoid of comfort.

International Bird Rescue Research Center

Gulf oil spill’s threat to wildlife turns real

Rod Dreher Crunchy Con’s collective oil spill blog posts

Slideshow oil-soaked Brown Pelicans

NY Times daily-updated oil spill tracking map

The Kaleidoscope Bird

Amber at Birder’s Lounge got me all fired up about Painted Buntings with a recent post about their pretty backsides.  (I seem to get lots of photos of bird butts too – they never seem to give me a good face-on shot.) 

So, early Sunday morning  before church I went out into the greenbelt  behind my house and tried to get some good video of the nesting Painted Buntings.   They’ve been visiting my bird bath this spring, but Painted Buntings seem to prefer moving, bubbling water and my saucer set up with a milk jug dripper is  not drawing them in as much as I’d like.   The habitat behind my house is perfect for Painted Buntings – a meadow with scattered mesquite, cedar and Texas Persimmon, bordered by large Live Oaks.  I think that is the key to getting Painted Buntings in your yard – location, habitat and water, the first two of which are not going to be accessible to most average suburban yards.   On the other hand, I’ll never have a big, whomping Pileated Woodpecker in mine.  You just have to work with what you got.

Just beyond the prison fencing enclosing my backyard…

(it's hard to see, but that Sugarberry in the foreground has 6 feeders hanging from it)

…is prime Painted Bunting habitat.   The pair that occupies this territory is, I believe, nesting to the right side of this photo, in the Live Oaks.  Surprisingly, I haven’t seen the female yet.   To the left of the photo, up the hill about 60 yards is another singing male, so I’m guessing their nesting territory is 1 to 2 acres.

My backyard represents the border of their territory and the only draw I can offer is this simple bird bath set up.  I really believe they would be much more impressed if this bird bath was larger and had running water.  Sans $500 bucks for a Painted Bunting friendly water feature, they’ll have to make do.  (Oh and by the way, if you think a ceramic saucer setup is cheap, you haven’t priced them lately.  My local nursery sold me this 16″ saucer for $19; the more useful 30″ size was a “you gotta be sh#*#ing me” $49!  I think I need to go to one of the west side flea markets.   For that price I can get a saucer, a shepherd’s hook, and a dressed out half-side of cabrito.) 

Betcha didn’t know this bit of bird trivia?  Guess what you call a flock of Painted Buntings?  A palette or mural of buntings.  I’d like to add a “kaleidoscope” of buntings.  Good birding everyone!

Below are a couple of the video clips I got – sorry for the jerkiness, but I was in shorts and Birkenstocks, getting eaten alive by the skeeters and trying not to step on some cactus and thorny stuff.

Bunting1

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bunting2

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A Wow Bird at Warbler Woods Sanctuary

This past Saturday the most unexpected bird appeared at Warbler Woods Sanctuary in Schertz, Texas, and some lucky visitors, myself included, got to see great views.  It was a Groove-billed Ani and I am kicking myself for not bringing a camera along.  I made a quick run out Saturday afternoon following a couple of long Kung Fu classes so I really wasn’t dressed for anything more than sitting in the Schaezler’s comfy chairs around the warbler pond.  Susan, however, did not want me to miss the opportunity to see this great bird and insisted I take the birdmobile down to the Scout Pond.  What a trusting woman!  (Let me just say right now, that after driving the birdmobile I want to trade in my car and hiking boots.  It’s a golf cart / utility vehicle, and it’s the easiest, most comfy birding I’ve ever done!  The birdmobile is a workhorse and a necessity on a big property like Warbler Woods, but for lazy asses like myself  it was like birding from one of those floating chairs in the movie Wall-E.  All I needed was an umbrella drink.).  

I didn’t crash the birdmobile or run it into the pond, and after I parked and walked about 30 feet, I’ll be darned if the Ani just didn’t pop up right where Susan said it was.   It flew up to a low thorny tree and preened itself quietly for about 5 minutes, then hopped down out of sight.  It didn’t vocalize while I watched it, Ani calls being weird and chirpy.  If there was one word to describe Anis, I’d have to say ‘floppy’.  They always seem like they’re going to fall apart at any minute – all loose wings and floppy tail. 

Groove-billed Ani is on the checklist for Comal County as an accidental species.  I also remember them nesting in San Antonio at Mitchell Lake  back in the 90′s.  Is this a case of Valley birds expanding their normal range or is it just a case of an aberrant bird that found its way to a heavily birded spot with choice habitat?  Are there more Anis waiting to be found around the thickety ponds and savannahs of the border zones between the South Texas brushlands and the Hill Country of Central Texas? 

05/19/10 1:25 p.m.  UPDATE SINCE POSTING:  Susan tells me the Ani hasn’t been seen since making its one day appearance.  Makes you wonder about the secret life of birds doesn’t it? 

Photo by Brad McKinney

Back from North Carolina

Sorry it’s been so long since I last posted.  It’s not because I haven’t been birding, but more out of laziness and my distraction with an upcoming martial arts test (it’s the biggie – 1st degree black belt and there’s nothing more embarrasing than not knowing your stuff).

Anyway, I got back May 11th from my 6 day trip to visit my brother and his family in Apex, near Raleigh, and to attend my niece’s graduation from Appalachian State University (a very beautiful campus by the way, with some real nice kids.  Anyone have a job for a chemistry major with an undiagnosed case of PD – Punctuality Disorder?).   Appalachian State is all the way at the other end of the state near the Tennessee border, in Boone.  We  rented a mountain cabin about 10 miles out of town and about 3600 feet in elevation.  And let me tell you, I don’t care how leafy and green the trees were, it was still freezing ass cold at night (low 30′s).   The hot tub and fireplaces weren’t just nice decorative touches.

Each daybreak I was awake in my bed listening to the dawn chorus of the eastern woodlands.  And again, I set myself up for  high expectations bird wise, hoping to see Cerulean and Black-throated Blue Warblers practically falling at the doorstep.  Well, it isn’t that simple.   This was not a birding trip so my active birding was limited to backyard birding at my brother’s house, walking the very steep gravel road that led to our mountain cabin, and some short trails and quick overlook views on the Blue Ridge Parkway.   I think I expected a little more birdiness out in the Appalachians then we actually had, but all in all, I wasn’t disappointed with a  Barred Owl that called under a star-filled night sky, fussing House Wrens, American Crows in abundance, Song and Chipping Sparrows, a bright pair of Rose-breasted Grosbeaks, Slate-colored Juncos, and American Goldfinches in beautiful breeding colors.  The real starring warblers of our mountain retreat were the numerous Chestnut-sided Warblers staking out their territory every 75 yards or so with an incessant “very, very, pleased to meetcha” song.

We spent a half-day out on the Blue Ridge Parkway between Boone and Linville.    The wind was blowing stiffly which kept a lot of birds down, but who can complain about the beauty of the Appalachians.   As we drove along, it was very evident that the severe winter had not been kind to the Parkway.  The forest and roadsides were littered with many downed trees and broken limbs, and parts of the roadway were still closed to traffic.   We’d been hoping to see some blooming rhododendrums, but it seems we were early or they were late by a week or two.  After 15 miles of driving we finally found 2 lone rhododendrum bushes in bloom near the turnoff for Grandfather Mountain (which we opted out of visiting after we calculated the entrance fees would have set us back $75). 

 To any North Carolineans who stumble on this blog, I apologize, but I must make one observation.  Where are the roadside birds in North Carolina?  Between Raleigh and Boone I can honestly say I did not see any birds on wires, birds on roadsides, birds along fencelines.   For that matter, no deer, no squirrels, no wildlife of any kind, except for 2 lone road-killed beavers.  Is that usual?  

However, North Carolina’s un-birdiness was more than made up for in good food, specifically pulled pork.  (Opinion starting now) There is nothing that Texas can put over on North Carolina when it comes to the magical combination of wood smoke, fatty pigs and vinegar sauce.  Though not in the traditional eastern North Carolina BBQ region, I was one happy camper with the BBQ from The Woodlands in Blowing Rock.   The pork was awesome and what they do to a chicken is indecently good.

Back in Apex we spent a couple of days just hanging out, going to the Farmer’s Market in Raleigh and a quick morning hike at Jordan Lake State Park (pretty Eastern Bluebirds).   Everyone’s got their own flavor of backyard birds, and I was really happy just watching the American Robins and Chipping Sparrows from the back porch.  I think my brother’s yard could only improve with some bird feeders.

It’s nice to be home though.  I missed my own backyard birds, and I’m sure they missed me, considering most of the feeders were empty and the bird baths dry.