#200

Last Saturday was an odd day, with nothing on the calendar until late morning. So I took advantage of the free morning, sneaked out of the house before the sun came up and headed for Bear Creek Park. My mission: the Rusty Blackbirds and Purple Finches that had been reported there for the past two weeks.

I arrived not long after the park gates were opened and began checking the reported hot spots. Maybe it was the temperature (I know 28F is nothing compared to what many of you tolerate every winter, but down here that's almost unheard of!), or maybe the recent lack of rain, or maybe just the luck of the draw, but there was not a single rusty or finch to be found.

Not that the morning was completely birdless. There were handfuls of crows and pine warblers, a couple of Caroline Chickadees, a little Downy Woodpecker and several Red-bellieds. I even watched as several dozen robins flew over, some lighting briefly in the treetops far above and filling the otherwise quiet morning with bursts of sound. But none of the stars, the celebrities that I had ventured out into the frozen morning in hopes of seeing.

As it neared my predetermined cut-off time — when I absolutely had to leave in order to make it home and shower before the kids' basketball games — I decided to make one last pass around the inner loop of the park. Coming upon a couple of birders with a scope, my hopes began inching up. Had they found the Rusty Blackbirds I had been seeking all morning? But no, their scope was trained on a tree full of starlings and grackles; it appeared my slow morning was being shared by all. But then ... "Oh, did you see the Merlin perched on the snag at Brandt Road?"

"Waitaminit. So you guys are standing here in the cold looking at starlings when there's a freaking Merlin a half mile away?!?" This of course was kept to myself as I sprinted back to my truck and headed across the park. And there she was, just as they had said. Life list #200, and what a beauty!




Merlin (Falco columbarius)
What can I say? Some days life gives you lemons, other days it send you Merlins!

A Comparison of Kestrels

From a windy day out on the Katy Prairie, a big stretch of farmland due west of Houston.

After the torrential rains and destructive winds we received with a direct hit from Hurricane Ike last fall, the upper gulf coast of Texas has been experiencing a drought for the past few months. The farmers and landowners along the Katy Prairie normally flood many of their fields during the winter months, providing a nice haven for migrating waterfowl and waders that come our way. But the lack of water this year has made it hard to find many of these seasonal visitors.

Luckily, there are plenty of other beautiful things to watch in the area, even when many of them are hunkered down against a beating wind.


American Kestrel, female (Falco sparverius)
This female Kestrel was quite content to sit on her wire perch overhead. As I drove toward her, she turned to peer at me once or twice, but didn't seem to be bothered by my slow progression.

A quarter mile farther down the road, however, I spotted this slightly smaller, rufous-backed male that was not nearly so settled. He launched repeatedly from the metal cable, hovering over the fields for brief periods before battling his way against the wind to perch again in a new spot.


American Kestrel, male

For more great bird photos from around the world, check out Bird Photography Weekly #23.

Caracara Surprise

Or perhaps more correctly, a surprise caracara. Crested Caracara, that is.

I was looking back through my pictures from my semi-recent drive along Longenbaugh Road (same trip I saw the enigmatic Northern Harrier), trying to make sure I had my Savannah Sparrows distinguished from my Song Sparrows ... when all of a sudden I ran across four consecutive shots of a Crested Caracara in flight. The photos are embarrassingly poor in quality (along the lines of that second Harrier pic), but very easily good enough to identify the caracara.

The crazy thing is, I don't even remember seeing that guy!


On a separate note, and in an attempt to make up for that fuzzy Harrier shot I posted on Friday, here's a little teaser from the weekend's Houston Audubon Society field trip to the Greens Bayou Wetlands Mitigation Bank.


My first good look at a Tri-colored Heron.

Rainy Days on Tuesdays

"...always get me down." I had high hopes of heading back over to the park at lunch today, to see if I could spot yesterday's kestrel or heron again. Unfortunately, the warm drizzle of the morning turned into a gully washer just as lunchtime rolled around, so I abandoned those plans. Instead, I'll share a few of the other shots I took on Monday's brief (but profitable, birdwise) excursion.


American Kestrel (Falco sparverius)
You can go here for yesterday's post to see a couple more shots of the kestrel, who did several flyovers of the bayou while I was there. He moved back and forth between the telephone cable, directly over the water, and the trees opposite where I sat on the bank of the bayou watching a Great Blue Heron downstream.


Great Blue Heron (Ardea herodias)
Looking back the other way, I also had a great view of this egret in the distance. Unfortunately, a truck rumbling down a nearby road spooked him after I got only this one decent shot of him.


Great Egret (Ardea alba)
I also got a nice long look at this shrike, who brought some tasty little tidbit up to the top of the footbridge and then stayed for a minute or two to take in the scenery.


Loggerhead Shrike (Lanius ludovicianus)
Throw in a handful of doves, a blue jay and a mockingbird, and as I said before, "Not bad for a 45-minute lunchbreak!"

Bird on a Wire

From a brief lunchtime excursion at a neighborhood park near my office.


American Kestrel (Falco sparverius)



The outing also included sightings (and pictures) of a Great Blue Heron, Loggerhead Shrike and a couple of egrets. Not bad for a 45-minute lunchbreak!


For some great bird photos from around the world, check out Bird Photography Weekly #15.