You Are Not an Oriole

Posted on September 6, 2011 by Meredith

With all the devastating fires going on around Texas and the near-miss we had ourselves today with a brushfire near our house, I feel the need to report something more heartwarming.

Yesterday I was ecstatic to see a Baltimore Oriole couple visiting one of our hummingbird feeders. The hummingbirds were completely at a loss about what to do with these giant birds (giant to them, that is) on their feeders. Of course, the camera was nowhere nearby, and I missed capturing a picture. But I did rush out with a pitiful offering to my newest avian visitors: one small Clementine orange. Guess who showed up instead?

You naughty squirrel! I roll my eyes at you!

Also arriving to tease me but still thrill me was this Nashville warbler. Peekaboo!

The female Oriole later came back, and I ran and got the camera and ran right back, snapping a ton of pictures. Then I realized that idiot me left the compact flash card back in the computer.

In the end, I finally got this pitifiul picture of the male Baltimore Oriole staying just far enough away to allow for any sort of decent image.

Well, it still counts, Mr. Oriole!

Woodpecker Wets Its Whistle

Posted on August 11, 2011 by Meredith

I’d never really thought about how the shape of a birdbath can affect who comes to visit.

Fill ‘er up!

By the Light of Dawn

Posted on July 18, 2011 by Meredith

Out in the country near Nacogdoches, Texas, the birds stay busy all day at my parents’ house. When I visit, I always get up at the crack of dawn with the earliest bird songs of the morning, and I quietly tip-toe outside to watch the activities of my feathered friends.

The darkness and cool morning temperature last only briefly, and with the sun’s arrival, the garden lights up in color, and the romantic countryside can at last be viewed.

The cardinals were quite numerous this particular morning, with the males’ red coloration standing out against the green foliage nearby.

The females sported their crests tall and proud.

Such personality on exhibit that morning!

A juvenile Red-Bellied Woodpecker bravely followed its parents to the feeder. Its parents were pros, zipping in for food and flying off immediately. This little one took its time figuring out how to land and how to get seed. Once it got there, it stayed for a bit, enjoying its newfound source of food. Note that its head feathers are just starting to turn red.

A short while later, a Red-Winged Blackbird noisily announced its arrival. It reminded me of the way Blue Jays, Titmice, and Chickadees can be so bossy around other birds.

Who would have thought Blackbirds could be so flexible? Check out that leg position.

A mockingbird periodically stopped by to take a drink, but it looked for breakfast in the field beyond.

The busiest birds of the morning were clearly the Ruby-Throated Hummingbirds.

There was definitely territory-defending behavior going on — the male hummingbirds would fuss at other males, and the females would fuss at other females. This behavior wasn’t limited to gender, however — I didn’t get a single picture of a Tufted Titmouse this trip simply because the male hummers kept driving them off!

On the other hand, I felt lucky to catch a picture of another bird species.

I’m not sure of the exact ID, but I believe it is a type of Flycatcher. It watched me for awhile and took off before I could see its wing markings.

The bees were busy that morning, too, but I’ll save them for another post. And I’ll be heading back to East Texas in just a few days — who knows what other bird species I’ll get to see!

Purple Martin Party

Posted on July 9, 2011 by Meredith

Last night I piled my family into the car to partake in the social event of the summer season — the annual mass congregation of Purple Martins. The birds gather in numbers from tens of thousands to hundreds of thousands in such roosts all over the eastern half of North America. The groups are so large that they actually can be monitored with Doppler radar. Austin is lucky enough to have a large roosting spot right here.

In a typical summer, the Purple Martins will start gathering in our area around mid-July, with birds migrating toward South America group by group, until by August they are gone, off to their winter home. However, with the extended drought we’ve been having, this is no typical summer. The birds are roosting earlier than usual, and I suspect they’ll leave earlier than usual, as well. Only the birds know how long they intend to stick around.

Most roosts can be found near water sources, as the numbers of insects are far greater there. I’m not sure why our Purple Martins roost near Highland Mall in the middle of urban central, but they’ve been going there for years. Of course, their roosting locale is also a favorite grackle and starling spot, contributing to many a person’s confusion about what kinds of birds they are seeing, especially because Austinites are used to the familiar gatherings of grackles and starlings each evening at dusk. However, the tell-tale graceful swoops and dives of the Purple Martins as they soar in the sky to find insects make them easy to distinguish from the clumsier flights of the larger dark birds, which instead forage on the ground for food.

If you watch the video above, you’ll get a sample of how utterly incredible the Austin roost is. Purple Martins, by the way, are North America’s largest swallow. And if you want to see some absolutely adorable baby Purple Martins, check out my previous Purple Martin post.

Enter the Skeksis

Posted on May 27, 2011 by Meredith

Poor little bald cardinal, photographed during an unfortunate, yet temporary, loss of head feathers.

I feel a little guilty for posting such embarrassing photos, but it’s so fascinating. He’s our little Skeksis. I did feel bad for him, though, when another male cardinal showed up next to him in full gorgeous plumage.

Don’t worry, Mr. Cardinal — your feathers will grow back soon!

Striking Artichoke Flowers and Rain Visit the Garden

Posted on May 19, 2011 by Meredith

I was out working in the garden this afternoon when I was happily driven back inside by RAIN!

I stopped to do my happy rain dance, then I figured I might as well take a moment to finish the blog post I started yesterday. So…

I grew artichokes… again. I didn’t manage to eat them… again. I missed that window between “not ready to be harvested” and “you blew it, the ideal picking time is over.” I can’t remember what was going on– maybe Earth Week (busy at my son’s school) — but whatever it was, the artichokes declined to postpone their harvest date for me. However, sometimes such vegetable garden tragedies can lead to something good.

In this case, I discovered that artichokes left to flower produce a gigantic lavender bloom worthy of their prehistoric-looking foliage.

It’s giant, it’s purple, it’s spectacular, and it’s in my garden! The bees love it. They dig deep past the petals to reach the pollen, and their cute little bee butts stick out. I wish I’d caught a picture.

A lone male monarch stopped by — I was glad to be able to offer it nectar beverages, as its wings were not in the best of shape. It looked like the wings had been that way since emerging from the chrysalis. Poor thing, that must make flying long distances a challenge.

Above, the monarch rests on Purple Coneflower, which are the tallest they ever been, not that you can tell from the picture. But I know this to be true — third year’s a charm!

The hummingbirds are busy, busy. They are in full feisty mode, with the males going at each other to lay claim on the feeders, while the females sneak in for a drink.

We hung a new feeder on the patio — it’s so pleasant to sit and relax and have the hummers come hang out with us.

We’ve had numerous fledglings visiting the feeders. This young male cardinal is rather mottled-looking as it transitions to its bright red colors.

See its dark beak? Baby cardinals’ beaks start out dark, then become orange as they get a little older.

Our baby owl has fledged, by the way. We knew that Screech Owls fledge soon after they appear at a cavity’s entrance, but that didn’t stop us from hoping our little cutie would hang around for awhile. Here’s the last picture I took of it on the day it fledged.

Fly well, little Screech Owl!

Our Baby Owl

Posted on May 15, 2011 by Meredith

Like expectant grandparents, we’ve been eagerly keeping an eye on our owl house for two months or so. We’ve had an owl watching us almost every day, and I even went so far as to complain about how she didn’t ever do anything except watch us every day.

Because she never seemed to move, we couldn’t really predict whether she had a baby in the box with her. We also never noticed a second owl around, no matter how hard we tried to search for it. We were starting to think we’d built a bachelor(ette) pad instead of an owl nursery.

As it turns out, our resident owl was, in fact, taking care of her young. Today we got our first real glimpse of her baby.

The little one was definitely skittish, so I took my time approaching it for its first photo op.

It’s already sporting some tufts. From what I’ve read, we should expect it to fledge fairly quickly.

Could there be another baby or two in the nesting box? Whoooo knows? But we’ll be on the lookout!

Wildlife Spotted… and Spotted Wildlife

Posted on May 4, 2011 by Meredith

Say what?!!

That owl up there is driving us crazy, though I’m sure it would say the same about us. All day long it sticks its head out of the nesting-box hole and does NOTHING. Nothing except occasionally stick its head out farther to see what we’re up to in the yard (which usually is us sticking our heads around trees to see what the owl is doing). Just go ahead and show us some baby owlets or bring in a rat or make an eerie screech owl noise or something, would you? We’re so happy our screech owl is here, but it’s just weird that it hangs out of the hole all day long.

That being said, I have a feeling I’ve been unnecessarily blaming our frogs for causing the odd shortage of our once-abundant toads. Most likely I should be blaming the screech owl. After all, we’ve apparently set up a rather nice buffet table for the owl, which watches over the pond from its vantage point up in the nesting box. The male toads come out at night, innocently croaking loudly to attract a potential mate, and it’s just possible that their call instead acts like a beacon to bring the silent predator from above right to them.

Check out who this green frog is watching — someone better be careful!

Of course, it’s entirely possible the pond frogs really are to blame — they are certainly not above cannibalizing (toads are actually frogs, you know, and frogs will eat frogs). It appears we have created the ultimate frog haven in our hot-tub pond. The frogs spread themselves out across the water (so as to not get too close to their hungry neighbor, I assume), and then they wait for whatever moving morsel dares to venture close. I’m still trying to determine the species we have — at the very least, we have both American Bullfrogs and Southern Leopard frogs, but the markings are odd on a couple of them.

And they are all getting big. The largest bullfrog is getting downright scary (cue “Jaws” music).

I still have to get in the pond to get acorns and such out of it — my spring cleaning is way overdue — don’t I look forward to it with Gigantic Freaka-Frogazoid there joining me! I’m just kidding — I love frogs.

Of course, also on the toad hunt might be this Checkered Garter Snake — it has a perfect waiting spot among the pond rocks. Our garden habitat is an ecosystem at work, that’s for sure. All the same, I suggest all toads immediately head to our front-yard pond. It’s smaller, but a little toad-safer for the time being.

Here’s one toad we found alive and well — hop and hide, little one! Hop and hide!

Nearby, a cardinal flew in for a seed and a close-up. Blue Jays splash in the birdbaths, hummingbirds dance in sync together, doves play follow-the-leader… and still our screech owl sits in its nesting-box hole.

All around town, the wildlife and native plants are doing their best to handle drought conditions. Check out this beauty seen at McKinney Roughs — it’s a Great Purple Hairstreak.

Don’t see any purple on it? That’s because there isn’t any. By the way, this little beauty’s host plant is Mistletoe — consider it a plus side to the parasitic plant.

This next image is of a beautiful little Southern Emerald Moth — however, its wings were up instead of laying flat, and it didn’t seem able to fly, poor thing. This is the second time I’ve seen this moth in the same condition at the same locale, Hornsby Bend.

The Retamas (also called Jerusalem Thorn) lining the ponds at Hornsby Bend are in full bloom right now. These airy-yet-thorny native Texas plants tend to spread when they get plenty of water, but the bees and birds sure love them. It’s understandable. Beautiful yellow blooms and thorns for protection — sounds great to me.

Bees, generally speaking, do love the color yellow. Bees visiting Prickly Pear blossoms go a little crazy with it — they act almost drunk.

But the winner of the bee-attracting flowers right now is the blooming century plant down at Natural Gardener.

I think several hives of honeybees came to visit.

Too bad I couldn’t climb up there to get a closer look. To put the height in perspective, take a look at this:

Time to get back out in the garden while the temperatures are still pleasant with our temporary cold front — hopefully more wildlife will join me!

Chirp If You Love Purple Martin Families

Posted on May 1, 2011 by Meredith

I have a newfound passion, and that’s Purple Martins.

Purple Martins are the largest North American swallow, and they share a special relationship with humans — those birds living east of the Rockies, for example, are completely dependent on humans for housing. This history starts long ago with Native Americans setting out gourds to attract the PMs, which in turn offered alerts to snakes and other dangers. Today, because invasive English House Sparrows and European Starlings aggressively compete for natural cavities, the Eastern Purple Martins fully shifted to human-made housing. However, House Sparrows and Starlings try to occupy these as well, so it’s important that humans actively manage the housing to keep out the aggressive species.

Yesterday, we had the pleasure of participating in nest checks down at Hornsby Bend with Andy and Julia, the landlords of the Purple Martin gourds there. What all do PM landlords do? They help ensure the success of Purple Martin nests by evicting House Sparrows and Starlings, keeping the housing systems in shape, providing pine straw or other nesting material, monitoring egg and young counts, providing protection from predators, replacing mite-infested nests, closing housing after migration, and cleaning and reopening housing in late winter for the next PM season.

As you view these photos, remember that Purple Martins have a unique relationship with humans which enables landlords to keep a close eye on the health of the birds. Please don’t handle other bird species’ nests, eggs, hatchlings, or fledglings you have at home. However, if you find a fallen fledgling, it’s okay to try to put it back into or near the nest, disturbing the nest or family as little as possible.

The Purple Martin young at Hornsby Bend were in different stages of development, from egg to about 11-13 days old. Many were newly hatched.

Here are the eggs of one nest — their solid-looking appearance indicates that hatching time is near.

When the babies hatch, they are tiny and featherless, and they have closed eyes and a transparent belly.

You can the see the yolk sac here, which the baby will use for additional nutrients in addition to the insects the parents provide.

In just a few days, the babies’ skin darkens, and they start to grow feathers.

These babies are about 5 days old, with visible feather tracts , darkened skin, and pin feathers beginning to show. Their eyes are just hinting at starting to open — if you look closely, you can see the slits.

Over the next few days, the eyes will fully open and the pin feathers will emerge even farther.

Pretty soon they actually start to look like birds, though my first thought when I saw this picture was that someone had stuck a Lost-World Pteranadon in the nest. I guess that mouth gets big fast to take on bigger insects.

To determine the age of some of the babies, we compared them to a set of photo charts. The babies of this nest are likely 11 days old, based on this one’s feather development and size. Its tail feathers are just now emerging from their sheaths.

It was Hatching Day in one nest, and this was soooooo exciting.

This little baby is still wearing its egg “diaper.”

The other three eggs in the same nest were getting ready to hatch — we could feel movement inside the eggs, and the joy of it was beyond words.

As heart-thrilling as the whole experience was for me, the best part was watching my almost-eleven-year-old son help count and determine the age of the birds, as well as getting to feel the tiny movements of the soon-to-hatch eggs. He was clearly moved by the whole experience, and he’s eager to go back to help Andy and Julia. By the way, we’re actually PM managers ourselves — we’re helping to get the Purple Martin colony established in the new gourds at my son’s school. I can’t wait to have a full colony of Purple Martins there!

To find out how you can help protect Purple Martins and whether your site is a good place to set up PM housing, be sure to visit the Purple Martin Conservation Association for a tremendous amount of information.

Oh, and… chirp! (see title)

Quest for a Painted Bunting

Posted on April 28, 2011 by Meredith

This morning I headed south to join a group of birders at the Wildflower Center. Since I don’t have a dedicated set of binoculars (yet), I can’t officially call myself a “real” birder, based on my personal definition, but given that I got up at 6am to drive across town to trek along trails and into woods to find our avian friends, I guess I might as well stop fooling myself. Our guide Travis loaned me a set of binoculars, though — thank goodness, because my zoom lens only goes so far. Note to self: Add birding binoculars to my wish list. Might as well add a bigger zoom to that list, too.

Western Scrub-Jay

Today we hoped to see the Painted Buntings that have arrived at the Wildflower Center, but of course we took a full walk around to see as many birds as possible. The key to finding a bird on a wildlife walk among trees and shrubs is to keep a keen eye watching for movement and a careful ear listening and distinguishing bird calls. Even then, there’s no guarantee you’ll see what the person next to you caught a mere glimpse of, and there were several birds we never saw at all but only heard. There’s a whole trick to finding birds through binoculars, too.

Northern Cardinals and Northern Mockingbirds greeted us the most with song, though I suspect it had far less to do with us and far more to do with their mates.

Among the 30 species of birds we caught glimpses of or recognized the sounds of were White-Eyed Vireo, Bewick’s Wren, Downy and Ladder-Backed Woodpeckers, Brown-Headed Cowbird, Lesser Goldfinch, Cooper’s Hawk, Estern Phoebe, Bobwhite Quail, and oh so many more.

As hard as it was to find the birds, even with binoculars, it was even harder to get a picture with the camera. Here is the only evidence I have of the Black-Throated Green Warbler we saw — it moved just as I got into position to get a photo:

This next pitiful picture hides a Yellow Warbler. See it?

Alas. At least the nearby flowers cooperated. You know me, I couldn’t help but appreciate the beauty of the flowers while I listened to the birds.

Above, the ever-beautiful Purple Coneflowers commanded attention from their blue backdrop of Mealy Blue Sage, and below, a bee took a pollen bath in a Winecup.

A Carpenter Bee took a rest on Antelope Horn Milkweed.

But I digress.

The Great Horned Owlets continue to do well, and we took a few moments to visit them, being cautious not to linger too long.

There are three of them, but the prime hiding spot is behind the sotol, so capturing a picture of all three at once was a challenge. I felt lucky to get “the eye” of the third.

I’m cheating here — the above images and the one below I actually took two days ago during another visit to the Center — look how big the owls are growing. I think the one standing tall in the image below might actually be the youngest baby — see how the others are farther developed in their plumage? The Center’s staff is keeping an extra watch on it.

Now take a look at the owls this morning. With the cooler temperature, they were fluffed up, but what a difference in plumage two days can make.

We didn’t see Mama Owl (or Papa Owl, for that matter), but I’m sure she was watching us from afar. She no longer stays in the nest with her babies — they are so big! — but she continues to feed them during off hours.

As for Painted Buntings, we heard several but only saw a couple from quite far away. They just didn’t care to let us get close. This very-zoomed-in photo, my friends, is the best I have to show you.

But we saw them — that’s what counts!