About Those Birds

Well, Happy New Year to all my readers! It’s been a while since my last post, but the holidays are quite busy and I was not able to. I’m starting up again, but I still might not be around a computer everyday for a few weeks. I will try to post as much as I can, though.

The Heard Museum is really an amazing place to bird. They have everything from grasslands to wetlands and its not out in the middle of nowhere. I’ve been to the sanctuary twice now and have seen a great many species on both occasions. The museum is located in McKinney, Texas and for those not familiar with the area – it’s about 45 minutes north of Dallas.

Last week was the Christmas Bird Count, which I participated in. We saw about fifty species or so, but I was not able to stay all day. There’s also monthly bird walks, local bird banding, and migratory bird banding. The Heard is also considered an important birding area according to the Audubon Society.

If you’re in the area of Dallas or McKinney or Plano or even Allen – then you should definitely take a few hours and visit the Heard. They have a beautiful piece of land and its not something to miss!

Click here to visit the birding part of their website. It also includes a checklist of the species that are seen at the sanctuary.

I participated in my first Christmas Bird Count on Tuesday. It was a great experience and I was out with some really good birders, which is good because I’m not. It was really fun and I would totally do it again next year. The only downside was that it was cold, windy, and raining. Also, we were standing on a hill looking for oystercatchers while there was thunder and lighting. So safe. For the most part – we car birded, but we still saw a lot even though we couldn’t get the scope on anything.

The part we birded in was Virginia Point, the wetlands alongside I-45 before the causeway to Galveston, a superfund site (awesome, I know), and a water treatment plant which had some great ducks.

Here are the birds that I saw on Tuesday.

• Red-winged blackbird
• Osprey (we saw a few and we saw one catch a fish)
• Tricolored heron
• Double crested cormorant
• Some hybrid ducks
• Mourning dove
• White ibis
• Great egret
• Gadwall
• American coot
• Loggerhead shrike
• Spotted sandpiper
• Sanderling
• Killdeer
• Caspian tern
• Ring-billed gull
• Black-bellied plover
• Brown pelican
• Common loon
• Common goldeneye
• Red-tailed hawk
• Herring gull
• Crested caracara
• Whimbrel
• Marsh wren
• Palm warbler
• Snowy egret
• Common merganser
• White pelican (something other than brown! finally)
• Eastern meadowlark
• Northern harrier
• Roseate spoonbill
• American oystercatcher
• Lesser scaup
• Savannah sparrow
• Least tern
• Ruddy duck
• Black-necked stilt
• Blue-winged teal
• Red-breasted merganser
• Cooper’s hawk
• Northern shoveler
• Western sandpiper
• American avocet
• Falcon species (we couldn’t tell which)
• Tree swallow
• Cave swallow
• Cliff swallow
• Black skimmer
• Bufflehead
• Laughing gull
• Sprague’s pipit
• Great blue heron
• European starling
• Northern pintail
• Mottled duck
• Eastern phoebe
• Lesser yellowlegs
• And even a nutria (not a bird)

For the most part it’s a pretty good list considering the conditions. Some of the birds I had never even seen before, which makes it even more worthwhile.

A Chuck-Will’s-Widow, which is a large nightjar, is the first bird I have ever held. It’s a medium sized bird, but its extremely light and surprisingly soft. I never realized how soft feathers were, they are so nice to touch.

Yesterday, I volunteered with the Gulf Coast Bird Observatory (GCBO) for the annual Hawk Watch on Smith Point. The other Hawk Watch partners include Hawk Watch International and Texas Parks and Wildlife Department. Not only were we watching for hawks, we were banding birds and attempting to band hawks as well. A cold front had moved in the day before and yesterday was on the chilly side, but the mosquitoes were still out in high numbers. The weather was very cloudy and mildly windy, not the best day for watching or catching hawks. The hawks did come out after a while and we did see huge numbers of hawks as they made their migration to the south. Even though no hawks were caught, a large number of small birds were caught in the mist nets. I was able to help with removing the birds from the nets and taking them to the banders. This was an amazing job and I would definitely do it again if I had the chance. The little birds seemed so delicate when I was removing them from the nets, but they are very hardy little creatures. Some would try to bite (didn’t hurt at all) and some would defecate and they all made a lot of noise because I’m sure its not the best experience. They’re alright though, they didn’t get hurt. Overall, it was an amazing day and completely worth it. The only downside – the two hour drive there and the two hour drive back and having mosquitoes bites all over my face, scalp, hands, and wrists. That’s not fun at all. It looks like I have hives, though I would still do it again. Bird banding (or helping get the birds for banding) is great fun. I took a lot of pictures and I hope you enjoy them!

The birds I was able to see:

-Cooper’s hawk

-House wren

-Grey catbird

-Rufous hummingbird (they were at a feeder on the hawk tower)

-Least flycatcher

-Peregrine falcon

-Brown thrasher

-Nashville warbler

-Crested caracara

-Wilson’s warbler

-Chuck-will’s-widow

-Broad-winged hawk

-Osprey

-Sharp-shinned hawk

-Eastern wood pewee

-American redstart

-Anhinga

-Blue-grey gnatcatcher

-White-eyed vireo

The birds I pulled from the net:

-Nashville warbler 1

-Wilson’s warbler 1

-Blue-grey gnatcatcher 2

-White-eyed vireo 3

The birds that were banded:

-RTHU – ruby-throated hummingbird – 10

-BGGN – blue-grey gnatcatcher – 28

-NAWA – nashville warbler – 3

-WIWA – wilson’s warbler – 5

-RCKI – ruby-crowned kinglet – 1

-WEVI – white-eyed vireo – 28

-HOWR – house wren – 2

-HOWA – hooded warbler – 1

-BAWW – black and white warbler – 3

-AMRE – american redstart – 1

-EAWP – eastern wood pewee – 1

-YBFL – yellow-bellied flycatcher – 1

-LEFL – least flycatcher – 1

-OVEN – ovenbird – 1

-INBU – indigo bunting – 1

-GRCA – grey catbird – 3

-BRTH – brown thrasher – 5

-NOMO – northern mockingbird – 4

-WPWI – whip-poor-will – 3

-NOCA – northern cardinal – 1

-BLJA – blue jay – 3

-CWWI – chuck-will’s-widow – 2

-GCFL – great crested flycatcher – 1

-23 species total

-108 banded

Smith Point, TX:

1. The “A” indicates Smith Point. That’s Galveston Bay and I came from Galveston there at the bottom. It was about a two hour drive up and around the entire bay. I could take the Bolivar Ferry, but its under really bad management and you end up waiting about an hour and a half just to take a 15 minute ferry ride.

   Here are the pictures from yesterday:

   

   Smith Point has open woodland, a good location for many bird species. As you can see the day wasn’t the best.

   

   Not a good picture, but those are hawks. Mostly broad-winged hawks.

   

   These are the mesh bags with the birds inside them – ready for banding.

   

   Mesh bag with bird – don’t know which species.

   

   This is a mist net. You can kind of see it, which is really to whole point.

   

   Here is a mist net with some birds it it.

   

   Bird being removed from the net.

   

   White-eyed vireo glaring up at me while stuck in the mist net.

   

   Wilson’s warbler. As you can see it was just banded.

   

   Juvenile white-eyed vireo.

   

   Least flycatcher.

   

   Least flycatcher.

   

   Least flycatcher.

   

   Chuck-will’s-widow.

   

   Chuck-will’s-widow.

   

   Chuck-will’s-widow. Absolutely gorgeous bird. It has great coloring and beautiful feathers.

   

   Chuck-will’s-widow.

   

   Brown thrasher wing.

   

   Brown thrasher.

   

   Blue-grey gnatcatcher.

   

   Black and white warbler. He was very feisty.

   

   Black and white warbler wing.

   The most common birds of the day were blue-gray gnatcatchers and white-eyed vireos.

   ‘Till next time – enjoy!

Hummingbirds are astronomically small. If you’ve ever seen one up close, say in somebody’s hand, then you cannot really realize how small they are. Now why am I beginning this post with a random fact about hummingbirds? It’s because I went hummingbird banding at the Gulf Coast Bird Observatory or GCBO which is located in Lake Jackson, TX. I volunteered to work there today because on every Saturday during the month of September they what is called the Xtreme Hummingbird Xtravaganza. Ruby-throated Hummingbirds are netted and banded while they are on their way across the Gulf of Mexico to Southern Mexico and Central America. These tiny birds travel thousands of miles to their wintering grounds. If that’s not amazing, then I don’t know what is.

The Catching of the Birds

If you have never seen a bird being banded, then try to. It’s a very interesting experience. Though, to band birds you have to be certified bander, but that doesn’t mean you can’t watch. First off, they have to catch the birds and they do this in two different ways. They set up a hummingbird feeder in bird cage and the door is attached to a string. When a hummingbird flies in the string is pulled and its captured. It is then picked out and put into a mesh bag to be taken to the bander. Another way to catch birds is through a mist net. It’s a bit difficult to describe, but is a net with about five levels and each level has an excess amount of very fine netting. The bird will fly into the net and be caught by the excess netting in the bottom, making a sort of sack. Not many hummingbirds are caught this way, but they did catch two female blue grosbeaks, a chickadee (didn’t get to see which kind), to male cardinals, a female cardinal, about ten or so hummingbirds, and a northern mockingbird. All of these birds were banded.

The Banding of the Birds

After being caught the birds are taken to the bander, where he puts a tiny hummingbird band into special pliers, takes the hummingbird out of the bag, and puts it on. The pliers have ring in them where is small enough to squeeze the band around the bird’s leg, but big enough to not squash the bird’s leg. That would not be good and rather defeat the purpose of banding. The bander then takes a straw and blows on the belly of the hummingbird to see its fat content. The fat content is rated and recorded. The bird is then put into a small tube to be weighed. It weighs about 3 g, which is tiny. The bander then removes the bird and feeds it from some sugar water. The tongue of a hummingbird is so small. They caught a few new hummingbirds, meaning they were born this passed spring or summer, a few males and a female.

The same procedure is used on all the other birds caught today.

Not too many hummingbirds were caught today, which is a bit unfortunate. They caught 45 hummingbirds this passed Tuesday. That would have been amazing to see. Today was awesome because everybody I met wants the same thing I do – to conserve birds. They love birds and don’t want them to go extinct – they actually care. The one bad thing about today was the mosquitoes. They were horrific. So bad that it didn’t matter how much bug spray you put on – they still bit you – even through jeans. They’re monsters. One tip – don’t go into the woods where there is standing water right after a rain. You will be swarmed in a cloud of vicious blood-sucking beasts. But after you get passed that, bird banding is really fun, well to watch anyway. If you can watch it somewhere around you, then by all means go and volunteer or go and watch. You will not be disappointed.

Here are some pictures from today:

‘Till next time – enjoy!