Hawk, Owl, Brown Thrasher

Just after dawn this morning I got out of my car at the new Lake Creek Trail parking lot and I was actually a little bit cold in a t-shirt and light pants. The first birds I heard were Blue Jays and something loud and large-sounding that I didn't recognize. I walked a little ways down the trail near the low water crossing and I saw that it was a first-year Cooper's Hawk. I've never seen one vocalizing so much. (In fact, maybe I've never seen one vocalizing at all!). A few minutes later after checking the creek and not finding anything interesting, I returned and flushed a Great Horned Owl! It flew right over me and across the creek. Maybe that's why the Blue Jays and Cooper's Hawk were making so much noise. The Blue Jays saw it too, and followed the owl across the creek. I found it again in an uncomfortable-looking perch and got this poor photo:


This was a great way to start my morning, and now I was really enjoying the cool weather and the anticipation of finding some new fall birds. Near the end of Briar Hollow I found a Ruby-crowned Kinglet, a Wilson's Warbler, and another warbler I just couldn't identify. Then I heard a call note that sounded like a Mockingbird, but not quite right. I suspected it was a Brown Thrasher. These are related to Mockingbirds but we only get a few of them in the neighborhood during the winter. They are real skulkers and usually stay in the low dense brush. I kept hearing this call note and finally saw the bird and confirmed it was a Brown Thrasher, my first of the season. I staked it out for a few minutes and got these pictures when it finally came out into the open.



I observed at least 1 more Brown Thrasher on the flood plain property and there might have been 4. I kept seeing brown long-tailed birds flying into the foliage that did not look quite like female Northern Cardinals. Some other fall migrants and returning winter resident birds I saw were 2 Indigo Buntings, several House Wrens, 2 Yellow Warblers, 2 Blue-gray Gnatcatchers, and several Eastern Phoebes. I also saw a flock of 14 ducks fly over, heading south, but they were too high and fast for me to identify. The rest of the morning was fun, but increasingly warm. Even though I started out a little bit cold, I ended my birding sweating from the heat, as usual.

Roller Pigeons

On Saturday morning August 23 I was doing what I usually do, birding the neighborhood. Walking down Broadmeade I saw a few pigeons fly over the tree line. (Rock Pigeons are very common in the city but a bit unusual in the neighborhood.) While I watched, one of them did a couple somersaults in the air and kept flying. What?! I didn't quite believe my eyes and continued my birding. But when I got home I had an email titled "Roller Pigeon" from my neighbor and fellow birder Steven McDonald saying:

I'm pretty sure I just saw one of these, it was a pigeon flying over the backyard and then it did a couple of tumbles and regained it's flight. I only saw it do it once, but from everything I've read about them that's exactly the behavior they exhibit.

That made me remember the bird I saw, and reassured me that I wasn't hallucinating! Over the next few days Steven reported seeing a few more. Last weekend on Sunday morning I finally saw a group of them myself. I was on the Broadmeade bridge near Meadowheath looking west and saw about 20 pigeons in flight, circling around a small area probably over Moorberry St. As I watched, 1 or 2 birds at a time would drop from the flock, flipping in midair, and then start flying again and rejoin the others. What a sight!

So I guess someone near Moorberry Street breeds and flies Roller Pigeons. If that's you, I'd love to hear more about it! (But I wonder if these birds might be easy prey for the many Cooper's Hawks and Sharp-shinned Hawks we have here in the winter.)

Update: This morning (9/27/2008) I was birding in the same area and got the above picture of the Roller Pigeons.

Street Birding

This morning I got a late start, leaving the house a little after 8:00. I decided to go for a shorter birding walk than usual and stay on the streets. Instead of walking down to Lake Creek Trail, I just walked down Stillforest, up Meadowheath, and then took Sherbourne back. I was excited to find 3 species of migrating warblers, and all were first-of-season sightings for me. On Stillforest I came across 2 Nashville Warblers and on Sherbourne there was a nice small flock of birds that included a Black-throated Green Warbler and an Orange-crowned Warbler.

On Woodmere I got these photos of 2 common year-round resident birds. (In fact, both are on my NASWC Top 20 Bird List.) Here is a Carolina Chickadee:


And this is a female Downy Woodpecker:

Fall Continues

I enjoyed a cool morning today birding the Lake Creek Trail, from the new parking lot at the end of Braes Valley, downstream to the last dam on the creek. I found 48 species, but not a single Baltimore Oriole. I guess the peak of their fall migration through our area is over. But I did find some other interesting birds. This White-eyed Vireo was singing and actively foraging near the end of Briar Hollow. I was pleased to get this picture of it. (This is about as sharp a picture of a small bird as my compact camera can take.) A few of these birds breed in our neighborhood over the summer. They only get their white eyes as adults. So because this bird's eyes are not as bright white as others I've seen, I wonder if this bird hatched this summer.

I counted 3 Ladder-backed Woodpeckers this morning. I'm usually lucky to see even one. It's a very common woodpecker, but in my experience it's rare in the neighborhood. I think this is because it prefers more open and drier habitat than we have here. But besides this morning, in the past few months I have been seeing and hearing them in the neighborhood more often. So maybe more are using our neighborhood than before. (Or maybe I'm just getting better at finding them!) I found a male and a female in a patch of woods by the creek just downstream of the T&C playing fields. I got this picture of the male:


This pair of woodpeckers was in loose association with a few fall migrants including a male Wilson's Warbler (the only warbler I saw this morning), a Least Flycatcher, and the first House Wren I've seen this season. Nearby I was excited to see an Olive-sided Flycatcher hawking insects from the top of a dead tree. This bird breeds in the coniferous forests of the Rocky Mountains and the boreal forest in Canada, and it winters in Panama and the Andes of South America. We only get to see them in the spring and the fall as a few pass through. Here's the picture I got:


In the woods between the last dam and Anderson Mill Road I found a Carolina Chickadee, a Blue-gray Gnatcatcher, and a Ruby-crowned Kinglet foraging together in the upper tree canopy. The Kinglet was also a first-of-season sighting for me. Ruby-crowned Kinglets and House Wrens are winter residents here and south into Mexico and Central America. The kinglets are especially common in the trees of our neighborhood during the winter. So it was great to finally see one again after the long hot summer!

Baltimore Orioles!

I spent about 4 hours birding the neighborhood this morning, hoping to find some fall migrants and maybe even some coastal birds temporarily displaced by Hurricane Ike. I had no luck finding coastal birds, and south-bound migrants were pretty sparse. Except for Baltimore Orioles. I counted 41 while I was out! Most of the orioles I found were in 4 different groups, 3 of the groups along the Lake Creek Trail and 1 near Meadowheath and Haversham. According to eBird's data, right now is the peak of this bird's fall migration through Travis and Williamson Counties. It sure was fun seeing them all. While I was walking through the T&C playing fields, 2 or 3 times I put my binoculars on a medium-sized flying bird and was dazzled by a bright black and orange male Baltimore Oriole in the mid-morning sun.

But they were hard to see, and even harder to photograph. The orioles were very good at staying inconspicuous. They didn't make much noise, and never let me get very close. They were also usually behind 1 or 2 layers of leaves in the tree canopy. Even when I estimated 1 tree had about 10 birds in it, good direct looks were hard to come by. So I have yet to get a really good picture of a Baltimore Oriole in the neighborhood. But here's what I came up with today. The first is a female, the rest are males.

FOS Sharp-shinned Hawk

I spent a little over an hour birding Lake Creek Trail this evening. Most of the interesting birds were right by the parking lot. I watched 14 Baltimore Orioles fly over me and briefly stop in a nearby cottonwood tree. There were 2 very bright males in the group. An Eastern Wood-pewee briefly came out of some dense brush. And I got a quick look at a Sharp-shinned Hawk flying over -- the first I've seen this fall. These hawks are very similar to the slightly larger Cooper's Hawk. Both are winter residents in the neighborhood and both specialize in hunting other birds. Near the footbridge there was a nice line of clouds south of the T&C playing fields. I got this picture.

On my way back 3 Common Nighthawks briefly and silently past over me flying low near the trail parking lot.

NASWC Bird Walk

12 people (including me) attended the bird walk this morning -- a new record! I think the most I've had previously was 7. Wow! Maybe the slightly cooler weather brought a few more people out. It was just below 70 degrees when we began at 7:30 AM. We spent almost 3 hours covering less than half a mile from the new Lake Creek Trail parking lot to the footbridge. We found 42 species of birds. Here are a few highlights:

• Just a couple of us got a quick look at a male Blue Grosbeak near the end of Holbrook St.
• Cave Swallows were almost constantly overhead. The most we saw at one time was about 20.
• We got good looks at several Inca Doves, or smallest neighborhood-resident dove. We even got to see the reddish-brown wing patches when they flew. Here's a picture of one I got last weekend:
• Lots of orioles are moving through the area. We saw a few female Orchard Orioles early in the walk and we ran into several small groups of Baltimore Orioles throughout the morning. It was very hard to see these sneaky birds hidden in the leaves, but most of us got at least one brief look at a brilliant male Baltimore Oriole before the walk was over.
  
• We spent at least 30 minutes just standing on the footbridge watching birds. There was a brilliant male Yellow Warbler, 2 Great Crested Flycatchers, 5 or 6 black and yellow Lesser Goldfinches chasing each other around, a male Downy Woodpecker basking on a wire, a male Red-bellied Woodpecker across the creek, and an Eastern Phoebe. My favorite moment was when a first-year Red-shouldered Hawk flew over us clearly showing the light crescents under the ends of its wings. I'm probably leaving something out. This footbridge is a great birding spot!
• On our way back ,near the parking lot there were several interesting birds in the willow trees by the creek including a first-year Mourning Warbler, the first I've seen this season. The other birds were a Least Flycatcher, an Eastern Wood-Pewee, 2 Wilson's Warblers, a Blue-gray Gnatcatcher, and a female Painted Bunting.

We usually cover more ground on these walks, but this morning the best strategy seemed to be to stay in one place and let the birds find us. It worked pretty well I think. And it makes me think about participating in The Big Sit this year, which is coming up on October 12.

100 Mississippi Kites

I was pleased to be able to bird the neighborhood all 3 mornings of this Labor Day weekend. It was worth putting up with the heat and humidity to see fall migration really start to get rolling. Today I started at the Parmer Village development and worked my way upstream on the Lake Creek Trail. At 9:23 AM I came out of a small patch of woods near the last dam on the creek and saw a kettle of about 60 Mississippi Kites high in the sky. It was an amazing sight! (This is the same hawk I got pictures of perched yesterday.) I got this picture that shows only 17 of them. As I watched, they peeled off the kettle and streamed away headed south. For the next 10 minutes I counted about 40 more heading south behind them. Here's a small picture showing their classic profile when soaring.



Otherwise things were relatively quiet. I did find a Bell's Vireo and a Blue Grosbeak in the woods along the creek between the last dam and the T&C playing fields. The Bell's Vireo was a first for the fall and I haven't seen a Blue Grosbeak in the neighborhood since 2006. Plus, in the same area I found a new turtle for my neighborhood list. This Texas River Cooter was in the creek bed walking through the shallow fast-flowing water above one of the dams. Back at home I identified it by the pattern of yellow stripes on its head and neck.