Monday, February 15, 2010

My GBBC

I ended up submitting 4 checklists to the Great Backyard Bird Count (and eBird) from the neighborhood, all on Saturday and Sunday. My girlfriend Moria and I birded Lake Creek Trail on Saturday morning for about 2.5 hours. We started at the Braes Valley parking lot and found 36 species. That evening we took a 30 minute walk around the neighborhood and submitted the birds we saw. Sunday morning I spent about 3 hours birding Lake Creek Trail starting at the Parmer Village end and found 48 species. And that afternoon I spent about a half hour birding in my actual back yard before the cold front blew in. Here are some highlights:
If you had fun submitting your observations for the Great Backyard Bird Count, or you missed it but it sounds like fun, check out eBird. You can make a free account and submit your bird observations all year long. eBird keeps them organized for you so you can keep track of your life list, and the observations contribute to science, just like the GBBC observations.

    7 comments:

    Dan Huber said...

    Some great birds. Love the photos

    dan

    Mikael Behrens said...

    Thanks!

    Annie in Austin said...

    It's so appropriate that even in the confines of your actual back yard you managed to come up with an unusual bird sighting, Mikael!

    Too bad the Virginia Rail resisted the lure of the recording, but what a great list and photos - Moria's Downy Woodpecker in flight was super.

    Annie at the Transplantable Rose

    Kylee Baumle said...

    Wow! The extra time you put into watching for and counting these birds paid big dividends, didn't it? Love it! I hope you don't mind, but I've posted a link to your GBBC post on my own follow-up post here.

    By the way, we saw a Virginia Rail a few years ago in our yard. We live in the middle of what used to be The Great Black Swamp and there are many places still that this bird can hide out. One of our cats had it cornered under a bush and I managed to rescue it and close up the cat in the garage so it could escape. I watched it fly very low to the ground to our backyard, only to have a hawk swoop down and grab it. :-( Such is the circle of life/food chain, I suppose. In any case, I was pretty excited to see this elusive bird! I doubt I'll ever see another.

    Pat said...

    Like your selection of birds.
    Don't see the big ones in our backyard...fun to watch elsewhere.

    Mikael Behrens said...

    Hi Kylee, I'm glad you enjoyed the GBBC. As a cat owner you have a great opportunity to have a positive and direct effect on your local wildlife, by keeping your cats inside. It's safer for the cats too.

    Kylee Baumle said...

    Hi Mikael, I'm afraid that's not possible. We have two inside cats and 7 outside. No way can we keep them all inside, as much as we'd like to. We live in the country and people dump their unwanted cats all the time. We take care of as many as we can and try to find homes for as many as possible, but cats - like rabbits - are plentiful. I wish people would take responsibility for their animals and not just dump them when they tire of them. Spaying and neutering goes a long way towards helping control things, too.
    Amazingly enough, we don't find as many dead birds here as you might thing, with that many cats. I keep the feeders placed high enough and none of them are easily accessible for the cats.
    We do the best we can for both the cats and the birds.