Bird & Birding Links for the City of Lubbock, Texas, West Texas, and the South Plains

I'll update this post from time to time.   A collection of links can be very useful.

Local Bird Links:  Lubbock & West Texas
Keep in mind that "West Texas" is NOT west-most Texas on the map.   The real west Texas we call the Trans-Pecos region, west of the Pecos River, that includes the Big Bend and El Paso area, that are in the Mountain Standard Time zone while the rest of Texas is Central time.   "West Texas" as commonly used refers to an area beginning somewhere west of Dallas/Ft. Worth [Dallas/Ft. Worth are in "North Texas" despite the fact that the panhandle of Texas including Amarillo is still farther north] west to the New Mexico border.   

Lubbock is on the "South Plains" and the southerly part of the "High Plains."   We also say that Lubbock and other South Plains locations are "on the Caprock," referring to the geology that puts us at around 3500 feet altitude.   Both east and west there is an escarpment where the South Plains or Caprock falls off to lower altitudes.      

"Llano Estacado" (Spanish for "staked plains") refers to a portion of the South Plains and the term goes back to about 1550 and the explorer Coronado who passed through this area in his quest for gold and the Seven Cities of Cibola, it being supposed that the Coronado expedition found the lack of landmarks confusing and resorted to putting stakes in the ground to mark their path, like the trail of breadcrumbs in the fairy tale or the string used by Theseus in the Labyrinth.    OR, it may be that the High Plains escarpment looked from a distance like a palisade or staked wall.      Spanish artifacts from that period have been found within 100 miles of Lubbock and are thought to mark campsites for the Coronado expedition.]   

The "South Plains" includes a portion of New Mexico.   

City of Lubbock website:    https://mylubbock.us/departmental-websites/departments/parks-recreation/get-outdoors/birding


ABA Birding News:   http://birding.aba.org/mobiledigest/TX#1003716    The hotline, the latest reports on what was seen where in Texas.   Look for Lubbock area updates.   In particular, check out http://birding.aba.org/mobiledigest/TX#1053728

Area bird checklists.  http://www.bafrenz.com/birds/Region1.htm

http://lubbockcountybirds.blogspot.com/   This blog was started by expert local birders but went stagnant in 2013.   Pity.

If you want up-to-date info on what is seen where,  eBird is good (see link below) or ABA Birding News (link above)

The Llano Estacado Audubon Society Facebook page.  https://www.facebook.com/LlanoEstacadoAudubonSociety    For a period of time before I started this blog the Llano Estacado Auduybon Facebook site was inactive.   That is no longer true.   They have meetings, give a monthly birding tour at Clapp Park, and respond to sightings and comments.

Permian Basin [Midland, Odessa, SE NM area] birds.   https://www.facebook.com/West-Texas-birds-1117994948306150/

Local bird photos on Flickr:   https://www.flickr.com/photos/67238923@N03/
West Texas bird photos.   http://www.pbase.com/davidmcd/west_texas&page=all 
Texas birds.  http://www.pbase.com/dadas115/00texas_birds_2&page=all

Birdwatching Daily's info on Lubbock's Clapp Park:  http://www.birdwatchingdaily.com/hotspots/159-clapp-park-lubbock-texas/

National and International Bird Links:

iNaturalist is a worldwide nature observation site.   Membership is free. 

eBird is here:  http://ebird.org/content/ebird/    eBird has a lot of bird info but is primarily a clearing house for species counts.   Want to look up your city and see where birders were counting birds and what they saw?   Find the local hotspots?   This is the place.   Want to post your own observations?   Set up a free account and post away!

Once upon a time local newspapers would publish the results of annual bird counts.   Haven't seen that in the Lubbock Avalanche-Journal newspaper lately.   Years ago I'd clip the count info out and put it in my Peterson guides.  Still useful because pre-internet bird counts are generally not available on the net and old bird counts show changes in bird populations.

For the hardcore birder, see     http://birdingonthe.net/ for more links.

Bird forums:    http://www.birdforum.net/forum.php    http://www.whatbird.com/forum/

Birdwatching Daily:    http://www.birdwatchingdaily.com/

Various:   http://www.birds.cornell.edu/Page.aspx?pid=1478    https://www.allaboutbirds.org/guide/search/

Texas Parks & Wildlife species list: https://tpwd.texas.gov/huntwild/wild/wildlife_diversity/nongame/listed-species/

Texas Parks & Wildlife Magazine's Checklist of Birds, available for download:   https://www.tpwmagazine.com/birding/media/bird_checklist_texas.pdf

I think I saw a bird checklist for the South Plains from Texas P&W, but haven't been able to find the link.

Texas Parks & Wildlife Birding info:  https://tpwd.texas.gov/state-parks/parks/things-to-do/birding-in-state-parks

AND of course, printed bird guides.    Texas is in the middle between guides to the Eastern USA and Western USA.   In 1960 Roger Tory Peterson published a guide to Texas birds, recognizing this fact.   In general, a guide to Western USA birds will cover most of what you might see around Lubbock and the South Plains.   But be aware, not always!    While birders often prefer the Sibley and Kaufman guides, I love the Natl Geographic guide, and a 7th Ed came out late last year.  And I'll use the 1966 Golden Guide occasionally and love its compact size. 

About Me

There's something about birds that attracts lonely men.   Think Birdman of Alcatraz a/k/a Robert Stroud..   Color, freedom, song, What's not to like when your own life is drab and aimless and confined?

So it is with me.   I won't go into the particulars of my life except to say that I fit the profile.

Actually I've been interested in birds some for over 50 years.   Got interested in science as a preschooler.  My grandfather taught at one-room schools back a hundred years ago and he along with his well illustrated Websters Unabridged taught me about science before I started school.  Then in college I majored in biology.

Never got interested much in identifying birds though.   Back 20 years ago I picked up an old Peterson field guide for a song at a used book sale.    Last month I came across that Peterson's 1960 guide to Western birds and found that back in the mid 1990s I started a birding life list.    Forgot seeing some of those species.   I've not yet counted species I've seen.   Not many;  I'd guess well under a hundred, including some dubious IDs from 20 years ago.

Now, thanks to motivation (lonely man, drab life, etc.) plus available time plus having good field guides and good binoculars for once, I am in high clover peeping at birds.   Get to play the voyeur.  "I like to watch," as Peter Sellers said,

Backyard birds for now, because my movements are constrained.  I dump seed in the feeders and when I can go out to watch or peek out with binoculars.

Good guides specifically being the National Geographic Guide 6th Ed that I bought new, plus a 1966 Golden guide that cost me $.50, and binocs mainly being Nikon Prostaffs, sharp enough and with sufficient eye relief to use with glasses.

I've accumulated more guides and binoculars than those, but none are as convenient and easy to use.

Maybe one day I'll number the birds on my life list.    Or not.

Bluejay

Don't see many bluejays around here.   Last fall there were several squawking around the neighborhood like a band of juvenile delinquents trashing mailboxes.   Jays move around a lot and don't come to my feeders.   They prefer fancier food.  And when I hear one, by the time I fetch my binoculars, it's long gone.  Frenetic ADD bird.

Jays are smart.   Last week one lit outside on a branch of the butterfly bush and stayed there for maybe 5 minutes.   Time enough for a pic.

I thought the jay was making like a woodpecker and probing the woody branch for bugs.   Actually as the first photo shows he is holding a pecan between his feet and pecking at it like a pile driver to get at the nut meat.    As I said, smart bird,   The pecan presumably came from my tree 50 feet away or from a neighbor's tree in the next block.    My pecan tree btw sprouted form a nut dropped there by a bird.   I have two more seedling pecans, both volunteer, one of which likely sprouted from a pecan dropped by a bird.

It's said bluejays like peanuts, and if they can crack a pecan, they can sure shell peanuts.    Maybe I'll put put some unshelled peanuts and see what happens.

I have seen them going after ripe grapes on the vine.   I had a good crop of apples this year and didn't see jays molesting the apples.   The fig crop this year was a bust because the plants froze back to the ground.   Some birds go for apples or figs, not sure about jays.

Other pics taken the other day:

These photos were taken through the dirty glass of a storm door, and show glare where a bar was in front of the 70mm objective lens of my Nikkor 300mm telephoto.   Badly underexposed because I had the lens & camera set for a sunny yard and not a shaded one;  one of the shortcomings of using a 1970s vintage lens & teleconverter on a modern digital camera.

Incredible Mimicry

One of the ways that birds are the most incredible form of animal life is their song, and a most incredible form of bird song is mimicry.    Check this out:

Consider the size of the bird brain.    Consider the aural perception, memory and processing as well as the physical structures of the syrinx that made this mimicry possible.   

A Lubbock Birdway

Imagine a continuous birdway across the City of Lubbock, with bushes, trees and other cover specifically provided for birds, along with feeders.

Today in Front and Back Yards

Birds in my backyards include male and female pyrhuloxia -- perhaps a second female, the two resident curvebill thrashers that have been here since 2013 or earlier, a dark-eyed slate-colored junco seen in the front yard, a blue jay seen in the front yard (both on the budleia bush), white winged doves and eurasian collared doves, house finches of both sexes, possibly a male purple finch, and plenty of house sparrows.

The blue jay I spotted doing a woodpecker imitation pecking at a thick branch of the butterfly bush but it turned out he was working on a pecan from my tree across the street some 70 feet away and not boring holes in the wood.

The cardinal has not been seen since the morning of Tuesday, Jan. 5, about the time most of the snow melted.   And the day before this guy was spotted perching in my back yard right between two feeders:

Probable Cooper's Hawk, though the cape on the head plus the tail feather markings might indicate a Sharp-Shinned Hawk.       Keep in mind that I live well inside the city limits albeit only a mile from yellowhouse canyon and have never in a half century seen a hawk on these premises or close overhead.   

Here is the usual activity around that feeder behind the hawk:

Pecking order:   curvebill thrashers are top dogs, the pushy little cardinal next up, the male pyrrhuloxia, the female pyrrhuloxia.  The male does not tolerate the presence of femal pyrrhuloxia but chases when they come near.

This afternoon I glassed the fenceline in my yard across the street where there are cactus and shrubs and saw, through 8X bins at 70 feet a black bird amongst the house sparrows.   So far unidentified.   It was sparrow size and mixing with the sparrows and plain and dark except for some lighter texturing on the wing coverts.   Possibilities are --male lark bunting (I did not see white on the bird when it flew, so that's doubful), a juvenile painted redstart (but we are out of the usual range), a black-faced grassquit (waaay out of usual range), a male gray bunting (waay out of its range), or a male blue bunting (waay out of its range).   Keeping in mind I was a ways off when I saw this bird, best to suspend judgment, but I want to take a look at nearby e-bird sightings.   

This was not the only unidentified bird I've seen.   One sparrow-like bird I saw three times last fall with binocs at short range had a crest and upright stance and might possibly have been a lincoln's but there were problems with that ID.   

Magic!

11:30 this evening I was outside and heard a sound and looked up:   Eleven geese flew overhead, visible in the lights of the town.

Birds are magic!   Ethereal.  Otherworldly.   Transforming to those of us who look at them and listen to them, creatures of color and song and motion.

Like us they tend to be visual, unlike our smell-brained ancestors.  And the information packaged in their tiny brains is amazing!

Instincts by the gigabyte, and the ability to learn.  Some birds are toolnakers, like those crows in New Caledonia that can manufacture tools.   The African Gray Parrot can learn human words and, it seems, may even reason verbally with them.   Their heads are like an advanced microchip replete with RAM and ROM, while we humans resemble early computers built out of vacuum tubes, piloting around clumsy massive bodies.