Catching Up Time

Got some catching up to do.   Nothing spectacular seen, mostly the changes of the seasons and slight shift in bird life.

I did see a clay-colored sparrow in the backyard back in September.   Will add a photo or two here when I have the time.   I did get some photos, mostly not sharp because it was an active little sparrow hopping along in the shrubs.  

Couple of weeks ago saw a white crowned sparrow, white quite vivid to the unaided eye from 25 feet, and the black stripes also were vividly black.   Saw the same bird twice, once hopping among low shrub branches and then again within an hour or so at my low platform feeder.

From my backyard near downtown on Nov. 16, I saw two geese, presumably canada geese but might have been another variety.    Haven't been to the playa lakes and so am dependent on what appears overhead at the house and yards.

Saw the first junco of the season today in the buddleia branches in the front yard this morning.   Saw a male purple finch and a male house finch too, both eyeing a feeder and wary of the watching cats.

Since late spring finches have been rare.   I don't think I saw one the whole summer.

I said nothing spectacular.   Not quite true.   One morning in October I was out after 9 a.m. looking at birds and started in, when over distant trees to the SW there was the outline of a huge bird.   It flew almost directly at me and over, pretty low, I'd guess at under a hundred feet.    With my 1985 Swift Audubons I clearly saw the red naked head.    Not at all unusual out in the country, but a rare sight inside city limits.

Which brings up another buzzard sighting.   I was driving to the dentist when at the lip of the canyon opposite the Windmill museum there were 7 vultures circling.  Something dead obviously.    Some hours later a human body was found at the east end of Jim Bartram/Dunbar Lake about a mile away as the buzzard flies.   Unrelated presumably, but not a common occurrence in the city.

Back in October I saw 3 strange birds at the Wearever gallon stewer I keep on the platform for watering birds in relative safety.   I put the glass on them and saw a strange broken white eye ring.  Excited at finding a new and possibly very rare bird I went to my copy of the Natl Geographic guide.  Robins.   I never looked a robin through binoculars before.   Red face.

The Common Swift: Airborne for Months!

Common swifts are observed to not light or perch for up to 10 months of the year.    http://www.morningticker.com/2016/10/this-bird-is-doing-something-that-is-astonishing-scientists/

https://pbs.twimg.com/media/CuOwje2XEAAkWL8.jpg

Bewick's Wren

ID'ed a Bewick's Wren Friday Thursday morning.    My first wren!

Was in the kitchen and glanced out the back storm door.   Saw a strange little bird hop off it's perch on some lumber I have leaning there going toward the ground.  

That's the territory of the blue-eyed cat!   Out of concern for the risk-taking bird and curiosity as to what it was I went out.    Bird flew to a branch while I fumbled with my Swift audubons that don't close-focus well.   But I saw the bird!    Tail poking up like the flag of an invading country, speckled along the side and spotty underneath.

When I first glimpsed the bird I thought it looked like a dark-eyed, slate gray junco.    Did not see the white eye streak.

Most of my new bird IDs follow a double-take, corner of the eye glimpse.

Monday Morning 8-9 a.m.

A good Monday morning for birding! Went out before sun-up to feed cats and saw little Smokey (a 3-4 month old part-siamese kitten) take a flying leap off the porch onto a jasmine bush, flushing a largish bird that flew at me and over, don't know if it was in the bush or the tree above. Owl, otherwise unidentified.

After feeding cats I put out bird seed into 3 feeders and after putting some stuff on the stove to heat went back out with binoculars, choosing my Swift Audubon 8.5 X 44s. Was looking among the house sparrows for something not a house sparrow, because yesterday two other sparrow species showed up and I was not able to ID them.

Started back in the house when a mustard yellow little bird (some kind of warbler?) lit in my arbor vitae tree across the street and disappeared into the foliage. (Damn little yellow and green birds do that often, disappear on me) 80 feet away. I went back in for more optical horsepower.

Came back out with Nikon 12 X 50s. Nothing. Did see a grackle land on a branch with something long and winged in his beak. (OMG, did he catch a hummingbird? Apparently not, the wings -- and the grackle plucked them off as he ate -- were translucent and there were several -- big dragonfly most likely.)

Went in to check on stove. Nothing burning. Went back out with the Swifts again, made 1977 but the sharpest binoculars I own -- just got them off eBay, previously owned by a little old lady in Pasadena, literally, seller said they were his grandma's -- and with a wide field of view compared to the 12 X 50s and the roof prisms (except for the little 8 X 36 Nikon Monarch which is comparable to the Swifts in field of view but not as sharp and without the huge stereo view that porros give).

Went across the street to my other back yard and scanned the trees for something new. Nothing. Blue jay landed in a top branch. Then a raptor flew over fast. Smallish, little bigger than a dove, no idea what it was, merlin, kestrel, cooper's, who knows. Started back in.

Whoa! Stopped in the middle of the street. HUGE wings to the SSW. Do we have condors?

Backed to the curb. Bird passed almost directly overhead, not that high, seemed like he was eyeing the neighborhood. Red naked head. Turkey vulture! Over 6 ft wingspread. First on Backyard Bird List. Did he know we had old people and dogs ready to kick the bucket? He know something about me? Time will tell and the vultures are waiting.

Note about vultures.   Living in Lubbock, Texas, is not like being out in the country.  We rarely see vultures or raptors out in the neighborhoods.    Close to two weeks ago, however, I drove near our canyon greenbelt and saw about 7 vultures circling overhead near the road, a clear indication that something or somebody was dead.  A rare sight!   We do get geese here, both overhead and at the hundred or so playa lakes within city limits.

Life Goes On (until it doesn't)

The magic is gone, the joy is gone, but some birds are still here.   This morning there was a black-chinned hummingbird sticking its darning needle-like bill into the ponciana blooms.

 Could have taken a pic if I hadn't used my D3100 in the dark on other settings that I could not change in time.   I use a 300mm Nikkor lens from the 1970s coupled with a 1.5X teleconverter on my late model digital camera.   This means all settings are manual including focus, and I have to guess at exposure.   Example, f/8 @ 1/640 @ ASA 1600.

In the last week or so I saw:

After hearing a strong-voiced call from the front yard I opened the door to find a cardinal, male, perched on a branch of the butterfly bush.   Quite gray on the back so that I thought at first it might be a female.   But there was a distinct though small black patch around and below the beak.   May have seen ths one before at the feeders in the back yard, but this was not the cardinal that repeatedly visited starting with the late December snow.

A little gray bird with no markings, smaller than a house sparrow, was high in a bush singing as I was in the alley.  Never heard the like.   Chirping, musical notes, churring, chirping.   No idea what it was.   I was under 15 feet away but my glasses were dirty and my eyes less than at their best.  Pretty sure there were no markings other than darker gray above, lighter gray below.

A female pyrrhuloxia dropped by very briefly at an empty feeder a couple of days after the other one was killed.    Did not see her or any pyrrhuloxiaa again.  

I'm going to rig up a bird bath from a plastic trash can lid on top of a plastic drum.      For years I've been furnishing water to birds, cats, stray dogs, whatever, in a gallon pan placed well away from cover in short clipped grass.   Safer that way, so birds can see a cat stalking them.  

gone

The magic is gone.   For four months my days were brightened by a female pyrrhuloxia that would beg for food outside and whose tiny chirp from unseen places made the days bearable.   Yesterday I found a pile of reddish feathers in the grass.  

I think I know the perpetrator, a black cat with white feet that showed up several weeks ago.   Haven't decided what I'm going to do.   There are other cats, semi-feral, that have hung around for upwards of 10 years, that are better fed and being white are more visible;  I don't think they were responsible.  

Still put feed out today but now it is an empty gesture like throwing bread crumbs out at an indifferent universe.    I must learn to embrce the indifference.