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.

Update

Rich florid song from the top of a utility pole this morning and it wasn't a mockingbird. It was a curvebill thrasher. Hadn't seen them lately, but there it was. 

Two houses away there was some kind of medium size bird with red on it high in a tree. Went to get binoculars and found it gone. Possible robin. Did see a robin last week on Ave. Q.

Monday at 7:30 pm I saw a flock of those smallish black birds over University Ave at Broadway heading low to the Tech campus. They DO go east in the morning and west in the evening. Looked like they might be headed to roost in the TTU trees, as low as they were. This morning at 7 I was in the kitchen doors and windows closed and heard a ruckus outside. It was those birds flying over, headed east.

The female pyrrhuloxia is quite demanding about seed, flying over near me whereever I am and making her presence known.   I am not trying to make her a pet, but she is sometimes within 2 feet of my hand when I put the seed in the feeder.

The dove population is way down from the 25-30 birds that came around late summer and fall. Now there are fewer than 10 and rarely more than 5 at a time. about half white-wing doves.

Mysterious Sunrise Bird Flights

Observed -- or heard -- more of these strange flocks or flights in the days since my last post. Here's what I know:

1. Did not see them until March of this year.

2. The flocks or flights may be low at treetop level but are usually high, so high that the birds will be heard but not readily seen. This morning I was out at sunrise and twice heard but didn't see them.

3. They have been observed above my place flying pretty much due east. Never saw any flying back west at the end of the day or at any other time.   Could this be part of a vast migration?   I've been assuming the birds were resident.

4. The time is right before the sun comes up or very shortly after.

5. While the usual flight is a wave of birds extending north-south, last week I saw a north to south roiling wave heading east and then 10 minutes later, a roiling wave west to east in the eastward direction of flight.

6. The birds are small, dark and loud. Their individual flight is erratic and darting within the wave, and this causes that roiling appearance. They are spaced out some but are a definite flock or wave. Sounds like swallows, huh. Could they be Purple Martins? I didn't know we had Purple Martins at Lubbock.

Saw the wave again this morning before the sun was up.   This time it was a twisting mass spread out along the line of flight -- to the east.   Birds were low, housetop to treetop level.   Only a block away to the south but I couldn't see what they were.

I suppose they are nesting in trees in town and then going east either to the canyon lakes where there is plenty of water, or heading out to feed on grain in a field somewhere.    Grackles seem to do that, fly west in the evening and east in the morning, but do so in smaller numbers and often as single birds.

And this morning on a limb outside the kitchen door window, two curvebill thrashers by a feeder.    I took them more food.   One bird let me come to within two feet to put in seed.    Haven't seen them together like that before.

The male and female pyrrhuloxia have been coming to eat at about the same time, which may indicate that they too are pairing off.

The doves are always paired off and horny.

There was a red bird atop the utility pole in the alley early Tuesday morning.   It was singing.   Did not see it at a feeder, but then I don't watch all the time.