Great Kiskadee

 These are one of my favorite birds in South Texas.

They are resident and prolific.  

The Great Kiskadee has a most peculiar call and once you have heard it, you wiil never forget it.

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I took the pics today out the kitchen window.

The Information is provided by – HOUGHTON MIFFLIN HARCOURT

While most of the country approaches the end of frigid winters, the Great Kiskadee, a colorful, tropical flycatcher, enjoys the warmth of south Texas.

Great Kiskadee

Pitangus sulphuratus

Named for its ringing kis-ka-dee calls, this bird breaks the rules for the flycatcher family. Besides catching insects in the air, it also grabs lizards from tree trunks, eats many berries, and even plunges into ponds to catch fish. Its bright pattern is unique in North America, but in the tropics several other flycatchers look almost identical. The Great Kiskadee is found from Texas to Argentina and is also very common in Bermuda, where it was introduced in the 1950s.

Field Marks

A very large, big-headed flycatcher, near size of Belted Kingfisher, and somewhat like that bird in actions, even catching small fish. It has rufous wings and tail. The bright yellow underparts and crown patch and the strikingly patterned black and white face identify it at once.

Size

10 1/2″ (27 cm)

Voice

A loud get-ter-heck (or kis-ka-dee); also wheep!

Range

Southern Texas south to Argentina. Resident of lower Rio Grande Valley.

 

Migration

Permanent resident throughout its range. Very rarely strays north to Arizona (from western Mexico) and Louisiana.

Habitat

Streamside thickets, groves, orchards, towns. In its limited Texas range, found most commonly in open woodlands near water, but may occur in any habitat with good-sized trees. In the tropics, occurs widely in many semi-open habitats, usually avoiding dense unbroken forest.

Feeding

Diet: Omnivorous. Feeds mostly on large insects, such as beetles, wasps, grasshoppers, bees, and moths; but also eats lizards, mice, baby birds, frogs, tadpoles, and small fish. Also eats many berries and small fruits, and some seeds.

Behavior: Forages in various ways. Often flies out from a perch to catch flying insects in the air. Will perch on branch low over water and then plunge into water for fish, tadpoles, or insects. Often hops about in trees and shrubs to eat berries.

Nesting

Breeding behavior is not well known. Both members of pair actively defend nesting territory against intruders of their own species and are quick to mob any predators that come close.

Nest: Site is usually among dense branches of a tree or large shrub, 6-50′ above the ground, usually 10-20′ up. Nest is a large bulky structure, more or less round, with the entrance on the side. Nest is built of grass, weeds, strips of bark, Spanish moss, and other plant fibers, and lined with fine grasses.

Eggs: 4, sometimes 2-5. Creamy white, dotted with dark brown and lavender. Details of incubation are not well known.

Young: Apparently both adults help to feed the young in the nest. Development of young and age at first flight not well known.

Conservation

Numbers stable or increasing in Texas. May be increasing and spreading in tropics as rain forest is cut, as it does well around clearings, edges, and second growth

 

Birding South Texas

Not just one, but nine unique locations in the Rio Grande Valley. Each site of the World Birding Center has its own attractions for both the first time visitor and expert birder. Not one season, but all seasons, as more than 500 bird species make this a not-to-be-missed nature destination. Palm-fringed resacas… rare thorn forest… riverside woodlands… crashing surf; the nine different sites that make up the World Birding Center together paint a colorful backdrop for birding in the Lower Rio Grande Valley of Texas. From a historic adobe hacienda to scenic bluffs high above the Rio Grande and pristine wilderness to teeming wetlands, the World Birding Center network offers visitors a dazzling array of birding adventures. Visitors will be treated to wilderness walks, float trips and hands-on, state-of-the-art educational exhibits, all under the umbrella of a world class birding experience: The World Birding Center, where you will truly find .   Sign up and McAllen Convention and Visitor’s Bureau to win a FREE trip.  Deadline in March 21, 2011. http://www.mcallencvb.com/uncategorized/win-the-opportunity-to-grow-your-bird…

Win a Free Trip to the Birding Mecca of the Country

With one of the most knowledgable and friendly guides around!.  Sign up to day and stay at the Gypsy Birders retreat where guest are treated like royalty and small, thoughtful gifts await.

http://www.mcallencvb.com/uncategorized/win-the-opportunity-to-grow-your-bird…

SIGN UP TODAY AND TELL YOUR FRIENDS! 

The Winter Migration is still in full swing, the temperatures are moderate and the airlines are having fare sales left and right. Now is the time!

DON’T MISS YOUR CHANCE TO VISIT THE BIRDING MECCA AND ADD TO YOUR LIFE LIST.

My last guest added eight in just a few short days.

Elf Owl In the City

We have been on the move a lot in the last several months from our home base here in McAllen.  I travelled up to Central and East Texas early last month and we have been back and forth to the ranch in Raymondville, Texas multiple times. I suspect I missed the winter migration of raptors this year, but I’ve seen plenty of natives like the kiskadee. One large male has been hanging out at our house, by the porch swing, out the kitchen window.

At the ranch we have seen Green Jays, Kingfishers, Vermillion Flycatchers, a large flock of posturing Turkey Vultures, and Wild Turkeys.  I also encountered a couple of birds that I have yet to identify: a small warbler with a stark black tail, and a sparrow sized bird with a bright red breast, almost as bright as the Vermillion Flycatcher.  

But tonight, my son and I had the best sighting yet, a Elf Owl!  We were sitting on the front porch and it was well after dark when my son thought he saw a bat. It landed in the tree 3 feet from us and I could tell it was too big for a bat.  Then my son said that perhaps it was on owl and my reply was, “It’s too small to be an owl.”  It flew off into our large century oak and we grabbed the flashlight and tracked him.  Again, we got within a few feet and it sat and posed for us for ten minutes or more.  I am not positive of that ID, it could have been an Pygmy Owl.

 

Photo By Charles Melton

I have also been grappling with the yearly task of finding a vacation rental in Texas where my entire family can spend the holidays — we do this every year in a central location. UGH!  It is not always easy to find the proper accommodations when you travel and certainly traveling for birding and other naturalist activities, which are often in remote locals, can be a serious and often frustrating endeavor.

 

That is why I’ve listed my house as a birding destination. 

 
We are located in an area flush with natural parks and native habitat

and the room that I let to birders is so much better than an ordinary hotel, it cost way less and

we actual have birding onsite.

Nanday Conurs

 I introduced myself last week as an enthusiastic novice birder. Really it was the good people at the McAllen Convention and Visitor’s Bureau who described me so generously, who I am also blogging for.  To be honest, I feel woefully inadequate compared to the enormity of superior quality birders who are currently flooding the internet with blogs, pictures and a virtual living dictionary of all things outdoor.

The best place to start, I suppose, is the beginning.  I mentioned last week that my introduction to the birds of South Texas came by way of a pair of Nanday Conurs that we affectionately named George and Barbara after the then current President and First Lady.  The birds were nesting in a neighbor’s palm tree but frequented our yard for the hackberries.  

Taken from Wikipedia: “Nanday Conures have a distinctive black head, and wings and tails tipped with dark blue feathers. They have a light-blue scarf and bright orange feathers on their legs and around their vents. They are extremely social and intelligent birds, capable of learning tricks, mimicking sounds, and learning a decent vocabulary. At least one report suggests that they are highly adaptable to human encroachment on their territories, but the exact status of the species in the wild is unknown. Flocks of Nanday Conures have been seen living wild in parts of Florida, notably the west coast including areas of St. Petersburg and Clearwater. There is a large flock of “Nanday Conures” living wild in the Pacific Palisades neighborhood of Los Angeles. They have been resident in the area for the past several years.”

 Wiki also suggest that they are one of the most popular species of parrots to be kept as pets. This probably goes a long way to explaining why and how we became so interested in these birds. They are known for antics like hanging upside down and dancing, and we just found this behavior irresistible.  The kids and I loved watching them, and their loud calls always announced their arrival.  

They didn’t stay around long, perhaps a year or two, and after the little bit of research that I did for this blog I know now that we were quite fortunate to have seen them in the wild at all.  One day my daughter came running into the house and said “Mom!  Barbara and George have a baby!”  That’s when we were certain they were a nesting pair- and what else could we have named the new addition besides Dan Quayle?

Urban Birding and the Best Way to Travel

I am no expert, I am not really even an avid amateur, but by the sheer virtue of my location, I have become the Urban Birder in McAllen, Texas. Looking back now, I suppose it was inevitable that I would end up here, my attempts to “capture” one of the native parakeets has become a standard family story and served as our introduction to life in South Texas.

At the time, having just moved here from Houston, Texas, I was simply overcome with the sight of what appeared to be a pet shop parrot. Now I know that trapping these raucous birds is not only wrong, but darn near impossible. The story is a funny one, with the obligatory traps, nets, and water hoses, but one that I am reluctant to tell now that I have become a birder of sorts.

From that first encounter, I have branched out and am now very familiar with the best birding spots in South Texas. I’ve attended multiple birding, butterfly, and dragonfly festivals (I served as the Marketing Chair for the Annual Dragonfly Festival at Valley Nature Center) and am currently the proud owner of a parrot condo: basically a dead palm tree that houses innumerable species of nesting birds. How the tree became “dead” is another interesting story.

My family has lived in McAllen for 20 years, most of those years in the same neighborhood where I now reside; which turns out to be a stop on many of the birding festival tours owing to the aforementioned parakeets who seem to like our location as much as we do. So I have loads of birding stories from the Nanday Conures that hung out the first year we moved here and that we affectionately named Barbara and George after the then current President and First Lady, to the pair of Yellow Crested Night Herons we spotted this past spring and most fabulously of all about the baby Red-crowned Parrot that fledged from our parrot condo early this summer.

We feel certain the Red-crowned Parrots will be back and I hope you will be too.

I am currently running down a sighting of an Altamira Oriole in the yard  — here in the new Birding Mecca in the country.

I let out a small bedroom with it’s own private entrance and bath that we affectionate call the gypsy room.  It is very lovely and comfortable and has access to a great backyard and it has so much more to offer that a hotel and is much less expensive than a BNB.