Outside today!

There will be no photographer credits in this post as we have had two extra people in our house (family) and a new camera and lense laying around, therefore, we present

 

shhh, she is nesting

Ha!

Nectar.

 

brought to you by

Rhonda Gomez ~ Oscar Gomez ~ Alex Gomez ~ Patrick Gomez

Mother’s Day 2012: Flowers, Kingbirds and more!

Sonnets are full of love

Christina Rossetti (1881)

Sonnets are full of love, and this my tome Has many sonnets: so here now shall be One sonnet more, a love sonnet, from me To her whose heart is my heart’s quiet home, To my first Love, my Mother, on whose knee I learnt love-lore that is not troublesome; Whose service is my special dignity, And she my loadstar while I go and come And so because you love me, and because I love you, Mother, I have woven a wreath Of rhymes wherewith to crown your honored name: In you not fourscore years can dim the flame Of love, whose blessed glow transcends the laws Of time and change and mortal life and death.

 

Oh those Kingbirds.

And a surprise visitor.

Scary visitors, but thankfully an OLD nest.

HAPPY MOTHER’S DAY!

 

Cheeky Little Kiskadee!

Urban Colony of Yellow-Crowned Night Heron Surges

UPDATE ON THE COLONY 2012, We saw the first pair of Night Herons arrive at the nests the past week. So for we have only seen two pair, but  I am so intriqued to see how many more nest we have this year, or if this will be an unusally small colony since it is in an urban area.

I was lucky to get a few decent shots.  I will keep the nest count updated and maybe get some addional good photos.

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The Yellow-crowned Night Herons, unlike the Black-bellied Whistling Ducks, are not at all familiar to us. The first time we saw them a few years back, I was astounded.  My husband and I and a friend staying with us were outside near dark, when we saw a fairly large bird fly at about 10 feet above ground, right in front of us, and into the mesquite tree close by. The first thing I noticed was the webbed feet; my husband was awed by the perfect yellow crest; while our friend was just clueless! The bird broke off a large branch of mesquite and flew back the way it had came. None of us had ever seen a bird actually break off nesting material!

A vigorous discusion ensued about what we had seen. I claimed a shore bird, my husband said something else, and our friend said “uh, uh”! The bird repeated the behavior several more times and we all stuck to our initial observations, but it soon became dark and we went inside.  Subsequently, we looked it up and talked to our neighbors and discovered that it was a Yellow-crowned Night Heron and that it was nesting in the neighbor’s backyard.

Night Herons are nocturnal, of course, and feed mainly on crustaceans. We are in the city, 100+ miles from the coast! None of us could imagine what these birds were doing NESTING in our area.  

This part of Texas is known colloquially as the Rio Grande Valley which loosely transpired when back in the early part of the 20th century large agricultural land owners needed workers and devised a marketing strategy to brand the area as a lush tropical valley, when in truth it is a flat, almost, alluvial plane. The five county area devising South Texas is criss-crossed with irrigation canals from that time, even though much of the area is no longer agricultural.

We imagined that perhaps the birds were finding food in the canals, one of which runs parallel to us four streets over, for many miles.  In the end we found out that the herons were mostly feeding on the neighbors collection of pool frogs — they have a wonderful old pool that does not have modern filtration and therefore attracts all sorts of interesting visitors for the few short months that they use it.

We were delighted with the birds and thrilled when the juveniles began appearing in our yard a few months later.

The Yellow-crested Herons appearance did not take us by surprise this year,

but literally SHOCKED us by their numbers! 

It appears that they are well known for nesting in colonies, often on secluded islandS, 50 ft and more in the tree tops, far out on limbs. We’ve counted the nest and believe that in one year we went from one Yellow-crowned nest to 8, possibly more.  All appear to have successfully raised at least two young ones. We have only seen one deceased bird, obviously a juvenile, still in the nest but with no apparent injury.

Other juveniles have been seen in our yard for about a week now, I expect they will me moving on soon.

 

Mature Yellow-crowned Night Heron photo courtesy of of Cornel Lab who reports that these birds are sometimes protected on the edge of their range and have historically been hunted as a delicacy or for their plumage.

God knows how many we will have next year.

Raining Downies!

The Black-bellied Whistling Ducks and Yellow-crested Night Herons in our yard have fledged; spring migration has come and gone with many rare and familiar migrants reported on NARBA.org, TEXBIRD and the North American Birding Forum. Summer has arrived in South Texas.

Each year we watch our bird condo (a dead palm tree with holes for nesting birds) with trepidation and excitement mixed into a big ball of tumultuous expectation.  The Dendrocygna Autumnalis, Black-belled Whistling Ducks sometimes mate for life and have nested in our palm for several years.

We adore them, but the problem we have is that our yard is completely fenced in by brick, so are always concerned when the ducks fledge.

We ask ourselves how will the parent ducks get the ducklings out of our yard? Where will they go in the middle of a large city? And more troubling still, will the ducklings survive in our yard with our two dogs?

Whistling Ducks, formerly known as Tree Ducks are arboreal and they seem to particularly like the top most holes of our bird condo — likely in an attempt to get as far as possible from our dogs.  Incubation last about 30 days and many females are known to “dump” eggs in already inhabited nests. This often means that the downies will fledge at different times, usually anywhere from 53 – 63 days, so it isn’t like we can watch for one fledge and then relax until the next spring.

Every spring once the mature birds start hanging around our tree, we begin our anxious vigil. I say anxious, but it is an anxiety tinged with awe, for in my wildest dreams I imagine actually being present when the parents begin pushing those little guys out of the nest and it starts to literally rain baby ducks.

Newly fledged whistling/arboreal ducks have soft bones which allow them to hit the ground without injury and I’ve been told that they instinctively hustle under the nearest bush or shrub and peep around until all brood have excited the nest and Mom and Dad come out to collect them and usher them off to the nearest watering hole — in the city(?) another source of anxiety.

I’ll be honest, some years have been not good, some fledges have gone unobserved, and other years have been great.  This year was a good one.  My husband noticed the ducks and downies in the yard at around lunch time on May 31st, and immediately corralled the dogs into the dog run, although — in my dogs defense — my oldest dog, a boxer named Cindar was just laying in the yard very near the ducks watching them waddle by. We snapped a few pictures and then left them alone hoping that they would find the one egress from our house: under the driveway gate. 

As with everything else with these ducks, this is both a blessing and a curse, they can get out, but the only way out is directly onto a main and very busy city street.  

I am most relieved to report that this year, by late afternoon the parents and downies were all gone, may St. Francis keep watch over them all.

And let us all be comforted by the majesty of nature in the face of extreme diversity.

The Two Screeches!

We have been seeing a pair of Screech Owls for several months now.

I had them pegged as Western, my guest thinks Eastern, IDK.  I’m starting to think they might be nesting nearby. We have managed to take some decent photos with a flashlight and a point and shoot.

After my last guest’s visit, I think they (the Two Screeches) feel at home here.  I am so pleased to host them. 

Clay-colored Thrush

I’ve been seeing the Clay colored Thrush in my yard for about a week now.  This morning he was at the bird bath. Photo courtesy of Jared Dawson.

 

 

FAMILY DESCRIPTION

9-10 1/2″ (23-27 cm). Resembles a pale, tawny-beige American Robin. Head and upperparts grayish to tawny brown; bill yellow; legs pale; throat pale with dusky streaking; underparts buff. Juvenile upperparts cinnamon-flecked, underparts mottled and spotted brown.

VOICE

Song a series of rich, variable phrases; likened to a sweet call of American Robin; also clucking call notesand thin, high-pitched flight call.

HABITAT

Open or semi-open areas, usually with associated trees; also forest edges, gardens, suburban lots. Tends to forage on the ground or in low- or mid-level shrubs, singly or in pairs. The exception is at fruiting trees, where groups may feed in the canopy.

RANGE

Resident from eastern Mexico to Columbia; occurs casually in lower Rio Grande Valley in Texas.

DISCUSSION

The Clay-colored Robin is a scarce but regular vagrant to the lower Rio Grande Valley in Texas, where it occasionally breeds. Most sightings occur in winter. In Panama, this species elects to breed in the dry season, despite limited food availability, presumably because the danger from predation is less.

NESTING

2-4 pale blue-toned eggs in heavy cup nest of mud, moss and grasses

 

Never Claimed to be an Expert

It seems I’ve mis-IDed the Elf owl.  My experts say it’s most likely an immature screech owl, though oddly I have never hea

rd him screech and that’s a very distinct sound, right?

At any rate, I like him and he’s welcome to share my yard at any time.

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.

Migrating Hawks and Chachalacas

I saw my first kettle of migrating hawks today, October 21, 2010.  They were too far away for me to identify the species, but it was a large kettle.  I will be looking up over the next few days.  

Meanwhile, the native, non-migratory Chachalaca, similar in size and form to a female Ring-necked Pheasant, are abundant in South Texas and well known for their loud clacking calls; they are even considered a nuisance in some neighborhoods when early morning activity comes a little too early.  I first saw the birds while visiting my husbands parents in La Feria, Texas I had never seen a bird this large or this loud before.

For information about the chachalaca visit

http://www.tpwd.state.tx.us/landwater/land/habitats/southtx_plain/upland_birds/chachalaca.phtml

I am now quite familiar with these wonderful birds. I have lived in my house for fourteen years and for most of that time we have had a nesting pair of chachalacas in our neighbor’s yard; we are separated by a brick fence.  We see them most active when they are nesting. We have always had dogs in our yard, and as you may guess, the combination of baby chachalacas and dogs is not ideal.  We learned soon enough that nature has its own ideas and we no longer try to rescue the babies if they happen to waddle and fall off the wall into our yard — typically everything turns out the way that it should. Our nesting pair has become part of the fabric of our neighborhood and we chart the course of the year with them.

Photo courtesy oh the Audubon Society

If you are interested in seeing chachalacas in native habitat within a city, I recommend late spring.

I have a private apartment at my house that I rent to birders and I can almost guarantee chachalaca sightings.  Just this past summer, my husband and I heard a loud, totally unfamiliar call from our back yard; when we looked we saw that it was the chachalacas being harried by a hawk. These birds are fierce breeders, easy to identify and frequently willing to stay awhile for some prime watching.