Wordless Wednesday

Monk Parakeets

I love these little parrots!  Seeing them around town is such a thrill, even though they're not at all rare or unusual.  Monk parakeets, also known as Quaker parrots, are native to South America but feral populations exist in North America and parts of Europe.  They build large nests of sticks, often in utility towers, and are very vocal.  I usually hear them before I ever see them.  They are sociable birds, and seem to hang around in family groups.  I understand they are routinely kept as pets and can even learn to talk.  Monk parakeets are a temperate-zone sort of parrot and can survive winters in much of the United States.

Good picture of monk parakeet from Wikimedia Commons

Because they are an introduced species, there is a concern that they may become agricultural pests, but I am not aware of any areas where this has occurred.  In fact, parakeets in Brooklyn have been found to reduce the problem of pigeon overpopulation.  They don't appear to compete with native nesting birds because they tend to prefer man-made structures for building their large nests.  Although they have the potential to disturb grain fields, they tend to prefer urban areas.  Monk parakeets are also very well-adapted to backyard bird-feeders -- and how I wish they would come to mine!

A dozen blurry monk parakeets and one starling

The picture above was taken this morning from my driveway.  I apologize for the quality -- the camera lenses were still foggy and so was I.  But there are 12 monk parakeets on the power line there, along with one slightly suspicious starling.

Santa Sent An Osprey!

Osprey defends his catch

I spotted this huge beauty from the freeway.  Ospreys aren't that common around here, particularly not in urban areas like Sugar Land, Texas.  And he was in good company. Quite a few waterbirds were gathered at a small, corporate "lake" within yards of US59: several cormorants, a great blue heron, white herons, ibises, and one quiet anhinga.  But the osprey dwarfed them all.

Distinctive dark brown line through the eye

Ospreys have a 6-foot wingspan and feed exclusively on fish.  They have specially adapted talons for  holding slippery prey.  It was almost as big a surprise to see a fish this big!  This osprey kept a tight hold on his fish, though crows harassed him and he was followed by a curious family on their way to Christmas Eve dinner.

Makes a musical, chirpy sound, not a screechy cackle

I love seeing extraordinary birds like this so close to home. I'm sure it's thrilling to go on birdwatching trips all over the world, but to me, there's something so gratifying about getting to know the local birds and being surprised every now and again but uncommon visitors like the osprey. 

Sometimes called a "Sea Eagle"

I will say it helps immensely to have a designated driver on these highway birdwatching adventures!  Without the Chief Engineer's steady hand on the wheel, you'd probably be reading about me in the paper by now!  Merry Christmas and keep your eyes open -- you never know who's visiting your area today.

Circle of Life -- Unintended Consequences

Preferred name: Giant Mouse

Sometimes a picture is worth a thousand words, isn't that what they say?  But here's the back story, if you're interested.

Wildlife gardening

We love to feed the wild birds and try to keep a variety of feeders around the garden.  It's such a treat to see the perky little chickadees nibble on sunflower seeds.  We've enjoyed watching cardinals and wrens raise their families.  Witnessing the great hummingbird migration is a special turning point of the spring and fall season.  And lately, though they don't come to bird feeders, we've enjoyed a nightly chorus of owls, calling to each other back and forth in the late evening.

Not shy at all -- will hold his ground until the last second.

But.  There's a reason those owls are hanging around now.  These creatures, which I prefer to think of as giant mice, are also attracted to the birdseed we put out for our friends, the birds.  The giant mice don't realize they are unwanted.  It's a paradise on earth for them, until they're snatched up one evening by a hungry owl.

Where's an owl when you really need one?

Feeding the birds attracts giant mice -- bad.  But the giant mice in turn attract owls (good) and larger snakes (perhaps not so good).  In my heart, I know the answer.  Don't put out birdseed,  Rely on native plantings to attract wildlife.  And accept that sometimes wildlife is just that: wild.  Sigh.  Mother Nature and her furry little team win again.  That is, until the owls come up to bat.

Birdwatching: Minor Challenges, Major Thrills

Red-Shouldered Hawk?

I believe this beauty is a Red-Shouldered Hawk.  I'm forever getting them confused with Red-Tailed Hawks and part of the problem is that birds are named after their least conspicuous marking!  I mean, really!  Wouldn't you call this one a Red-Chested Hawk?  It's also pretty difficult to see the shoulders of a hawk, if you want to know the truth.  I was lucky with this one.  Usually they are perched above my head or flying.

Red-Tailed Hawk?

 Here's the picture of what I think is a Red-Tailed Hawk, from an earlier blog entry.  You can't really see the tail in this picture, but I can promise you, it doesn't look red.  Not to me at least.  Maybe we could call this one the "White-Chested Hawk."  If the names were more descriptive, I could probably remember them better!

These are two of our most common hawks, so I'll have plenty more opportunities to practice!  Happy Thanksgiving to everyone!

Wordless Wednesday

It's Hawk Time!

And I'm so glad my computer is fixed.  We've been recovering from a hard drive failure but meanwhile, I've been indulging in one of my favorite pastimes: birdwatching while driving.  Not recommended for amateurs or city-dwellers.

Sharp eyes, strong feet.

This is a great time of year for birdwatching in general around here.  We live at the juncture of the great Central and Mississippi Migration Flyways, and there's no better opportunity to witness the great fall migration, beginning as early as July and lasting through the end of November.  Many birds are returning to their winter homes in Texas just as the trees lose their foliage, making it even easier to spot these avian visitors. 

18-25" tall, with a 48" wingspan

You can visit the Smith Point Hawkwatch and climb their 30-foot observation tower, or you can just keep your eyes open around home.  I see so many hawks that I should really drive around with my camera in my lap!  I'm just as pleased when I get a good look at a common local hawk and I am when I see something a bit more unusual. 

Eats mainly small rodents

I particularly like hawks because I don't actually see all that well.  It's hard for me to distinguish among our many tiny brownish birds!  But a hawk's profile is so distinctive and they're usually larger birds.  They have a characteristic body type, flight pattern and behavior, so even if I can't see them that well, I usually know what I'm looking at.

Generally mates for life.

And it really helps to have the camera, too!  Then I can look at the pictures later, at my leisure, with my books, to try to figure out if its a Red-Tailed Hawk or a Red-Shouldered Hawk.  I'm forever getting them mixed up.  For the record, I'm going to go with Red-Tailed Hawk here.  Now I'm waiting for a good Caracara photo opportunity!

Goodbye!

Loggerhead Shrike

Recently Diana of Elephant's Eye blogged about the Fiscal Shrike and I was reminded to keep an eye out for own own small predator, the Loggerhead Shrike.

Loggerhead Shrike

Northern Mockingbird

He's such a handsome bird, with his trim black mask and black-edged wings.  If you see him from a little distance, he looks almost like our state bird, the Northern Mockingbird.  But the Northern Mockingbird is a sassy and fun-loving sort of fellow, and the Loggerhead Shrike is deadly serious.

Keeping a close eye out...

He uses his hooked beak to kill small birds and animals and often impales them on spikes or thorns for dining on later.  He must use this cruel method because he lacks the sharp talons raptors use to tear prey apart.

You can barely see the hooked beak.

Shrikes aren't common backyard birds around here, preferring the open woodlands or grasslands.  But if you keep an eye out, you can spot them easily enough.  Yikes for shrikes!

Foliage Friday: Sweet Gum Tree

Palmate leaves of the Sweet Gum tree

Is this tree disappearing?  I hope not.  It seems like they were everywhere when I was a kid.  I can't recall seeing one planted in someone's yard, not for the longest time.

The drawback:  immature fruit is already spiky!

The Sweet Gum Tree is native to the warmer sections of the United States and is one of our most common hardwood trees.  North of here, it's beloved for its vivid fall color, and noted for its spiny fruit.  You don't ever want to step on a dried sweet gum ball barefooted!  Yes, it's true that the fruits can litter your yard in the fall, and the limbs sometimes break in high wind, but it's a fast-growing shade tree with a pretty, distinctive leaf.  The five-fingered foliage is much more "pronounced" than that of the maple tree, if you know what I mean.

Bark -- see the tiny holes?

Birds of all kinds like the seeds contained in the mace-shaped fruit, but one bird goes out of his way to drink the golden sap:  the yellow-bellied sapsucker.  He drills neat rows of little holes and returns time and again to the same tree for nourishment.  Other creatures, once the hard work of drilling is done, are also attracted to the sap.  You may see butterflies, honeybees and hummingbirds drinking the sap of the sweet gum tree.  Of course, the sapsuckers will actively defend their dinner table!

Yellow-bellied Sapsucker.  Photo: Patrick Coin

I thought this was interesting:  the Sweet Gum tree was one of the first trees introduced to England from the New World.  Missionary and plant collector John Bannister brought it to England in 1681, where it was greatly admired for its fall color.  Before New World trees arrived, fall color was scarce indeed.

Cruel Nature

One recent evening, we witnessed something a little more serious that the typical hummingbird fight.  Although we have two feeders, and various hummingbird-type plants in our garden, the birds will defend their chosen territory quite aggressively.  Usually this involves an acrobatic sort of dive-bombing but no actual contact.  This was different.

Photo: Tom Barrow

This little bird was apparently resting at the feeder, unwilling to fly off.  Another hummingbird repeatedly pecked at his head.  Between strikes, the little victim appeared to pant: his beak was open and his tongue popped in and out.  He was missing a large chunk of feathers on his back, though you can't quite make it out in the picture.  We've watched birds for long enough -- we know that it's usually best to let Nature take its course.  This, however, was just too much.  We shooed away the aggressor until the little wounded one was able to fly away.

The Gulf Coast Bird Observatory is hosting its Xtreme Hummingbird Xtravaganza on Saturday,  September 11 and Saturday, September 18.  Find out more here.  And here's a good link for Houston-area hummingbirds.

Honey Birds

This year's crew

 That's what my daughter called them, until she grew worldly and wise at the age of 6.  The great hummingbird migration is in full swing around here.  Birds are, for the most part, flying south for the winter.  There are always a few that stick around, so we try to keep our feeders clean and full all year. 

NOT a Red-Necked Hummingbird!  Those are something else entirely!

These photographs were taken with the Wingscapes Birdcam, a wonderful toy I got for Christmas three years ago.  Otherwise, I'd never have been able to capture them.  We mostly have Ruby-Throated, Rufous and Black-Chinned Hummingbirds, but one year we had what we think was a Buff-Bellied Hummingbird hang around for months. 

October 2007

October 2007

If you don't have hummingbirds in your backyard, visit the Gulf Coast Bird Observatory's Hummingbird Xtravaganza Open House.  You can learn about hummingbirds, watch banding operations, walk the nature trails and more.  Note to plant geeks: the nature trails provide a great opportunity to stroll through the late summer flora in a relatively peaceful fashion.  The Xtravaganza Open House is September 11 and September 18 from 8:00 am to noon.  Here's a map to their place in Lake Jackson.

Watch this short video to the very end to catch the bright red flash of this hummingbird's throat!

I Love Seagulls

One of the best things about living so close to the coast?  Birds of the water, like these seagulls.

Galveston is home to laughing gulls, ring-billed gulls and herring gulls.

I love seagulls.  I know some people find them irritating, but I've always thought they interesting: so sleek, handsome, chatty.  On a recent trip to Galveston, it seemed like there were fewer gulls than I had remembered.  But I loved seeing them wheel and dive, looking for food.  The warm water was full of fingerling mullet and the seagulls competed with pelicans for lunch.

Seagulls have a life expectancy of more than 20 years!

My favorite characters in the movie Nemo were the seagulls -- it seemed like the film's creators got the personality of the seagulls just right.

"Keep working on love."

And I have to confide:  there's a small, secret part of me that still remembers Richard Bach's novella Jonathan Livingston Seagull, with a sentimental fondness.  Smaller, more secret part?  I used to own the Neil Diamond soundtrack album.  Now there's someone who loves seagulls!

Yellow-Crowned Night Heron

One of my favorite birds -- and lucky for me, it's very common around here.  Night herons are easy to see along ditches or in wet fields.  We have at least a pair or two nesting in trees around the house and the neighborhood pool.  Keep your eye out for them -- they are everywhere lately.

(Adult bird in a marsh at Brazos Bend State Park)

Yellow-crowned Night Herons are fairly large birds, about 2 feet tall.  Adults have a black face and bill, with a white mark on the cheek.  Consistent with bird-naming procedure, they are active during the day, and the yellow crown is very difficult to see.  (It seems they name birds after their least conspicuous feature sometimes!)  They have bright yellow legs and an overall smoky charcoal gray coloring.  The males and females look alike to me, although I'm sure the herons have it figured out.

 (Different bird, different marsh, but still Brazos Bend State Park)

Night herons eat insects, frogs, fish and small crustaceans.  Lately, all the little prairie pockets and water holes are full, because we've had such wonderful rain, and you may notice herons, motionless, waiting to pounce something as it swims or crawls past.

(This is a juvenile bird, feeding alone in a ditch.)

These birds have a very distinctive voice - a loud squawky rasp that almost sounds like a bark.  Most of the time, they are silent, but I have heard them calling to their fledgling youngsters.  Night herons are also easy to recognize by their awkward, rather endearing flight:  they are slow, and their legs often dangle beneath them as they struggle to achieve altitude.  Once they get going, they have a strong wingbeat, and look more like other herons in flight. 

The Purple Gallinules Build A Nest

These chicken-sized birds are so beautiful!  My pictures don't do them justice -- you'd have to see the riot of color to believe it.  Swimming, they resemble ducks, but they are more often walking on floating vegetation or poking around along the edge of brackish water.  Purple Gallinules are tropical birds that favor the marshes around here.  This happy couple was photographed at Brazos Bend State Park.

Purple Gallinules build their nests in bowls of grass, atop a floating mat of vegetation.  The female lays five to ten eggs and trades off incubating duties with the male.  This female was already sitting on eggs while the male continued to bring her grasses and twigs to improve the nest.

The Purple Gallinule is related to the Common Moorhen or Common Gallinule, also residents of our local freshwater marshes.  Common Moorhens are also boldly colored, but they lack that pretty blue forehead and the rich iridescence of the Purple Gallinule.  Perhaps the Common Moorhens were a bit ahead of the Purple Gallinules in raising their families -- we saw many chicks, family groups and adolescents all over the park.

This young moorhen lacks the distinctive coloring of the adult.

White-winged Doves (and more!)

I know serious bird people don't pay much attention to doves.  They're ungainly on the ground and eat up all the food meant for the "good" birds.  But I like them -- all of them.

I'm interested in the white-winged dove because we never had them around here when I was a girl.  White-wings were definitely a South Texas bird and only rarely ventured this far north.  Now they are everywhere.  Although they are supposed to be a migratory bird, it seems we are never without them.  White-winged doves are large pigeon-type birds with a noticeable white band on the underside of the wing and a blue eye-ring.  I don't know why they are extending their range so far north - up to 20 km per year.  There is some talk that the destruction of South Texas scrub forest (for conversion to citrus groves) sparked their migration.  Most of the references still count the mourning dove as the most numerous dove in Texas, but white-wings are by far the most common ones on my driveway.

We do also get mourning doves, which are a bit smaller than white-wings and lack the white stripe.  The blue eye ring is there, but not as noticeable.  The picture above shows a mourning dove and a white-winged dove together, for comparison. 

From time to time, we see Inca doves, which are adorable -- they weigh less than 2 ounces.  Here on the outskirts of town, we don't see too many pigeons, but we do occasionally see the imported Eurasian Collared Doves at the feeders.

The call of the white-winged dove sounds like "Who cooks for you?"  Click here for an audio clip.

Wordless Wednesday

Field Trip: Moody Gardens in Galveston

Visited Moody Gardens in Galveston on Saturday with the family.  As you may know, the pyramids suffered extensive damage two years ago as a result of flooding caused by Hurricane Ike.  Fourteen feet of water inundated the parking lot and forced its way into the basement.  Many of the animals that weren't evacuated prior to the storm perished in the aftermath and rebuilding the facility will be a multi-year project.

My favorite part of Moody Gardens is (of course) the Rainforest Pyramid, featuring plants of the African, Asian and American tropics.  A great many bromeliads were blooming and the calathea were particularly beautiful.  Orchids and parrots lit up the foliage and unusual palm trees towered above the paths in the 10-story pyramid.

Outside, I was interested to see which palm trees survived the floodwaters of Ike and the freezes of last winter.  It appeared like a great many plants have been replaced but some older specimens are still flourishing.  I didn't get a good picture, but the Natal plum, planted as a low hedge, was especially nice -- dark, rich green with a few white flowers.

I put the pictures, and what notes I managed to capture, in a Flickr set, which you can view here.  Warning:  the botanical names are my best guess only!  I'll have to check back next spring, when the final phase of the renovations is complete.