more yellow birds

American goldfinch - Spinus tristus - Bell County, Texas

It seems most of the winter visitors here are little yellow birds; finches and warblers. I've rarely seen goldfinches in their brightest colors in Texas; by the time they are turning bright gold they're ready to return to their homes in the north. I've seen 3 or 4 individuals foraging together this year.

Goldfinch & Cardinal - Bell County, Texas

The cardinals are here all year. A few days ago I saw four males and four females foraging together in the front yard, so there are at least eight individuals frequenting the feeders.

Pine Warbler

Setophaga pinus - Bell County, Texas

I've been trying for a few weeks to get a clear shot of this winter visitor, as they aren't all that common in this area. I wish the sun had been brighter as the bird is so bright it looks like someone dipped it in powdered sulfur.

Winter Bird

Brown Thrasher photo by Dan Pancamo

 I spotted one of these beautiful birds in the back yard this morning. First thing I noticed was how much it resembled a mockingbird. I checked my Sibley bird book, and it was as I suspected, a Brown Thrasher, and in the same family, Mimidae, as the mockingbird. I see on Wikipedia that my house is in the wintering region of the thrasher, so perhaps winter is coming sooner than expected.

It seems the hummingbirds have already deserted us, too, another sign of impending weather changes.

sunday wildlife report

I've been finding a lot of small white broken eggshells on my walks lately. I'm pretty sure they come from the nests of white-wing doves. Today I found part of a beautiful blue robin's egg. There was a time when seeing a robin in Texas seemed a rare sight. When I was little my family lived in Seattle, where robins were common, and I missed them when we moved to Texas. Now I see them in many places in North and Central Texas. I used to be sad when I saw a broken eggshell because I thought it had fallen out of the nest, then I found out it's a sign that a baby bird has hatched. The parent bird cleans the nest by throwing away the eggshell. Here's a time lapse of a baby Robin hatching and the adult bird tossing out the eggshell

Yesterday I found a good-size red-eared slider turtle in my neighbor's front yard. Its shell was about ten inches (25 cm) in diameter, so it was at least an adult. It seemed to be going somewhere, and I hope it gets there safely. I would have liked to bring it home with me, but I don't have a pond in my yard. Maybe someday.......

(c) Matthew High, some rights reserved (CC BY-NC)

I have a couple of Texas spiny lizards living in my back yard. I'm pretty sure one of them lives under the tool shed, but I've seen them often lately either scrambling up the wooden fence or catching bugs in the tallow tree. They will let me get fairly close, within two feet, probably because they can escape so quickly. One of these days I hope to get a good photo of one of them. They are one of my favorite little dinosaurs.

more from The Bird Exhibit

A few more cards with bird-related themes.
Can you guess which one is my favorite? 

Bird Song

Oriole Park

Lolita

Bird Exhibit

The Bird Exhibit

I don't usually have a theme in mind when I make a series of postcards; my process is too haphazard for that.  Recently though I clipped a lot of bird images, and some of them ended up on these cards, so I'm calling this series "The Bird Exhibit".

Stir It Up

Baby Birds

Bird Poem

invasion of the yellow-rumped warblers

For the second time in a week a small flock of 10-15 of these cute little critters descended on the back yard. Mostly they foraged in the grass or on the bare branches of a chinese tallow tree that has a few seeds still hanging on it. I snapped a few photos and I'm trying to figure out how to attach them to my observation checklist at ebird. I only discovered the site a few months ago; it's a great place to see what kind of birds other people may have spotted in your area.

Tallow Tree

Back in the 1970s when most of the houses in my neighborhood were built there were a lot of Chinese Tallow Trees planted here. They turned out to be a nasty invasive species, and unfortunately there are three of these trees in my yard. Their roots grow on top of the soil which is problematic when trying to use a lawn mower near them and they leave a mess year round. They seem to drop pods, seeds and twigs constantly.  I will say the seed pods do look striking against a blue sky, and now the trees that are dying attract woodpeckers. Here's a Red-bellied woodpecker on my neighbor's dead tree.

Sign of fall?

© Deines, Fred. Photographer: Deines, Fred. Content released to the Public Domain

The brightest yellow bird I have ever seen visited my back yard this morning. We get goldfinches, but they're almost always in their drab winter colors. I'm pretty sure the bird I saw was a Yellow Warbler  (Dendroica petechia). I've never seen one before. Information I found online & in my bird books show that yellow warblers are usually seen in Texas only when they're migrating, so I'm hopeful this pretty yellow visitor is a sign that hot temperatures may be on the wane soon. Temperatures are still in the upper nineties, with highs of 98 predicted for the coming week. (sigh)

Hummer Swarm

I'm only about a year late posting this. It was on my flip cam until today. This was shot September 9, 2013, so it's almost time for them to arrive, if they fly this way again. I think most of these were ruby-throated hummingbirds. I hope they come back.

little mocker

Young mockingbird almost ready to fly. Look at those short little tail feathers! My dog will be a happier puppy when she has her special corner in the back yard to herself again. Her favorite spot is apparently too close to the mockingbird nest (even though it's on the other side of the fence), and lately the adult mockingbirds keep swooping down to peck her on the back.

springtime

Irises are blooming! A few plants had buds in March, but a late freeze put them on hold. Purple irises are my favorites. We're not having a fabulous show like last year because I dug up a bunch of bulbs when we moved and didn't get them planted right away. They're still getting acclimated to their alien surroundings. (I still have a few dozen in a box that are sprouting without the aid of dirt or light.) There are 4 or 5 dutch irises in several shades of purple and yellow blooming right now and one small Louisiana iris that bloomed for a day. Next year they should be more comfortable in their new home.

The best news is the hummingbirds are back. I spotted one in late March so I put out the feeders. Soon there were two birds. Two or three more arrived this week. This one is a male ruby-throated hummingbird, and I saw one male black-chinned hummingbird. They aren't acting overly territorial over the feeders yet, but I don't know if their comraderie will last.

white-winged dove

We have a bunch of white-winged doves in the neighborhood and they usually visit our back yard at least once a day. We call them our "chickens". I think they are a bit more intelligent than mourning doves, plus they have such pretty eye coloring. The mourners never learned how to get seeds out of our bird feeder, but the white-wings, on the other hand sometimes engage in odd acrobatics to balance themselves on the feeders so they can get an easy meal. Our back-yard feeders are more entertaining than TV.

One of my goals this year is to finally sort through many of my old photos and to add them to my Bird Checklist Page on this blog; also to keep observing and trying to take new photos of birds I see. I think having visual cues for my "Life List" will help me remember which birds I've seen and which ones to look for. Most of the images will be photos taken by me somewhere in Texas, although there may be a few from other localities.