The G-man & I were awake at 6:30 this morning to meet the Bastrop County Audubon Society for the annual Christmas bird count. Each county or Audubon club takes a "Christmas bird count" which takes place on or near Christmas. The tradition in Bastrop County is for birders to gather at the Texas Grill on Hwy. 71 at 7 AM on January 1st & get instructions where to go to watch for birds. The G-man & I usually go with David, Josh, John & Jennifer to ColoVista and along the Colorado River to count birds and that is where we headed this morning.
The G-man & I have bird calls recorded on our iPod with a speaker attached that we use to encourage the birds to gather where we are. We play the Eastern Screech Owl tape and birds flock from all around to "keep an eye on the owl". It amazes me that they gather to check out this "bird". Of course, there is no Screech Owl present, just me & the recording. I also played calls for the Eastern Bluebird, Eastern Phoebe and several other birds.
Today we counted 23 species from 8 AM until around noon. If you click on the bird's name a link will take you to a picture of the bird, the bird's call, map where it is located & other information. The following are what we saw:
Red-tailed Hawk
Eastern Bluebird
Northern Cardinal
Crested Caracara
Ruby-crowned Kinglet
Black-capped Chickadee
Eastern Phoebe
Yellow-rump Warbler
Lesser Goldfinch
Red-bellied Woodpecker
Downy Woodpecker
Marsh Wren
Savannah Sparrow
Cedar Waxwing
Pine Siskin
American Kestrel
Loggerhead Shrike
Great Blue Heron
Common Merganser
Black Vulture
Blue Jay
American Crow
...and in our backyard
Pileated Woodpecker
Tufted Titmouse
We also had two hummingbirds (a Buff-bellied and a Ruby-throat) at our house on Dec. 22, but we have not seen them since we returned from out trip out west so we could not put them in our bird count.
PS ~ On Jan 2nd we added Sandhill Cranes to our list of birds. The G-man spotted about 20 flying overhead and turning to go down river on the Colorado to end up along the Texas coast. This little group is late in its travels. They usually fly over during October.
The G-man & I have bird calls recorded on our iPod with a speaker attached that we use to encourage the birds to gather where we are. We play the Eastern Screech Owl tape and birds flock from all around to "keep an eye on the owl". It amazes me that they gather to check out this "bird". Of course, there is no Screech Owl present, just me & the recording. I also played calls for the Eastern Bluebird, Eastern Phoebe and several other birds.
Today we counted 23 species from 8 AM until around noon. If you click on the bird's name a link will take you to a picture of the bird, the bird's call, map where it is located & other information. The following are what we saw:
Red-tailed Hawk
Eastern Bluebird
Northern Cardinal
Crested Caracara
Ruby-crowned Kinglet
Black-capped Chickadee
Eastern Phoebe
Yellow-rump Warbler
Lesser Goldfinch
Red-bellied Woodpecker
Downy Woodpecker
Marsh Wren
Savannah Sparrow
Cedar Waxwing
Pine Siskin
American Kestrel
Loggerhead Shrike
Great Blue Heron
Common Merganser
Black Vulture
Blue Jay
American Crow
...and in our backyard
Pileated Woodpecker
Tufted Titmouse
We also had two hummingbirds (a Buff-bellied and a Ruby-throat) at our house on Dec. 22, but we have not seen them since we returned from out trip out west so we could not put them in our bird count.
PS ~ On Jan 2nd we added Sandhill Cranes to our list of birds. The G-man spotted about 20 flying overhead and turning to go down river on the Colorado to end up along the Texas coast. This little group is late in its travels. They usually fly over during October.
Downy Woodpecker
American Crow
Crested Cara Cara (or Mexican Eagle)
The G-man looking for birds
9 comments:
awesome! i see eleven of those around my backyard usually. my fave is the red-tailed hawk. a rare sighting for me but i've seen a few!! steven
cool. that's quite a list. I see some of those regularly here.
Birds are so much fun but hard at least for me to get good pictures of. Every once in a while you get lucky. There is a cedar wax wing right here.
The Mexican eagle looks impressive.
I watch the crows here in Rochester as they fly in to roost each evening. It's so interesting to see them flying in at the same time around dusk from all points outside of the city. They seem to roost in the trees in a rough circle around the city center every night. And... as they are flying in, and after roosting they are, for the most part, quiet!
Interesting....
Oh yeah, I love to watch the birds do their thing. About 30 minutes ago (5:15 PM) about 50 black vultures were circling over our house. No, nothing died; they just roost in the woods here in winter. We got a cold front in today so the wind is out of the north & they LOVE to circle & swoop and ride the thermals overhead. It is quite lovely even if they are buzzards!
Cheryl. That is amazing you saw 23 species in that time! I love that ap you've got that plays the bird call. Thanks for the links to those birds. I've been really noticing an especially high count of red tail hawks on our drives up to the Kansas City area from the Ozarks. Have you been noticing increasing numbers of hawks or owls?
a tufted titmouse - sounds so cute. well done on the bird count and fascinating to see the pictures! birds are so hard to photograph - they never sit still long enough!
Val, your comment made me laugh. The favorite line of one of the birder's here is "birds fly".
That's a long list! After I retire I want to learn more about identifying birds. I think that's a pretty neat use of an iPod, too.
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