Birds of Spring Walk

Today Alex and I worked on cleaning up the garage... for 3 hours! (She did a lot more playing then cleaning, but I enjoyed her company.) It was a beautiful day with the temperature near 70 and plenty of blue skies. As we took the trash to the curb, I noticed a bunch of birds in a tree across the street and I thought they were probably Cedar Waxwings. I grabbed my camera and we ended up walking up and down our block photographing the birds amidst the new blooms of spring.

This little bird was in our tree. I noticed yellow as I saw it fly into the tree and think it might be a Yellow Rumped Warbler. (If anyone can verify this or correct me, please let me know!)

Then, I heard a familiar bird... a Red Bellied Woodpecker. Do you see all of the holes on this tree?

We noticed 5 Vultures flying around. They were circling about a block away.

When we made it across the street, we saw about 50-70 Cedar Waxwings. They are so colorful!

I had to share this shot, too, as you can see the red tip on the wing. You can also see how the tip of the tail looks like it has been dipped in yellow paint.

Then, I noticed a bird fly to my neighbor's door and land on their wreath! I couldn't see the bird, but I knew it was there. So, I took this photo, and there he is! Do you see him? He (or she) is sitting in the center of the wreath near a small white flower. I wonder if he/she is building a nest?

We see lots of White Winged Doves in our backyard, but I thought I'd "document" this dove as part of our "birds of spring" walk. I wish I knew trees and could identify what type of tree this dove is sitting in!

And, this little Downy Woodpecker is the bird we watched the longest. I was amazed at how LOUD her pecking was! And, you can actually see the little hole she was making... it is right below her beak. I'm going to be watching this tree to see if this cute little bird comes back as this is a bird we rarely see. By the way, it's a female - the males have a red patch on the back of their neck.

Loggerhead Shrike - Vicious Predator???

Thanks for the help I received in identifying my mystery bird. It is a Loggerhead Shrike.

This sweet looking songbird is actually a vicious predator! According to Cornell's "All About Birds" site, it uses it "uses its hooked beak to kill insects, lizards, mice, and birds, and then impales them on thorns to hold them while it rips them apart." BirdWeb adds the following: "because their feet are not large or strong enough to hold prey, shrikes find a crotch in a tree, a thorn, or barbed wire to hang their prey on while they eat. Prey may be left on such a site for later consumption." Hmmm... very interesting bird!

Health, Snow, and Bird Identity

lex and I are still both recovering from our health problems of the last few weeks. Alex started a second round of antibiotics tonight for her sinus infection. My back/neck/arm are still getting back to normal after a week and a half of pain. The doctor thinks it was a pulled muscle, though I'm still not sure how I pulled it. Especially as it has hurt so bad for so long.  

Our weather has been crazy. It was 70 degrees on Sunday and today (Tuesday), we are seeing another rare Houston SNOW!!! We've just had some snowflakes mixed with rain here, but other places are getting actual snow!

 

Alex and I went on a nature walk with the Family Nature Explore Club on Saturday. It was also a history field trip and I'll try to post about it in the next few days. I took over 100 photos! But, for now, I'm wondering if anyone can help me identify this cute bird!!! My bird books don't have a good match for him, and I'm hoping someone can help me. So, if you have an idea, please let me know! Thanks!

Happy Valentine's...from my back...while watching birds

I'm lying here on the couch watching the birds for the Great Backyard Bird Count. Actually, the reason I'm lying here on the couch is because I've pinched a nerve... or something. Wednesday night I had some pain in my back & neck and thought it was a stiff neck. I took some Aleve Thursday morning and was fine. I even went ice skating. It was quite a bit worse Friday. And, yesterday it was pretty much unbearable. I had to sit and walk around with my arm straight up in the air.

Well, today I realized that if I lie down - either on my back or side - I'm pretty good. But, almost immediately upon standing...ouch!!! So, I'm lying down. And, I've been watching and counting birds for GBBC. 

I can't really upload my photos right now, but here is a photo of a mockingbird I took a couple of years ago. And, here is our list of birds we've seen over the past 3 days. It isn't too late for you to count birds, too! GBBC goes through tomorrow!

• 2 cardinals (male & female)
• 10 white wing doves
• 1 black vulture
• 2 red-bellied woodpeckers (male & female)
• 2 blue jays
• 1 goldfinch
• 1 mockingbird
• 1 crow
• 1 house finch
• 2 black-capped chickadees
• sparrows - lots, but I'm not good at identifying which kind they are, so I'm not including them

Great Backyard Bird Count

I have had good intentions of participating in The Great Backyard Bird Count the past few years, but we've never done it. Today, I printed out a checklist from On Just A Couple Acres, and we are ready to count! I wish I'd picked up some suet, but I do have food in one or two feeders (I'll have to check). And, I hope to get out today or tomorrow and buy some for the rest of our feeders.

If you are not familiar with the count, it is really easy to do. Just run over to GBBC's website, or even view the video at On Just A Couple Acres. Robin and her son at martinzoo have participated for several years and I always enjoy reading about their peaceful morning oberving the birds!

Woodpeckers Part 2

There are 8, possibly 9, species of woodpeckers that live in the Eastern Texas Pineywoods. The reason the number is uncertain is because of the Ivory Billed Woodpecker which many believe is now extinct. It is a very large woodpecker that has not been confirmed to exist in many years. So, I'll talk about the other 8.

1. Pileated Woodpecker - I've never seen a live pileated woodpecker. (This photo is of a stuffed one where we went on our "talk and walk.") This is the largest woodpecker in our area at 16.5 inches. It has a prominent red crest.

2. Downy Woodpecker- This woodepecker is hard to distinguish from the Hairy Woodpecker and I'm not sure which type is on my feeder in this photo though I think it is a Downy. The Downy is a little smaller (about sparrow-sized while the Downy is robin-sized). Both woodpeckers have the black and white striped back with a white spot in the middle. And, you can tell the males from the females because the males have a red spot on the back of their head.

3. Hairy Woodpecker - As I said, this woodepecker is hard to distinguish from the Downy Woodpecker. The Hairy is a little bigger (about robin-sized while the Downy is sparrow-sized). Both woodpeckers have the black and white striped back with a white spot in the middle. And, you can tell the males from the females because the males have a red spot on the back of their head.

4. Red-Cockaded Woodpecker - Another type of woodpecker I've never seen. Alex and I once went on a field trip to learn more about these endangered woodpeckers. This is type of woodpecker is found in old, open pine forests. We didn't see any when we went on our fieldtrip.

 

5. Northern Flicker - Another woodpecker I've never seen - and another photo of a stuffed bird from the nature center. This is a large, jay-sized bird. He is brownish with a white rump and has bits of yellow on his wings and tail. Both the male and the female have the red spot at the base of the neck.

 

6. Yellow-Bellied Sapsucker - Another I haven't seen, but I have seen their work! This type of woodpecker drills horizontal rows of small holes in live trees.

  

7. Red-Headed Woodpecker - I've seen this one only once. They are so beautiful! They are easily identified by their red heads, though their heads are grey when immature. There are no distinguishing marks between the males and females.

 

8. Red-Bellied Woodpecker - This type of woodpecker is a frequent visitor to our yard. For several years, we have had these drumming on the metal cover to our fireplace. The male has more red down the back of his neck than the female. He has a black and white ladder back and a white belly. Both male and females have red on the tops of their head.

 

Lastly, I'll leave you with a photo from our walk. I learned a new word from this class - a "snag." This photo is of a snag with woodpecker holes in it. A snag is a dead or partially dead tree... which are very important for many types of woodpeckers!

I hope you enjoyed this little 2 part lesson on woodpeckers!

(Note: This information was taken from lecture given at Jesse Jones State Park and a brochure published by Texas Parks & Wildlife. All photos are mine.)

P.S. I found "15 Fun Facts About Woodpeckers" on About.com.

Woodpeckers Part 1

Last Saturday, Alex and I went to a "talk and walk" about woodpeckers. I loved this class and learned so much! So, I thought I'd share with all of you a little lesson about woodpeckers. (Below is a photo of a stuffed pileated woodpecker which was on display at this class.)

How are woodpeckers unique?

• HEAD
• powerful bill
• feather tufts around nostrils to protect from debris while pecking wood
• specialized skull to withstand enormous impact of pecking
• TONGUE (I've posted about their tongues before)
• long (extremely long in some types)
• attached near the nose and wraps around the back of the head (wow! Google for images)
• tip is pointed and has stiff barbs so it can pull "things" out of the holes
• TAIL
• 6 sets of retrices (tail feathers) which are genearlly stiff
• inner pair of tail feathers is longest and pointed at tips - this helps support the woodpecker as it climbs up a tree
• FEET
• perching birds have 3 toes that go forward and one that goes backward while woodpeckers often have a zygodactyl foot - where 2 toes go forward and 2 toes go backward. This helps the woodpecker to grasp the bark of tree trunks (rather than perch on a limb). A more recent find is that some woodpeckers have ectropodactyl feet which means they can MOVE their toes into the position they want them!
• COMMUNICATION
• drumming - to mark territory or for attracting a mate
• calls - their songs
• NESTING
• many woodpeckers are keystone species (meaning of great importance) becasuse they are a primary cavity nesting species (meaning they actually MAKE the cavity in the tree which other birds and other animals will later use)
• WOODPECKERS & HUMANS
• woodpeckers cause lots of damage to manmade structures (and we chop down the dead trees they need for homes!)
• people used to eat woodpeckers - here is a great quote from John James Audubon regarding the eating of the Pileated Woodpecker
• Its flesh is tough, of a bluish tint, and smells so strongly of the worms and insects on which it generally feeds, as to be extremely unpalatable.

Outdoor Hour Challenge: Chickadees & Woodpeckers

We are so excited to be doing Barb's Outdoor Hour Challenges again! This week, she listed several black & white birds as the challenge. Of the 4 listed, we have 2 kinds that visit our backyard: chickadess
& woodpeckers (red-bellied & downy).

We started by reading about both types of birds in The Handbook of Nature Study. The most interesting part to us was learning about the woodpecker's tongue. The woodpecker will drill a small hole into a tree to get to a grub or larva. The hole is so small, the woodpecker cannot open his beak to grab the larva. But, God has designed his tongue with tiny hooks that he can poke into the grub to spear it and draw it out of the hole. Wow!

Another interesting thing about a woodpecker's tongue is that it is very long (sometimes three times the bill length). And, there are tiny bones in the woodpecker's tongue that help the tongue to stretch out. (There are great photos and explanations at this Hilton Pond site.)

We also enjoyed reading about how woodpeckers will find a tree (or another object) which they really enjoy the resonance and will return to it again and again. We have had red-bellied woodpeckers come to the top of our fireplace again and again over the past few years to drill on our metal! It is very loud in the house, but they must love it. :-)

(Photos from top to bottom: red-bellied woodpecker in our yard; female downy in our yard; red-headed woodpecker taken during a nature walk)

More Nature Photos from Last Week's Trip

I took lots of photos on our trip last week - including LOTS of nature photos. So, I've had to narrow them down and just post a few of my favorites.

This is a male house finch - my mom started feeding/watching birds after going on a birding trip with us last year.
Mourning Dove at my mom's.
Our sweet chihuahua.
It stormed the night of Great American Backyard Campout. But we made s'mores anyway - in the broiler and they were delicious!!! The next night, Alexandra and I camped in my mom's living room in my brother's tent. (Whoops! I guess this isn't nature, though it WAS supposed to be an outdoor adventure.) (The photo is hard to see, but it is of Alexandra pushing her face in the mesh door of the tent.)
Baby Carolina Wrens at my sister-in-law's. They were in one of her planters. I believe there were 5 babies - you can see one yellow beak.

This was a day or two later. I took more photos, but they were really hard to photograph. The nest was very deep.
I went on a walk down my sister-in-law's hill by myself on the fourth. I love these shelf fungi.

I played around photographing flowers.

Isn't this a cool plant?

These tiny mayflies were all over my sister-in-law's house in the morning.

Her "yard" has LOTS of hummingbirds. She put up 2 new feeders while we were there and the hummingbird activity was amazing! I took almost 100 photos in less than half an hour. I love the silhouette of this hummingbird and feeder.

If you enlarge this photo, you'll see the hummingbird's tounge sticking out!!!

My only good photo of the male ruby throated hummingbird. My sister-in-law has 2 types of hummingbirds. I'm not sure what kind the others are.

An indigo bunting!!! I also took some photos of the male summer tanager (beautiful! and he sat and sang every night), but the sun was at a bad angle and he always came out looking really dark.

And, as we stopped for lunch on the way home, I found this large, incredible beetle at a Sonic in Oklahoma. It's a type of longhorn beetle called a Cottonwood Borer.

Photography

I LOVE photography. (Have you noticed?) And, Alexandra has definitely gotten bitten by the photo-bug, too. She took several hundred pictures this week. (And, I'm planning on having her blog her own photos soon!) But, my husband was actually the first photographer in our family. He even took a class in college and he has his photos from the class - they're great! He took over the camera for a few minutes this week and captured some GREAT shots. (And, all of my photos are unedited as I don't have any software on this computer. I plan on fixing that soon!)



Here's our little chihuahua who turned 3 on the day my nephew was born. She always has yellow eyes when I photographer her. I just love this photo!


And, he took this great shot of his grandfather who was out on the deck watching for hummingbirds.

And, here's my shot of one of the hummingbirds! It needs cropped, so you might just enlarge it for now. We LOVED watching the hummingbirds. And, I picked up some books about them today to do a little study. I want some hummingbird feeders now, too!

And, a photo of my precious daughter's hands holding her little cousin. My sister-in-law has an incredible photo "spot" right by a window - the lighting is incredible! And, isn't he a precious little boy???

Math Splat (Fractions) & Boston Tea Party lapbook

We had a really nice day. The sun was out and we started school very late - about 11 am - but we got to take our time and got finished around 5 pm. We did eat lunch and run some errands during that time. Then, I cooked dinner before Alexandra headed to gymnastics. And, we did some of our school time in the garage with the door open! We're going to have to do that again!

Yesterday, Alexandra finished her first book in a new series, "Key to...", that we're trying out. She finished level 1 of Key to Fractions, so we played some online fraction games today. Her favorite by far was Math Splat.

I know I haven't been posting much about our (very SLOW) studies in American History. We recently finished our studies of Colonial America and started studying the American Revolution times yesterday with a book, George vs. George: The Revolutionary War as Seen by Both Sides by Schanzer.

Well, today we were going to concentrate on the Boston Tea Party and Rhonda at Alston Academy sent me a link for free lapbooks. Well, I haven't really enjoyed lapbooks very much in the past, but Alexandra has loved them. And, they happened to have a lapbook about The Boston Tea Party! And, I love 2 things about it: they don't give you all the answers BUT they give you a few books (in the case, 2) where you CAN find the answers! Oh, we're really enjoying this! We own one of the books, so we've started with that and I hope I can get the other one from the library in the next few days. And, I think I see a lot of lapbooks in our future...


While we were in the garage doing school, Alexandra saw a big heron fly by. A few minutes later, he came back and perched on the roof across the street from us! We usually see these birds in the water, not perched on a roof! It was an amazing site to see and I'm glad he stuck around long enough for me to take some photos. And, I identified him as a great blue heron (they stand almost 4 foot tall!)- he even had the ornate plumes on his/her head, but they're hard to see in this photo. You might try enlarging!

Reptiles & Birds

Our nature group went on our monthly outing yesterday. We had a wonderful time! We went to a place called Brazos Bend State Park which is southwest of Houston.



Our first activity was a walk around a lake where a lot of black vultures "hang out" this time of year.



Besides seeing LOTS of vultures, we saw an alligator sunning on the far side of the lake. We also saw quite a few turtles - covered in duck weed! Can you find 3 in this photo?


We saw ducks, ibises, and egrets. I'm not sure what these ducks are, but I'll try to figure it out.
Next, we went to the nature center to look around. It actually had lots of things to touch and see. One of my favorites was a leech in a tank! Then, we went upstairs to have story time with Ranger Sharon. She read a book called Waiting Alligators and gave us SO much information about alligators! She also had things for us to look at and touch, and a baby alligator to pet! Then, we went tree climbing. One of the family's had a lot of experience climbing trees and the kids were getting really high! Then, we went to a picnic/park area to eat and play. I took photos of these activities on my other camera, and I haven't downloaded them yet. So, you'll have to wait for photos!

Next, was one of our big activities of the day: a lady named Doris Magers from SOAR (Save Our American Raptors) was at the park to share about raptors (birds of prey) and how we can protect them. I was thrilled to volunteer to carry in the above owl!!! Unfortunately, I don't think anyone took a photo. This Great Horned Owl, a female named E.T., sits on a perch and I carried her, perch and all. I was really just in awe to be so close to such a magnificant bird.

Of course, I had to try out my new camera and I was sitting only a few feet on the second row. Alexandra was in front on the floor with some friends. The owl was just amazing!!! We all got excited, and disgusted, when it started looking like it was choking... and then spit something up. We thought, "Oh wow! An owl pellet!!!" But, it turned out not to be a pellet... and it smelled disgusting. Just had to share that info. ;-)

Aren't these talons amazing??? A lot of what Ms. Magers talked about was how people hurt these birds - both through shooting and by taking them from their nests and having them imprint on people so they can never be released into the wild.

Next, she brought out this little bitty Screech Owl. It's only 8 inches tall - and about 9 months old, but probably full grown.

Then, she brought out this beautiful bird... it's an American Kestrel or Sparrow Hawk. Isn't it amazing? (By the way, I fell even MORE in love with birds this day.) The American Kestrel is the smallest falcon in North America - about the size of an American Robin and it is used by falconers.

The last birds she showed us was this bird I'd never seen before called a Crested Caracara. (By the way, I've realized that the photos look a lot different on different computers. On my laptop, this photo looks great. On my PC, this photo looks dark and hard to see.)

These birds are actually now found in the Houston area but are often mistaken for vultures when in flight! I would LOVE to see one of these out in the wild. The lady holding the caracara is Ranger Sharon, the lady who read to us during storytime and who also helped me set up our nature day. The caracara was flying back and forth from Ranger Sharon to a few others - including a couple of volunteers. I wish I could have caught this bird!!!

After the birding program, we went on a 1.2 mile hike around another lake where I was pretty sure we'd see some alligators. We ended up seeing about 7 - 3 of them were VERY close to the path and were almost too close for comfort. This alligator was lying just off the path with his tail towards the trail and his face in the water, covered in duckweed.

We also so quite a few turtles. This one amazed us by his size. If you can see, just to the right of him is a regular sized duck. He's about 1.5 times the size of the duck!

About 1/3rd of the way throught the trail, there is a 3-story observation tower to climb. Alexandra went up before me. (I was busy photographing.)

During story time, we'd learned about "gator holes." Well, someone pointed out a spot that looked like a gator hole with an alligator in it. Using my zoom on my camera, I could tell it WAS an alligator. Then, there was a second possible gator hole with an alligator in front of it. We really couldn't tell if it was another alligator or not. When I got home and downloaded my photos, I was excited to see that you could tell it was another, smaller alligator!

Here's one more alligator. If you'll notice the bumps on his back, I'll tell you more about them next time. :-)