Bird Brain Chronicles – Bob James

The Worst Day Birding…

February 5, 2020 rockyfort

…is better than the best day at work. I actually took these pictures on Monday, but got caught up with a bunch of stuff the last couple of days and never posted them. I went by the Oso Creek waterway, spaces shown to me by Bill Mays, who’s published a couple of my short stories. I asked him about the amazing pictures he gets, and he showed me his secret spots. I go there occasionally, but I don’t see as much as he does. On my way there, though, I gained sympathy for people who commit one of my pet peeves: turn or change lanes without using their signal. I was getting into the lane from which I’d need to turn, eventually. There was no one in the lane I needed, so, I turned on my blinker and started to move into the lane. When I did that, I realized the person that had been about twenty car lengths behind was ten car lengths behind and was speeding as if he was hoping to close the gap so I couldn’t change in front of him. (And then, later on, he turned before he ever caught up to me.) Our society seems to value courtesy far less every year.

Now, for the birds. Didn’t see many worth taking pictures of. The waterway is beautiful, though and I took a pictures in one place. I thought I had a few more, but I didn’t.

As I walked toward my first stop, I saw a black, duck-like bird flying. When I looked at the picture later, I realized that he was a double-crested cormorant. When I got to the place, I saw a bird that I thought might be the same one. Examining the pictures later made me realize it was. So, here you have a picture of a double-crested cormorant in flight, and then at rest….ok…fishing. I missed the shot of him diving into the water.

I’ll show the picture later, for reasons that will become obvious, but I heard the call of what I thought was a gull. Now, gulls are not one of the birds I get excited taking pictures of, but, given how few birds I had seen or heard, I decided that a good picture of a gull in flight would be nice to have. So, I snapped that picture and moved on. I kept looking into the foliage on the side, not seeing anything. OK, as I walked, I must admit that I was disgusted by the amount of litter left in the area. How hard is it to take your trash back out with you when you’re in the woods. (Hint: if it’s too hard to take out, then don’t bring it in with you!) One spot I looked at had a stalk of celery left on some branches. I decided that someone had done that to draw some kind of animal to the area, hopefully for a picture, and chuckled at that. Then, I looked up and saw these birds. At first I thought they were loggerhead shrikes, but I found out later that was some kind of trick my imagination was playing on me. Just sparrows, but since it looked like they were the fruit of the tree, I still snapped and am posting the picture.

As I looked for that picture, I saw one that I had thought about posting, but decided not to. It was a fuzzy female cardinal, because my autofocus looked at the trees instead of the bird. Now, back to the “gull” earlier. But first, I walked across a flood plain down to another prime picture spot and there in the trees was this beautiful osprey. It was hard to decide which shot to use and decided on this one because it showed so much of the beauty of the bird. When I got home, I realized that what I thought was a sea gull, was, in fact, this same osprey. i haven’t see many of these beautiful birds, but I love seeing them when I do.

As I’m returning to my picture taking, I’m getting hungry for a new lens. I currently have a lens that adjusts to 250 mm. I’d really like one that extends to 600 mm for much clearer shots, especially on birds in flight. My wife isn’t excited by the idea. How can I convince her that this would be a great investment? I’d love your suggestions!

Bird Brain Chronicles

Trailing Along

February 1, 2020February 1, 2020 rockyfort

Every week, I do a video introduction to a Bible study I write on my Daily Enduring Truth Blog. This week, I decided to go to the South Texas Botanical Gardens so that I could do the video, and then walk the trails. I’ve generally seen a lot of birds along the trails here. I did the video in the Hummingbird Garden. Most of the flowers weren’t blooming yet and it’s been a little cold for hummingbirds, so we didn’t have the color background I hoped for, nor did we see any hummingbirds. My wife, Lucy, accompanied me and did the video work today. Imagine our surprise near the end of our visit we say the picture of the parrot named Lucy. So, my Lucy posed with their Lucy.

After that, I got a couple of nice scenery shots. I love the view of the creek and the view of the lake. I usually see lots of birds on the lake, but I only saw one today, a cormorant and I couldn’t get any good pictures of it.

As I was leaving the lake, a Great Blue Heron flew past. Today, the birds seemed to be either out of range or they showed up when I wasn’t ready with my camera.

A little bit farther along the trail there’s a bigger lake also. I didn’t get any pictures of the lake, but a few pics of the birds on the lake. As best as I can tell, this is a green winged teal. It’s darker than the ones I saw at the Suter Wildlife Refuge, but the head and the little white chevron in the front were helpful in identifying it. Again, please feel free to corrct me if I’m wrong.

In a tree on the other side of the larger lake, I saw this Loggerhead shrike. Those birds fascinate me, and I love the mask around their face. This was one of the ones that was too far away to get a really good pic.

On the other side of the bridge (used to walk over the marshy, muddy edge of the big lake) I saw this Lesser Yellow Legs. I’ve seen a couple since I started shooting again even though I don’t recall seeing them before this time.

In Texas, you gotta see a mockingbird or two whenever you go out birding…just because. This was one of the few birds I found as I followed a trail close by Oso Creek.

Finally, if you remember, this is a botanical garden. While it was too early for most flowers, we saw a few beautiful flowers. We had planned to go today to take pictures. Just before we left, we got a letter reminding us that we needed to renew our membership. We did so gladly because this is one of the most beautiful spots in the area with both cultivated and natural beauty.

Bird Brain Chronicles, Bird pics and story

Return to the Scene of the Crime

January 31, 2020 rockyfort

Let’s face it…last Saturday’s pics were bad. They were so bad they were criminal…sort of. So, yesterday I returned to the scene of the crime to see if I could get some good pictures. Well, I had another plan as well, but that didn’t pan out too well. The Suter Wildlife Refuge has trails going two ways from the parking lot. One is to the gazebo by the bay where I took pics Saturday, the other is through the trees down to the shore. Since I had gone to the gazebo area before, I started out going to the trees. In the past, I’d seen a lot of songbirds and gotten good pictures along this path. On this day, I saw two birds and didn’t get a chance to take the picture. They were too small, too fast, and rushed for cover.

One reason I didn’t see many birds, I believe, is that the city is doing some work on the Refuge, seeking to create a more native environment. It was pretty noisy. It should be good in the long run. When I got close to the shore, I didn’t see any birds, but I saw a few where I took long range shots. This double crested cormorant, I think that’s right, flew to join his buddies sunning themselves on a rock. Even with cropping, this pic looks a long way off. One of my dreams for this year is to get a longer range lens to use for these shots. I got a few other shots, but they weren’t crisp and clear. So, I walked back to the gazebo. Of course, since I could see the water around the gazebo, I walked quickly. I had seen a whole flock of white pelicans close by!

One of the things that struck me was the beauty created by God just using black and white..well…maybe with a bit of orange accent. In this picture, you can see black skimmers, sea gulls, American avocets, black-necked stilts, and white pelicans. I thought the pelican scratching behind his ear was interesting…thought about my dog when I saw this. While looking at this picture, I noticed the green wing teals behind the pelicans. I looked for them, hoping for a better pic than the other day, but couldn’t find them, that I know of. I wished I’d noticed them while I was there so I could have gotten a better picture.

One of the most beautiful birds on the coast is the black skimmer. It’s black and white, with an orange accent around the beak. It feeds by fying just above the water and dipping it’s beak in the water as it flies along. According to All About Birds, “Possibly the best description of the Black Skimmer’s bounding, head-down foraging style came from the great seabird biologist R. C. Murphy in 1936. He said they look like ‘unworldly… aerial beagles hot on the scent of aerial rabbits.'” I usually see them in large flocks, like those flying to your left, or at the bottom of the picture above. As much as I love the picture with the whole flock rising up in the air at one time, I wish you could experience the beauty yourself.

One of the more humorous, to me incidents of the day was when a brown pelican caught a fish. If you can see the brown pelican, he’s just swallowed the fish. When he first caught it, the seagulls swarmed him, trying to get anything he might drop, or, make him lose the fish. The white pelican came over to help out his fellow peli….or so I imagine. Then, once he swallowed the fish, the other birds pulled back and later he was seen swimming with the gulls following behind like ducklings following their mother. (They attacked any time the pelican found something else to snack on.

Then, finally, this bird. I’m beginning to recognize some birds again. I thought this was either a godwit or a willet, and research leads me to believe that it’s a marbled godwit. (Willets have shorter beaks and longer legs, I think.) He just kept searching the shallows for invertebrates and plant tubers. (See what a little research will tell you!)

All in all, I had a great time on a beautiful day. I plan to do three of these Bird Brain Chronicles posts a week. I’m also trying to work a way to show the full pictures at a larger size so you can see the beauty of these birds. Please feel free to correct anything I said that was wrong, ask questions, or request a site or a bird for me to check out.

Note: I was just about to post this yesterday when I did something stupid and burnt my hand, making it hard to type. Sorry for the delay.

Bird Brain Chronicles, Bird pics and story

And the Fog Lifted

January 27, 2020 rockyfort

Just a note before I get into today’s version of #BirdBrainChronicles: As I was setting this post up,I checked to see how the pictures were fitting together. I wasn’t happy. I need to find a bettwer way to line up the pictures. Until I do, please forgive the wonky formatting.

The day began with fog. We’ve had a lot of that lately…I wonder if God has a trip to London in mind for me. Just kidding of course…maybe. We had fog until about 9:00, and when I got paged to go to the church and sign checks (which I should have done yesterday) I headed over there.

We usually drive by Middlecoff Park when we go to church, it avoids some of the busier areas of traffic. Today was no different. Only today, I saw these two beautiful sandhill cranes, feeding in the grass right by the road. The two cranes at the park though, just kept eating as I drove up and didn’t bat an eye, so far as I could tell, when I rolled down the window to take pictures. I took the two together and then isolated one of them. I should add that when I downloaded these pics to my computer, I lept for joy because they weren’t blurry. The two flying cranes were later, but I wanted to keep all these pics together

Sandhill Cranes flying

After I signed the checks at church, I headed to the Oso Bay Wetlands Preserve & Learning Center because it’s a wonderful place to look for birds. Today, it seemed like the overall bird population was down, but I still had a great time walking and looking at the beauty of the area. Of course, starting the day with the Sandhills already had made the day successful, but the scenery along the walk and the birds I did see added to the enjoyment. Walking into the sun, the plants were filled with water drops from the fog. I started off taking a few pictures of the drops. They looked like God had given the plants diamond necklaces to glitz up the place.

Wait, what’s that I see in that last picture? A cardinal’s hiding in the brush. My limited photography skills don’t always capture the beauty I see, especially with birds hidden in the midst of branches and brush, but seeing this cardinal brought a smile to my face.

I love Cardinals, well, except for the St. Louis variety, and this was the first one I’ve seen this year. Then, I got a few better cardinal pics. The picture of the female came after I went to the overlook, but I wanted all the Cardinals together.

I experienced my lack of expertise in identifying birds today with the next few birds. One, I only knew because I had seen other people identify similar birds as ruby-crowned kinglets. (I still haven’t ever seen the ruby crown displayed!) They’re small, and this one was flitting around the branches. I never got a good look from him, this is the best of the lot.

These next two were hard to identify because they were backlit by the sun, and it was hard to see the colorations, but the duck looking one appears to be a Northern Pintail and the other one a Lesser Yellowlegs.

And this one, I thought at first was a brown thrasher, but it doesn’t look like it after research. The song was beautiful, but I didn’t record it. Do you know what it is?

As I began walking back to the car, I heard the honking of the sandhill cranes, and that’s when I snapped the pic of them flying. I saw a number of mocking birds, and explained what kind of bird ockingbirds are to a young child coming out of the learning center with his family. He said that he wished that they ate bugs, and I told him that they do…lots of bugs.

Bird Brain Chronicles, Bird pics and story

Return of the Bird Brain Chronicles!

January 25, 2020 rockyfort

I began a series of articles on birds in Corpus Christi, and anywhere I visited last year that I called the Bird Brain Chronicles. When my mother died, I put things on hold, and never got started again. Today, I decided I needed to get back to taking pictures of birds again, which I did at the Suter Wildlife Refuge in Corpus Christi. Then, I did a bird brain thing and didn’t realize that I had changed a setting when I too full moon pics a couple of weeks ago. So, these pics aren’t as sharp as I expected they would be. If you were to talk with my wife, she would tell you I whined about the pics the whole time I was picking the best of the bad lot I took. Still, I’m posting these because the birds are beautiful and I’m trying to document the birds I see. Be gentle as you look at these pics!

As you enter the the walkway over the wetlands, there’s a holding pond and outlet to the bay. I’ve seen a number of different birds there, but I almost always see this beautiful bird, known as a Norther Shoveler. This one was swiming in the outlet area after leaving the holding pond earlier. The Shovelers were flocking in the holding pond. I had the chance to talk with a couple from Fort Worth as we both watched. I enjoy talking with other birders, although putting myself in the class of a birder might be overstimating my ability as a birder. I saw a few Northern Coots mixed in with the Shoveler flock, but didn’t get a good picture of one.

I love black necked stilts. Their legs are so long that they do look like they’re on stilts. There’s an elegance to their awkward walk that makes me smile. This was the first bird I really noticed when I got to the farthest end of the boardwalk. He was slowly walking through the shallows looking for his brunch. (Brunch, of course, being served after ten and before noon.) I looked away some other birds when I heard a couple of real bird watchers talking about them, and when I looked back, he had disappeared. I usually see a stilt or two any time I come to this refuge and quite often in other parts of the city. I think they’re beautifu birds.

These are the birds that I overheard a couple of real bird watchers talk about. They’re beautiful green wing teals. They must have been doing lunch because they swam together, ducking their heads under water for whatver food they could find. (No pun intended.) I took a lot of pictures trying to get a good view, and I won’t continue to beat myself up by saying that I messed up the settings on the camera. That bothered me because this was the first time I’d ever seen a green wing teal. I am reminded though, that even more important than a great picture is seeing the beauty of God’s creation in person. I continue to be amazed at the beauty and diversity of God’s creation.

If you know me, you know that I’d have a brown pelican in the picture mix somewhere. I love watching white or brown pelicans, but I’ve come to realize the beauty and variety among brown pelicans is amazing. I’ve often said that Steve Spielberg must have been thinking of these birds when he designed the flight patterns of the pteradactyls from Jurassic Park. This one was a little farther out in the water, but in some places they’ll walk around within a few feet of people.

As we were looking at the birds spread out in the bay, these little birds cae running up the shallows looking for food. An old guy like me got tired just watching them running around. They don’t look too small in this cropped picture, but they were tiny little birds. They were so fast that when I looked away, they disappeared and I saw them later way off in the distance. These were new birds for a life list, if I kept up with one. If you think about diversity and variety in the bird world, you have sea birds like pelicans and great blue herons who are large, and then you have small birds like sanderlings – all of those beautiful birds playing an important part in our amazing ecosystem designed by God. I have a few other pictures that I could share, but I’m going to stop tonight. I plan to share more pics, and I hope that I get the settings right in the future. Look around as you walk about this amazing world and enjoy the beauty of God’s world.

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