Birds

Some of my experiences while bird watching.

Tuesday, February 23, 2010

The Roadrunner and the Lizard

On February 21, 2010, Charolette and I were at the Rio Grande Village Campground in Big Bend National Park, getting ready to walk the birding trail there. We had been watching two Roadrunners in our vicinity. One of them caught a lizard about 15 feet from us. Using our binoculars, we got a great view of the Roadrunner manipulating the lizard to get it lined up and then swallowing it whole.

posted by Joe Hank # 8:22 PM 0 comments

Monday, October 20, 2008

The Merganser and the Eel in Port Hardy

On Wednesday, May 28, 2008, our 42nd anniversary, we were in a motel in Port Hardy, British Columbia, as far north as the paved roads go on Vancouver Island. I was on our balcony watching a Common Merganser swimming around in the high tide. It dove under while I was watching it with my binoculars and came back up with a small eel in its beak. I would guess the eel was 9 or 10 inches long. The eel didn't like being held by a Merganser as it was wiggling a lot and wrapping itself around the Merganser's beak. The Merganser finally maneuvered the eel into position and swallowed it whole.

posted by Joe Hank # 10:23 PM 0 comments

Monday, January 28, 2008

Bald Eagle in the Madison River

My wife and I are retired. We spent four weeks in West Yellowstone in 2005 (late May through late June). We spent a lot of time in the Madison Valley of Yellowstone National Park. We frequently stopped to watch the Bald Eagle nest about a mile west of Seven Mile Bridge. The nest had a pair of adults and two young that we saw.

Anyway, one evening just before sunset, we stopped on Riverside Drive next to the Madison River to look at a Western Tanager we had just seen. Suddenly we were surrounded by Tanagers. There must have been 25 or 30 of them in their brilliant colors. We followed them down the road for a hundred feet or so, thoroughly enjoying ourselves and this magnificent find. My wife looked towards the river and told me there was an adult Bald Eagle on the water. I looked and sure enough there was an eagle actually on the water flapping one wing against the water and trying to work its way over to the shore. When we first saw it, it was about 20 feet offshore in water about three feet deep. It flopped and hopped for several seconds and finally managed to wade on shore about 15 feet from us. It looked at us and apparently decided it should be somewhere else. It took flight in a wobbly way and flew across the river to the closest tree and landed. Once while this eagle was flopping in the river, a second adult Bald Eagle flew close overhead in a tight circle and then flew to the other side of the river. The wet eagle landed about 30 feet from the dry eagle. We looked at the eagle with our binoculars and it reminded me of looking at a wet cat. The dry eagle flew off in a couple minutes. The wet eagle was still there when we left 10 minutes later. Unfortunately, we had left our vehicle with binoculars but no camera, so I did not get a picture of the swimming eagle. The only thing we could figure is that it was a very windy day with hard gusts and the eagle must have been trying to catch a fish and a wind gust caused his wing to hit the water and he couldn't recover.

The two eagles must have been the pair from the nest, because we did not see any other eagles in the Madison Valley during the four weeks we were there.

Anyway, our short drive just to check out the birds right before sunset gave us two great memories - the tanagers and the swimming eagle.

posted by Joe Hank # 10:43 AM 0 comments

Brown-headed Cowbird and Carolina Wren

One day in the summer of 2006, I was looking out my back window and saw a bird I identified as an immature Brown-headed Cowbird. It was sitting on my deck doing nothing. I watched it for a minute or two. Suddenly, a Carolina Wren landed close to it, hopped over to it, and put something in its mouth. The wren immediately took off. I realized that I was seeing a cowbird being raised by wrens. Obviously, a cowbird egg had been laid in their nest, and they were dutifully raising the bird that hatched. I was excited to have seen this episode that proved what cowbirds do.

posted by Joe Hank # 9:48 AM 0 comments

Sunday, April 02, 2006

Trip to Great Salt Plains of Oklahoma - March 31 to April 2, 2006

We saw about 35 different species on Friday, March 31, including a new lifer, the Ring-Necked Pheasant. There were about 250 pelicans on the river right below the spillway. We saw lots of herons and egrets. We got some good views of Little Blue Herons. We also saw lots of turtles.

On Saturday, we took the Eagle Roost trail. We saw lots of Northern Flickers. We saw American Avocet. We saw lots of Northern Shovelers. We saw numerous other water and shore birds.

On Sunday, in Cherokee, we got another new lifer, the Eurasian Collared-Dove, in the city park.

We decided that the Pheasant is the best looking bird we have seen in our two years of bird watching.

posted by Joe Hank # 7:12 PM 0 comments

Wednesday, March 29, 2006

March 29, 2006 - Cedar Waxwings

I put up a water mister in my backyard a couple days ago. Today, the Cedar Waxwings found it. They apparently love to play in spraying water. A flock of 10 spent about 30 minutes playing in it right after lunch. They are beautiful birds and a lot of fun to watch. I hope they come back regularly. The mister is about 12 feet up in a medium-sized Oak tree. I have it on a timer that turns it on four times a day for 90 minutes each time.

It looks as if the House Sparrows have taken over the birdhouses that were occupied by a pair of Carolina Chickadees and a pair of Carolina Wrens. I guess the sparrows chase the other birds away. The Chickadees are still eating at our feeders, so they must not have moved too far away. Maybe they will pick another one of my houses.

We have an American Robin hanging out in our backyard. Normally, we seldom have an robins in the back because it is a forest. For some reason, this one bird, probably a juvenile, has been there all day for the past four days. I guess he doesn’t mind the trees.

We’ve had a lot of woodpeckers visiting today. I saw a pair of Red-bellied along with a Hairy and many Downy.

posted by Joe Hank # 2:37 PM 0 comments

Tuesday, March 28, 2006

Start of New Blog

I set up this blog as a place to save my bird watching experiences.

posted by Joe Hank # 5:59 PM 0 comments