Yellow-throated Vireo

As I have been re-organizing my photo collection within Flickr, I have occasionally come across a picture or two that are fairly good, but somehow I missed when I first uploaded them. An example are these photos of a Yellow-throated Vireo that I took back in April 2007 while I was in Louisiana. These were taken in Lake Fausse Point State Park. If my memory is correct, this little guy was singing and preening all morning long in a tree next to the parking lot.

American Bittern

My previous post suggested that I had two or three most posts from the last field trip of the 2007 ABA Conference in Lafayette. I decided tonight that it would be only one more post. This one.

As the title of this post announces, here are a couple pictures of an American Bittern. The first is with minimal zoom and no cropping to give you an idea of how this species hides in tall grass. The vertical stripes, brown coloration and bill-pointed-to-the-sky stance help it blend in quite nicely. It can look just like one of the reeds or part of the grass it is standing within.

The second picture is of a different bird than the first (another picture taken through a tinted van window). This bird was just standing in a marshy ditch next to the road. Oddly, the bird only knows one way to blend into its surroundings, even if those surroundings are not a good fit for its natural camouflage. I can just imagine this bird standing there, perfectly still, staring at our stopped van thinking "I am invisible! I am invisible! The big white van stopped for some other reason because I am invisible!".

King Rail

Here is another bird spotted from within the confines of a passenger van. A King Rail is a great bird to see because they are usually hidden in the tall grass of a marsh. To say that we were fortunate to find this bird in a ditch on the side of a gravel road in the middle of Louisiana would be an understatement. Everyone on the van was excited to see this bird. These two photos were the best that I could do through the tinted windows of the van and over the shoulder of another passenger.

Common Nighthawk

Common Nighthawks belong to a family of birds that is called Goatsuckers. This family includes other birds such as Whip-Poor-Will and Chuck-Will's-Widow, both of which got their names from the phonetic sound of their songs. The term Goatsucker comes from a myth that these birds actually sucked milked from goats at night. In reality, the birds were eating insects that buzzed around goats, and other livestock, at night.

Last Sunday, one of the field trip guides spotted a Common Nighthawk resting on a branch. We stopped, looked, photographed, and generally "oohed" and "ahhed". When we resumed our trek, there was another one resting on a fence post a few yards down the road that gave us even better looks.

Scramble the Mudflats

One of the stops we made on my last field trip in Louisiana was at Lacassine NWR. The habitat there was mostly marsh and mudflats, attracting lots of ducks, wading birds and shore birds.

An interesting behavior exhibited by the shore birds occurred whenever a bird of prey would fly over the mudflats. The flocks of sandpipers would take off and fly around in a big "blob". In this particular example the bird of prey was a Peregrine Falcon (not in the picture). He appeared a couple of times, and each time the shore birds took off and flew around in their "blob", eventually landing again when the collective decided that the danger had passed. The guide for our field trip called this phenomenon "scrambling the mudflats" because after everything landed, you had to go through and re-identify/re-locate all the birds since they were all in different places than before.

Loggerhead Shrikes

Well, I did not really post any of my remaining Louisiana pictures over the course of this past week. But I am finally getting to that today.

This picture was taken while we were taking a rest-stop at a local gas station. These are Loggerhead Shrikes. I stood on a small plastic stool so that I could take this picture over the top of a chain link fence. I was standing on my tip-toes, on the stool, hand-holding the camera. I am happy that the picture was not even more fuzzy than it is, and that I did not fall while taking the picture.

The bird on the left is a juvenile begging for food. The bird on the right might also be a juvenile (even though he is not begging). There were, I think, five fledged birds scattered about the place, all waiting their turn to be fed by one of the adults.

Dickcissel

During Sunday's field trip, one of the first places we visited was a sod farm. Where they were not actively growing your next lawn, there were some nice areas with tall grass. And where there was tall grass, there were Dickcissels. We do not get these in Virginia, and I had never seen one before, so this was a nice bird for me to see.

[Edit: Apparently we do get these in Virginia, but I have yet to see one here.]

At Home Again

The 2007 ABA Conference is officially over and I have made it back home. I return back to the daily grind tomorrow, and begin the arduous "post vacation catch up" process at work. I did go on a field trip yesterday, and will post a few of the pictures from that trip over on No Ceiling through the rest of this week. I saw a lot of birds yesterday on that field trip. Unfortunately, many of them were from the inside of a passenger van, so there are not large numbers of super crisp pictures.

Speaking of "a lot of birds"...I have done some tallying and I saw 154 different species of bird during the conference last week. Although I have not officially counted the number of lifers within that 154, I suspect the number will approach 20. Very nice.

The past two years, after I returned from the ABA Conference, I was burnt-out on bird watching. Several months would pass before I got the itch to go out looking again. Not this time. This year, I travelled to Louisiana to witness migration in process, but have returned to Virginia during migration. I am already thinking of places to go in the next several weeks to continue watching the birds flying through. Perhaps Shenandoah this Sunday.

Inca Dove

On the backside of the hotel there is a pool. Just after you walk through the door out of the hotel on your way to the pool, there are several trees. The first tree you see (and the closest to the hotel) is the current home of a nesting Inca Dove. She must be pretty used to people because that tree is next to the walkway to the pool. Lots of people walk by. And during this week at least, lots of people also stop to take pictures. Like I did.

Another Prothonotary

Today was a high-birding, low-photo kind of day. I saw lots of birds, but did not have great opportunities to take pictures. One exception was a very active Prothonotary Warbler who became somewhat predictable in his jumping around from tree to tree. I stood in the road and just waited for him to fly back into the tree in front of me, and when he did I snapped a few more pictures. Even though I posted pictures of a different Prothonotary yesterday, they are just too pretty not to take more pictures of them. Especially when they pose so nicely. Here are two that I think are the best of the bunch.

Tabasco

After we left Lake Fausse Point State Park yesterday, we drove to Avery Island. We ate our lunch here under some spectacular Live Oaks, and then later visited a rookery where there were a good number of nesting Great Egrets. What I did not realize was that Avery Island was the home of Tabasco Sauce production, and also one of five salt domes in Louisiana. During Hurricane Rita, the storm surge and associated flooding brought water to within four inches of the Tabasco factory, despite a 10 foot levee surrounding the place. To the delight of Tabasco lovers everywhere, they are currently increasing the levee to 20 feet.

Here are pictures of the Live Oaks, a Great Egret on a nest and the Tabasco Country Store. Being the curmudgeon that I am, I did not bother going into the store.

Prothonotary Warbler

Based on the variety of birds that I am posting, you can probably tell that Lake Fausse Point State Park was a pretty good place to see birds. Here is a photo of a somewhat cooperative Prothonotary Warbler.

Painted Bunting

This is still from yesterday's visit to Lake Fausse Point State Park. This picture is not very crisp, but since the subject is a male Painted Bunting in breeding plumage, it was worth posting. When I saw this bird, it reminded me of rainbow sherbet. I remember liking rainbow sherbet as a kid, but I can't remember the last time I tried it.

Red-shouldered Hawk

Some more photos from yesterday's visit to Lake Fausse Point State Park. The night before it rained quite a bit, so everything was wet the morning of our visit. Including the birds. The first photo shows a Red-Shouldered Hawk drying its wings. The second shows the same hawk sitting on its nest, with one hatchling visible (the white fuzzy thing to the right of the adult).

Mississippi Kite

Today's field trip started in Lake Fausse Point State Park. Right after getting off the bus, someone noticed this Mississippi Kite sunning himself in a tree right next to the parking lot. This was the first time I have ever seen a Mississippi Kite. The fact that he patiently posed for me to take pictures was even better.

ABA Lectures

As I mentioned in my previous post, I attended two lectures instead of going out to bird. There were no field trips scheduled in the conference, and the weather was iffy enough to keep me from going out on my own (they are calling for severe, potentially tornadic, thunderstorms in Louisiana today and tonight).

The two lectures were quite interesting. The first was about the use of weather radar to detect migratory birds. The second was about the psychology of identifying birds.

The weather radar lecture provided me a nice "duh!" moment. Weather radar is designed to bounce microwaves of of material that is in the atmosphere. Rain, snow, sleet, hail and other forms of precipitation are examples of material that will reflect the waves broadcast by radar, but so are insects, bats and birds. When you get enough insects, bats and birds, then the image produced by a weather radar will indicate their presence. The number of birds involved in spring or fall migration are easily enough to show up on a weather radar. Since birds migrate at night, you have to look at certain times of day to see it. And you have to know which radar imagery to use: many local television station's filter their radar images to only show reflectivity caused by precipitation. I will definitely be looking into this some more.

The second lecture, on the psychology of bird identification, was given by David Sibley. In his opening remarks, he said he was always interested in the topic, but the recent debate over the rediscovery (or not) of the Ivory-billed Woodpecker, and its associated evidence, really has intrigued him. He provided lots of interesting observations on phenomenon and human behaviors that prevent us from being entirely objective. In general, as our experience in bird watching grows, we evolve from a step-wise form of identification to a holistic one. This evolution allows us to make very educated shortcut guesses as identification, that tend to be correct (out of experience) but can also be risky (because the process skips the stepwise approach). There are other factors as well that I will not delve into. All in all it was a very interesting lecture that hit home with me several times. In many ways, the process of identifying a bird with limited information is very similar to the process of figuring out a software problem with limited information. In both cases it is not uncommon for what I would call "conspiracy theories" to form and grow. Human tendency is to note evidence that supports the theory instead of evidence that contradicts the theory. It requires a purposely objective approach to consider the alternatives and reach root cause (or identity).

Tomorrow is another field trip day. Because of the weather tonight (the storms are here, but no tornadoes near Lafayette), it is possible that all of the migrating birds that were going to leave tonight will be combined with all of the birds arriving tonight. If that happens, there might be a lot of birds flitting about tomorrow. We shall see.

Rubbing Shoulders

I am in Lafayette Louisiana for the American Birding Association 2007 National Convention. Today was not a field trip day so I got to sleep in a bit (woke up at 7:30am). Instead of field trips, there were a couple of lectures that I attended. More about those later. During each lecture there is a break for coffee and snacks. During the morning break I was in line to get some more coffee. A very long line that was moving slowly. Then I realized that the hold-up was a couple of ladies struggling to get more hot water for their tea. There was really no wait for the coffee. Except the guy in front of me did not realize it, or was being polite and not assuming he could move past the tea drinkers, or whatever. I was actually leaning forward in anticipation of the guy in front of me moving directly to the coffee, but he didn't. I wanted to say "go ahead!", but I restrained myself (I have learned not to trust my instincts in the morning when caffeine is low).

I am glad I did. The guy in front of me was David Sibley. In the world of birdwatching, he is a famous dude. I own four of his books. Um...excuse me, Mr. Sibley, can I get you some coffee?

Wilson's Plover

The little town of Cameron nearly took a direct hit from Hurricane Rita. At the remains of its Jetty Park, there were lots of birds about. The park is now closed and is covered in sand and weeds, making it a good place for this little Wilson's Plover to hang out.

Colorful Tree

At Peveto Woods this morning, this interesting color combination showed in up the same tree. The deep blues of a Blue Grosbeak and the brilliant orange and black of a Baltimore Oriole.

Summer Tanager

As I speculated yesterday, my field trip took me back to Peveto Woods on the Cameron Coast of Louisiana. The birding was about the same. There were birds to be seen, but no great fallout of migrants. The best photos of today's visit were of a male and female Summer Tanager. The male is red. The third photo shows one of the favorite meals of a Summer Tanager: bees. They snatch the bees out of the air and then rub them on trees to remove the stinger.