Migration- A Lost Art?

October 13, 2015

After visiting my friends in Corpus Christi, Winnie and I drove to Port Aransas, a marvelous coastal birding town. It has several places that are the Central Texas Coast Birding Trail, Mustang Island Loop,  and which, during winter and especially spring, are fantastic places to find both migrating and local birds.

We expected to find shore birds plus various passerines migrating, but only saw a few possible migrants, mixed in with even fewer local birds.  The only warbler's we saw were common yellowthroat, which also breed in the area. We did see Lincoln's sparrows, Savannah sparrows, and a couple of Lark sparrows. We also found on early shrike. The shorebirds consisted mostly of greater and lesser yellowlegs, black-necked stilts, and a few least sandpipers, as well as a couple of dunlin. We birded at Charlie's Pasture, known on the Great Texas Birding Trails as Port Aransas Wetland Park, at the wastewater plant, now called the Leonabelle Turnbull Birding Center. and Paradise Pond - currently looking very damaged, both by the removal of the Brazilian Pepper Bush and by the destruction of the habitat behind it - it has been stripped to turn into housing. But we did see the headline of a newspaper article that said $15,000 was going into replanting Paradise Pond.

So I'm wondering if I'm just too anxious, or if the more or more of our birds are staying north longer or shortening their migration and spending winters further north.  eBird is collecting our data and letting us figure this out from the number, so be sure to turn in your sightings to them. What is missing from your lists is as important as what is on them.

These pictures are from the Leonabelle Turnbull Birding Center, which has water, marsh, and a small area that attracts passerines in migration.

Even great-tailed grackles are interesting for the first few birds seen after a six month's hiatus 

Young pied-billed grebes were catching fish

As were the pelicans - who were newly arrived migrants

Black-bellied whistling ducks were flying or loafing in large groups

A young snowy egret looked in vain for a snack to come by

 The next pictures were taken at Charlie's pasture. It is a tidal wetland and, depending on the date, and time of day, will have more or less water in it. It is particularly good for waders, ducks,  and raptors, but does also attract passerines in migration. We saw Lincoln's, savannah and lark sparrows here. We caught a glimpse of a vireo - probably blue-headed - as well.

The clouds were making lovely reflections in the shallow water

Lots of pelicans - many of them juveniles - were flying in groups down the intercoastal canal

The birds of the day were lesser yellowlegs but there were lots of greater yellowlegs present

We mostly saw black-necked stilts in singles or pairs

Least sandpipers and, I think, Dunlin

Dunlin, I think

Immature reddish egret chasing its dinner

Algae mats - the base of the food web here,  washed off the bottoms and then wrinkled by the tide

White pelicans and other birds

View towards the beginning of the boardwalk at Charlie's Pasture

Tricolored heron 

The following pictures were taken at Paradise Pond. This is usually a great place to find passerines in migration. The only birds whose pictures I didn't take were red-winged blackbirds, grackles and three female/immature blue-winged teal.

Juvenile yellow-crowned heron

Feeding tricolored heron

White ibis

Green heron in a willow tree

Paradise Pond is just behind the San Juan, a very good Mexican restaurant.  Winnie and I finished up a great morning with lunch there before I got in line to wait for the ferry to take me across the Intercoastal Canal. I spent the afternoon driving to Galveston.

Check out blogs on wild birds from around the world by clicking on the picture.

Hike to Fairy Falls

A hike to Fairy Falls was on my bucket list for Yellowstone. But it wasn't until Laurel met me in Yellowstone, that I was able to do it. This was a very easy and beautiful hike.

There are two ways to get to the trailhead. We choose the shorter way, parking just south of the entrance to Midway Geyser Basin, then hiked the well-maintained road - now used as a biking trail, to the trailhead. I think the total trip was only 7.4 miles, even though we went on past the falls to visit Spray and Imperial Geysers.

You have to hike a mile on a road that passes just behind Midway Geyser Basin. This area of Geyser Basin looks like a shallow lake, but with the colors associated with the hot features.

The edge of Midway Geyser Basin

The trees die from soaking up the minerals which makes them white

People on the boardwalk across the basin from us

The side trail went through boring woods, so I took no pictures. But the falls and the subsequent part of the hike more than made up for the first part.

The 197 foot Fairy Falls

We both spent a lot of time just enjoying the sound and sight of the falls

I loved how it hit rocks and then formed multiple streams

And the colors on the adjacent hill were marvelous

Laurel tool this picture of me picking my way across the
stream to continue our hike

Laurel walking past the falls on the way to see the geysers

Closeup view of the stream on the way to the geysers

Another colorful stream view

Most of the area was in forest but this was more open and we saw a raptor 

Imperial Geyser

This geyser blows almost continuously

Meetup With a Grizzly

In Yellowstone, the bears all seem to have names. Several people called individual bears by name. When I showed a picture of a bear to our camp host, he knew her name and history.  I didn't write down her name and forgot it but she is a five year old female bear. We spotted her in Hayden Valley in a car jam and managed to find a place to pull off and join the line of photographers.

She was grazing in a field on the west side of the road

Every once in awhile, she would turn to look at us

A few minutes later, she started walking towards the road.  The ranger asked us to move over to give her room to cross.  She began running and was too close to me for me to be able to focus on her. Then she continued across the road to the west side.  By the time I was able to find a place around the parked cars, she was already at the Yellowstone River.

At Riverside - note how grizzled her sides are

Swimming across the river - I love how animals know how to ferry - she swims slightly upstream so the current will push her across the river

She reached the far bank...

And then shook like a dog

It was cool enough to see her breath

Then she went back to grazing on the other side of the river

Mammoth in Macro

September 22, 2015

I've been lucky to get to see Yellowstone several times this summer, once by myself, and three times with different friends. So I've also seen a lot of the features several times. But, fortunately for me,  the seasons, the light and our own personal viewpoints have been different and thus each time I saw the features newly.

On this visit, I was with my friend, Laurel, who is looking for artistic pictures, rather than just documenting a visit. On my last visit to Mammoth, I concentrated on landscapes. I just realized I didn't show you any of my pictures. They are the early pictures in this album. (To see it in full screen as a slideshow, click on the first little icon on the top right-hand side.)

This time, Laurel had already visited Mammoth while on the way to meet me so we only did a little at the very top and back of the the main feature.  And I was more interested in the patterns and macro views.  These don't give you much sense of the big picture, but I think the little bits are interesting also.

These are formed by mineral deposits

An even closer look

I'm not sure if these are living organisms or artifacts built from the minerals

But those tendrils were swaying and seemed to be the consistency of raw egg white.

One landscape view