But being cooped up is a great time to go through photos and put them in storage since I’m running out of space on my laptop.  I have so many birds that I have not blogged!  Holy crap, I completely forgot the caracaras!

One species was observed during the Rio Grande Valley Bird Festival at Laguna Atascosa.  I remember looking at their images in field guides as a kid and thinking, “How cool would it be to see one of those?”  They are one of the birds that attract me to Texas.

Man, stick a cigar out the side of this bird’s beak and you could confuse it with Groucho Marx. I’m not sure if you can make it out in the above 2 photos, but there’s a yellow bulge on the caracara–that’s a full crop.  These birds eat quite a bit of roadkill and will forage for insects too.  Man, what must it be like to get a nice big fat food baby in the middle of your chest and then have to fly around.

I have to admit, it kind of grossed me out to watch the bird preening around the bulge.

The second species of caracara I saw in 2010 is a yellow-headed caracara on one of the field trips with Canopy Tower in Panama.  I didn’t get the weird crop/saggy yellow boob view on this one, but it was cool to see nonetheless.

So random bird blogging coming soon.

Let’s start with an easy one, there’s one common pauraque in this photo.

There’s one pauraque in this photo.

There’s one pauraque in this photo.

This is the hardest one, but there sure is a pauraque in this photo.

There are actually 2 pauraques in this photo, one easy…one almost impossible.

Most of my birding time during the Rio Grande Valley Birding Fest was spent at Estero Llano Grande State Park.  Partly because I love it but also because some of my other favorite birding sites in the area were closed due to flooding.  I went there several times with both Birdspot and WildBird on the Fly.  One of the target birds on the trails is a common pauraque, a nightjar that is similar to nighthawks and whip-poor-wills.  I’ve heard them and I’ve seen them flushed on roads at night in Central America, but I’ve never seen a roosting pauraque.

I knew people were seeing between 1 – 3 at a time and I was hopeful we’d find more than one.  We sure did, above is one of the pauraques.  With that cryptic brown plumage, you can understand how they might be easy to miss.  They are active at dawn and dusk and fly around to catch insects with their mouths wide open.  Don’t let that tiny beak fool you, it belies a mouth worthy of any mother-in-law.

The park rangers and other birders were very helpful to point out the general areas of where the nightjars were being seen, but you still had to some work.  Here’s the trail near alligator lake where they typically have been found roosting.  Note the white sign, it warns people to stay on the trails so the pauraques do not get flushed.  Note the pile of brush on the left side of the trail, that’s where the pauraques were.  I suspect the brush was placed there to encourage people to stay on the trail and not wander in looking for the birds and inadvertently flushing them.

Check it out: Disapproving Pauraque! We found one right away and I was happy for that.  These nightjars were a challenge to digiscope.  Number one: they were in the shade.  I could get around that by using the timer on my camera and minimize camera shake for a long exposure.  However, the second and the most challenging problem was that the birds were too darned close to focus in my spotting scope!  The sticks that were protecting the pauraque roosting location blocked some angles and I wasn’t about to move the sticks, they were there to help the pauraques. But with patience and creative angling, I managed to grab some shots.

As I was setting up the above digiscoped shot, I found a second and then a third, each closer than the last.  The third pauraque we found was literally three feet away from the trail. Finding the pauraques reminded me of morel hunting.  Once you find one, you instantly see all the other mushrooms surrounding you.  It was the same with pauraques, once you found one, the other popped out like an image in a magic eye painting.

Many of the pauraque photos like the above bird were not digiscoped because they are just too close.  I always wonder how many owls I pass under on a regular basis, not I wonder how many pauraqes, poor-wills and other nightjars I have almost stepped on in my birding travels.  The pauraques did seem to be everywhere in South Texas.  Birdspot and I were wandering around Frontera Audubon, watching a brown thrasher that was working some leaves, when all three  of us–especially the thrasher jumped with a leaf toss flushed a pauraque.  I wonder how often other birds flush nightjars.  And I wonder if they are irritated because of the scare?

And now to see how you did with finding the pauraques in the first five photos:

Here’s common pauraque number one.  This one may have been too easy, that eye sticks out.  But I walked past it at least twice before I finally realized it was three feet from the trail.

Hidden pauraque #2.

Pauraque nestled all snug among sticks.

I realize that even though it’s circled, this pauraque is hard to see, so here is a zoom in of the cryptically plumaged nightjar:

Even up close, you can see how well their feathers work in their habitat!

The one in the front is fairly obvious, but the one in the back is really hard to see.  Here’s a close up:

See, there really is a parauque by those sticks!

Ah, nothing makes me as happy as looking for brown birds!

Also interviewed is one of the guys from Rockjumper Tours…learn how much money you’ll need to go to Africa and some of the cool things you’ll do on their trips.

And my personal favorite part of the podcast is the interview with Kevin Karlson and he talks about his book he coming next year on birding by impression. Non Birding Bill was listening with me and when they started talking about “jizz” birding, coffee shot out my nose, and NBB was shaking his head with laughter. In the podcast, Steve asks is if it’s spelled jizz and Kevin does say what the real spelling for jizz should be. And if you don’t know what the slang meaning for jizz is…well…ask the nearest teenager. They’ll probably turn three shades of red and be too busy giggling to answer but you might get the meaning.

Anyway, fun podcast to have on in the background.

I think I have finally caught up from all my traveling. I was trying to catch up all last week from being in Ohio, New Jersey, and Texas. I was home between those trips, but only for brief periods. In that time, the apartment had exploded into a chaos world of bunny fur, cockatiel dust, and hay. Books were staging some sort of coup and weren’t returning to shelves, my suitcase refused to unpack itself and a glacier of laundry was moving out of the bedroom. Amid trying to work and catch up on the blog, Non Birding Bill said those magic words: “I’m taking Friday afternoon off, let’s go see the new Bond movie!”

But late Sunday, well into Monday and Tuesday I went into a cleaning and organizing frenzy. Interrupted briefly by a one way conversation with my stomach Tuesday morning. Still not quite sure what that was about. Was my stomach getting into the spirit of my apartment purge? I didn’t feel sick which is completely out of character when I throw up. I suspect it had more to do with a bad combo of coffee and omega 3 fish oil gel caps.

But back to talking about Laguna! I love the trails and I love the wildlife drive. I took almost a full day to creep along and look for birds to digiscope. I was hoping to get some great shots of a caracara.

But had to settle for the Dr. Seuss stylings of a long-billed curlew! I was showing this photo to a non birding friend of mine (even more so than Non Birding Bill) and he looked at the photo and asked, “What the hell does it use that for?!” The beak is a little striking. I checked out the always fabulous Birds of North America Online. It said that the long decurved bill is used when foraging earthworms or shrimp and crabs. BNA also suggested that the long bill is used mainly when feeding on their wintering grounds as opposed to their breeding grounds. Basically, observers see curlews probing more in winter on the migratory habitat and see more pecking on the breeding grounds. Interesting to have a bill like that and only need it for part of the year.

Osprey were all over the place. The above bird was trying to eat its fish in peace, but had an audience:

This young turkey vulture (it’s young because the head is still dark) was biding its time on the side lines, trying to work out a way to sneak in and steal a few bites for the osprey. This bird must really like fish because there’s an abundance of fresh roadkill in the Rio Grande Valley. Why didn’t the vulture just for that instead?

Laguna had signs posted warning of you alligators. The first gator I ever saw in the wild was at Laguna. I did see a few on my drive:

This one was right off the road. I got out of the vehicle to digiscope it. I took a couple of images through the scope with my phone and sent them off.

Here’s a digiscoped image. I have to say, there were a couple of points where I felt like I was in the Blink episode of Doctor Who. When I turned away, it almost seemed as if the alligator was closer. It wasn’t long after I took this photo that I looked to my left…

…and found another alligator lounging not too far from me. I digiscoped it too:

Well if that just isn’t the most contented looking alligator ever. Realizing that I’m rather short, there are warning signs, and having two alligators near me, I hightailed it back in the car. I love a little adventure in my birding. I love going to places where there are animals that could knock me off a rung or two on the food chain.

Estero has several different trails and the boardwalk around the ponds is usually a good place for shore birds, like the above solitary sandpiper (who is actually living up to its name, it’s by itself).

We some colorful birds too like this little blue herons,

black-necked stilts–love those guys,

least grebes (check out that crazy yellow eye),

and a young male vermilion flycatcher.

We even did our good deed for the day by rescuing a dragonfly (although, after reading Born Again Bird Watcher’s post, maybe we should have left it). Amy notice this dragonfly on its back in the water. I couldn’t reach with my arm, but used my scope’s tripod to fish it out. We took a few photos and then set it down on the board walk to finish drying out.

I generally do not take field guides with me. It helps you focus on the bird in front of you rather than spending too much time with your nose in a book. It kind of forces you to pay attention to field marks. Like the above shorebird. It was tiny, kinda brownish, and the legs were a different color than the bill–that’s a least sandpiper.

The other reason why I don’t bring a guide is that someone on field trips always has a book, I know many birds and what I don’t know, I can usually digiscope and id later, or I’m almost always out with someone who knows the area better than I do and will confirm id for me. Well that bit me in the butt.

We got to a spot with some kingbirds and I wasn’t sure what type we were seeing, but I figured I would digiscope it and then look it up later. I have it narrowed down to either a tropical kingbird or a Couch’s kingbird. I thougt I would go over to BNA and see if I could work out the difference. Here’s what Cornell had to say:

“Couch’s is most similar to the Tropical Kingbird and these species are often difficult to distinguish in the field by appearance alone. In the field, adult Couch’s is slightly larger, with a proportionally shorter bill,”

Hmmm, that would be difficult, the bird’s bill is facing right at the camera, can’t really tell proportions. Let’s try the next one:

“and more olive-green back than adult Tropical, but the back fades to grayish during the breeding season making this character unreliable.”

Well, again, the bird is facing me so I can’t really see the back.
“The plumages of juveniles are inseparable in the field, and only extreme specimens can be identified in the hand (Traylor 1979).”

Wow, that sounds like I’m totally hosed on the id. Wait, there’s a little more to read,

“Vocalizations however, may be used to separate these species reliably in the field. The slowly repeated pit (or kip) and pitweeeer of Couch’s are easily distinguish-able from the rapidly repeated, metallic-sounding pit calls of Tropical Kingbird. The dawn songs are also distinctive. Although T. couchii is probably more vocal than T. melancholicus, silent birds cannot therefore be positively identified as the latter.”

Yeah, I totally did not pay attention to the calls and did not take any video. I will have to chalk this bird up to some sort of Tyrannus.

There were some great birds being reported around Estero and they had a great little kiosk in there from ebird called Trail Tracker. You can use it to find out which birds are being reported and where they are being seen. The observations also become part of eBird and includes photos, audio, video and life history information for the birds seen. I tried to use it to find some cool birds being reported like a rose-throated becard (didn’t see it) and a paraque (looked at it, but didn’t see it, but Round Robin got shots of it).

I never cease to be amazed at the ability to change time and temperature with our ability of global travel. I marvel at my Monday this week. I woke up in south Texas, in Harlingen, near the border. I’m surrounded by warm weather and exotic species.

Not just blue jays here, no, crazy birds like green jays (above), curlews and kiskadees. When I boarded my plane in the morning, it was sunny, windy, and temperatures were in the 80s.

The view of the sky from the plane was an intense palette of blue and white. The sky, so clear and so blue, pushing down on a thin layer of clouds.

Take in that blue for a moment.

The clouds had some fluff but were mostly thin. It’s so strange and such a privilege to get to see clouds from above. I try to concentrate on them as opposed to my fear of flying (or rather, crashing) in a plane.

As the clouds gave way, I could see some of Minnesota below, my final destination. The land had been dusted with snow. How strange to start a morning with humidity and 80 degree temps and then end the afternoon in 30 degrees with snow. I never get tired at the wonder of travel and where you can find yourself in a day.

On Sunday morning, as I was driving into Laguna Atascosa, I noticed a car pulled over ahead of me, I slowed to find out what they were looking at. It was an aplomado falcon perched on a fence post about 30 feet from the road. As I slowed, the bird took off, but then perched again on the fence further down the road. Both the car in front and I approached slowly. It was painful. I had all my digiscoping equipment next to me in my rental vehicle, but I knew if I got out to set it up, the falcon would fly off. I so wanted to get an awesome photo for the blog, but rather than spoil the perfect view, I decided to just enjoy the bird in front of me. When I reached the visitor center at Laguna, I took photos of their stuffed bird for the blog entry. It was a kick ass look.

As I birded some more around Laguna, another aplomado falcon flew over my vehicle and landed in a far away palmetto. Such a pretty bird, but gone in a flash. While I was out, I ran into Sam Crow and Hugh Powell who do Round Robin Blog for Cornell. Hugh showed me his photo of the aplomado, they had come across the bird on the fence earlier (I now wonder if they were in the vehicle in front of me). They got a good shot and it was painful for me to see. You can view the apolomado photo over at Round Robin.

Now, here’s an interesting trio. Three different birds, can you tell what they are? I’ll save identifying them until the end of the post in case you would like to try and figure out the id yourself. These were three common birds loafing on the beach. Warning, clues will to the id are ahead, so if you want to try and figure out the id, grab you field guide before going any further.

While we were watching the birds on shore, Amy noticed a hitchhiker on my scope–why it was a honeybee. How fitting that she decided to hang on my scope. She was slow and lethargic. I was not sure if she was just at the end of her foraging life or chilled from the cool winds. If you look at the wear on her wings, I think she’s old and at the end of her life.

Clay was very excited to see caspian terns (the tern on the right). They are big and flashy terns, with a noticeable red bill. We see them in Minnesota during migration. They are so large that even Non Birding Bill has commented on them when we saw some flying over nearby Lake of the Isles. This tern was next to a royal tern (the tern on the left), a slightly smaller tern compared to the Caspian. And if you ever are feeling bad about your bird id skills, take heart in knowing that even John J. Audubon himself had trouble telling these two species apart! According to Birds of North America Online:

“In his monumental Birds of America, Audubon depicted neither Caspian nor Royal, but instead what he called a Cayenne Tern, Sterna cayana — mostly Royal, but with some ad-mixture of Caspian features.”

As we continued on, we found both brown pelicans and American white pelicans. I’ve seen both, but never together. I knew American white pelicans were huge, but it never occurred to me that they are twice the size of brown pelicans–crazy.

We headed over to the convention center where we found a fun little water feature. You might hear and read that moving water is the best way to attract birds to your yard, that is put to good use in many of the parks and more birdier areas you can visit in the Rio Grande Valley.

At one point, this little water feature had about a dozen orange-crowned warblers coming in for a bathe. They moved so quickly and were so spread out, I couldn’t get more than three or four in my view finder at one time. I got a small video of the bathing warblers, it’s best viewed at YouTube and if you click on the “watch in high quality” option.

And in keeping with my goal of showing that not every photo comes out great, I’m posting a rather out of focus shot of a black-throated green warbler. There were a couple who flew in to join the orange-crowned warblers, but they were too quick for me.

Just as I got the scope focused on the black-throated, the little terd hopped behind a rock to bathe. Grrr. Curse you, black-throated green warbler, and everything you stand for! I did manage to get the back of the bird’s head in focus. Well, it’s a start. No one ever said that digiscoping warblers was ever easy.

And now for the id of the three birds: royal tern, Caspian tern, and laughing gull. How did you do?