Sandhill Cranes

I remember getting a strange call from Dave Patton one day about 20 years ago.  He called to say that a family group of Sandhill Cranes had dropped down in a big open field off of Congress Street in the middle of Lafayette.  At the time, seeing a Sandhill Crane anywhere in southwestern Louisiana was an odd surprise, but seeing a group feeding between the Cajundome and the Wetlands Research Center with a backdrop of passing traffic was just absurd.  We stood at wondered at them until they jumped up, circled up into the wind, and sailed away.  

That crane field now hosts a Hilton Hotel, but the fate of Sandhill Cranes in the area has improved in amazing fashion.  In the past few years, Sandhill Cranes have staked a major claim on this part of the state.  What was once a small flock hidden away among the winter fields of Calcasieu Parish's Holmwood area has grown into a presence of thousands of birds, and smaller groups can be found in the surrounding parishes.  Even western Lafayette Parish hosts a small flock.  Let's hope this trend continues and these cranes become a permanent and visible presence in our corner of the state.    

The pictures below were taken last weekend near the town of Iowa.  

     

Yard Hummers.

Couldn't get much birding in this weekend, but I did spend a bit of time in the backyard today.  Yard birds were very active, with goldfinches poking around everywhere looking for some seeds.  

The hummingbirds were especially noticeable.  Some guests that were visiting got buzzed by a Broad-tailed Hummingbird that dropped in and fed within a foot of them.  

I took advantage of the activity and tameness to snap a few photos:

One of at least 2 Rufous Hummingbirds present, both immature males.

  

One of several Black-chinneds that have been present at times during this winter.  

Broad-tailed Hummingbird.  This young male has been around for a couple of weeks.  

Offshore Cameron, 1/19/2012

Click pictures to enlarge

I joined up with Dave Patton, Danny Dobbs, and Mac Myers yesterday for a boat trip out of Cameron into the near-shore gulf.  Dave has a nice boat that's big enough to go a few miles out when there's a little bit of a swell, but small enough to maneuver along the rock jetties leading out of the ship channel.  We check the rocks on both sides of the jetty every time out in hopes of finding good shorebirds or gulls, but the truth of the matter is that Dave has one thing on his mind when he hits the water, and that's jaegers.

On the way out, I noticed a major dropoff in bird numbers from those of previous trips.  There were few shorebirds on the rocks, few gulls and terns roosting on the shell bars, and not much in terms of birds over the gulf itself.  

Dave's trick for finding jaegers is to look for the crowds of birds that follow shrimp boats, but the only shrimp boat we saw was tied idle to a rig.  We saw a small group of birds following a crewboat in, so we headed toward it.  As it passed, we saw two jaegers accompanying the group back toward the ship channel.  We continued on out offshore.  

By this point, we weren't seeing any birds.  This was a bad situation because jaegers are attracted to flocks of the feeding gulls they rob for food--over even kill and eat--and without gulls, we'd have to be lucky to find jaegers. There were a few Royal Terns, but even Laughing Gulls were absent. Eventually a Laughing Gull passed and Dave tossed out a handful of popcorn.  The bird banked and dropped in for the food. Within minutes, keen-eyed gulls from the distance had spotted the activity and made it to the boat.  Clearly these birds were hungry, maybe even starving at this time of year.  

Then, a jaeger appeared.  We were expecting a quick passby and maybe the chance to snap off a few quick pictures.  It zoomed by...

then came closer...

and turned and saw the popcorn...

and settled onto the water.  

    

And then another jaeger came, and another.  Soon there were 6 Pomarine Jaegers sitting on the water around us and buzzing us for popcorn.  

They were as wild and untamed as only jaegers can be, real cold-eyed killers:

With their noble, savage crops full of popcorn.

From there, we hit the rocks again, and got great looks at American Oystercatchers.

Then we headed back out to look for more jaegers.

We built up a little flock of gulls, but no jaegers seemed interested.  Then Dave saw a group of gulls following the churned-up wake of a passing boat, and we motored toward it.  As the birds passed, Dave offered them some popcorn, and soon we had a great flock feeding around us.  The jaegers that we saw out here weren't very cooperative, just passing by.

But we did pick up a California Gull...

as well as this pale-winged gull that seems best for a Kumlien's/Thayer's Gull:

It was a great day on the water. The weather, the birds, and the company were all top notch.  A big thanks to Dave Patton!

Duck Redux

A couple of weeks ago, I posted photos of a mocha-colored Blue-winged Teal from the Kaplan area, seen on 12/15.

A few days later I noticed a comment attached to the post:

 Anonymous said...

My buddy killed a teal on 12/16/12 Northwest of Church Point, LA. I stumbled across your picture and was wondering if this could be the same duck since you posted this on the 15th. they look identical. I tried to post a picture here, but it would not let me. If you would like to see it, you can send me your email address and I will reply with a picture.
fhhanley@yahoo.com

I wrote back, and received this reply and these photos:  

These are the pictures of the teal that my pal took with his Iphone, so please pardon the not-so-professional photos. I looked around on the net and truly enjoyed the detailed photos that you took of our LA wildlife. 

He already has it at the taxidermy and is chomping at the bit to get it back so he can showcase his rare kill. This would be amazing if it was the same bird!! They really do look similar from the pictures. Thank you for responding and I hope this will make a good story for you to tell one day.

Frank Hanley

Church Point

A very close resemblance.  Note the similar location of the darker feathers on the mantle in both photos.  While I'm not amazed if this duck flew from Kaplan to Church Point in one day (which is nothing for a duck), if it's the same duck I find it amazing that it crossed paths with two humans in two days.  I also find it amazing that someone found the picture on my site.  That's one serendipitous duck.   

It's a memorable bag, and it must have been an exciting retrieve.  Congrats to the hunter, and thanks to Frank for everything!     

2012 took a year of me with it.

2012 is done.  It was a strange year for birds, starting with the tail end of last winter's unprecedented surge of rarities.  There were a lot of nice birds out there to be seen.

From my end it was a piecemeal year, with gaps in my birding at key times of the birding year. In the end, I tallied 314 species (although I may have forgotten to count 2 or 3 along the way--I didn't really start worrying about counting until David Muth challenged me in late April)(and he smoked me by something like 20 species, by the way).  

It was a fun year.  Here are some of the birds I saw--without captions, because I'm tired.