It's a...?

Many years ago I noticed and remarked upon (in the LOS News, I think) one of the hummingbirds in Audubon's Ruby-throated Hummingbird watercolor, said to have been painted in Louisiana in the 1820s. At the time, the bird seemed to me to be a good candidate for a Black-chinned Hummingbird.  That would possibly make it a first Louisiana record, and more interestingly the image would predate the description of the species by a couple of decades.

I was recently looking through my book of Audubon watercolors and noticed this bird again.  I decided to scan the plate using a more modern scanner than what I had back in the '90s.  The image quality is limited by the printing process, but the outer primary of the bird is tolerably clear.  To my eyes, the outer web of the outer primary still looks like it widens more than it would on a Ruby-throat.  Hummingbird banders that can see the differences with their eyes closed would have a more valuable opinion than mine, of course.  It would also help to see the original watercolor, which I don't guess I ever will...

Keep in mind that Audubon had a keen eye and mind for minor details, as evidenced by his observation of the rough wing on a Rough-winged Swallow.  Also keep in mind the fact that this image is not a copy of an engraving, but of the original watercolor.  In other words, this is a copy of the image that Audubon made by hand, not of a second generation product.

What will winter bring?

With fall and winter on the horizon, it's time to start thinking about birds that might turn up in the backyard.  Even with good long looks, a few possibilities pose ID challenges.  Life would be great if all of the birds that turn up at our feeders were well-marked adult males.  The odds argue against that, so there's plenty to keep us on our toes.  Consider the following:

The birds above are so drab that if you notice them at all, they might make you wonder if they're worth a second look.  Are they?    

The yellow bird above isn't well-marked, but once winter arrives, some "drab" birds will actually look pretty bright if they pop up in the yard.  That alone would warrant a second look at this bird, if the fact that it's hanging out on a hummingbird feeder doesn't.  What's the most important thing to look at on this bird?

Green and white female-type hummingbirds are always fun.  If you're lucky enough to get a good look, there are a few things to size up when narrowing down an ID.  Sometimes it takes a good study of a photo to get the ID right.  Bill size, the shape and pattern of the tail, and the shape and size of wing feathers can all provide a good clue.  Is a green and white hummer a big deal, or just a Ruby-throat?  

Six-lined Racerunner

As I was walking a trail through dense growth in Peveto Woods yesterday, I noticed a twitch in the tip of a goldenrod stalk a few yards ahead.  I held still, waiting to see if it would twitch again.  When it did, I started to wonder if a skulking warbler, perhaps a Common Yellowthroat, was working the stalk.  I watched as the twitch moved over to the next goldenrod stalk, but I couldn't locate a bird.  Finally, dialing through the layers of vegetation, I noticed direct movement.  It took a few seconds to realize that what I saw moving was a lizard with long, thin stripes, a six-lined racerunner.  

A few of these lizards have popped up at Peveto lately.  To be honest, I don't remember them ever being there in the past, but others seem to remember their presence.  Unless someone is seeding the sanctuary with reptiles, the increase in lizard numbers would seem to be part of the recovery in species diversity on the cheniers following the destruction of the past decade's hurricanes.  

Cameron Parish, Sunday, September 1

I've had a head cold the past few days, and I felt too bad to go to the coast on Saturday, but on Sunday I thought a head full of ragweed pollen might be just the thing to make me forget about my cold.  Luckily, it wasn't that bad.  The Giant Ragweed flowers are ready to pop open any day now, though, throwing their bitter yellow pollen into the wind. 

 

  



The action along the coast was typical of what it's been for the past week or two.  Lots of gnatcatchers, flycatchers, and Yellow Warblers, such as the one below. 

 

And some more cool dragonflies:

 



  

Swallows have been barreling through in big numbers for a couple of weeks now, led in numbers by Barns, but with a good showing of Bank and Cliff Swallows.  Every time I looked up today there were swallows heading west along the coast.  As the day got late, they began to line up on wires. 

  







Here's a shot of Cliff Swallow, Barn Swallow, and Bank Swallow, the three big migrants today. 

  

With miles of wire, you wouldn't think turf wars would be a problem, but swallows seem to like to fight.   

 

Labor Day weekend is a big deal on Holly Beach, and the crowds were out.  Surprisingly, a few flocks of gulls were hanging out between the communities of tents and campers up and down the beach.  I wasn't planning to stop to scope the birds out because of all of the human activity, but as I passed I noticed that one of the brown juvenile Laughing Gulls seemed to be a little different brown from the others. 

 

 

 



One U-turn later, I was surprised to see there was actually a Parasitic Jaeger hanging out.  I thought I'd have to get out in Dave Patton's Jaeger-chasing boat to see one in Cameron Parish, but it was pretty nice to see one from the steadiness of dry land. 

 

   

August

August, a month of hot and dry.  Rice is being cut, fields are starting to flower, and the woods and wires are starting to attract migrants.  The resident birds have largely finished nesting, and large groups of local blackbirds and waterbirds are starting to build. 

As the month started, I spent some time drifting around the prairie.  There wasn't a lot of wet habitat, so what ponds were there held a lot of birds.  The scene below is typical of what one might see in such a pond, although what you can't see is the cloud of birds that were behind the levees.  I didn't see them until a farmer pulled up next to me and told me he was going to scare them so they didn't eat all of the feed he'd just put in for the crawfish, "But I'm just shooting in the air."  He proceeded to drive the complex of levees, firing a pistol into the air, and everything got up.  Of course, it all just moved over a pond, again and again, staying one step ahead of the noise.  There was a good mix of species, including a lot of ibis, many shorebirds, and a bunch of ducks.  The Black-bellied Whistling Ducks in the photos are part of a recent huge increase and expansion of the species. 

 

 

 

Nowadays, when we talk of the SWLA prairie, we pretty much just mean the flat ground.  If you want to find real prairie here, there's not much option.  Most of the prairie ecosystem was plowed up in the late 1800s by homesteaders like my great-grandfather.  Today, there are only a few patches left, mostly along railroad rights-of-way, and most are disappearing quickly.  I find it pretty depressing to visit these sites, but one day a few weeks ago Dave Patton was going and I tagged along.  Look at these stands of Blazing Star, imagine 2.5 million acres of land that looked like this, as well as the Rattlesnake Master, Greater Prairie Chickens, Louisiana Prairie Voles, and Lord knows what else disappeared to build Acadiana, and try not to be melancholy.  I can't.  If only we had set a little aside!

 

 

 



Over the past couple of weekends, I've made trips to the coast to watch the slow buildup of migration.  Ragweed is starting to flower, the sun is sliding south, and we even had a few days of pleasant north wind.  The table is spread, but only a few visitors have arrived yet. 

Some of the earliest migrants are warblers and flycatchers.  Prairie Warblers start showing up by early August. 

 

 

 

Migrant Yellow-bellied Flycatchers arrive soon after, as do Great-crested Flycatchers and Eastern Kingbirds.

 

Some prickly pear cactus are flowering, but many are filled with slowly purpling fruit. These fruit are the tunas that shipwrecked and starving Cabeza de Vaca and his native hosts waited all summer to gorge and fatten on, not too far away on the Texas coast.  I can only imagine what it must have been like to live out among the mosquitoes and heat all year around.  A day afield at this time of year, even with AC waiting in my car, is enough for me. 

Birds like the Downy Woodpecker and Common Nighthawk know what the coastal summer feels like, though.  They can be found nesting right up to the Gulf beach where proper habitat can be found.  The nighthawks will be pulling out soon, but the Downy will enjoy our cool winter that's only a couple of months away. 

 

 

August is a great time for insects, too.  Some, like mosquitoes and deerflies, make life hard for birders.  Others, like dragonflies, make life hard on mosquitoes and deerflies--and are easy on the eyes, too. 

 

 

 

On the beach, there are signs of the season changing, as well.  Laughing Gulls are losing their black caps.

 

 

 

Wilson's Plovers are ready to head south, while Piping Plovers find August a good month to head to Louisiana. 

 

 

 

Some birds that have over-summered, like this group of three Lesser Black-backed Gulls that's been around on Holly Beach since at least May, may be regretting having vacationed here with their Laughing Gull cousins, but they're starting to slowly look a little less scraggly, and fall is almost here.

 

 

 

The skies are also starting to change.  Broad-winged Hawks start arriving along the immediate coast in good numbers in August, and will build into huge flocks passing through on their way south in September and October.  Swallows, such as the Cave Swallow below, are prone to wander at this time.  Although some swallows are already on the wing to their winter homes, others are drifting away from their nest sites and wandering around the countryside, with many finding themselves along the coast. 

 

 

 

Some birds are best seen at this time of year.  While the pewee at the top is a regular migrant in both spring and fall, the Olive-sided Flycatcher below is much easier to find in fall.   

 

 

 

 

While the two species look a bit alike, differences in their habits are usually a good clue to their identity.  Take a look at the following pictures of Olive-sided Flycatchers and see if you can guess where to look for them. 

 

 

 

Luckily, dead snags are in good number in Cameron Parish at the moment following two big hurricanes in the past decade, so Olive-sideds can almost take their pick.  They are the flycatcher most likely to use this type of perch here, although the scene below shows that sometimes Eastern Kingbirds (bird on right) keep them company there. 

 

For birders that don't mind this kind of weather there's some good stuff to see right now, but some of it we'll have to see soon. 

Take care, enjoy the last few days of August, and be sure to celebrate the common birds! 

 

 

 

Change

We're in the early stages of an addition project here at our home in Lafayette.  When we bought our house in 1995 from the Vermillion family, we figured that someday after the stork came we'd need to expand.  Well, our child is approaching teenhood, and the time has come to add on.  The wheels are rolling on the project, in which our breezeway and garage will be demolished and replaced by living space. 

What does that have to do with birding? you might ask.  A lot, actually, unfortunately.  When we bought the place it had the foundations of a great birding yard, courtesy of esteemed omnologist Bill Vermillion.  Bill added the beginnings of a great understory to the existing plantings his grandparents had established decades before.  Bay laurel, kumquat, fig, pomegranate, Indian pink, and many other plants were tucked below live oaks, holly, camellias, and a volunteer wild cherry.  In the years since we moved in, generous plant lovers such as Dave Patton, Bill Fontenot, and Donna Dittmann have added dozens of other plants, including a dense thicket of firespike, a red buckeye, buttonbush, soap aloe, agave, and honeysuckle azalea.  We added satsuma, bromeliads, milkweed, and a variety of hummingbird and butterfly plants.  And all of that was just in one tiny corner of the yard!

The neighborhood where we live is an older one that exists in the shade of huge live oaks and magnolias.  For the most part, our neighbors subscribe to a different philosophy of landscaping than we do, with well-mowed lawns beneath the canopy.  As a result, our yard acts like a magnet for understory birds that the community canopy pulls in, and our yard list of migrants and winterers is pretty attractive.  Seven species of flycatcher, six of vireo, four wrens, thirty warblers, and eight species of hummingbird, among others, have been recorded in the yard. 

Sadly,  some of the yard needed to be cleared to in order to demolish and construct.  Yesterday, the treecutters came and did what they must.  Here are some before and after shots:

 

This side of the yard, above, had buttonbush, pomegranate, Satsuma, kumquat, bay laurel, azalea, and Abutilon. 

 

 

 

A huge holly that was a favorite of winter hummers and a cherry laurel filled the space in the pictures above, with a mixed understory of hummer plants. 

 

 

 

Another angle of the side yard, before and after. 

 

Let's hope that the cut worm forgives the plow, and that in a year or two, our new living space is hidden behind a dense new crop of green. And let's hope that in that thicket Hooded Warblers and White-eyed Vireos can find shelter when they find themselves in the neighborhood, and hummers can find a safe place to spend the winter.  For now, though, it's a new and brutal nakedness.