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.

      

Cameron Parish, 7/17 and 7/25

We say, “Le chien qui va a la chasse perd sa place,” but I could just as easily say, “Si sa place est la chasse, le chien qui va pas a la chasse va perdre sa place.” 

No chasse for me; I’ve been in suspended animation for most of the summer--most of the year, actually-- with projects and plans.  However, I did manage a solo trip to Cameron Parish last week, and one yesterday with Mac Myers. 

In the woods last week, the only real action was the movement of Orchard Orioles and insects.  Some woodlots were so dense with mosquitoes that each step would result in hundreds of mosquitoes rising up.  

The beaches offered fewer chances to donate blood, but great looks at terns, including young Sandwich Terns with pale bills and intricate dark markings on their backs, and adults with their plain backs and yellow-tipped black bills. 

In the woods, a White-tailed Kite was conspicuous, perhaps a bit too much so for an Eastern Kingbird.

Yesterday, Mac and I stuck to the beaches.  Highlights were Wilson’s Plovers, of which we saw about 130, including this juvenile blending in with a wrack line of sargassum. 

On the way home, we lucked onto a Western Kingbird that was picking off angry wasps from a nest high on a power pole.  This species isn't expected to nest locally, so this may have been a summer wanderer. 

Hopefully my schedule will level out soon and give me more chances to head out soon.  There are good things out there right now, waiting to be seen.  

Cameron Parish, 5/19/2013

Stops:  Holly Beach, Lighthouse, Peveto.

I took a very leisurely trip to Cameron yesterday.  I know migration is slowing to a trickle, but that trickle is still a huge volume of birds, and I think the chance to see one more Bay-breasted or Blackburnian Warbler before autumn by driving to Cameron instead of Canada is worth taking.

In the town of Holly Beach, the first birds that caught my eye were these Common Nighthawks:

I really like nighthawks.  There's a lot still to learn about these birds, even on the ID front, so I take pictures like these and veg out in front of the computer studying patterns and feathers: 

Someday I hope to crack that code.  However, even from that picture, I think you can accurately age, sex, and identify this bird to species.  

At Lighthouse, one of the first birds I saw was a Tropical-type Kingbird, and I realized shortly that there were two, so I spent most of the morning standing around watching them.  

I also saw these flowers that I'd love an ID on:

And an Eastern Wood Pewee that's on its way north.  

There was also this dragonfly that I can't remember the name of:

At Hackberry Ridge, there was still a bit of water left from last week's heavy rain, and this Least Tern was by the road in a shorebird pond.  

The prickly pear was in beautiful flower, and this migrant male Ruby-throated hummer must've wondered what he was going to do with the huge blooms.

But he figured it out.  

At Jetty Woods, there was a pair of Swainson's Hawks.  I had some there during the breeding season last year, so I'd imagine nesting is likely.  

On the way back home, I flushed another nighthawk from the roadside.  It fluttered for a couple of feet, then landed, so I took a look.  

I checked the spot where it had gotten up, and saw what I'd suspected:

From here on out, birding will be getting more predictable through the summer.  However, even the predictable finds are amazing in their own right.  Our native birds are worth sweating and swatting bugs to see.  And if you're looking for something different, well, as they say, you have to do something different to see something different.  

By the way, I didn't get a Blackburnian Warbler, but I did get a very dull female Bay-breasted.

"Tropical" Kingbirds, Cameron Parish, 5/18

At Lighthouse Woods in extreme SW Louisiana, there were two "Tropical" (Tropical/Couch's) Kingbirds today.  I don't know if they were paired.  The first two photos show Bird 1.  Following the photo of the birds together are photos of Bird 2, which wasn't as confiding.  I think the flight photo is Bird 2.  It will be interesting to see if they stay in the area.

Cameron Parish, 5/10-5/12/2013

I joined  David Muth, Mac Myers, Dave Patton, Dan Purrington, and Phillip Wallace for a weekend on the coast.  Although this time of May is sometimes considered too late for good migration, a little bit of bad weather can prove that a huge stream of birds is still passing through our state.

On the ride down Friday, following a day of rough weather, flooded fields and yards gave a good account of the heavy rainfall amounts.  Signs of migrant activity began to appear, as well.  Once I got to Creole, I began to see Eastern Wood Pewees--a lot of them.  On the barbed wire fence on Trosclair Road alone, I counted 43 pewees each spaced about 50 yards apart.  It was getting dark by that time, and I was sorry I didn't have enough light to see what else was around.

Heavy storms on Friday night and early Saturday morning left a lot more water on the ground and a lot of birds everywhere.  Especially numerous migrants in the woods were Swainson's Thrush, Gray Catbird, Eastern Wood Pewee,  and Red-eyed Vireo.  There were plenty of tanagers, grosbeaks, and orioles as well.

Rose-breasted Grosbeak male

Rose-breasted Grosbeak female

Red-eyed Vireo 

Scarlet Tanager

Summer Tanager

Summer Tanager

Around mid-afternoon Saturday at Peveto, a nighthawk flew out of the woods looking for a place to land.  David Muth and I figured it was a Lesser Nighthawk.  The flight shot indicates that we were right, with the buffy spotting on the primaries, and the position of the white wing band toward the wingtip.  

There were plenty of Common Nighthawks throughout the area as well, roosting in trees, on the ground, telephone wires, and even atop cow pies.  The one below used a fallen branch as a bed.  

While I was trying to relocate the Lesser Nighthawk, I stumbled onto a Western Tanager that almost everyone else had already had a chance to see.  

Another big presence was hummingbirds.  I've never seen so many so late in the spring.  Feeders at camps had swarms of hummingbirds that brought scenes from autumn migration to mind.  However, most hummers were feeding at any blooming flower they could find.  

Shorebirds were more widespread than I've ever seen them, using everything from flooded ditches to rain ponds in camp yards in Holly Beach.  Some yards had pretty fancy birds to add to their lists, if the residents keep yard lists.  

Hudsonian Godwits

Short-billed Dowitcher

Wilson's Phalarope

Among the abundant migrants were a few oddballs.  The Swamp Sparrow, Red-breasted Nuthatch, and American Kestrel, below, are birds that should have headed north by now.  

Bobolinks usually aren't as common as they have been this year.

May is when most Empidonax flycatchers pass through, and we had this Traill's-type:

Even though migrants are still passing through, by May many of the local resident birds are either nesting, raising young, or in full courtship fever.  

Killdeer juvenile

Eurasian Collared Dove, noisy ambassador of love

Painted Buntings breed along the coast, and blend in well

As we were leaving today, we ran into an arriving Dan O'Malley.  A few minutes later, he called to alert us to a "Tropical" Kingbird he had found.  We made U-turns and got nice looks at this rare stranger.  Merci beaucoup, Dan!  

It was a great weekend of migration.  There was constant motion, and some nice bursts of color.  A lot of the birds this pate in migration are generally young birds and females, and that was true this weekend.  Look carefully at some of the birds in these pictures, and you'll see dull old feathers mixed with bright new ones, usually a good sign that a bird is entering its first summer of adulthood.  

Blackburnian Warbler

A great weekend, and it might be the last of its kind this spring.  I'm glad I had a chance to enjoy it.  

I'm exhausted.  I hope this made sense.