Birding Season 2009, or, Birders in the Mist

So I am not what you call a birder. I do not own $500 binoculars. I cannot tell birds by calls, or flashes between trees. I do not have a camera with $20,000 lenses the size and length of my thigh.

I'm just a nature guy who likes learning new stuff. This then, is the story of my time among the birders.

Gulf Coast birders have much in common with birding enthusiasts elsewhere...the hobby seems to be dominated by slightly more chronologically advanced folk and photographers, usually from a slightly elevated economic status. And often disproportionately interested in their chosen hobby. I do not, even now, number myself among their ranks.

The Gulf Coast is an epicenter for migration, and as such, harbors the development of REALLY INTENSE birders. The sort that will drive 4 hours to see a single species of warbler, and rank it among their most poignant life moments. The sort of thing you or I might react to with simply, "oh hey, cute little flitty bird, when's lunch?". There is an intense commumnity of birders here, and more than one thriving cottage industry, not to mention national camera and optics companies, supported by it. These people all have a copy of Sibley's guide to birds stuffed in every car they own, with spares for any potential occasion. It, or its ilk, is second only to the Bible for many. They are a focused, sometimes somewhat odd, bunch.

But for all that, they are, as a rule, a welcoming, deeply knowledgeable and interesting group to hang out with. There are weekly bird walks at Brazos Bend State Park (think, Everglades on a small scale) that have gotten me to dip my toes into their feathered world. I refuse to make a joke about them "taking me under their wing", but I have taken advantage of the kind offers of a few to show me some of the local birding haunts.

These are a few shots from the ~90 species I was able to see and photograph during this season (Migration is usually early march to late May). My equipment is woefully inadequate for this hobby, but I enjoy it anyway.

As always, click on photos for large versions, see more at

Anhinga (male) - Like a cormorant, this bird needs to dry its wings after diving in after fish


American Coot - second cousin to the moorhen, and pretty much just as stupid.


Cattle Egret - anwhere else, wading birds would be a rare and fantastic site. Not so with the Gulf Coast. Here, he barely elicits a turned head.


Great Egret - He's an Egret. Great.


Purple Gallinule - odd odd little bird...like a marsh chicken dipped into a dozen different irridescent paints.


Great Tailed Grackle - These raucous fellows are EVERYWHERE down here.


Rose-Breasted Grosbeaks - I know nothing about these birds other than they are aptly named.


Pied-Billed Grebe - like miniature horses, seemingly to cute to survive the rigors, red in tooth and claw. However, they seem to do just fine. SO DANG CUTE. And I don't usually go for "cute"


Ring-Billed Gull - ho hum, a seagull....until you realize just how many species there are of these down on the gulf.


Northern Harrier - one of my favorite raptors...these owl-faced hawks are deadly dive bombers.


Red-Shouldered Hawk - not the most striking of hawks, but this small fellow has kept me company all season long, nesting in the open field next to my office.


Great Blue Heron - one of the largest and most easily recognized herons


Green Heron - a small but deadly fisherman


Little Blue Heron - often in the shadow of his Great Blue cousin, as beautiful in color as its voice is obnoxious in tone.


Black Crowned Night Heron - did I mention the Gulf Coast has a lot of cool wading birds?


Yellow Crowned Night Heron - along those same lines...


White Ibis - Ibis, revered by the Egyptians, are a new experience for me here.


American Kestrel - this tiny falcon wouldn't let me get anywhere close, but was a fantastic flyer


Common Loon - Ok this one wasn't from the Gulf Coast (Killarney Provincial Park in Ontario), but one of my faves


northern Mockingbird - cool to see...the first 1200 times. They're all over the place here and tend to chase away my hawks:(


Carolina Wren - seemingly the best bird:noise ratio around. Tiny bird, huge voice.


Common Moorhen - loud, dumb, and skittish. Their vocalizations earned them the nickname "swamp monkeys".


Northern Shovelers - apparently ducks come in more flavors than "mallard", "muscovy" and "other". Huh.


Barred Owl - I had never seen an owl at Brazos Bend before.


American Pelicans - less usual around here than their brown cousins, they live in a drainage pond down the road from me.


Roseate Spoonbill - another odd-looking wader


Sanderling - there are a million and one shorebirds, all looking vaguely alike. The Sanderlings are my favorites.


Lesser Scaup - another flavor of duck! with that weird bright unblinking golden eye that several of these species have.


Loggerhead Shrike - The "Butcher Bird", for its carnivore activities.


tufted Titmouse - tee hee. This bird is....teee heee...sorry, I mean, ferpete'ssake, you called it a TITMOUSE. REally? I mean...really? I need a shot of a couple. Then I can show off my great pair of tits. OH HEY NO ONE'S EVER MADE THAT JOKE, EVER.


Ruddy Turnstone - sounds like a character name in a bad English comedy. Another shorebird.


Warblers are the holy grail to the birding community (ivory-billed woodpeckers notwithstanding), but they are pretty elusive and tiny, meaning it was hard to get good shots. Here are a couple that were ok.

Cape May Warbler


Northern Parula (warbler)


Prothonotary Warbler - my fave, this little fellow with the ridiculous name is easy to spot and call.


Black-bellied Whistling Ducks - yet another flavor of duck, but one of my favorites. Yes, they do whistle


Downy Woodpecker


lots more on my flickr page here

Wildflower Season 2009

A few shots of this year's wildflowers, now that we have passed the explosion of color that happens during the March to May timeframe here. Not quite as spectacular as other areas of Texas, but some interesting variation. Probably more to follow as I continue to work through a backlog of photos to edit.

**As always, click to see the shots at a reasonable size, more shots available at My Flickr page. **

Spider Lillies


Indian Blanket (Gaillardia pulchella)


Cape Honeysuckle


Herbertia/Prairie Nymph (Herbertia lahue)



Coreopsis


Passionflower


Mimosa/Sensitive Plant (possibly mimosa pudica?)


Thistle


lemonmint/horsemint (indian blanket in background)


Pricklypoppy


Spiderwort


Texas Vervain (Verbena)


Violet Wood Sorrel


Salvia species


Dianthus/wild Carnation


Common Selfheal (prunella vulgaris?)


Obedient Plant (Physostegia Pulchella)


Lizard's-tail (Saururus cernuus)



Golden Ragwort


Philadelphia Fleabane


Puff


Scarlet Sage


Clover with Bee


Blue-Eyed Grass



Melilotus


Bluebonnets in Motion


Bluebonnets with Oak


Coneflowers


Iris (Iris versicolor, growing wild)


Manystem False Dandelion


Evening Primrose


a Verbena sp. surrounded by a Lipidium sp.


Till next year..



Up next: Recap of 2009 Birding Season.

Prop 8 upheld

Shame on you California.

Shame for voting in such a riduclous measure, shame for continued support, and shame for this ruling.

As someone who doesn't have a dog in that fight, I'm still outraged that the legislating of preference trumps the individual liberty that is the essence of the American democracy.

We are a country founded on the protection of freedoms, not the elimination thereof. If every person is not equal under the law, none of us are.

Artcar 2009 Wackiness.

Houston's annual Artcar parade is like the Matrix. You cannot be told what it is, you have to see it for yourself. What started as a small group of committed...well...crazy folk, has turned into a tens of thousands strong event. The essence of the artcar parade is captured in its name. 1) Have a car. 2) make it into art. That ranges drastically from a car covered in those singing fish and lobsters (all timed to sing and move with music) to pimped out lowriders, and about everything in between.

This has grown to include bicycles, trucks, and all manner of motorized or man-powered vehicle. The parade runs along a divided highway near downtown and has gorwn exponentially from its humble beginnings. There's still a good degree of the ultra-wacky performance art aspect to some of it, but it really has become a more mainstreamed event in the last several years. It's nice to have some sort of community art event in Houston that is not dominated by big Oil and restricted to those who can afford the price of admission. This is definitely grass roots art funkiness at its most raw and, amazingly, accessible.

Here are a few shots from this year's parade (click to see larger):


I brought the wrong lens (tele instead of a wide angle) so tried to capture some of the detail instead of whole cars this year. Loved this car/shot


Rollerskating Viking, for the win.


The "Lobster Tabernacle Choir". Timed and choreographed, covered in those tacky singing fish. When this rolls by to "Bohemian Rhapsody" (the head banging part) it boggles the mind.


The gargoyle car is one of my perrenial faves, which I have never gotten a decent shot of. Here's hoping next year is better. But still, fantastic car.


Lowriders were here in force (for the first time?) this year. I don't recall seeing them before, but these were definitely works of art. hydraulics!


This entire car was covered in a crocheted doily. There;s another car covered entirely in patterns made of solid walls of yarn


Giant 30 foot tall metal chicken. That talks. I'm not sure what else I can say about the sheer awesomeness here.


She is the embodiment of Texas...big, spirited, just a little bit crazed...


This rollerskater was just a little disturbing. Ok, a lot disturbing.


The HAri Krishnas had a float. Really? There are still Hari Krishnas? I just liked this shot because of the negative space at top...it looks almost as if she's pulling down the corner of the picture, revealing a void. I guess that's more of a zen buddhism thing, but they didn't have a float.


The inevitable political car/float. Last year, pre-Obama, it was a giant missle with a Cheney/Satan 08 ticket, and ladies with giant strap on missiles. It was so subtle...


Speaking of politics, Kinky Friedman! He's like our Mark Twain.


The median of the highway is left unmowed to let the wildflowers bloom. Took this as we were walking back.

All in all not as good as last year, but still enjoyable.

Walk log, 5/13/09

I haven't posted much since the end of last year. The irony being, the events of the interceding time frame give me more than enough to write about, but I'm still wading through the emotions of it all, and this didn't seem the best forum. Maybe in a while..

For now, I thought I'd start keeping a record of the species, etc I run across in my almost daily hikes or lunch walks at various parks in the area. Something fairly safe and detached to ease my return, I suppose.

5/13/09 - Cullinan Park, Houston

Cullinan Park is a small park consisting primarily of an equally small lake, that runs along a regional creek. Outside of the boardwalk that meanders through some woods and along the lake edge (providing fantastic views of the wetlands and other inaccessible areas), there are only a few unkept trails through second growth riparian corridor. However, I've come to like it as a great place for macro photography.

The lake is getting choked up with lillypads. I think they're american lotus because that's what will be blooming later on in the summer. It's always an odd sight...the seed pods staring like bright yellow sightless aliens in unison across the water. The lake goes from clear all winter long, to completely covered during the summer. It's a pretty fantastic transition, and the species present vary wildly in accordance with the changes.

The lake was practically shimmering from the volume of dragonflies that flitted above it's mottled surface. I saw several of the usual blue dashers and eastern pondhawks. They're swarming all over, must be mating season. That can only mean the golden silk spiders won't be far behind. I also saw at least two other species I have not yet identified. One an almost calico mix of reds and yellows (eastern amberwing?)and the other a dark variety with distinct markings on its wings.

Today was a big day for herps, compared to the usual fare...saw a garter/ribbon snake of a size that would lead me to lean toward the latter, and an unidentified water snake which declined to show anything but its back half...dark, with bright red/orange/brown? rings. Combined with a tiny, delicate yellowish damselfly species and a lark-sized bird I could not see well, I will have several photos species to identify when I get home.

The usual swifts/swallows and vultures were present, along with a few cattle egrets, a yellow-crowned night heron, and a black bellied whistling duck. A Little Blue egret and some moorhens also made appearances to round out the birding list.

I've been on a species photographing/identifying kick as of late. Partly the latent naturalist coming into a more focused pursuit, partly the human collecting urge, I suppose. Someone of greater perception may delve into deeper motivations based on events of late. In any regard, a walk in wild areas is greater balm to me than hashing such ideas out.

Photos, as always, to follow, and also available at:
My Flickr Page