Mistaken Identities... The Beginning of Spring!

Now that it is officially spring, I'm eager to get out and about, but it is still too cold and breezy to be outside for more than a few minutes. So car birding it is for me, until that weather warms up. Since I had such good luck in Deer Park on Enoch Rd., I headed back there today to see if I could get some more birds in.

The first bird I saw after I turned off the busy highway was a small rusty-breasted bird with a dark body sitting on a phone wire. I snapped a quick pic, thinking it was a Barn Swallow. But after looking at the shot on the computer, it didn't look quite right for a swallow. With the rusty belly, and a grayish, blue tone back, and a notched tail, I knew right where I wanted to check next in my Stokes guides. Sure enough, I had mistaken the identity and had actually captured a Western Bluebird. Makes me happy because I haven't seen one since 2004. So almost 10 years ago. Nice to put one on my 2013 list.

Western Bluebird

As usual, I saw lots of Red-tailed Hawks.

Red-tailed Hawk

Thought I saw a Bald Eagle, in the same area where I saw two Bald Eagles last week (the one in the photo-merge pic from my last post). I was thinking maybe it was a juvenile eagle who's white head had not quite come in all the way. There were two of the large birds out in the field close to each other, both looked like they were in different stages of molt or different ages. Wasn't sure if they were Bald Eagles or Red-tailed Hawks. It looked like too much white on the chest for a Bald Eagle when I looked through the binoculars. So I took several pictures, and when I got home, I enlarged the pics on my huge 23" screen computer. Consulted my old Stokes Field Guide to Birds Western Region (1996) and my new Stokes Field Guide to Birds of North America (2010).  Did some research online and determined they were neither Bald Eagles or Red-tailed Hawks.

Finally, I came to the conclusion that they were indeed hawks...




















Of the Rough-legged variety (with feathers on their legs).







Rough-legged Hawk... a new life bird for me #101.

Of course spring means lots of American Robins.

American Robin

Also, new for this year, were a dozen Killdeer out in the field hanging near some European Starlings. They were too far off for pictures, so I had to use the binoculars and could still barely see them. They are such cute little birds and their sweet little faces that stood out even in the distance. A fun fact about Killdeer is the parents will fake a broken wing and start chirping real loud to distract predators from it's nest. It's a hoot to see!

These sweet little bunnies were busy getting ready for the big Easter weekend coming soon...

Best of all, I didn't even get a hint of car sickness wearing my motion sickness bands! I feel like Super Bird Woman with them on!

Oh yeah, forgot to mention that Bird Lady Assistant (hubby) is taking me to the Big Horn Show this weekend to see the Birds of Prey Exhibit! They showed a one-eyed Barn Owl named One-eyed Willy on the news today. I'm excited to go and hope to get some close-up pictures of some cool Birds of Prey! Stay tuned...

~ Sherrie (Super Bird Woman)

Owling During the Last Week of Winter

It's still a bit snowy around here and the lake is still frozen solid this last week of winter. But today it was to be the warmest day of the year so far, near 60 degrees, so I thought it would be a good day to get out and about and do some birding. As I headed out, I noticed a small amount of water along the edge of the ice down at the wetland. Look closely, you can barely see the reflection of the sky in the water where the dock is floating between the ice on the lake and the snow on the beach. I am so excited to see that reflection and my old friend the lake. Oh how I've missed it over the long winter.

Finally the ice is starting to recede!

My plan for the day was to head over to Deer Park to look for evidence of the owls my daughter has been hearing at night behind her apartment. The other night, when I got home after dark, I heard an owl near our house too. After listening to all the owl sounds on my iBird app, I decided that it sounded like a Great Horned Owl. I would love to get some proof of it, but there is still alot of snow around our place. There isn't much snow at all in Deer Park so it's much easier to walk around there. So today I did my owling in the woods behind the apartment complex. The first thing I came upon was this cool fort.

Neat fort with a Home Sweet Home sign inside

Then I stumbled upon another type of home. Wonder what type of woodpecker made these holes?

There was an old fallen down barn in the lot next door. I had fun exploring inside...












Looked like the perfect hangout for barn owls. It was a little spooky...

Vole Tunnels

In the field were tons of tunnels made by voles, also known as field mice, making it a perfect area for owls to hunt.

Entrances to the tunnels

Then I made my way to the wooded area, checking the ground around each tree looking for owl pellets. Owl pellets are the regurgitated indigestible parts of the food the owl eats, and contains bones, fur, feathers and such. I did see a few questionable piles of waste, but didn't feel like poking around in it to see if it was owl or dog waste. I also came upon several deer droppings.

As I scoured the trees up and down, checking the tangles of branches, I hear some sweet little tweets coming from the woods. I followed the tweets and found some cute tiny birds flitting about the pine trees. They moved so quickly, it was hard to get a glimpse of them. But I would see a flash of yellow on the tiny birds crown, and a fleck of red on the crown of some. First bird that came to mind was a Kinglet. There are Golden-crowned and Ruby-crowned Kinglets, and I wasn't sure without checking my references which these little birdies were. I tried to get a decent picture of the cute little things, but the were so quick to flit about the tangles of the trees, that it was next to impossible to get a good shot in. I did get enough pictures that I could confirm the I.D. as being the Ruby-crowned Kinglet. The male and females both have the yellow crowns, but the males also have a red spot on their crown too, hence the Ruby-crowned. Here are the pics that cinched the identity.

So I spent almost an hour and a half wandering through the woods and found plenty of evidence that this was perfect owl territory, but no actual owl evidence. This won't be my last time, as I plan to go back in the near future!

~ Sherrie (Bird Lady)