New Mexico

So after a whirlwind trip through Oklahoma we pushed on westward through the top hat of Texas. We didn't stop much so I can't really add any birds but the drive was pretty cool. Historic route 66 was a magnet for us and we stopped a lot along the way. The best stop was at the Cadillacs in the dirt. These things have to have more paint on them than the New York subway walls in Brooklyn. The caddies were pretty neat to see, but some of the more memorable things at that location were the herd of cattle just hanging out a few feet from the cars. They seemed to watch the people walking across the field to the cars with curiosity, or maybe they just like the smell of spray paint. Everyone ( except me) had a can or five to paint their mark on the cars. The disgusting part is that every one of those people pretty much just chucks those cans and lids and bags out into the field. Some of them think it's funny to spray paint piles of cow crap too. It's was all kind of gross to me. Although I will say that fluorescent green and pink cow piles are easier to see than the natural variety which are like land mines in the field. We watched the pilgrimage of litterbugs for a while before I decided I had seen enough and we continued our west bound haul into New Mexico.
We stopped for the night outside of Albuquerque and got up early the next morning. We drove a short way back to the east and up to the top of Sandia Crest to the Sandia Crest House at over 10000 feet above sea level. A single tray feeder at the top of the world was empty when we
arrived. I was disappointed because I was hoping to see some life birds at this feeder. After
checking out the gift shop and buying a t shirt and some post cards I walked back over to the
windows. The wind outside was blasting out of the west and it was pretty cold. I saw some
movement in the trees and watched two gorgeous Stellars Jays come in and inspect the empty
feeder. A second later a small brownish bird appeared in the tree above the feeder. A single
brown capped rosy finch. One of my hoped for target birds. As I fumbled to get my camera out
of my pocket the bird dropped put of sight. Shit!
Not a minute later a flock of over 150 birds seemed to drop from the sky. They fluttered on the gusting wind and balanced on heavily swaying branches 12 feet in front of me. All three
rosy finches were in the flock. They landed on the deck and in trees all around the empty
feeder. I decided to try going outside to avoid the window glass for some pictures. Every bird
took to flight as I went outside but immediately returned and landed in a huge line on the
railing and in the trees below. After a few seconds I think they realized I didn't have the
food for them and took off again. I waited a little while longer and then decided to move on.
It was an amazing time up there and I hope to get back there sometime to spend more time.

On the way back down the mountain we found mountain chickadees and juncos galore. Robins were everywhere and a single Townsends Solitaire flitted from tree to to tree top. It was a great stop.

Oklahoma

From St. Louis we continued west into Oklahoma and spent the night near Oklahoma City. The next morning we headed to the Wichita Mountain Wildlife Refuge. This is a really neat area. The mountains just seem to come up out of nowhere. Once we entered the refuge we saw our first bison of the trip and also longhorns. We stopped at a small lake and took some pictures and as soon as we were out of the car I heard a bird singing in a small shrub near the edge of the hill. It turned out to be a Rufous-crowned Sparrow, a new bird for the year. I also found Spotted Towhee and Canyon Wren in this area.
We drove around checking out the terrain and spotted a prairie dog town near Holy City ( a church in the middle of the refuge made entirely out of stones...pretty cool).
We watched the little guy dive into their holes every time a car passed and run around when they felt safe enough. The are fascinating to watch. After a little while I noticed some small birds in the dirt and grass behind the dogs. Seven in total worked the area, sometimes flying around and settling down again not far from there they started. Their flight calls and motions were enough to tip me off but the single male, in very near full breeding plumage, was the clincher. Chestnut-collared Longspurs. I tried like hell to get digiscoped photos, but between the wind barreling across the plains and bad angle of the sun I ended up with just one passable photo. Oklahoma added just four birds, but I was pretty happy with that since we only spent about an hour looking.

St. Louis, MO - Sparrow Success

We got to St. Louis last night and got up and moving early this morning. We checked out the crazy big arch and then headed to Horseshoe Lake State Park in IL to hunt out a sparrow or two.
After about 15 minutes of driving around I heard the chattering of sparrows and tracked them down to a tree at the egde of the lake. There they were - Eurasian Tree Sparrows.

Woodcocks and more!

So with the rain setting in I picked up Prettybird to do a little birding before the woodcock hunt.  A post on Ohiobirds pointed us to Wayne County where a flooded field apparently held some goodies. We arrived to find a couple of others birders searching the water in the rain. We set up scopes and looked over the area. There was an amazing amount of diversity in that flooded field. 15 species of ducks, coots, American Pipits, Wilson's Snipe and lot of Killdeer. I finally found the bird we were looking for in the taller grasses: Eurasian Wigeon. This bird has eluded me for years now on failed attempts and one-day-to-late chases. Even though the weather was awful, we soaked it in, litterally and enjoyed this bird.
As it was almost dark, we pulled into Prettybirds drive we heard my first Woodcocks of the year. We watched one fly a few feet in front of us and then two more doing their skydance. It was a great ending to a great and unexpected day adding two new year birds and three new Ohio birds for the year.
Year: 268
Ohio: 132

Rambling through March

Well since the return from the Texas trip, I have been back to Memphis for a wedding and am now at home for one more day until we jump in the car and head west to Vegas for an event. I will however spend some time to and from birding around the route. I am planning to hit Colorado pretty hard as well as possible side trips to CA and into NM.
To recap the last few weeks:
I added 129 new birds for the year in Louisiana, Texas, Arkansas and Tennessee.  Fifteen life birds were added during this trip which is a whole lot more than I had expected-
Lark Bunting, Audubon's Oriole, Aplomado Falcon (not and ABA bird, but cool) Mountain Plover, Ferruginous Pygmy-Owl, Crimson-collared Grosbeak, Fulvous Whistling-Duck, Green Parakeet, Black-vented Oriole, Altamira Oriole, Olive Sparrow, Sprague's Pipit, Yellow-faced Grassquit, Clay-colored Sparrow (which I swore I had already!), and Seaside Sparrow.
Ladybird added a ton of lifers and year birds too so all in all it was a killer trip. Now back in Ohio for a day and the snow has pretty much dissappeared and its a pleasant 40 degrees outside. tonight I am meeting Prettybird for a little while to hopefully add woodcock to the year list before hitting the road again tomorrow morning!

I promise to try to be better about posts followers....it is just kind of hard after a huge long day...

Here are a few more of my favorite pics from the Texas trip.

Whoopers and Skimmers

Texas. Does anyone NOT love it here?

Well it's been a great trip so far. Louisiana was amazing but Texas has been awesome. We have added a ton of new year birds and quite a few life birds. The next couple of posts will be photos from the trip thus far.
A little bit of a recap: We went to Anahuac NWR, Aransas, Goose Island, a bunch of places around Kingsville and ended today at Bentsen Rio Grande State Park. WeAther has been amazing, the birds have been in our faces and all around it has been a fantastic trip.

Louisiana and Texas

We spent the day birding between Lacassine and Anahuac National Wildlife Refuges. The weather has been amazing and the birds have been great as well. 28 new species for the year between the two parks. A pretty good start for the trip...
More to come soon.

On our way south

Ladybird and I loaded up and headed out yesterday to try to get ahead of some weather moving in. A little rain as we went through KY but it cleared up until just past Nashville. Between Nashville and Memphis was when the shit really hit the fan. Super strong winds and driving rain pounded us for an hour on I40. With tornado warnings all around we stopped just shy of Memphis for the night. Things have cleared overnight a bit and we will push on south into Louisiana and head for Lacassine today.
Happy to have that storm behind us.

BoWax !!!!!

Bohemian waxwings were the birds we all wanted to see the most on this trip. Folks have been seeing them near the Dafter port office for weeks now and there was a report from the day we arrived that they were seen. We tried a few times on Saturday to find them and we thought we saw a flock of about 30 flying away at one point but couldn't be sure. So early Sunday morning we decided to try again. We pulled into the post office parking lot and there wasn't a bird to be seen. We circled the area; no birds. We decided to go see Carlos, our snowy owl, down in Rudyard again to give the birds some time to wake up and move around. Carlos was chillin next to some piles in a field and gave us great looks. A flock of snow buntings drifted by and landed in a tree at a nearby house as we were leaving. Cool to see them in trees.
We decided one more look at Dafter before we had to go. There was a major storm moving into the area that would slow us down if we waited too long to get on the road.
Back at at the post office again and still no waxwings but redpolls and starlings were up and at 'em. We cicled the area and returned to the post office again to find fifteen cars jammed in the lot with people pointing and looking happy. We saw the flock again as it flew away. Dammit !!
So we thought we would wait it out but I am super impatient when it comes to sitting in a parking lot so I thug we would drive around a little. Ladybird spotter a bird in a tree near the I75 bridge. It was a pine grosbeak. Just a pine grosbeak, but what were those birds below it in the other trees? BOWAX! Tons of them! We jumped out and threw scopes up to get awesome views of the birds 75 feet away. Then a small bunch would rise up from somewhere unseen and fly out, then more, then more THEN MORE! Tons of them were in the trees and flying around. We estimAted about 150 total in the flock. I snapped a bunch of digi shots but the lighting wasn't the greatest. It really didn't matter though. We had found our biggest target bird, and every other target for this trip as a matter of fact and a bird I didn't expect to see at all, the crossbills.
It was a great weekend of birding. I added nine new birds for the year and the rest added life bird after life bird. Fantastic!
The drive back was uneventful until we got just north of Ann Arbor and it started to snow. And snow. And snow some more until the roads were invisible and the near whiteout conditions forced us off the highway. We are in a Best Western waiting for the roads to clear up. About 8 inches of fresh snow is on the ground and layers of ice are farther south of us. It may still be an interesting drive home.....

Hulbert Bog

Our last day up here was going to be our clean up day. Try again for a few misses and see if anything new was around. We went back to Hulbert Bog after we ran into a fellow birder who gave us a tip on crossbills. On our way to the bog five small reddish birds flew from the berm of the road up into the trees. We pulled to the side of the road, scanned the trees and found the Red Crossbills. We watched them feed on the side of the road and perched in trees singing. A life bird for most of us.
From there we slowly drove Basnau rd. Pine grosbeaks were also feeding in the road. In the trees they were joined by an Evening grosbeak for great looks. The bog was hopping with birds unlike the day before. It looked like a birding group had gone through the area because there were piled of seed on the road all in front of us. Crows seemed to be enjoying the free meal as well the chickadees and redpolls, but I noticed 3 intermediate sized birds a little father down the road. There they were: Gray Jays. They scattered as we approached but we parked and waited and sure enough one of them decided we needed very close looks. The bird flew from branch to branch, down to the road for food and back to the trees at eye level for about ten minutes. Good stuff.

Siskins and Redpolls Galore

There is a lot of driving around in the Soo. A lot! But there are always things to see. Someone once told me "there are no "throw-away" birds up here".

Enter the Northern Shrike we found atop a stand of trees. This guy hawked around and put on a nice little show for us right across the street from a large flock of Common Redpolls. We also found a ton of Redpolls at the Dunbar feeders accompanied by a whole lot of Pine Siskins. Great looks at both speices for all of us. We also found a great flock of Pine Grosbeaks at the Dunbar Park. We watched them feed in the pines and fly around the park for excellent looks. Back at the Dunbar feeders we found a male and a female Evening Grosbeak as well. They are such stunning birds and life birds for most of the group.

A drive up to Whitefish Point at the end of the day was a nice way to finish off a great day. A small flock of Common Redpolls were feeding on the ground with some Black Cappped Chickadee. We watched the flock for a while when all of a sudden two Hoary Redpolls joined the flock. A life bird for the whole group. Awesome!

A tale of two grouse

Today we spent time exploring Dunbar Forest and the back roads of Rudyard. Our first cool ass bird was a Sharp-tailed Grouse. It was in a berry tree feeding in front of a house about a half mile off of the main road. I spotted the shape in the tree from the road at about 60 miles per hour. We pulled down the "seasonal road" and drove right up to the bird. Kind of crazy to be 15 feet away from this amazing bird. It fed on the berries and then flew off, really far, into the distant treelike.

Later in the day we found 3 Ruffed Grouse in more trees along Hulbert Road. The birds were walking along the tree branches and picking off the buds from the trees. It was really awesome to see them picking their way along the thin branches. They too then flew off into the trees.

Killer cool birds for the day.

Snowy Owl in the SOO

We found this dude chilling in a field in Rudyard. Tomorrow we continue the trek. Near blizzard conditions. It's going to be interesting ....

Recap of the end of January and into February

So January went out with a bang and february came in with strep throat. I didn't really get out much but did get to Avon for the Red-throated loon. (photo)
The next week or so I spent on the couch watching the feeders and watching movies. Not a bad way to burn up February, but not that exciting.
I did spend a weekend of birding with Prettybird in southern Ohio. We had two great days. She managed a whopping 14 new birds for the year while I was very surprised with five newbies.

A stunning Golden Eagle at the wilds put on a nice show perching and flying low over the terrain. A state bird for me as well as a new year bird. Then it was off to Amish country to chase a Common Raven that Jen had tracked down that morning. Success as we watched it cruise around the area with a few crows watching it's every move.
En route to the raven we found a cold looking Killdeer in a small opening of grass along College Hill Rd. Black Vultures were the raptor of the day down there also. At least six were seen in the immediate area.
After chasing the "A**hole" raven around for an hour we decided to hit Mohican State Park a few miles away. Now that is a pretty little section of the state. It had been years since I was there and what I remembered most was sneaking beers in the camping areas. This day we skipped the beverages and birded from the truck mostly. A single Ruby-crowned kinglet with a slew of Golden-crowned-s was a nice pull by Prettybird. Bringing the year to date total to 127.
Tomorrow before dawn Ladybird, Prettybird, Luckybird and I head to the UP for some winter birds. C'mon Snowy!

A typical winter day

It was incredibly frosty the morning of this photo. Ladybird and I managed to each pick up some great birds on this cold morning.

Screech owls

This little guy has been hanging out in the same area for about a month. His red hot lover is not far away. Here's hoping they have some little ones!

Local Patch days and additional sightings

Ok, so it has been forever since I updated the blog. January kind of kicked my ass. I have been the lazy birder the last few weeks and have little to show for it. I guess I can go back and recap the end of the January for starters.
A couple of additional local patch trips and winter rarity chases finished out January. My total was 122. I am happy with that. Sort of. I find myself becoming a greedy birder sometimes, you know the type; wild eyed and rabid to find more more more birds. It's embarrassing, but sometimes I fall into it. Maybe we all do.
Took a quick trip to Calvary cemetery to find the Merlin. He was perched on top of a tree in the newer section of the cemetery. All in all that was an easy bird to find. From there we hightailed it over to Berea to a little pond behind the library. Among the Canada Geese and Mallards a single drake Wood duck was paddling around and calling. It was a good end to the day.
I met Prettybird at Seiberling Nature Realm in Akron the next day at lunch time and found a lone Pine Siskin at the thistle feeders. Such neat little birds. The next day she and I headed to Killdeer plains and found 7 Long Eared Owls roosting in a white pine as the sun was coming up behind them. Finding owls is always a strange kind of adrenaline rush. Maybe because they are not the easiest birds to find or maybe it is just because they are freaking awesome.
I checked off Hermit Thrush on an awesome Local Patch day in the valley. It was a great day for lots on the tour. Just cool birds all around.
A few more chases yielded some more new January birds: Black crowned night herons near the lake and the Northern Shrike at Bath. Another little trip towards Columbus was a great day. Brown Thrasher, Turkey Vulture, Yellow-bellied Sapsucker, Green Winged Teal and Savannah Sparrow we all new birds for the year.
One last Local Patch trip for January gave us another amazing day. I honestly didn't think I would get any new birds that day. I was wrong. A little pack of Horned Grebes at Eastlake was a total surprise. A Thayer's Gull at 72nd was a killer pull by Jen. Then Ring-necked Pheasants near Carlisle made it a three new bird day pushing my January total to 121.  I was good with that until we heard there was a Virginia Rail somehow staying alive in a ditch in Kent. So on the 31st I dragged my now pretty ill ass into the car and drove out there. Sure enough, there he was, hunkered down in the smallest little bit of open water with the look like "Seriously, I stayed here why?" . Nevertheless, bird 122 for January. A pretty awesome way to end the month. From there it was back home to bed and chicken soup for the next week.

Chasing the Century

At the midpoint in January I was still a few short of the 100 so I decided to chase a few rarities that have been seen and trek around to find others to fill the holes. Three friends and I headed to mid Ohio before the sun came up yesterday morning. We revisited the now famous home of the Amish Harris Sparrow not to be disappointed. He popped up a few minutes after we arrived and within 15 minutes we had all added a new year bird which was also a life bird for some. From there we headed out to the rural fields to chase a mega flock of blackbirds. We found the flock of four thousand-ish and after pulling over on a very busy road and setting up scopes, we found the star of the show: yellow headed blackbird. A stunning male with a bright orangey-yellow head that popped out in the flock like a beacon. Again, a new year bird and a life bird for most. One hour out and we had already scored two new birds. It was setting up to be a great day.
Ten minutes later in route to our next stop a Wilson's Snipe sprang from a ditch and flew around for at least two of us to view. Bird three for the day.
We visited Time and Optics and talked to the owner. He directed us to a local farm with a silo that held a special visitor. On the top rung of the ladder sat our next new year bird: Barn Owl. The family was very friendly and happy to let us visit. Barn Owl has always been a tricky bird for us and this was almost too easy. Easy, but awesome. Next stop was at a local gravel pit jam packed with Canada geese and two very dainty Ross's Geese hiding within. We scanned for about 15 minutes before the flock shifted and made them stand out amongst the rest. Birds number four for the day.
Next it was off to Killbuck Marsh. As we slowly drove the roads we watched two Barred Owls fly across the road and into a stand of pines. Not a new bird, but always awesome to see.
Not much else was found in the area, but we enjoyed the nice day. At that point two of the group left and we decided to go further south to Killdeer Plains Wildlife Area. We arrived at about three in the afternoon and drove the roads looking for birds. Not much was seen until almost dark. At that point a Sharp Shinned Hawk cruised across the road which made us very happy. Then we spotted two short eared owls in a field near the sportsmen's center. We watched them for a while and then went to the center peaking area to talk to few other birders. At the top of a tree sat a single Eastern Meadowlark.

Lakefront Local Patch

The day started out at 9 degrees and soared all the way up to 23 before we called it a day. Before we even met up with the group a great horned owl was perched near the railroad tracks and a roost of 30 wild turkeys was found along the drive to Avon.
Avon power plant held a lot of waterfowl including my first of the year northern pintail. From Avon we headed over to Huntington Reservation. Glaucous gull was the second year bird of the day which we had great looks at. A stop at the visitors center gave us excellent views of a pair of barred owls in the woods being harassed by a mob of jays. We watched the owls until they dove down into the revine and headed to Wendy park and eventually to 72nd street.
Lots of time was spent at Wendy park trying to figure out if we had a snowy owl on the break wall or just a piece of ice. We left it as undetermined....
At 72nd street the gull numbers seemed down but we did have more good looks at glaucous gulls and I finally got satisfying looks at peregrine falcon to add it to my January list. Peregrine was bird number three for the day.
From there we headed over to Cleveland Lakefront State Park and found our northern saw whet owl in the pines. All in all it was a great day on the lakefront. We celebrated with food and drinks in Bay Village and then refound the same great horned owl where we had seen it in the morning.

January total to date: 93 birds

January 5-7

I spent the last few days cruising around some of the hot spots in Ohio looking for new year birds as well as trying to get my 100 in January in the first two weeks. My current total is 90 birds. The last ten might be challenging but god knows I love the chase. I have an outing with Local Patch tomorrow that I am sure will yield a few additional birds.
Highlights of the week would be:
Eastern screech owl, barred owl, more short eared owls and lots of Lapland longspurs and snow buntings at Killdeer Plains.
I also am planning to start including photos and a running year total list on this blog starting very soon.

Technical difficulties....please stand by

So the new year is off to a great start with malfunctioning posts to this blog. A few didn't make it up so I am just going to recap from here to get us caught up.
January 1:
I was up and out the door by 7:30 am to start the new year. Birded around the area of northwest Ohio and close to my parents house where I had spent the night. Castalia pond, East Harbor state park, Sheldon Marsh, Willow Point and Old Woman's Creek were all hit before 1 pm. Tallied 41 species that first day with the highlight being the great horned owl at Willow Point.
January 2:
Big day on the lakefront with Local Patch and all my good buddies. Lots of birds moving on the lake. Killer looks at Pomerine Jaegers (2!)and Iceland gulls. Stunning male long tailed duck at 72nd street and the super star of the day NSWO in the pines. Awesome morning in the field. From there a buddy and I chased a snowy owl report to the far west. No luck. It is looking like the reports might have been wrong, but time will tell. A pretty white red tail has been seen in the area....interesting. But the late trip was not a total loss. Upon departing the snowy sight, we came across 3 short eared owls in the short grasses of the licensed shooting preserve. Awesome!
January 3:
Took mom out for the day and some catch up birding. Added a few misses from day 1 bringing me up to 71 for the beginning of the year in Ohio. Again, relocating the great horned owls was a real treat.
January 4:
Didn't spend a lot of time out today. Long enough to track down cedar waxwings and a brown creeper at Seiberling Nature Realm. Ran into Irene at Bath Nature Preserve and together looked for the shrike....no luck. Maybe tomorrow will be a better day.
Total for the month in Ohio so far: 73