Any bird watchers or birders in the house?

[Balok's Decoy]

I went on a camping trip earlier this week. I took pictures of many birds. I've been unable to identify one of them. I think it's a type of warbler but the markings don't really match any of the pictures in my field guide. It would help to know it was in the Hill Country in Central Texas.

Warning, the picture is HUGE!

Yellow-rumped Warbler! We call them Butterbutts. This is the major warbler in winter months.

 

[Finn]

thanks

 

[J.T.B.]

A few times in the past week, a magpie has come to check out what I'm doing in the garden. He (she?) seems to have very little fear of me, he comes up to about a foot away and watches what I'm doing. If I cut a piece of wire or twine, he picks it up, takes it somewhere and comes back. I knocked a cherry tomato off a plant and he took off with that, too, though I'm sure he wouldn't eat it. I'm not sure he wants anything, he just seems very curious.

I'm not a big fan of magpies, but as long as they are not flocking en masse I suppose I can get along with this one.



He was pulling on the knots in my cucumber-climbing twine, which I wasn't crazy about, because I'm afraid he might be able to untie them!

 

[Kor]

Interesting thread and photos. I don't do much birdwatching myself, but I often listen to Birdnote on NPR in the mornings. It's rather intriguing.

Edit: oops, my college composition prof always gave me the business for overusing the word "interesting" in my papers, and I still do it!

Kor

 

[MANT!]

Most of my local interactions with birds are with Wild Turkeys...They've become very common in the SF Bay Area..there's a flock of them living nearby...I'll try to get photos when I can.

 

[TrickyDickie]

We are fortunate enough to get these guys: Pileated woodpecker. They are big and loud.

The interesting thing is that back in the late 70s or early 80s I saw one of these: Ivory-billed woodpecker.

There was no mistake. I got a very good look at the bird. It was a male, they are larger than the pileated, and the bill, eyes, and markings on the back are very distinctive. I have been a birdwatcher since I was a little kid, have always kept identification guides and binoculars handy. I did not need binocs that time....it was that close. Climbing a willow tree in our back yard. They were supposedly extinct and also never this far north. Curiously, Cornell University sent a team to Louisiana in 1935 to investigate them. Ithaca, New York is just a stone's throw away from here. It makes me wonder if they accomplished some unauthorized transplanting. In any case, I was close enough to be 100% certain of what I saw.

 

[J.T.B.]

A few from Great Basin National Park, Nevada.

Clark's nutcrackers at about 11,000 feet.


Dark-eyed junco at about 9000 feet. Completely different markings from the ones near where I live, but basically the same calls.


Mountain chickadee at around 9000 feet. About 50 yards was the closest they ever let me get to them!