Have You Seen This Bird?

You may have noticed a lot of birds around lately. I sure have. I keep seeing one bird in particular that always brings a smile to my face. I had not seen many of them before, and they seem to be everywhere this year. I see them on the sides of the highway, out on the country roads, in open fields, and flying around all over.

I’ll give you some hints to see if you can guess the bird. This bird likes to sit on fences and power lines. It has a long tail that sticks out. It has orange-salmon patches underneath its wings. Got it yet?

It’s the scissor-tail flycatcher! This is a bird that travels through all of Texas and uses this area as a breeding ground during the summer. They migrate through Mexico and spend the winters in Central America. During the spring, they wander across North America and have been spotted as far north as British Columbia. 

They are a fun bird to watch in flight, because their tail opens and closes like scissors. They are amazing acrobats to watch as they flit around at fast speeds to catch insects and flies. One of their primary food sources are grasshoppers, which is good news for farmers! They nest in taller trees near open areas of grass and prairies. 

Scissor tail flycatchers build their nests using grass, Spanish moss, plastic pieces, paper, string, cigarette butts, pieces of carpet, and almost anything else that they can scavenge from nearby. A study of nests in Texas found that 30% of the nest materials were man-made materials that the birds had gathered.

For more information, visit the Cornell Lab of Ornithology website:

http://www.allaboutbirds.org/guide/scissor-tailed_flycatcher/id

Here are a few videos showing this beautiful bird:

Mother Starling takes a rest from feeding young

In this second part we can see how hard the Starling parents work at feeding their young.  Notice how hard they are breathing.  Fortunately, there is nice cool water in the birdbath!

Early Bird Gets The Worm

Robins enjoying our organic backyard with plenty of earthworms coming to the surface after recent rain. It is amazing how these birds, which hunt by sight, find the areas with worms surfacing and come to feed. I think they thought they found paradise with the abundance of earthworms, hackberries and fresh water!

Early morning foraging

Mockingbird and robin observed foraging for food one summer morning. Watch closely and you will see the mockingbird find one of the meal worms I put out frequently :-)

Grackles Preparing To Roost

Video of grackles preparing to roost along University Drive in Denton, TX.  Listen to the wonderful grackle songs as they prepare to settle down

Starling Hides From House Sparrows

Young starling appears to be playing hide and seek from house sparrows. After the young starling finally flies off we get to see a mother sparrow feed its fledgeling with some suet cake.

Mother Grackle Teaching Young Grackle To Drink

You don't see this everyday. A mother grackle has brought her fledgeling to the water bath for the first time to show it how to drink. Notice how the fledgeling keeps demanding food/drink from it's mother and how the mother will demonstrate how to drink then give some drink directly to the fledgeling's mouth.

The next day I noticed the same fledgeling again.  Notice his mother isn't so willing to feed him this time. 

Hummingbird enjoying fresh food

Hummingbird enjoys the new sugar water so much that he sits on the perch and takes 5 long drinks.  On his third trip back he is disrupted from visiting by the intrusion of a hairy woodpecker who has a sweet tooth.

Cardinal Male Feeding Young

Compared to other birds, male cardinals are very paternal.  In addition to feeding the young, as you see about half way through this video, they also take turns sitting on the eggs.  I guess you might say that is the human equivelent of changing diapers :-)