Home Forums Hunting & Shooting Hunter's Campfire Hey Birdwatcher

I was fishing on the Frio about dawn, he was getting a drink.
At first I thought I needed more coffee. When I got back to the house,
the Painted Bunting was on the cover of the "bird book".

UPDATE

FYI the Painted Bunting that started this thread has not returned (to the best of my knowledge.) I guess he's on his 1000 mile journey. Never saw the female either. (Pretty crazy that tiny birds like this and hummingbirds fly such great distances.)

Not a Painted Bunting but this Lazuli Bunting I saw this morning is still rather pretty.

I tried to post a larger file size of this photo but it said that file size is limited to less than about 98 kb so I reduced the file size. How are you guys posting larger pics?

Lazuli version in WA a couple years back



eating millet seed that grew from the bird seed:

Gotta hand it to you guys . I never have much of a thought for birds except in passing. Except grouse, woodcock, duck and geese of course.

But your attention to things birdlike is very gratifying and I appreciate your paying attention to it and sharing your knowledge and pictures.

It's opened my mind, even if just a smidge.

So, good on ya!

Just a postscript re. how common painted buntings can be.

The morning before sunrise, trash strewn access road along the Loop, heavy commuter traffic. Three singing males within earshot, including an adult male in a mesquite right over my head.

To them the road, noise and traffic is meaningless, all they see is a mix of trees/brush/grass ie. habitat.

It is pretty cool to be able to read the woods with your ears.

Sorta cast doubts on the old movie things about Indians coordinating ambushes with bird calls. If they used one out of habitat or season it would be a dead giveaway, and if it was in correct habitat and season an actual bird could screw things up.

Except the "white eyes" might not have had a clue that you're not going to find a whip-o-will in the woods in December?

I seem to have to relearn some calls every spring up here.

When we first moved here in the winter of '16, most mornings were pretty silent. Then I started hearing stuff I wasn't familiar with and had to look them up. We had a whistling bird call from over where the little creek runs behind the neighbor's place, and sometimes out in the sage/grass areas. I knew there were some ducks using the area as I had seen them flying in and out. These birds would only fly (display???) for a short period in the mornings, and they were 200-300 yards away. Finally, using a website or two, I tracked it down to willets. Seems they're fairly common around here.

Another noise I'd never heard seems to have turned out to be a nesting call for the Western meadowlarks, which we have in abundance.

Finally saw the female Painted Bunting. I wasn't able to get a picture.

You’d be surprised, didn’t matter who you were, if you lived in the woods your whole life without tv, radio, smart phones or the internet you got pretty familiar with what was where. For example The red-eyed vireo was called by the whites “preacher bird” because they sing incessantly into late summer ie. never shut up.

There is an incident in Noah Smithwick’s memoirs of 1830’s Texas where a Lipan Apache thought howling wolves might be Comanches, listened for a bit, and decided they were the real thing.

OTOH the Cherokee Outlaw Ned Christie once eluded an ambush by listening to a chickadee.

Chickadee flocks are the nearest thing we have to monkey troops, social groups inhabiting the same patch of forest all year round, constantly communicating. IIRC their vocabulary contains like 15 calls each with a different meaning, one of which must have meant “Hey, there’s a bunch of guys laying out here!”.

Christie knew enough of their language to take heed and so save his own life.

It was pretty funny when our birding group heard a Northern Parula up in the trees, but we couldn't see it. Then someone Googled it, turned the volume of their phone up and called the thing right in. I thought that I was stalking an owl like I'd heard up north. Nope, Eurasian Collared Dove sounds way too much like a Yankee owl.

Interesting,

I sure wish I had time to learn Raven. Those folks have a good vocabulary and are always announcing the arrival of someone or something.

The painted bunting pair that come by most days didn't show this morning.
This little guy did. He's fast but I took my camera out with me a little after daylight while my wife had her coffee and I was able to get a few pics of him!

Great pics of a prothonotary warbler (I dunno who came up with that name), is that a nest box you put out for them?

Open an IMGUR account and load your pics onto their site. With pics in IMGUR, select a pic to post and click on it. Select "Direct Link" in the menu, and it should automatically copy a link.
Open a thread here and select reply and click "Use Full Editor". Select image at the top of the page. The uploader slot appears, into which you will simply right click and paste your Direct Link.

A buddy in New Mexico climbed a pine tree to get a young raven from a nest, planned to make a pet of it. Shot jackrabbits which he cut up and fed to it. Even with that big beak I was struck by how gently and carefully it took food from the hand.

He had it in a cage in his open garage but a couple of weeks later the parents found where it was and started going in there to feed it through the bars.

At that point he let it go, it never came back.

N
No sir it's an old bird box that I keep on my deck because my son made it 25 years ago when he was a little guy. I've seen a few sparrows use it but never anything else. I'm like you that name is hard to get out.