Let the birding commence!

As of Monday, the second half of Texas work has begun. Saying goodbye to small mammal trapping, we've officially transitioned into birding and herping (that's amphibians and reptiles). While the herp crew goes off to dig pitfall traps and check their new arrays for cool lizards and snakes, the other six of us make up the birding crew. After studying hard using quizzes on bird software and a couple of guided walks, we dove rather precipitously into official bird surveys.
As I might have mentioned before, learning over a hundred birds by sight and sound is not something mastered in a day. Though I've gone places to look for birds, I've never actually done this as anything other than an enthuisiast. Now after day 2 of birding (Tuesday was cancelled due to weather), I can identify most of the common species, but it can be pretty overwhelming trying to pick out one song out of many. Still have a lot to learn. So far the day kind of goes like this:

5:10am Wake up, just wake up
5:40am Grab gear and drive to sites
6:30am Arrive with partner at first point, listen in dark for 10 minutes, trying to identify as many individual birds down to species, distance away, and when you first noticed it
6:40am Play a series of hawk calls on a loudspeaker for 10 minutes, listen to see if anyone calls back (unlikely since its still dark and hawks are diurnal predators)
6:50am-1:00pm Repeat at eleven more sites, using binoculars once it gets light if you see something, walking a giant square, traversing about 4 miles on foot crosscountry, scrambling over fences and dodging
1:30 Make it back to the bunkhouse, eat lunch, consider napping. Do some more work instead.

Anyway, at least the day ends in the afternoon, so that we don't have to get up early AND stay out late. And I get to see and hear some pretty cool birds. Still waiting to see a painted bunting, though I hear them often enough.


New species:
-Bullock's oriole (Icterus bullockii)

Happy Earth Day!

End of trapping, birding training begins

(Late post from last week)
Work continues! Past week we've had mostly good weather, but things are definitely turning south with thunderstorms, which has turned the end of our mammal trapping and the beginning of our bird training into something less than auspicious. Still, the change in pace is nice, and most of this week has been going for birding walks, practicing visual and audio identification, and entering data.
With over a hundred birds to learn by sight and sound, the training for birding is a little intimidating, and if we included migrants the number of species would rise over two hundred. Just from my own amateur birding I'm pretty decent at identifying birds by sight, but learning all the variations of their calls and songs is proving challenging.
Meanwhile, the other group has come back from El Sauz, we've had some occasional guests from the university, and a new birder has come on board the S.S. Eventful. 

-Owl surveys
-Caught a Mexican ground squirrel (tornado in a bag)
-Blooming cacti

Flathead snake (Tantilla gracilis)

Prickly pear soon-to-be blooms

Old cactus wren nest in Christmas cactus

Roadrunner nest

New species:
Mexican ground squirrel (Spermophilus mexicanus)
Scaled quail (Callipepla squamata)
Flathead snake (Tantilla gracilis)
Blue grosbeak (Passerina caerulea)
Yellow-headed blackbird (Xanthocephalus xanthocephalus)
Cassin's sparrow (Peucaea cassinii)
Black-throated sparrow (Amphispiza bilineata)
Olive sparrow (Arremonops rufivirgatus)
Clay-colored sparrow (Spizella pallida)
Grasshopper sparrow (Ammodramus savannarum)
Curve-billed thrasher (Toxostoma curvirostre)

How I made it through grad school ...

Getting a little cabin fever ...

Flowers of S. Texas (part IV)

Pencil Cactus (Echinocereus poselgeri)

 

Heart Leaf Hibiscus (Hibiscus martianus)

"Drive-by" shot of Purple Pleat Leaf (Alophia drummondii)

Texas Prickly Pear (Opuntia engelmanni var. lindheimeri), yellow-flowering form

My darkest smammal nightmares...

Texas spring!

Spring has definitely come to this part of Texas. Helped by all the rain, which broke the drought, the landscape has exploded into greenery and flower. Let me demonstrate.

These are shots I took of this place when I got here in January (left) and how it is now (right). The angles aren't precisely the same, but you get the idea.

 

Maybe it doesn't get all the way across in photos, but in person the difference is pretty staggering.
     Anyway, news. No crises of international importance have occurred, outside of some problems with fruit flies, honeybees, and the occaisonal tick. We've split groups again, with half of our number gone to El Sauz while the other four of us continue here at San Antonio Viejo, making it rather quiet here in the evenings without rounds of Cards Against Humanity and water pong. I've gotten a good amount of mail, including Easter snacking goodness, movies, a new pair of flip flops (thanks Mom!), and a Sebring racing shirt (thanks Dad!).
     My days off have been rather pleasant, with the weather participating enough for me to enjoy the sun. Mostly I've been reading, getting groceries, and a partially Maguyvered oil change, but I get a few adventures in. Last weekend I managed to explore a little more of the historic area of downtown Rio Grande, including the Victorian-era La Borde Hotel and bits of streets and alleys with some nice architecture and the occasional pomegranate tree.

Another sign of spring: rattlers emerging from their winter hibernacula!

Field of Texas prickly poppy

 

New species: brown-headed cowbird (Molothrus ater)

Flowers of S. Texas (part III)

Horse crippler cactus (Echinocactus texensis)

 



 Indian-blanket flower aka firewheel (Gaillardia pulchella), all red variation
 

Prairie fleabane (Erigeron modestus)

 

Texas dandelion (Pyrrhopappus multicaulis)

Unknown

Helmetflower? (Scutellaria integrifolia)

 Unknown