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)
No comments:
Post a Comment