One of my favorite birds… one that I think is indeed surrounded in something quite mystical… made a wonderful appearance today at Lake Hefner. The Merlin returned!!!  I literally jumped out of my car and quickly set up my spotting scope on a muddy road when I caught that first unexpected glimpse of him sitting in the same tree, in the same spot as last year. I spent so much time last winter watching this small falcon, a somewhat rare visitor to my birding route around Lake Hefner, that I he grew quite comfortable with me setting up my tripod very close to his perch. What a great bird!
Last year, the Merlin arrived — or at least was first spotted — on August 29. This year his arrival is two weeks ahead of schedule. Here’s hoping he finds adequate prey and stays for another winter.
Today’s brief birding trip to Hefner brought another fun surprise: a Yellow-crowned Night Heron within 10 feet of my truck as I drove along the golf course road. I’ve wanted to get better pictures of this interesting night heron and have been concerned that the summer would pass without a chance to photograph one. I wasn’t finding them anywhere at Hefner and the ones I found at Rose Lake in Yukon were perched too far away to photograph. The bird I discovered today was very patient and posed quite gracefully for me. And he was so close that I had to zoom back to photograph his whole body. Some of the pictures turned out nice and I’ll be posting them in the Photo Gallery later this week.
After a weekend of (much needed) rain, today’s 80-degree temperature made for an unusually mild August day for Oklahoma. I’ll take it!!!
Happy birding,
Pat
I stood in the parking lot and looked up to see tens of thousands of Purple Martins swarm through the evening sky with a singular destination… two Sycamore trees! By the time the sun had set, literally tens of thousands of these birds had navigated through continuous clouds of birds to settle into two trees. It was the most massive influx of birds I’ve ever seen! The picture I posted doesn’t do justice to the number of birds. But I’ll work on some other pictures and see if I got anything better. 
The Purple Martins are staging, preparing for their migration to Brazil and during this preparation time develop huge roosts. One of the local birders and martin enthusiast had studied radar images (yes the bird swarms are so large that they show up on weather radar images!) and tracked the birds yesterday to a roost at the Oklahoma Allergy & Asthma Clinic near 13th & Lincoln. She said last night’s roost included 100,000 – 300,000 birds! Tonight’s probably came close to 70,000 – 80,000 an indication that the birds are already migrating.
The Purple Martin watch party turned out to be a lot of fun! I got to see several birders I hadn’t seen this summer, met a few new ones, and we were also joined by staff from the Allergy Clinic (who were quite proud that these wonderful birds had chosen their trees) as well as a crew from Channel 4. And special thanks to my sister Ginny who spread the word through the Allergy Clinic about their special nighttime visitors — the massive amount of droppings on the sidewalk under the trees was a definite sign that birds had been there, they just didn’t know the scale of the bird invasion!
Work projects have been wonderful but very time consuming this week. I hope to find a little more time to chase birds this weekend and report back on any new or interesting findings.
All the best,
Pat
Nothing like standing out in the open when lightning strikes to get the adrenalin going and the feet peddling across sand and water, ignoring any /all birds enroute to the safety of my SUV! A good old-fashioned summer downpour hit the South Canadian River this evening while I was standing on the river bottom, and put a quick end to my search for Western Sandpipers. Before the storm rolled in, however, I did get to see Least and Black Terns; and Least, Baird’s and Pectoral Sandpipers (thanks, Nathan, for the company and ID help!). I didn’t mind getting drenched and I even managed to keep my camera dry in spite of the downpour, but after 20 minutes of waiting in the car, we decided the smartest course of action was trying getting off the dirt road before the next storm hit. I just hope this cold front that’s triggering these storms brings in some of those great migrant shorebirds!!!
Stay safe,
Pat
 I saw two things today that I hadn’t seen in some time: clouds and rain! A front is coming in from the north and it kicked off a few scattered thunderstorms this afternoon. The temperature dropped from 99 to 77 and it was wonderful while it lasted! Temps are back up in the high 80s but at least the cloud cover remains!
I took a few new photos today of juvenile Black-Crowned Night-Herons. When I get a chance, I’ll add them to the photo gallery. But I’m still working on a back-log of photos and finally got around to adding two new Mississippi Kite photos I took earlier this summer.
We’re so fortunate to have these wonderful birds around all summer! They are superb bug hunters and I’d be interested to find out what kind of bug the kite caught just before I snapped this picture. (Any ideas?!)
You can also check out the other Mississippi Kite photos on my photo gallery.
Stay cool 🙂
Pat
I found some time this evening to work on several photos I took in June and July of a Warbling Vireo on the nest. I’ve added them to the Backyard BirdCam Photo Gallery.
I found this vireo nest on June 18 while tracking the call of a Warbling Vireo at Lake Hefner (Oklahoma City). These vireos are common around the lake and they sing their hearts out even in hot weather. While the tree the bird is singing from is quite easy to determine, finding the bird as it hides behinds leaves so I can photograph it is quite a challenge for me. So I was very excited and surprised to find one sitting on the nest – singing! I had never seen one before on a nest — the nest didn’t seem much larger than a hummer nest — and this gave me my first opportunity to watch their nesting process. I visited several times during the next month and on July 8 saw a nestling peeking out above the rim of the nest. The very next day, two young birds fledged! The Warbling Vireo – nest page on the photo gallery includes photos of these three stages.
I’ve also updated the Wild Turkey page on my photo gallery. I was pleased with a photo of a male turkey I took July 27 at the Wichita Mountains National Wildlife Refuge in Lawton. The bird was one of several that were walking across a field — uncharacteristically out in the open. I can’t count the number of turkey photos I’ve taken of the birds’ behinds heading into the woods!
It’s always fun to update the Photo Gallery… it makes all the shooting, editing, cropping, and deleting all the throw-away shots, worthwhile. Nice to accomplish something!
Thanks for visiting. I hope you stop by again soon and stay in touch!
Pat
I went birding again this afternoon (gotta get some work done this weekend but still feeling restless), again in 95+ heat, but this time with my birding friend Terri. We checked out “Bunting Road,” a dirt road in north Edmond that is great for Indigo and Painted Buntings, Blue Grosbeaks and Red-eyed Vireos.  It was hot! And the birds were pretty quiet. But the Indigos kept us entertained… I only got one lousy photo of a Red-eyed Vireo so I was disappointed about that. Nothing like Oklahoma heat and dust on dirt road in July — we’re a little crazy but we keep birding in this summer weather!
We then visited a rural stream and… long story short… found an Eastern Wood-pewee!!! This was my first sighting of a Wood-pewee! (I don’t keep a life list so a bird only “counts” if I can a photo to add to the Photo Gallery.) Thanks to Terri’s great ear and experience with bird calls, we knew the bird before we could see it. It took a long time of waiting before the bird got close enough to photograph. Not wildly pleased with the photo ’cause the bird’s chest is overexposed, but I’m still so excited to have photographed a new bird 🙂
If anyone thinks I’ve incorrectly ID’d this bird, please let me know! I’m never confident of an ID until I can get confirmation from a more experienced birder.
Well, a pesky mosquito is driving me crazy and I need to remind my cats that I do care more about them than I do the birds. Have a wonderful weekend!
Pat
It was 95-degrees yesterday — too hot to take a walk and I felt restless yesterday afternoon so I headed to Lake El Reno, about 30 miles west of Oklahoma City. I’ve photographed a Swainson’s Hawk at the lake during the past two summers and had hoped to keep the successful string of sightings going. No such luck. But I had a nice drive around the lake — seeing virtually nothing — before heading a little farther west, past Fort Reno in search of Common Nighthawks. The only nighthawk I’ve photographed (non-aerial) was in far western Oklahoma during a trip to Durham to photograph a Broad-billed Hummingbird. Now that I have a newer camera, better resolution, etc., I’ve been searching for a nighthawk to photograph. No luck with that bird during yesterday’s trip, also. But I did have a nice drive, and enjoyed getting away from my home-based business for awhile. And I ran across some shorebirds! I’m really challenged by shorebirds and struggle to correctly ID them. I’m not sure what all the peeps were on the mud flats around a farm pond but I did find two Upland Sandpipers. They were too far away to photograph but a welcome sign that fall shorebird migration is beginning.
I also found several Dickcissels, the colorful and noisy birds found in the scrub trees along country roads. I’ve added one of yesterday’s pictures to this posting. The male Dickcissel has a small grasshopper (early dinner!). I’m also adding a photo of a juvenile Black-crowned Night Heron that I photographed at Lake Hefner in Oklahoma City on my way home from El Reno. There were four adults and two juveniles along the inlet canal to the lake and it was fun to stay cool in the car and get some nice pictures of these birds.
Lake Hefner is my favorite local birding spot… if you stop by often, you’ll read a lot more about the birds I see during my daily trips around the lake!
Thanks for listening!!!
Pat
I’m new to blogging and must admit that I wonder if this blog will be read by anyone and if it will actually become — and this is what I hope — a fun way to connect with people who enjoy birds as much as I do. I can tell I’m in trouble with this blog already. I’ve written the first sentence and it’s too lengthy… a real run-on sentence! Okay, maybe improving my writing skills will be an unexpected result from this blog-adventure!
As I sit at my computer, in my home office in north Oklahoma City, the sparrows, cardinals and blue jays are busy feeding outside my window. In the backyard, the doves (white-winged, eurasian collared and mourning) have been busy all day chowing down on seed. And I was pleasantly surprised to see a wren in the yard! They aren’t that unusual in my area, I just haven’t had many in the yard since this winter when one came through the cat door and was injured flying around the house and I didn’t rescue it in time.
Today is a beautiful day – 90-degrees and very clear sky. A cold front came through yesterday and I took off for the Wichita Mountains National Wildlife Refuge to chase birds and celebrate a mid-July day with a high temperature of 82-degrees! Photographed Black-capped Vireos (more on my photos in later postings), Summer Tanager, and got a nice pic of a Black-and-white Warbler! Great day and great to play hooky from work 🙂
This is my world as I see it from my backyard on Thursday, July 28. And welcome!
Pat
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