Fall Crazies

This morning I decided to do some quick birding around our place.  There was some nice action, but nothing too crazy.  The best bird was a Black-throated Green Warbler that apparently missed his flight south.

Black-throated Green Warbler

I got a call from Anthony at about 10 o'clock, saying very excitedly that he had a Townsend's Solitare up near his place.  Joseph and I converged to the location quickly and got excellent looks at it before it flew off to the southwest.

Townsend's Solitare.  State lifer!

We birded a little more at a cordgrass marsh near there where we had seen Nelson's Sparrow's in the past.  There wasn't much, but we did see several Le Conte's Sparrows.

Le Conte's Sparrow

Later in the afternoon, I noticed a bunch of skippers on some flowers in our yard.  Upon closer inspection, I was shocked to see a skipper of the genus Panoquina!  Only one other Panoquina had ever been seen in Kansas and that was also in our yard almost a year ago to the day.  I quickly got a bunch of pictures, which revealed that this was indeed an Ocola Skipper!  

Today's Ocola Skipper!

Today's Ocola Skipper!

We identified the one last year as an Ocola as well, but after the fact an expert who had experience with both Ocola and Purple-washed from south Texas told us that he thought it was actually a Purple-washed.  The more we looked into it, the more we agreed.  So, I guess we'll just have to admit that we initially made the wrong identification.  Anyway, a Purple-washed is very rare as well, in fact, it is much rarer than an Ocola, even though they are both first state records.

Purple-washed Skipper from last year.  Notice faint row of spots on the wing and overall purple-ish sheen

Dan Jones deserves a shout-out for setting us on the right path on this ID.  Here is a link to his very interesting blog.  

Only a little longer till gull season!

Andrew

Sabine's!

After school today, Joseph, Bryant, and I went on a quick run to Quivira hoping to see the Sabine's Gulls that had been recently reported. On arriving at the east side of the Big Salt Marsh we found a nice flock of 16 Red-necked Phalaropes.  When we got to the main lake, we were impressed to see thousands of coots covering the water. Their wings made an impressive roar whenever they took off.  We then started scoping the massive flock of Franklin's Gulls for Sabine's with no success.  Then I quick glassed out to the south of where we were and almost immediately saw a Sabine's Gull!  We soon found that there were three present and we got decent looks, even though they were pretty far out.

Bad pic of a Juvenile Sabine's Gull.  Note the distinctive wing pattern

All three in one pic

While we were watching the gulls, several flocks of American Golden-Plovers flew over, year birds for Joseph.  We left the Big Salt Marsh briefly and headed to the Black Rail Field where we heard a Sedge Wren (a year bird for me) and a Virginia Rail calling.  We decided to stop by the Big Salt Marsh again before we headed home, and the Franklin's Gull numbers were amazing!

Some of the Franklin's Gulls

There was also a continuing Lesser Black-backed Gull hanging around.  Although they are sometimes seen in the summer, they are much more common in the winter.

Third cycle Lesser Black-backed Gull

I always love this time of year, when all the winter birds are just showing up and the late migrants are in full swing!

This female Yellow-headed Blackbird posed nicely

 Andrew

Western Vagrants!

Early this morning I went to a local hotspot near Arlington.  Almost right away, I heard what I was sure was a Western Wood Pewee.  I played the call, just to make sure, and it came in and started singing loudly.  Definitely a Western Wood Pewee!  The differences between Eastern and Western Wood Pewees are very slight.  The only way to make a reliable identification is to hear them calling or singing.  Luckily this one was.

First Reno county record of Western Wood Pewee!

 I called Joseph to let him know right away, but he unfortunately couldn't make it till later. The rest of the area was mostly devoid of birds at the time, so I decided to head home for a while.

     We decided to meet there again shortly after noon.  Bryant and I got there first, but couldn't locate the pewee immediately.  I started hearing a song that I didn't recognize.  There were several goldfinches hanging around, then one flew in that had wing-bars.  Lesser Goldfinch!  We could hardly believe our eyes.  Just then Joseph, Anthony, and Michael pulled in, and I relayed the information to them.  They covered the distance in remarkably little time and we all managed to see it.

This was the crummy photo I got

  We moved on to try to find the pewee then, and after a little we found it!  It obligingly sang several times and perched out in the open giving us great looks.  It was impossible to get good pics with the harsh light unfortunately though.  We circled around to try to relocate the goldfinch.  Anthony and I got a little closer, but still the pics weren't great. Two review list species in one day!  We haven't had that since last August.

Lesser Goldfinch

Update: I went back on Sunday afternoon and got much better pictures of the Lesser Goldfinch!  The Pewee was still there as well.

Lesser Goldfinch

Maybe some more crazy stuff from the southwest will show up!

Andrew

Quivira Big Day, 2016

May 14th dawned not-so-bright and very chilly on six birders at Quivira National Wildlife Refuge--we were taking part in the annual "Global Big Day" with Barry Jones. We started out at about 6:00 A.M. and slowly collected some of the more common species.The weather for this count was definitely less than ideal, overcast and about 39 F, and we had rather low hopes of beating last years record of 154 species.

 The first good bird of the day was this Olive-sided Flycatcher, not counting the Yellow-breasted Chat and Bewick's Wren that refused to cross the road into Stafford County where we needed them.

 This Tree Swallow teed up nicely beside the road.

 We found a pair of Blue-gray Gnatcatchers in the middle of house construction. Here, the female is just leaving after making a few changes to the structure.

The male wasn't super impressed that we were hanging around and kept scolding at us.

This Eastern Kingbird in the same grove was quite tame, and let me get some nice pics.

After birding a few woodlots, it was time to head to the Big Salt Marsh at the north end the refuge. Here we cleaned up on a lot of shorebirds and waterfowl, including several Sanderling, Dunlin and most of the rest of the "peeps" around right now.

We came upon this American Bittern standing stock-still in the ditch. It was under the impression that it was invisible and slowly backed into the grass.

This Red-headed Woodpecker popped up while we were watching several Bobolinks at the Black Rail field

 A couple of Black-bellied Plovers were a nice addition to the list, and two Whimbrel a bit later were even nicer.

We then hit a couple more woodlots, finding a few more species including Eastern Wood Pewee, American Redstart and Swainson's Thrush.

We also found this caterpillar, I think that it is probably a Variegated Fritillary cat, but I'm not 100% sure on that

The Catalpa Grove

One last swing by the Big Salt Marsh and a nearby Prairie Dog town netted us two Burrowing Owls, a couple Short-billed Dowitchers and a Belted Kingfisher.

Burrowing Owls have got to have about the weirdest flight style of any bird, it's an exaggerated, swooping bounce.

Wilson's Phalarope

We left the refuge with 129 species, below last year but not too bad. We stopped at a few of our regular spots back home to clean up on a few common species we had missed earlier.

This Lark Bunting was a very nice surprise.

This Western Meadowlark sang from a nearby fence post.

Killdeer

I finished the day with 141 species, not bad for this year and enough to have me finish in the top 100 birders for the day in the United States, although just barely, at #98. Anthony also had 141, but Andrew missed out on a few species we saw later and finished up with 136.

All in all, it was a very enjoyable day, and we're definitely looking forward to next year!

Joseph

Chickens and Curlews

A few days ago, Andrew, Anthony, Bryant, Michael Yutzy and myself finally made the trek down to southern Kansas to look for Lesser Prairie Chickens, a gaping hole on our state list.

Photo by Andrew

After cruising down some very bad back roads, we finally arrived at the lek just before sunrise. We could see several males actively lekking a couple hundred yards of the road right as we pulled up,  at least that was an easy lifer.

 Since it was still fairly early in the morning when we left, we decided to run over to the Sun City area to check the area of the Anderson Creek Fire.

It turned out to be a great decision, starting with a Burrowing Owl we found just down the road from the lek, chilling in a Prairie Dog town.

Photo by Andrew

We continued on, finding a clump of balloons originating in Colorado Springs, and more importantly, a pair of Red-shouldered Hawks and couple of Long-billed Curlews in a random wheat field beside the road.

Photo by Andrew

Had the hawks been a couple miles further west they would have been a new Kiowa County record.

One of two Long-billed Curlews. Photo by Andrew

When we got to Sun City we were impressed by the amount of fire damage that far north. I knew about where I had taken some landscape shots last summer and thought it would be kind of fun to get a before and after shot of the burned area.

Before the fire

And after the fire. I was surprised how close I actually got to the same view!

More burned prairie south of Sun City

We decided to stop in at Kingman State Fishing Lake on the way back home. Birdwise it was a little drab, but we did find a female Falcate Orangetip, a lifer for all of us.

Falcate Orangetip, note the hooked, "falcate," wingtip.

This is a really amazing looking butterfly, although a lot smaller than I expected.  They are very well camouflaged on the underside, so we would occasionally lose it when it landed.

Falcate Orangetip

There were also several Olympia Marbles flying about. Although these are my best photos so far, I still haven't quite gotten that perfect shot yet

Olympia Marble

It was a great morning out, and we definitely plan to do more of these outings to other parts of the state.

Joseph

Cheney on Sunday

On Easter Sunday, Joseph, Anthony, and I went to Cheney for a couple of hours in the afternoon.  We went to the dam right away and right as we got to the top we saw several Horned Grebes.

Horned Grebes are gorgeous in their breeding plumage!

We moves on along the dam a couple of hundred feet, when Anthony exclaimed that he found a Loon.  Any loon is good, but when we got scope views we were all thinking we had a Pacific.  This was confirmed when we got home and looked at our pics.  A lifer all around!

Pacific Loon

Unfortunately, it was far enough out that we couldn't get any good pics.

There were many Bonaparte's Gulls and one Eared Grebe as well, along with the other more common birds.

This Bonaparte's was just getting his breeding plumage black hood.

We continued along the dam seeing several year butterflies such as Common Sootywing and Painted Lady.  Joseph also got some pics of one of the Olympia Marbles that were cruising the south side of the dam, in the sun and out of the wind.

Olympia Marble: pic by Joseph

We decided to hit some other points in the state park on the way back.  It was a good thing we did.  When we got out to scope some scaup, Joseph mentioned that he had a Red-breasted Merg, I looked up and saw a obvious Horned Grebe, we debated heatedly about this for a bit, both thinking the other crazy.  Eventually we realized we were looking at different birds, so I guess we were both right and are still friends for now.

Since the Merg was to far away to get pics, I will just put in this coot pic:)

While driving back around the lake we spotted a Bald Eagle nest, a quadcopter, and a friendly man out enjoying the beautiful day with his sons.

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Fish Crow

I visited the sandpit on Monday and found that the Fish Crows are back at the Hoskinson's Sandpit, along with my FOS Franklin's Gulls and a flyover Osprey!



Andrew