Monsoon Birding, Laughing Gull and Brown Pelican

With an abnormally wet spring so far, Kansas has been having some odd birds.

A Red Phalarope showed up at Quivira one day last week, so we headed out there Sunday afternoon with a small bit of hope that we would be able to refind it. Long story short, we were a day later and a dollar short, our special feature as usual. We did, however, stumble across a Laughing Gull, not a bad find and a state bird for all of us.

The long lanky wings and large bill are a dead giveaway, even without the other supporting plumage features. Photo by Andrew

On Monday evening the extended family of Andrew, Bryant and I had a Memorial Day picnic at Kingman Lake. I was one of the first there and quickly checked the small lake for anything interesting. I had seen a fairly distant something, driving in, that didn't quite fit for any expected birds, so I checked it out right away. Well, it was a Brown Pelican, that was unexpected. While these are nearly annual in Kansas, (and no longer even a review list species), it was surprising to find one on a small state fishing lake and not one of the larger reservoirs.

It stuck around the rest of the evening but never let us get very close.

These first pics were, yeah, not so great, but thankfully we got another chance when Andrew, Anthony and I returned on Thursday evening. This time, it was chilling on a small island with a small flock of American White Pelicans and allowed us to get within about fifty yards

There we go! Photo by Andrew

The Brown Pelican has been observed feeding successfully by plunge-diving (fide Andrew Burnett), so it may remain for awhile. We won't mind if it does!

Anyway, it seems likely that these birds, (and the Black-bellied Whistling Ducks), were brought in by a large storm system that moved through a couple weeks ago. It may have brought other rarities as well, so keep your eyes peeled!

Joseph

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

India 2015 | Part Two: Dimapur

This is the second of several posts I've been writing about our trip to India in late April. The first post can be found here, India 2015 | Part One: Kolkata.

We landed in the mid afternoon at the not-so-bustling Dimapur Airport. We were greeted by many Asian Palm Swifts and other unidentified swifts swirling around.

Landing in Dimapur

Once we arrived at our host's house I popped outside to see what I could find. It was hot and there was little to see in the middle of the afternoon, but I did find some of the more common species such as Red-vented Bulbuls, Common Tailorbirds, and  Oriental Magpie-robins.

A loudly chirping Red-vented Bulbul.

 These somewhat annoying bulbuls (they sound like this) were ubiquitous everywhere we went in India.

Typical village scene

Asian Palm Swift

This is currently my best digibinned photo of a swift, by a very large margin.

In contrast, here is a wretched real-camera pic I snagged of a fly-by probable Grey-hooded Treepie. These corvids reminded me a lot of our jays and magpies back home with their loud, grating calls.

Photography was quite challenging due to the prevalent low light, (we arrived at the beginning of the monsoon season) so please excuse the poor photo quality in these posts.

Grey-breasted Prinias were quite common in Nagaland. This individual was singing loudly, a trill reminiscent of Chipping Sparrows.

I saw a few other interesting species (full list here ) including a White-throated Kingfisher and a White-rumped Shama (amazing birds) the next morning before leaving for a village deep in the hills of Kohima state.

And with that, stay tuned for the next installment; From the Village of Tseminyu.

Joseph

India 2015 | Part One: Kolkata

This spring I had the opportunity to accompany my father on a short trip to India. Needless to say, I was very excited about this chance to visit another part of the world! This is the first (brief) post I'm writing about our trip.

After many hours of traveling, we arrived in Kolkata late on the evening of April 22. After having some hassle involving our luggage not making it with us, we headed to our hotel. We had a connecting flight the next morning, so although I didn't have much time, I woke up early, eager to see what birds I could spot from our hotel window. There were quite a few! Common Mynas, House crows and Red-vented Bulbuls were all over the neighborhood. A couple Little Cormorants flew past in the distance, and a Spotted Dove appeared on the rooftop next door.

A Common Myna holds forth.

An inquisitive House Crow

A Spotted Dove

After a quick breakfast of scaldingly spicy curry, we headed to the airport to catch our flight to Dimapur, in the far north-eastern state of Nagaland. We spent the next several days with the Naga people, exploring the villages and learning about their history. I'll write more about our time there in a later post. 

And no, despite our proximity to Nepal during the earthquake, I did not feel it. My dad did, but we felt fortunate that the area we were in was not at all affected.

Joseph