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I woke up Friday morning pretty early to go birding with a group I’m in. When I opened the garage door to leave I discovered there was snow on the ground and flurries still swirling.
I was heading about an hour northeast from home so, I checked my email to make sure they hadn’t canceled the outing…they hadn’t so off I went.
It wasn’t snowing when I arrived at the meeting spot but, while birding the snow started to fall pretty heavy. It wasn’t in the weather forecast the day before! It was still a good morning of birding. We saw 22 species of birds. One White-crown Sparrow favored us with a nice look perched on snowy grass.
By the time we left it had quit snowing so my drive home was easy, and while the snow was sticking to the ground where I was birding it hadn’t had home. The upcoming 10 day forecast looks like we’re snow free.
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It’s been awhile since I shared any birds so I’m going to share several I saw while in Florida this past September. It was a fantastic trip. I saw 21 new to me birds aka “Lifers”. I won’t share all of them in this post. 😊
Aren’t they great? I’m still excited to have seen them.
How’d you all do with the time change for those of you in states and places that end Daylight Savings Time? How many clocks did you have to reset? We have 8 clocks we needed to change including the thermostat and our cars. I’ve been waking up earlier than normal so back to my natural rhythm at last!
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While birding around a pond in Pinellas Co. Fl I spied this butterfly trying to warm up for the day. Mary knew what it was straight-away when I asked her if she knew what kind it was.
“They’re in the brush-footed butterfly family and stay low to the ground because their favorite plants are also low on the ground. They can also be found throughout the southeastern USA, the Caribbean, Mexico, and South America to Argentina. They are white with brown markings and orange margins, and have a small black spot in the center of each of the forewings. Two small black spots on each of the hindwings resembling a peacock’s eyespot give this butterfly its common name. There’s a short tail on the hindwings. Male and female White peacock butterflies don not differ in appearance from each other.” Facts gleaned from
Florida Wildflower Foundation link here. They also say, that, “the White Peacock is smaller and darker in the wet summer months and larger and paler in the drier summer months.” I’m thinking this one has be one of the larger paler ones as it is quite pale.
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Back in late January or early February I heard there was a White-throated Sparrow up in Carson City. This is a rare bird for Nevada. The map doesn’t show it ever being here rare.
I’d never seen one before so I began the hunt for it. I only had a general location of where it was so I was covering a very large area and staying for hours photographing every sparrow and bird I saw.
I was unsuccessful 6 times over the course of about 6 weeks.
All the while this bird was being seen and reported by one guy almost every day while myself, and my neighbor were not seeing it! I can tell you it was frustrating! During this period there was another one seen, photographed, and reported on the birding site ebird.org up in Reno!
So, my neighbor and I went up and spent hours looking for it but, no joy there either. Sigh.
Then on a tip from a fellow birder who had seen it a week before in Carson City told me the which area I should try looking. I went back last week and hung around the area he suggested and got lucky! 💃💃😀The 7th times the charm!
The White-throated Sparrow comes in two color forms: white-crowned and tan-crowned. The two forms are genetically determined, and they persist because individuals almost always mate with a bird of the opposite morph. Males of both color types prefer females with white stripes, but both kinds of females prefer tan-striped males. White-striped birds are more aggressive than tan-striped ones, and white-striped females may be able to outcompete their tan-striped sisters for tan-striped males.
Although they look nothing alike and aren’t particularly closely related, the White-throated Sparrow and the Dark-eyed Junco occasionally mate and produce hybrids. The resulting offspring look like grayish, dully marked White-throated Sparrows with white outer tail feathers.
White-throated Sparrows typically nest on or near the ground. Occasional nests are built up to 15 feet off the ground in conifers. Usually, these nests are second attempts after a pair has had a ground nest robbed by a predator.
The oldest recorded White-throated Sparrow was at least 14 years, 11 months old, when it was recaptured and rereleased during banding operations in Alberta.
I have been birding a lot so have lots of birds to share in the coming weeks.
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