[ Follow Ups ] [ Post Followup ] [ TAS BirdBoard ] [ FAQ ]
Posted by Angel & Mariel on 14:56:53 11/25/07
This morning we headed to Lucky Hammock & Area with two target birds for the day. We arrived at LH at 6:22 and missed the Short-eared Owl, Trey and Toe saw it two days ago at 6:15 so maybe the Owl is on a schedule that's two days that we missed it. Missing the Owl was a little disappointing but makes it a better bird when we find it. With a little determination we will see the Owl this year. We checked out to area for a while not seeing much but did have some cool birds and moments. A Broad-winged Hawk swooped in on a group of birds giving us a good look of this battle. The Broad wing missed but it was still awesome to see the speed and precision of this Raptor. The fields were quite and did not see much more than Palms, Eastern Phoebe, Bunting, Flycatcher, swallows, Cranes, Crows and some other cool regular birds. We decided to head to the area where the Scissor tails have been spotted recently and as soon as we pulled up a group of Scissor tails and Kingbirds took flight of the power lines and gave us a show flying around doing some fly catching and then disappearing. We were happy that we saw them but were bummed that we did not get close looks so we drove around the large fenced in lot with no luck. We made one more pass after circling the area several times but nothing again. So I said to Mariel I guess we will try another day and made a left on 320th heading east towards US-1 as I was thinking darn how close were we Mariel shouts STOP! There are the Scissor Tails! with much enthusiasm. So we parked a little ways from the group as to not scare them, we walked over to them and watched them through the binos for a little while. I pulled out the camera and started shooting frames of the beautiful birds, taking time to check out the Kingbirds hoping one would be a Cassin's but I guess that would be another day. We watched them for a while the group consisted of 5 Scissor-tailed Flycatchers and two Western Kingbirds. We observed the ST's fly catching and coming back to there perch to devour their earned meals, it was awesome. So satisfied with hitting one of two target birds we headed through the area to maybe find some Brown-headed Cowbirds that were spotted on yesterday's trip home but did not find any. We were not disappointed for long as we found a Peregrine Falcon perched low on a power line, we pulled our car over and got some good looks through the binos. We have never seen a Peregrine so up close. Awesome I said to Mariel took a couple of photos of the falcon and left. The day started of alright but ended incredibly. Thank to Larry, Trey and Toe for the location of the Scissor Tails we loved watching these beautiful birds. Here is what we saw...
Scissor-tailed Flycatcher
Great Crested Flycatcher
Western Kingbird
Peregrine Falcon
Short-tailed Hawk (dark morph)
Broad-winged Hawk
Red-Shouldered Hawk
Northern Harrier
American Kestrel
Turkey Vulture
Black Vulture
Sandhill Cranes
Wood stork
Killdeer
Eastern Phoebe
Indigo Bunting
Palm Warbler
White-eyed Vireo
Blue-gray Gnatcatcher
Gray Catbird
Northern Cardinal
Northern Mockingbird
Tree Swallow
Northern Rough-winged Swallow
Red-winged Blackbird
Crow
Red-bellied Woodpecker
Loggerhead Shrike
Boat-tailed Grackle
Eastern Meadowlark
Common Ground Dove
European Starling
Mourning Dove
White-winged Dove
Eurasian-collared Dove
Monk Parakeet
Great Egret
Cattle Egret
DC Cormorant
Laughing Gull
Hope we did not forget anyone.
Nature is Awesome
Angel & Mariel
[ Follow Ups ] [ Post Followup ] [ TAS BirdBoard ] [ FAQ ]