New bird! Eastern Wood-pewee

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's hot but still worth chasing birds

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

Welcome - my first blog!

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