Birds and Nature

While almost all Scissor-tailed Flycatchers are basking in the tropics in and near Central America a few are leftover in the United States including this one. I found it north of Edinburg Tx in the county at dusk.  SeEtta

I didn't find either the male or female yesterday morning-stayed about a half hour then went birding nearby and returned but neither in site. When I got there this morning I spotted the male right off but still no sign of the female. The male spent more than 20 minutes perched to look for prey on the utility line above where I was parked so I got some nice photos from fairly close. The bottom pic shows the bird with a big grasshopper in it's bill and almost sticking him in the eye. This was one of several he caught and ate before flying back to the nest tree. A raven flew close to the nest tree and this male defended the probably non-viable nest by flying after the raven. It is sad to see this male waiting for the female to return and defending a nest that has been abandoned for too long. SeEtta

I have been out of town a few days so have not gone out to observe the pair of rare Scissor-tailed Flycatchers that have been nesting south of Florence,CO so I was dismayed when I was unable to find the female this morning. I observed the nest tree for over 2 hours and drove by it to look for the female on the nest without success. Though the nest is difficult to see, I do not believe the female could have been sitting on it. I can only suspect that something bad has happened to her. I do not know how long it has been since she sat on the nest as a request for sitings on our state birding listserv produced no sightings since I saw her last five days ago on Monday. I did see the ever-faithful male who has always been nearby the nest tree on the days I have observed. In fact he would usually fly up to near the nest while the female left to forage. Today I saw him sitting in the nest tree quite awhile, still guarding the nest. SeEtta

Yesterday (Saturday) I got the top 3 pics of the female Scissor-tailed Flycatcher that is nesting south of Florence, CO when flew near to where I was parked (the driveway several hundred feet north of the nest tree). I watched her catch a couple of insects and could see that at least one was a grasshopper. The pic below is very interesting both because I caught her in mid-flight so the salmon-pink underwing patches show nicely but also because there is a grasshopper in the air just above her. In a photo below that I took today the female had lost the grasshopper apparently because it's leg came off so this might be the reason for the grasshopper in this pic too. The next 4 pics that I took today, again when the female foraged near to where I was parked, show a very interesting sequence. In the pic above the female has a good sized grasshopper in her bill that she has caught. In the pic now above the grasshopper has come out of her bill--note the grasshopper leg no...

All the photos I got earlier this week were of the male Scissor-tailed Flycatcher and all the photos I have seen posted on Facebook and ebird have also been of the male. I had a meeting in a town not far from the location these rare birds have been located so dropped by just after 6:30 pm. When I saw her it was obvious this was the female as her tail is much shorter than the males. She did not stay put though and this was the only photo I got of her before she flew off. I couldn't stay but a few minutes to get this pic as I had to go the meeting but I returned afterwards at close to 8 pm. I saw the female perched on the tree on which she and the male have most often been seen, mostly right above the nest that is there. I did not see the male tonight. She flew off for about 5 min then returned briefly then flew off to unknown location at about 8:15 as it got dark. SeEtta

When I stopped to get some lunch I spotted 4 Scissor-tailed Flycatchers on power lines nearby and got these photos. SeEtta

I got to San Angelo,TX in time to get in an hour or so of birding at the Lake Nasworthy area on the west side of town. San Angelo is one of my favorite towns to stop in when traveling south in Texas and I really enjoy Lake Nasworthy, an area with a lot of human impacts (motor boating, expensive developments along most of the lake shore, invasive alien tamarisk) but with some public park areas, cattail wetlands and still some nice birds. The first birds I saw were Scissor-tailed Flycatchers including the two pictured here. They make sounds like squeaky-toys. I saw about 5-6 of them around the rambling parks. Note: their split tail can be separated by the bird which mimics the motion of a pair of scissors, thus the name. SeEtta