Birds and Nature

In this short clip the Clapper Rail is foraging under a section of the boardwalk. A very close-up view is at the end of the clip. SeEtta

I videotaped this Clapper Rail from the famous So Padre Island Convention Center boardwalk and am posting a series of short clips (most under 30 seconds). I have visited this wonderful birding boardwalk on a number of occasions when I have traveled to the Rio Grande Valley to enjoy the wonderful birds in this area. I have always enjoyed the great and usually close-up views I have had of Clapper Rails from this boardwalk. I will be adding still photos and videos of other cool birds I saw from this boardwalk this trip in later posts. I must add that I was quite disappointed with the new additions to the boardwalk system that is associated with the new So Padre Nature and Birding Center, a far too expensive building (no additional habitat just a fancy building with waterfalls in front?!) and not a very friendly place (they could learn a lot about servicing nature lovers from the staff at the Estero Llano Grande State Park). I strongly recommend entering the boardwalk from the Conventi...

This short clip shows a rather hapless hawk that flew into the midst of a loose flock of Chihuahuan Ravens and it was not welcome. Both the hawk and the ravens engage in some acrobatic warfare. This clip is best viewed in an enlarged form that can be accessed by double-clicking the small box in far bottom right corner. SeEtta

I got this clip a few days ago on my return trip through the Lamesa, TX area. These are only a small part of the very large congregation of more than a thousand I found north of Lamesa--hundreds flying, hundreds perched in trees and hundreds sharing an area that likely included a pond with hundreds of Sandhill Cranes. The sound of the Chihuahuan Ravens comes pretty clear in this clip as hundreds of the birds fly overhead. SeEtta

This short clip gives a closer view of two Chihuahuan Ravens. Previous to this clip the raven on the right was making a non-too-subtle move to get the food that the other raven has. The raven in the rear outsmarted it and returns to working on whatever morsel it has in its beak. SeEtta

This short video clip gives another nice view of the large concentration of Chihuahuan Ravens near Lamesa,TX as this group flies fairly close to the ground giving pretty good views. SeEtta

This video clip shows one of the large loose flocks of Chihuahuan Ravens I saw in and around Lamesa, TX both on my way to the Rio Grande Valley in December and on my way back this week. Birds of North America online notes that this species is known to congregate in large numbers in western parts of Texas. More to come. SeEtta

This very short video clip gives a view of the Williamson's Sapsucker from the back. Unfortunately he was on the shady side of the tree so it's a little dark. Be sure to view to the end when the sapsucker stretches out one leg giving a great view of plumage usually not seen. Then it stretches it's wings back towards each other for another interesting view. SeEtta

This is a video clip of a Williamson's Sapsucker drilling sap wells in a non-native elm (siberian or chinese type) tree. I found this male last week in a dry wash that has had enough run-off to support a small group of these trees in the middle pinyon-juniper habitat in Fremont Co.,CO. SeEtta

I have been hassling with this blog site to get this posted for the last 4 days! I found this Solitary Sandpiper loafing at my friend's pond last Saturday. It looks like it lost all but the stub of one leg. The noises you hear from the audio are from blackbirds nearby as this sandpiper made know audible sounds even when it opened and closed it's beak. Wow, According to ,"The Solitary Sandpiper lays its eggs in the tree nests of several different song birds..."--that surprised me. SeEtta

These are two short video clips that show the Red-naped Sapsucker perched high on a deciduous tree engaging in grooming and some loafing. I video-scoped the sapsucker so it did not seem to be bothered by my distant presence, one of the main reasons I took up digi-scoping and video-scoping. SeEtta

These are just two short video clips I video-scoped (video taken with my point and shoot camera that I handhold up to my spotting scope) in W. Texas on my way home to Colorado from Texas in early January. These cranes were part of a flock of hundreds that I spotted while driving down the highway. The bottom clip is very short showing the cranes flying but is mostly for the audio side as they sound came out very good. SeEtta

This is the best of the video clips I have as the Snowy Owl turns its head several times as it looks around and appears to scratch an itch on it's back with it's beak. I apologize for a few quality problems that are a result of the fact that I only recently got my camera for this and learned to use it. I am handholding the camera against the scope until I assess whether I want to invest in a device that might produce video with more consistent quality. SeEtta

These are video clips of the Snowy Owl that I took using the technique of 'video-scoping'--holding my point and shoot camera against the eyepiece of my spotting scope, thus enlarging the view. The top video clip shows the owl turning it's head to look around while the wind blows it's feathers. The bottom video clip shows the owl doing some more head turning and it's feathers are also blowing in the wind. All my video clips were taken from about 200 feet from the owl. SeEtta

POST NOTE: I took most of these videos from between 50 and 75 feet and they are magnified by the fact I took the video through my spotting scope. I was able to take this and the previous videos this close because the wheatear flew into a wood pile about 50 feet from where I was standing. This last video clip is pretty short but quite nice because I had lighting that let the color on the bird show through. I am not enlarging the screen on this one because the original size provides a crisper view that stands out with the color. SeEtta

POST NOTE: The bird was about 50-60 feet away in the top pic as it had flown into a woodpile about 50 feet from me. The bird was more than 75 feet away in the bottom pic and on the other side of a barbed wire fence (slightly visible) in a field. In the top video clip the Northern Wheatear I videoscoped on Jan 6 in Bee County,Texas actually perches in one position for 19 seconds (quite awhile for this bird) on top the wood-pile then quickly flies down out of view. In the top video clip the bird bends forward as though to pick up a seed, then gives a rear view as it bobs it's tail. At the end it turns, looks towards the birders then scurries quickly out of view. By the way, I haven't noted that I am hand-holding the camera to my spotting scope so sometimes I'm not perfectly still. Stay tuned to next post for last video clip. SeEtta