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hookem2010

Certifiably Surly
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Everything posted by hookem2010

  1. As mentioned, Merlin is probably the best. Not an app, but Cornell's all about birds site offers pictures of similar species and how to differentiate between them, which is super helpful when you begin to realize that many species are nearly identical. If you care about being that specific with an ID... Between similar species, sexual dimorphism, juveniles and plumage changes to individual birds depending on season, it can be a lot at the beginning.
  2. They can be hard to see without hearing them first. I've had their song described to me as sounding like 'La cucaracha', which is actually pretty accurate.
  3. Tracked down my first golden-cheeked warblers of the year on the Cedar Hollow Trail along Lake Georgetown. This is the earliest I've had them, and they were abundant and vocal!
  4. This one was cavorting with another red-tail the last time I saw it, so I'm hoping it's a local breeding pair.
  5. Absolute garbage binoc pic, but proof that there is a leucistic red-tailed hawk in my hood. I've seen it a bunch so hopefully I can get a closer photo soon.
  6. I was worried the dumbass doberman would try to go fishing when we moved here. I should have been more concerned with Donnie, our ancient guy who probably has pretty limited eyesight at this point. My wife let him out early, and a few minutes later we hear an alien noise coming from the backyard. I could just make out the poor pup trying unsuccessfully to pull himself out of the pond. A 530 am dip is one way to quickly wake up.
  7. Pedernales Falls has a great one. I'm now impatiently awaiting spring migration, which doesn't peak for two more months. I've had my share of ducks and sparrows for the winter.
  8. They're definitely koi, and there are probably about 20.
  9. I'm (hopefully temporarily) out of the aquarium game, but we just moved into a house with a stocked koi pond. Any advice on keeping it running properly? I've never kept outdoor fish. It looks like more of a personal handiwork job than professionally done, but has apparently been going strong for over a decade.
  10. For those experienced camping with kids, what age did you start and how did you break them into it? I've got a 9 month-old, so I don't think it would be very fun for any of us right now, but being stuck in the city constantly will drive me crazy. He's at a very fidgety stage right now, so even my one hour hikes/bird walks with him strapped to me in a front carrier are a bit of a struggle. I'm located in Round Rock now, if anyone has specific recs for nearby locations to overnight eventually.
  11. Commons Ford, one of the best birding sites in Austin, just did a prescribed burn of their restored prairie. I believe this was farmland a couple decades ago, and now it's a productive native grassland tucked between the Colorado River and the massive Dell property. I checked it out yesterday and it was unsurprisingly quiet, outside of a very cool V-formation flyover of 120ish greater white-fronted geese, quite uncommon for the county. No shot of the geese, but the fog yesterday morning made it look like a truy hellish landscape. Very cool, and should pay off in the spring when the natives begin to bloom.
  12. Whoops, don't feel like tracking down another link, but to summarize, TPWD has been leasing the land for the park from a corporation that sold the land to a private buyer, who does not intend to renew the lease. So likely no more public access and the $70 million in improvements just get torn down, I guess. The quest to pave the entire middle third of the state continues! In more positive news, it looks like Palo Pinto Mountains SP will finally open.
  13. https://www.houstonchronicle.com/texas-sports-nation/general/article/texas-could-lose-fairfield-lake-state-park-17754974.php As if Texas doesn't already have embarrassingly little public lands, we're losing a state park now.
  14. I've seen the eagles at Warren ranch lake. It's open to the public, but requires a scope or high-powered camera. I think I mentioned in maybe the photo thread that I saw 2 white-tailed hawks dive-bombing a bald eagle flying through their territory along Longenbaugh Rd out there. The baldy would flip over and fend them off with its talons any time they attacked. It was pretty incredible to see.
  15. Attwater prairie chicken refuge is a great spot, as Swayze mentioned. There are some spots in the Katy prairie, if it hasn't all been developed, like chain of lakes park. Brazos Bend SP is great, easy to see large birds. Cullinan park in sugar land is also good. Edith L Moore in late April-early May is the place to go for spring migration.
  16. I just got back from a Mexico trip and was able to escape for a morning to a guided tour near the Muyil ruins. It was my first ever guided tour and nobody else signed up, so I was 1-on-1 with the guide, which was great (minus the additional cost). We saw 80 species in about 5 hours, which is tough to do when you're birding in the the forest/forest edges the entire time and not around a large body of water. Unfortunately, I'm not a photographer, but we saw some incredible stuff including 2 species of motmot, 2 trogon species, aracari (mini-toucan), 3 parrot species, 4 oriole species, 3 hummingbird species and a crazy looking bird called a royal flycatcher. The guide, Miguel, was incredible. He finds things by ear that I would never even notice and spent 10 years in the states, so speaks great English. I'd recommend Amar Aves birding to anyone visiting the Yucatan with an interest in birds or other wildlife. Also, here's a ferruginous pygmy-owl from the resort.
  17. Seconded, would lean red-shouldered hawk. That's incredible!
  18. Pretty crazy that with just a couple hundred years of "progress", we're going to do more damage to the planet than an enormous fucking meteorite. I don't know if it's more depressing that we are dumb enough to get to this point, or that so few people seem to give a shit.
  19. The Nikon warranty is great. I was pretty sure my vision was turning to shit when I maxed out the diopter and still couldn't get a clear focus. I tested a new pair of the same model in a store and didn't have an issue, so I must have sat on them or dropped them and forgotten about it. Sent them to Nikon and got the eyepiece fixed in a week or two for just the cost of shipping. Celestron has also sent me scope replacement parts for free without any hassle.
  20. I've got Nikon Monarch 5 10×42 and think they're great. I don't think you're going to get much higher quality unless you jump up to the $1,000+ really fancy stuff. Kind of like Doug, I've got a cheap scope but don't love scope birding, unless I'm targeting a specific rarity. I think its the Celestron Ultima 20-60. A lot of superglue has gone into holding the base of the scope and the cheap ass tripod together over the last 5 years, although that may be partially due to leaving it in the trunk occasionally during the summer. Whoops. I think my next local adventure will be heading to Granger Lake for short-eared owl. Super cool bird, and apparently up to a dozen winter around there.
  21. Saw my 300th species in Travis county today. First county record of acorn woodpecker (the inspiration for woody woodpecker), way out in Pace Bend. Next weekend, I leave for Mexico. Hopefully I'll be seeing toucans, motmots and other cool tropical shit I've never seen before.
  22. If you live near a decent-sized body of water, look up during the winter. Had a bald eagle soaring over a neighborhood in Round Rock today. They aren't uncommon in Texas during the winter anymore, which may be news to some of you olds. They are one of the few species that was much more scarce a few decades ago.
  23. Just wanted to give you all the possible reps.
  24. Getting a close look at a kingfisher is very difficult. Finding and seeing them is not so hard, given how loud and distinctive their rattle is, but they don't hang around for extended binocular views or photos. I remember thinking it was so cool that we had kingfishers in Texas when I first started birding. They seemed more tropical or exotic to me for some reason.
  25. Why do teams in this position not burn more clock? 54 seconds with 2 timeouts is still a good amount of time to get in FG range
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