Good morning birders, twitchers, twitchy birders, and bitchy twirlers. I want to share with you my 2020 coping mechanism. I call it the “Pan List.”
As a college professor, relearning how to do my job has kept me busy since March. However, I committed early in the pandemic to setting aside time every day for outdoor activities. That decision, catalyzed by my wife’s brilliant insistence that we buy bikes, has been the primary force preventing depression from winning this high-stakes round of my lifelong battle with it.
With four trips cancelled (and counting), it was time to explore my home of 17 years. Birding was the obvious choice for a safely distanced activity. After all, the top local hotspot is a square mile of sewage drying beds, so the odds of close contact are fairly slim. Tarrant County, TX — home of Fort Worth, Arlington, and 2 million people — lies at the intersection of the southern Great Plains and the southeastern deciduous forests. Its rural areas and greenbelts are a mix of grasslands and “Cross Timbers” woodlands featuring oak, juniper, pecan, elm, ash, willow, and many others.
Early on I started a list of every bird I’ve seen after my job went online (March 11), and adding to it has been the highlight of each week. All of these were spotted within Tarrant County, mostly at the Village Creek Drying Beds in Arlington or the forested belt around Benbrook Lake.
In no particular order. . .
1. White-winged dove
I should have been #17, but that would be too edgy.
2. Rock pigeon, 3. Mourning Dove, 4. European Starling, 5. Red-winged blackbird, 6. Canada goose, 7. Gray catbird, 8. Double-crested cormorant, 9. Brown-headed cowbird, 10. American crow, 11. House finch, 12. Chipping sparrow, 13. Clay-colored sparrow, 14. House sparrow
May 9 was the “Global Big Day” for birding — and conveniently, it was the day after I turned in the grades for my longest, weirdest semester ever. I spent the whole day birding and saw 58 species. One of my lifers was a
15. Lark Sparrow, pictured (left) with a 16. Savannah Sparrow
17. Indigo bunting is beautiful in its own right. However. . .
18. Painted bunting is the undisputed star of the North Texas summer.
Not bad for a sewage treatment plant.
They are common at the edge of town, but I had seen surprisingly few before this year because I didn’t know where to look. They are fairly reclusive, and the best way to see the males is early in the morning when they sing at the tree tops. The females are seldom seen.
Oh yeah, and — unbeknownst to me before this summer — apparently they boink in the middle of the road:
John Lennon wrote a song about this.
Warbler season fell mostly during my busiest weeks — but I did manage to catch the later phase of migration. While I could never match the yield of my warblegasmic trip to Magee Marsh last year, we do get most of the Central Flyway warblers in North Texas.
19. Common yellowthroat, 20. Yellow warbler, 21. Yellow-rumped warbler, 22. Chestnut-sided warbler, 23. Black-and-white warbler, 24. Blackburnian warbler, 25. Canada warbler, 26. Nashville warbler
Clockwise from UL: Nashville, Blackburnian (female or immature), Canada (immature), black-and-white
27. Orange-crowned warbler, 28. Northern waterthrush (my only lifer warbler of the spring),
29. American redstart, 30. Wilson’s warbler
Clockwise from UL: redstart, orange-crowned, Wilson’s, waterthrush
31. Magnolia warbler
2010 called — it wants its video game back.
32. Black-throated green warbler, 33. Bay-breasted warbler
The BTGW is immature.
34. Black vulture, 35. Turkey vulture, 36. Blue-headed vireo, 37. Red-eyed vireo
38. White-eyed vireo. These summer residents fill the forest with their distinctive and varied songs. As I ride my bike along a tree-lined trail, there is seldom a moment when I don’t hear some version of “perchickareeree,” “sweet pepper cheese,” or “ooh sweet frappaccini bottom.” Yet, they are hard to spot, and they never sit still long enough for a photograph. I won’t tell you how many blurry shots it took to get these:
I try not to shoot until I see the whites of their eyes.
You know that feeling when you tell the hotshot birders in your area about a sighting and they say “ooh, I’m jealous”? Neither do I, usually — but somehow I was the only one to see this local rarity:
39. Yellow-throated vireo (lifer)
40. Blue jay, 41. Northern mockingbird, 42. Baltimore oriole, 43. Orchard oriole
Mr. and Ms. Orchard
44. Eastern phoebe, 45. American robin, 46. Barn swallow, 47. Cliff swallow, 48. Chimney swift, 49. Purple martin, 50. Black-necked stilt, 51. Belted kingfisher
52. Blue-gray gnatcatcher, 53. Great-crested flycatcher, 54. Least flycatcher, 55. Yellow-bellied flycatcher (lifer), 56. Scissor-tailed flycatcher
While painted buntings get most of the glory (and the action — see above), I’ve had a special attachment to scissies since I saw my first one 22 years ago while picnicking in Oklahoma during a cross-country drive. Their ridiculously long tails aren’t just for show — they use them to pivot sharply while catching food. As if their aerial ballet wasn’t mesmerizing enough, they spent May posing in the flower fields outside of town. It’s like the universe was pulling out all of its tricks to assure us that everything would be ok.
I'm jealous that they get to fly to Costa Rica next month. My passport is f*&%ing worthless right now.
57. Summer tanager, 58. Forster’s tern, 59. Least tern, 60. Black tern, 61. Swainson’s thrush, 62. Tufted titmouse, 63. Eastern wood-pewee, 64. Downy woodpecker, 65. Red-bellied woodpecker, 66. Bewick’s wren, 67. Carolina wren, 68. Wild turkey, 69. Cedar waxwing
Before the weather became too disgusting, my wife and I often walked through a park on the fancy side of town. One evening we heard “who cooks for you,” and we chased the sound for a while, but to no avail. We went back the next night at the same time and heard it again — this time probably two birds — but we still couldn’t find them. We kept returning each evening determined to find them. One night we heard them loudly but couldn’t see them, and then I turned around and there were two just standing in someone’s driveway! A silly end to our quest for another spring lifer.
70. Barred Owl
Is this part of the security system?
71. Great blue heron, 72. Little blue heron, 73. Black-crowned night heron, 74. Yellow-crowned night heron, 75. Green heron, 76. Cattle egret, 77. Great egret, 78. Snowy egret, 79. Northern cardinal, 80. Carolina chickadee, 81. Cooper’s hawk, 82. Red-shouldered hawk, 83. Red-tailed hawk, 84. Swainson’s hawk (lifer)
Clockwise from UL: red-shouldered, red-tailed, Cooper’s, Swainson’s
85. Mississippi kite, 86. American kestrel
87. Least sandpiper, 88. Solitary sandpiper, 89. Pectoral sandpiper, 90. Spotted sandpiper
Clockwise from UL: solitary, least, pectoral, spotted
91. Muscovy duck, 92. Mallard, 93. Wood duck
Mr., Ms., and Baby Wood
94. Pied-billed grebe
Adult (L) and junior.
Before this summer, I didn’t know one grebe from another — but local birders sure do. The pied-billed grebes are common here, but North Texas eBird users were whipped into a frenzy when a pair of least grebes nested at the Drying Beds, a couple hundred miles from the northern tip of their range. I’m not kidding here: some folks went every morning for more than 2 months, sometimes for several hours, to see the parents and the (initially) four grebettes. I am grateful for their dedication, because the nest was tucked into an extremely-difficult-to-spot corner of a pond, far from the shore. Without the grebe-stan encampment, I never would have gotten this lifer.
95. Least grebe
L: one of the adults, R: the two surviving kids.
96. Black-bellied whistling duck, 97. Blue-winged teal, 98. Cinnamon teal, 99. Northern shoveler, 100. Northern pintail, 101. American coot
Clockwise from UL: coots, shoveler, cinnamon teal, pintail, black-bellied whistling ducks, blue-winged teal.
102. Ruby-crowned kinglet, 103. Eastern bluebird, 104. Black-chinned hummingbird, 105. Killdeer, 106. Common grackle, 107. Great-tailed grackle, 108. Brown thrasher, 109. Wilson’s phalarope (lifer), 110. Lesser yellowlegs (lifer)
Wilson’s phalarope (L) and lesser yellowlegs.
111. Greater roadrunner. I had never photographed a roadrunner before this year. In fact, I didn’t even know we had them in this part of Texas. My wife first spotted one on a rural bike ride, and soon we were able to snap some quick (and terrible) shots with our ACME phone cameras. In June, I brought the good camera and spent a whole morning staking out a spot where we had seen them — but no luck. Frustrated, I got into my car to drive home, and it was in a tree right above the car!
112. Dickcissel. Another lifer I was excited about, only to find out that they’re abundant once you step outside the city limits.
I’d love to tell a fascinating origin story about their name — but it’s simply their call: “dick dick dick ciss ciss ciss ciss.”
113. Rose-breasted grosbeak, 114. Blue grosbeak (lifer)
115. Yellow-billed cuckoo
116. Loggerhead shrike, 117. Franklin’s gull (lifer), 118. White ibis, 119. White-faced ibis
The similarly named but not-at-all similar-looking white (L) and white-faced.
120. American white pelican, 121. Willet, 122. Eastern Kingbird, 123. Western Kingbird
Western Kingbird catching lunch for its squawking fledgling.
I also heard, but didn’t see, a mourning warbler. That one hurt because 1) it would have been a lifer, and 2) my wife, a less serious birder, did see it. My other “heard only” was an eastern screech owl.
Thanks for reading! Let us know what you’ve seen during the pandemic — or perhaps just this week. (I’ll be away for the first couple of hours, but I’ll be back late morning to respond, converse, and troll).
Texas in May
