Bird to look for: Gray Catbird

We are now entering what is arguably the peak week of the year for an interesting species, the Gray Catbird.

Gray Catbirds are a smooth medium gray all over, without streaks or mottling.  The only exceptions are a black cap, and rusty undertail coverts.  They are about the same shape as a mockingbird (and are in the same family), but a touch smaller.  They tend to hold their body horizontally like a mocker as well.

Gray Catbirds usually occur in dense undergrowth, although they will work their way upward into trees where fruit (usually berries) are available.

Although small numbers remain in south Louisiana in winter, and a very few nest here in summer, they are far more numerous during their April and October peaks of migratory passage.  They are one of our most common migrants in both spring and fall, and it is not uncommon to see a half dozen or more gathered in one suitable area during passage.  They depart from here across the Gulf of Mexico, to winter in Middle America.

Catbirds commonly turn up in yards with ample vegetation within the city, so be on the lookout in your back yard.  A front is forecast for late next week, which may bring a wave of them in- but there are some around right now.

They are pretty responsive to swishing, so do not be surprised if one pops into view when you are swishing up other birds.  They often call when they approach, and commonly give several different vocalizations in this context.  One is the class mew that gives the bird its name; it sounds so very catlike that you will recognize the similarity immediately.

Good birding,

Peter

for a copy of Birding Made Easy- New Orleans, email me at birding.made.easy.new.orleans@gmail.com, or look for it at the Garden District or Maple Street Book Shops.

Twenty minutes at Bucktown Marsh

Today I swung by the Bucktown Marsh on the way to work.  This is across the lake levee from R & O's restaurant.

The brushy marsh edge had a cluster of birds that responded to swishing along its south edge, and another at its north end.  The former had 2 Marsh Wrens, 1 Sedge Wren, and 2 Common Yellowthroats.  Not easy to get Sedge Wren in the City, so that was a pleasant surprise.   They winter in grassy marshes outside the city.

The northern cluster of birds one had a Lark Sparrow, another Marsh Wren, and four more Yellowthroats.  Lark Sparrow is another goodie- I normally see less than a half dozen per year.  Fall migration is the most likely time for them, and today was a typical date.  It was teed up on top of the brush before I began swishing.

Walking the cut trail north along the lake edge, and then back via the unfinished road to the car, was relatively unproductive- though I had another Yellowthroat and a House Wren, swished up together.

Good birding,

Peter

for a copy of Birding Made Easy-New Orleans, email me at birding.made.easy.new.orleans@gmail.com, or look for it at the Garden District Book Shop or Maple Street Book Shop. $24.95 in book stores, $24 (including shipping) from me direct.

Gorgeous field of cosmos in City Park is loaded with birds

This fall there is a shocking field of orange cosmos, perhaps 25 yards across, along Marconi Drive by Tad Gormley Stadium.  I stopped there and swished this morning, and birds started popping out of the cosmo patch in every direction.  There are two small trees within it, and many jumped up into these.

They were all Common Yellowthroats and Indigo Buntings.  About 15 of the former and 10 of the latter.  The field may produce other species as well in the next few weeks, with House and Marsh Wrens and Swamp Sparrow especially likely.

Even if there were not a bird here, it would be an uplifting experience to walk around this riot of color.  The birds make it extra cool.

Both birds are small and brown (Indigos are not blue at this season).  The buntings are uniformly brown, though you may see a hint of blue-gray wash in places such as the tail.  The yellowthroats have (surprise) a bright yellow throat and upper breast.  Males will have either a full or faded black mask.

Good birding, Peter

for a copy of Birding Made Easy-New Orleans, email me at birding.made.easy.new.orleans@gmail.com, or look for it at the Garden District or Maple Street Book Shops.  $25 in the bookstore, $24 (including shipping) shipped.

Still lots of migrants around

Today I stopped for 40 minutes in Gentilly at a woodlot near Delgado, and had a nice little collection of migrants.  A small ragweed patch and associated woodland edge along the wooded edge had 5 Common Yellowthroats, 7 Gray Catbirds, an American Redstart and a Red-eyed Vireo.  Farther north along the same woody edge, another flock with chickadees held White-eyed and Philadelphia Vireos, 2 Blue-gray Gnatcatchers, and a Northern Parula.  A handful of other birds were scattered here and there, including single Yellow and Magnolia Warblers.  With a few exceptions, these are all species that neither nest nor winter in the city, so these are all migrants passing through.  I did also see my first Eastern Phoebe of the fall; they should begin arriving in numbers in the next few weeks.

I also spent 30 minutes in the small woodsy patch next to the Fine Arts building at UNO, which was also pretty busy with migrants.  I started by swishing a mixed flock in low over my head, including 2 Redstarts, 2 Magnolia Warblers, 2 Pine Warblers, a Red-eyed Vireo, and a House Wren.  A Pewee was singing, and I managed to track down 4 Common Yellowthroats and 2 Catbirds elsewhere in the woodlot.  A Great Blue Heron was perched in its usual roosting spot in a tall pine (always an odd site, hundreds of yards from water).  These land birds were also all passage migrants, and none of them nest or winter on the UNO campus, except that the Pine Warblers are likely to winter at this site.

A few days each fall are (to me) Common Yellowthroat days, when they seem to be all over, including in ornamental shrubs.  Today was such a day- with one in a shrub in front of the student union at UNO, and another near the library in a water garden.

These are all birds moving in the wake of the recent frontal passage; fall migrants move south after fronts because they benefit from the tailwinds and fair weather that usually come after the front passes.  Usually the peak numbers occur in the few days  after the front, and then they slowly dwindle (sometimes rapidly dwindle) until the next front.

Get out and enjoy it while the weather is cool but the migrant birding is hot!

Peter

for a copy of Birding Made Easy-New Orleans, email me at birding.made.easy.new.orleans@gmail.com, or look for it at the Garden District or Maple Street Book Shops.

Some migrants today at LaSalle Park

I just spent 40 minutes in LaSalle Park in Metairie, where there were some migrants.  I was there at 11:00 am.

Walking through the wooded glade (open understory area) on the paved path, I heard a few chickadees.  When I swished them in, a Red-eyed Vireo and a Blue-gray Gnatcatcher came down with them.  A probable Hooded Warbler ticked in the adjacent understory.

A fit farther down the paved path, where the sliver of woods on the right ends, there was a busy patch of ragweed.  Six Rose-breasted Grosbeaks (streaky fall birds), four Summer Tanagers (all ochre-yellow female types), two Indigo Buntings (fall brown plumage) and two brown-plumaged Blue Grosbeaks.  A Nashville Warbler joined them in an adjacent oak.

Circling back via the boardwalk in the woods, there were no migrants until I reached the drip, which was being inspected by a female-type (green) Painted Bunting and a Ruby-crowned Kinglet.

A bit farther along, a thicket near ground level held a skulking female-type Common Yellowthroat.

At the other end of the boardwalk, where it rejoins the paved trail, was another pulse of birds.  White-eyed Vireo, Eastern-Wood Pewee, male (red) Summer Tanager, Rose-breasted Grosbeak, and two Indigos.  All with chickadees.

Keep your eyes open!

Peter

for a copy of Birding Made Easy- New Orleans, email me at birding.made.easy.new.orleans@gmail.com, or look for it at the Garden District or Maple Street Book Shops.

Likely a good night for migration

It sure feels odd to go overnight from thinking tropical storm waifs to thinking about migration coming down from the north, but hey- I don't make the weather!

Apart from eight probable Magnificent Frigatebirds that I saw circling over Harahan at a great distance yesterday, I have not heard any reports of birds displaced by TS Karen.  There are probably birders still afield who have not reported their sightings yet, so a few may yet be reported.

The cool front that has now passed New Orleans (ah- feels good!) will probably bring in a wave of migrants.  Tomorrow it will be worth checking the trees in your yard, or stopping by a woodsy spot like Couturie Forest in City Park.  We are still in the peak period for neotropical migrants (ie, birds headed to tropics), but this will only be true for another two weeks or so.  Then we will still get migrant pulses, but they will be predominantly species that will remain around in winter.

 Tonight seems like it is going to have the somewhat unusual combination of a low cloud deck and north winds, which means that there may be a lot of audible vocalizations of birds flying overhead.  Worth stepping outside and listening, especially after about 9 pm.  Remember that earlier in the evening, there may not be much plying our skies, since we have 25 miles of lake to our north- we may have to wait for the birds from north of the water to arrive overhead. Usually thrushes are the most audible- the peeper-like heep of Swainson's, and the grainy veer of Wood Thrush being the most likely.

Peter

For a copy of Birding Made Easy-New Orleans, email me at birding.made.easy.new.orleans@gmail.com, or look for it at the Garden District or Maple Street Book Shops.

Hurricane waif birding

While tropical storms such as Karen may be a nuisance in nearly every other respect, they do offer opportunities for seeing unusual bird species inland in Louisiana.  The regularity with which land falling tropical cyclones deposit coastal birds- or even tropical seabirds- inland after landfall is predictable enough that birds are now found after virtually every storm.  Indeed, some of the most feverish birding behavior can take place immediately after storms pass.

The general strategy of most birders is to stay at home (as often advised by authorities) during the storm's passage, making frequent trips outside to scan the sky during breaks in the rain.  Many a birder has added unusual birds to their "yard list" this way.

After things settle down and any official prohibitions are lifted, most birders then scan large bodies of water to look for seabirds, which can be either sitting on shore (or on the water), or flying - often purposefully heading back in the direction of the Gulf.  Lake Pontchartrain is usually targeted by birders in our area under these circumstances.  Birds will also often sit on wet lawns, such as those in City Park, or the fields across the street from Armstrong Airport (etc.).  There is also some indication that birds will continue to come down the Mississippi River for days after a storm passage, if the storm has crossed the Mississippi well upstream from us.  This was likely the reason for a jaeger (apparently Pomarine) I saw on the River near the Luling Bridge days after Isaac last year.  But generally, the best birding is immediately after the storm passes.

The storm waifs most often reported in the New Orleans area are pretty consistently Magnificent Frigatebirds and Black Terns.  Brown Pelicans, Royal Terns, and Black Skimmers may be boosted in numbers.  Bridled and Sooty Terns are the most likely truly pelagic species to occur, either over large water bodies or flying steadily overland.  Jaegers often turn up as well, especially Pomarine.   Many other species are possible, and records in or near Louisiana have been as odd as American Flamingo (after Isaac, last year).

Birds that migrate over us but normally do not pause before reaching the Gulf can sometimes be put down in conspicuous numbers- especially shorebirds.  This is also probably the mechanism behind the appearance of a Sabine's Gull I found near the Lakefront Airport during Hurricane Opal (which passed to our east) in 1995.  It was accompanied by several Franklin's Gulls, less rare but also hard to come by here  under normal circumstances.

Although waterbirds are the main attraction, odd songbirds sometimes turn up.  I have seen Gray Kingbird after tropical weather at UNO, and 1984's Hurricane Juan (before I came here) produced a remarkable list of late records of species that should have been in Latin America at the time.  Nobody is quite sure how the storm managed to produce this effect.

Unfortunately for us with Karen, the left side of the storm is usually not as good as the east side.  But some pelagics can get blown left of the track- as did some Sooty Terns when TS Lee came inland in Louisiana in 2011.  These may (?) be birds that were wrapped around in front of the advancing storm by the counterclockwise wind circulation, carrying them all the way around to the left side before the center of the storm passed.

Two main mechanisms are presumed to be involved in storm displacement:
1) birds becoming "caught" in the eye by retreating continuously from the advancing eyewall, sometimes to the point that they will even travel within it miles overland to avoid settling and enduring the eyewall winds.
2) birds are drifted by the counterclockwise circulation, sometimes far inland

Karen has no eye, so the second mechanism should apply.

Tropical cyclones have caused some remarkable displacements.  In 2008, a Cory's Shearwater was reported in Oklahoma after Gustav.  Several Black-capped Petrels have occurred well inland in the northeastern USA.

Because most tropical weather hits us earlier in the season, Karen's potential for producing waifs may not fit the patterns typical of earlier season storms- it will be interesting to see.

Be safe, and good birding!

Peter