Great Crested Flycatcher back from the tropics...

This morning I stepped onto my doorstep to be greeted by the reeeep! of a Great Crested Flycatcher, my first of the spring. The species nests on my block, as it does widely in residential areas in and around New Orleans where there are large shade trees.  They are quite noisy from the time they arrive back until mid summer, after which they quiet down (as is typical of most nesting species in late summer).  After that, they can be surprisingly good at escaping detection- I might hear or see the local nesting pair only a handful of times from then until they leave in September.

The Great Crested is one of only a handful of neotropical migrants- the technical name for birds in our hemisphere that travel all the way to the tropics to winter- that spend their nesting season in residential New Orleans.  The others are Chimney Swift, Purple Martin, Mississippi Kite, and Bronzed Cowbird. Martins and cowbirds have been back for some time, and I heard my first report of a swift today, in City Park.  Mississippi Kites are likely to take a couple more weeks to make it up to our latitude. 

Several other neotropical migrants nest within our urban landscape but typically avoid residential yards- such as the Cliff and Barn Swallows under some of our bridges, the Eastern Kingbirds in some of our open spaces, and the Least and Gull-billed Terns on a handful of our large gravel rooftops.   Outside the city, in shady hardwoods especially, there are many more- a host of flycatchers, vireos, warblers, thrushes, buntings, and others, which turn places like the Honey Island Swamp or Jean Lafitte Park into a smorgasbord of song during the nesting season.

Tornado skirts (?) Night-Heron colony off Chef Hwy

Yesterday, I took a small group of my students to examine the impacts of the Feb 7 tornado on bird populations in the residential neighborhoods through which it tracked.  The EF3 tornado is estimated to have had winds of c. 140 mph and ran more or less parallel to Chef Menteur Highway in New Orleans East, cutting nearly perpendicularly across an array of residential side streets that run north from Chef.

Shortly after we began walking up one of these side streets from Chef (Knight),  we encountered Yellow-crowned Night-Herons in the live oaks that arch above the street, singles and pairs huddled around nests that are scattered through the trees.  One pair was copulating.  As we progressed, we counted 32 birds before we ran into the tornado damage a little over a block off Chef.  When we came back to Chef on the next street east, we saw another ten.  

Though incomplete, this count makes this a larger colony than any other I know of for this species in Greater New Orleans.  At first I thought that the tornado narrowly missed the birds, less than a block away.  However, one homeowner we spoke with smack in the middle of the tornado path said she had formerly had birds "pooping crawfish" on her property, so it sounds like the nest trees did previously extend up the block into the impact area.  Presumably there were no herons there when it came through- the species did not return on migration until March.  Hopefully the birds that would have nested in the trees taken by the tornado will just move to adjacent areas.

For some idea of the damage caused by the storm, here is a pic (with a European Starling on the wire).

Peter

Visiting birder Alan Crockard took these cool photos of a Red-cockaded Woodpecker flying across a marsh in Big Branch Marsh National Wildlife Refuge in Lacombe on Lundi Gras.  Not a view one usually gets of the species- traversing open air space.  Way to be fast on the draw, Alan!

The Red-cockaded is an endangered woodpecker found only in particular types of pine stands.  The only two reliable places to find them in southeast Louisiana are on this refuge, where pine flatwoods are managed by controlled burn and nest/roost boxes are inserted into trees- both strategies to improve habitat for the species.

Peter

First Yellow-crowned Night-Heron back

Just now I was cutting drywall in my front yard in the dark (don't ask!), and heard my first Yellow-crowned Night-Heron of the spring.  It gave its typical skeow several times.  The species nests throughout the metro area in residential neighborhoods with lots of large trees, especially oaks.  In my 'hood, a pair typically nests in my neighbor's yard next door or across the street, and several (in some years 20+) nest a few blocks away on Dodge Ave just off Jefferson Highway.

I have also heard a report of Barn Swallows back in the state- also newly returned migrants.

It's March- things are starting to roll!

Peter

Second migrant species reported

A pair of American Golden Plovers, passing through en route from southern South America to the Arctic, was reported yesterday near Shreveport.

This, the second species of migrant reported, comes about four weeks after the first- Purple Martin. This gap of weeks between the first martin and the next species to follow is pretty typical- although it remains baffling why the vanguard martins always show up long before anything else.

The plover observers also reported an apparently departing group of migrating Greater White-fronted Geese, northbound.  A few additional species should be reported back in the next week or so.....

Peter

The first spring migrant has returned- right on schedule!

Every year, the first species that is detected returning from parts south of us is the Purple Martin.  They seem to always get reported from somewhere in the last week of January, when we are still in our coldest month.  And this despite relying entirely on flying insects for their food!  

Right on schedule, Martins were reported a few places over the weekend, as close as East Baton Rouge and St. James Parishes.  However, the earliest bird reported this year, spotted sometime last week, was in Oak Grove in the far northeast corner of the state (!).

The fact that the first martins are back, however, does not mean their nesting boxes will be full this week.  There is usually a time lag of several weeks between the first report and the bulk arrival of the species.

Usually the first birds back are males, which is actually a widespread pattern among songbird species.  Males precede females in spring migration, so as to have an edge against rival males of their species in procuring nesting territories.

One of the oddities of our spring migration schedule is that it is likely to be a solid month before any other species arrives back.  The next returnee to be reported is less easy to predict- a Swallow-tailed Kite or Northern Parula perhaps?

Peter

Brazen Cooper's Hawk at Harahan Walmart

Yesterday afternoon I was at the Walmart in Harahan, pulling out of parking space in the crowded lot.  The local flock of panhandling Boat-tailed Grackles took flight in apparent alarm, so  I stopped to scan for a raptor.  Sure enough, an adult Cooper's came bombing through.  However, it was not flying at normal height, but weaving and maneuvering among the cars and shoppers.  It then dove into one of the small ornamental trees near the store front, scattering several House Sparrows from its foliage, and quickly reappeared, heading back along a row of cars.  It flew at eye level ten feet in front of two oblivious shoppers, and swept up to the top of a rather short light pole.  

I pulled up that aisle, trying to get close, when it dove back to near ground level and zipped between two parked cars.  It seemed to be using these to conceal itself as it hunted, but came up empty, and flew across Jefferson Highway to park on a wire in front of the Chisesi Ham warehouse.

I say it was hunting, but I suppose it may have just become frustrated trying to find a parking space.

Cooper's Hawks are one of our most frequently seen urban raptors, but it was not always so.  As recently as the 1990's, urban Coop nests were noteworthy and sightings still pretty infrequent.  Its recent increase in numbers and urban occurrence have been reported in many parts of the country, begging the question what could cause these changes in such widespread areas essentially simultaneously.

Peter