[birdky] Schochoh, Logan Co., weekend list

  • From: Stephen Tyson <kytysons9152@xxxxxxxxx>
  • To: BirdKY <birdky@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>
  • Date: Sun, 10 Dec 2023 18:49:23 -0600

We counted 49 species here at the house, this weekend, which is in line with our best ever for the second weekend in December.  The weather was a literal blowout, yesterday. Today’s weather was better and the birds seemed to be trying to make up for a lost day.We counted a Bald Eagle again, yesterday, and another Lapland Longspur, this morning, was a an unexpected surprise.  I thought I’d heard the tinkling calls of Horned Larks and was trying to record them when a Longspur flew directly overhead, calling as it passed. So, I got a Longspur instead of a Lark, which I added to today’s eBird list.  We’re still counting Palm and Yellow-rumped Warblers nearly every day, usually among the Bluebird groupies, and I counted a Ruby-crowned Kinglet, yesterday.  The Field Sparrow that I thought was gone reappeared, early in the week, and stayed for the weekend. It seems late but we’re still not completely settled into our expected post migration winter-bird register.    I wondered if the Short-eared Owls were sensing the incoming ugly-weather on Friday evening, because they were active and visible relatively early.  I counted five of them.Then, yesterday afternoon, I was watching the angry clouds passing in the northwest. The wind had picked up to the extent that I was thinking I should head inside, when I took one last scope scan to the southeast and was shocked to see the sky above the Red River teeming with Vultures.  I looked through them and could see only Black Vultures! They were riding the wind in a fairly tight group and seemed to be flying just for the fun of it.  I took a short video through the scope that I uploaded to Flickr and linked below.  I’m guessing that any given frame had about two thirds of the flock and I counted around 60 in a snapshot so, I estimate that there were close to 100 of them. 

https://ebird.org/tripreport/177355

Black Vultures - riding the wind (short video)flic.kr

Stephen (Steve) Tyson, Schochoh, Logan Co., KY

JPEG image

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