[texbirds] The SPI Flammulated Owl - a neat story (kind of long)
- From: Clay Taylor <Clay.Taylor@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>
- To: "texbirds@xxxxxxxxxxxxx" <texbirds@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>
- Date: Sun, 13 Jan 2013 23:21:06 -0500
Hi all -
As some of you did see on the TexBirds FB page, I left Corpus Christi at 4am
and arrived at the South Padre Island Convention Center (SPICC) at 6:48 am -
still dark outside, lots of lights on at the SPICC, and the wind was HOWLING!
Ugh.
There was a large market or craft show there this weekend, and one pop-up tent
that was tethered to the support columns of the CC's rain awnings was flying
like Sally Field in a hurricane (if this makes no sense to youngsters like
Cameron Carver and Heidi Trudel, Google it). I parked my car away from that
one, in case the cords snapped and it decided to head for Port Isabel.
First light came quickly, and I was out of the car by 7:05, mildly surprised
that there were no other birders present. Go figure. That last time this
happened to me was in Laredo for the Amazon Queen, and I pretty quickly found
the target bird all by myself. Gee, maybe lightning can strike twice. I
sidled over to the Yellow Wall, and even though the lighting was still pretty
iffy, scanned every branch, leaf clump, tree trunk, and hidey hole that I could
find, hoping to see something looking back at me. No joy. The wind was
buffeting the treetops.
I then checked the trees to the west of the water feature, and those two big
palms were disheartening - if the FLOW was in there, it would be impossible to
see it. I took my time, moving slowly, and checking every possible nook and
cranny in the two groups of trees.
Back in the Northeast, I had been a very active hawk and owl bander, and we had
become pretty proficient at spotting Saw-whet Owls tucked into evergreen trees
and viney thickets while on migration or wintering, and it was always a badge
of honor to find a roosting Saw-what or Long-eared Owl on a Connecticut CBC.
One of the hallmarks of finding Saw-whets and Boreal Owls was their roost
predictability - they ALWAYS roosted on a perch that could be directly flown to
(usually while swooping up from below) and the almost always chose the WEST
side of a tree or thicket, away from the rising sun. I had only ever seen
one Flammulated Owl before today (in Colorado in the breeding season), so I had
no idea if they followed the same behavior pattern as Saw-whets.
In the back of my head, I was prepared for them to be more like a Screech-owl,
which will land on a branch, then walk or crawl to a more suitable roosting
spot that was less conspicuous, but also less easy to flee from predators.
Finally a few more people arrived, and we all commiserated, then continued to
search. Eventually, my thoughts were that if it was, in fact, hiding deep in
either of the two big wooded areas, it was likely not going to be found.
However, it would not be a bad idea to check some of the outlying trees and
bushes that were planted as part of the Gabriel Tree of Life Foundation. More
on that later....
I was standing next to the cut-in-half log bench near the Boy Scout gazebo, so
I turned to the bushy tree 15 feet from me. The leaves were silhouetted
against the gray sky to the south, and as the wind whipped the branches back
and forth, there was a small dark clump that did not seem to change. I put my
12x50s up to my eyes, and thought "oh, it can't be THIS easy....". Yup, the
"clump" had feathers. Yes, it was NOT like a Saw-whet - it was in the middle
of LOTS of branches and leaves, on the East side of the tree, and facing East
(I was initially looking at its butt). How 'bout that!
Ok, so I called to the others, pointed it out to them (it took a while for
everybody to get on it), then walked back to the car to get a couple of
spotting scopes to set up on it. After returning with the scopes, the big
problem was that there was NO single viewing angle that showed the entire bird!
Eventually I settled on a low-angle scope setup and another scope from the
far right, and between the two views, a decent composite "mental image" of the
bird could be constructed. The wind was blowing the tree quite a bit, and
occasionally the bird would react by shifting its position a bit, or open its
dark eyes.
I posted a note to TexBirds from my iPhone but some were only able to read the
title, followed by a bunch of gibberish, while others could read my text and
passed it on to others. Soon enough, birders from the Valley were trickling
in. It was good to see Bob and Arleen Steltzer again, and Benton Basham left
the Tropical Zone to come see the owl, as did Ranger Kyle and the O'Haver
family.
BOK, back to the Gabriel Tree of Life Foundation. Gabriel was the son of
Scarlet Colley, and he died far too young. Not long after that, Scarlet told
me about a plan to accept donations for trees to be planted at the SPICC
grounds as memorials to loved ones that had passed away. I suggested that she
write the project for a Great Texas Birding Classic Conservation Project.
She did, our Swarovski Optik Roadside Hawks won the Lower Texas Coast part of
the GTBC, and the Conservation Prize money went to the Gabriel Tree of Life
Foundation.
Here's the link http://www.trailoftrees.com/ and you can see Gabriel's Tree
when it was first planted.
Now comes the wonderful part - sometime abound 9am, Scarlet and George Colley
arrived, and when Scarlet saw where the bird was, she exclaimed "It's in
Gabriel's Tree", and gave me a big hug. Somewhere, I hope that Gabriel is
pleased.
Clay Taylor
TOS Life Member
Calallen (Corpus Christi), TX
Clay.taylor@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx<mailto:Clay.taylor@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>
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