Wood Frogs

 

  It has been a long time since I wrote anything, the reason is simply because I haven't done anything worthy of writing about. The cold snowy winter has kept me inside. I couldn't bring myself to go ice fishing. Before today's excursion with Laurie the only thing I had done since my Texas trip was go to the Springfield Sportsmen Show with my friend Dave. The runner up for the only other fun thing was eating supper outside after work on one of the warm sunny days last week.

    Today I finally went and did something outside. When the wind was howling at fifty miles an hour last night and the rain was coming down sideways it didn't dawn on me that it was perfect conditions for amphibian migration to vernal pools. However, I did realize it this morning. So Laurie and I went to the Attleboro Springs Audubon Sanctuary behind La Salette Shrine. 

   First we walked around the pond at La Salette. This pond has been home to wild goldfish for a hundred years. Unfortunately, we did not see any goldfish today. We did see a fish kill with a couple dozen dead bluegill and a large dead Koi. This fish kill is probably the result of the pond running low of oxygen during the extended ice covering. We did see a turtle swimming which was very surprising. 

   Next we walked to the Audubon Sanctuary. If there was ever a day I could have guaranteed seeing Wood Frogs, today was it. We could hear them from a hundred feet away. Laurie and I sat on the boardwalk for almost an hour. Once the frogs got used to our presence they came very close to us. Sometimes they swam right under our feet. 

   The highlight was a  Spotted Salamander that Laurie saw. It went under some leaves. I moved the leaves with a stick and we got a decent look before it buried itself again. Spotted Salamander was a lifer for Laurie. No photo of that one. 

 

 After our walk we went to my house and did some cleaning. After that we went to Ryan Park in North Kingstown before I had to host a bird club event at a craft beer brewery. All in all it was a nice day. I got to see a sure sign of spring and I used my camera for the first time in seven weeks!

Some Ring Necked Ducks at Ryan Park

Lifer Birds in TX

 This is just a wrap up of the lifer bird species that I saw in Texas. Many of these photos have been in other blog posts but I wanted to put a post together of the order in which I saw them as the vacation went along. The first was the Great-Tailed Grackle and the last, the Green Parakeets. They are mostly in order. I saw ten species at Bentson, so they are all together, but it happened so fast I couldn't tell you if I saw an Altamira Oriole first or the Clay Colored Thrush. 

Final stats

Lifers  34 that count on ebird

           2 non-countable birds the Yellow Headed Amazon and the White Fronted Amazon

Lifers with photos 30 (four without photos Gray Hawk, Ringed Kingfisher, Aplomado Falcon, White Tailed Kite) 

   I also saw a McCall's Screech Owl which for now is a subspecies of an Eastern Screech but there is talk that it will be split into a separate species.

Great Tailed Grackle

Whooping Crane

Neotropical Cormorant

Harris Hawk

Plain Chachalaca

Great Kikadee

Green Jay

Green Kingfisher

Ladder Backed Woodpecker

Golden Fronted Woodpecker

Common Paquaque

Long Billed Thrasher

Altamira Oriole

Clay Colored Thrush

Black Crested Titmouse

Inca Dove

Audubon's Oriole

Hooded Oriole

Black Chinned Hummingbird

Olive Sparrow

Greater Roadrunner

Black Phoebe

Vermillion Flycatcher

Vermillion Flycatcher

                                                        Aplomado Falcon

Verdin

                                                      White Tailed Kite

                                         

Red Crowned Amazon

White Fronted Amazon

Yellow Headed Amazon

Curve Billed Thrasher

Crimson Collared Grosbeak

                                                     Ringed Kingfisher

                                                    Gray Hawk

                           

Buff Bellied Hummingbird (and below)

Green Parakeet

White Tipped Dove (should be further up
the list, but Blogger keeps screwing it up)

Better photo of Inca Dove

McCall's Screech Owl. Heavily cropped
He is at the bottom of the hole

Photo upgrades of Species I had seen before going to Texas

 

Yellow Crowned Night Heron

 Texas isn't just full of exotic birds. Texas is roughly half way between the Atlantic coastline (it is on the gulf) and Pacific coast. The area around the Rio Grande Valley is sub-tropical. It stands to reason that birds from the east, west, and south would be able to find homes for the winter. As we all know, many species "fly south for the winter". For many of those species, Texas is home. While we were in Texas we saw many of the species we regularly see in MA/RI. Cardinals were at many feeders. I saw Pied Billed Grebes on ponds. Besides the Texas hawk species, I saw Red Tailed, Coopers, and Red Shouldered Hawks. Many duck species spend the winter in Texas.

    While we were there, I got photo upgrades of six species I had previously seen.  The first was a White Winged Dove. They are a southwestern species and very common there. One showed  up at Beavertail a couple years ago. It was feeding on the ground fifty feet away. In the photo I got on vacation the dove landed ten feet from me. 

None of the photos below are cropped. None have had any editing of light, filters, or A1 at all.

Short explanations of each of the species below.

 White Winged Dove

  I had seen Roseate Spoonbill in New Jersey and Florida. I have never seen one in Rhode Island, however one shows up in the northeast every couple years so it could happen. I had gotten decent photos of Spoonbills at Ding Darling in Florida. When we went to the Birding Center on South Padre Island, three Spoonbills were right next to the boardwalk. This is the best photo I got of them. I should have taken many more. They flew ten minutes after we got there. There were so many birds of different species, I wanted to see them all.

Roseate Spoonbill

Common Galinule

Common Galinule show up every year in Rhode Island. Only one or two are usually seen and it is usually at Trustom Pond. This one was at the same birding center and was only feet from us. It was feeding the entire two hours we were there both in and out of the water.

Northern Pintail

   These photos below are probably my favorite photo upgrade. Northern Pintails are my favorite species of duck. I saw them from only a few feet away on a boardwalk in perfect light. I could have watched them for hours but like the Spoonbill, so many things to see.

Great Blue Heron

Obviously, Great Blue Herons are really common. I got these photos of one actively fishing. It was only feet away from the boardwalk 

Long Billed Curlew

  I had seen one Long Billed Curlew in the prairie of South Dakota in 2016. It was far away and most of its body was hidden by grass. This is not a great set of photos but much better than I had. It was taken from the boat on a Whooping  Crane tour.