Black-crested Titmouse Confirmed

My friends and bird experts, Jaci Kroupa and her son, Jesse Huth, were kind enough to confirm my tentative identification of the Black-crested Titmouse in one of our nest boxes.

Here's the photo again, taken on April 1st. I think she's sitting on the eggs. I don't think they had hatched yet.

Here's a photo from last week, April 8th, showing the four hatchlings. Three were asking me desperately to feed them, but I didn't have anything with me. The look quite young because the don't have feathers and their eyes are not open. My guess is they are a few days old.

When we checked the nest box with the oldest bluebird hatchlings today, they were gone. I'm assuming they fledged. Next week I'll have a sequence of photos showing their development.

Checking the Nest Boxes

Now that there are eggs in most of our nestboxes, I've been checking them weekly to see how they're doing.

Here's a photo of one of our two Eastern Bluebird (Sialia sialis) nests. It looks like two of the eggs have hatched and you can see the small hatchlings. You can also see the unhatched egg. I think they're less than a week old because when I checked it the week before there were three eggs in the nest. Their gestation period is about 12 to 14 days. The hatchlings are almost naked with just a few tufts of hair-like feathers along their back and head.

In this photo, taken one week later, they are noticeably larger and are more covered with down. They are starting to look more like birds and the head and beak of one is clearly visible. It takes them around 3 to 5 weeks to fledge, so they've got a way to go.

One of our nest boxes had what I thought were wren eggs because they were white with brown spots and I'm familiar with them. When I checked the box last week, however, there was a bird sitting on the nest which I think is a Black-crested Titmouse (Baeolophus atricristatus). I'm not an expert so this is not a positive identification, but that species was identified during our bird species survey last fall. I'll have to ask my expert consultants to be sure.

I'm assuming the bird was the mother and she was hunkered down and trying to make herself small and invisible. You can see she's even flattened her crest. I'm sure she was frightened so I took the photo quickly and closed the door. I've seen birds fly out and away from nest boxes when I approached, so I was surprised to find one on the nest. I'm impressed at her bravery and motherly instincts!

Bluebonnet Variations

My nephew, Cuauhtemoc, who lives with his family near Floresville, spotted some rare white, or albino, bluebonnets (Lupinus texensis) in his backyard.

Are they still called bluebonnets? Is it a case of a "A rose by any other name would smell as sweet"?

As you can see, the albinism only affects the flower - the stem and leaves look pretty normal. The green in plants is due to chlorophyll, a biochemical which plants use to convert sunlight to useful energy. A plant which lacked all color, including green, would not be able to produce energy. There are a few examples of this but they don't last long.

Rare albino bluebonnet. Photo by Cuauhtemoc Arizpe.

Many thanks to Cuauhtemoc for spotting these rarities. It's estimated that white bluebonnets will occur once in a 100,000,000 flowers. It took his keen observation to notice them. I had never seen one and I'm glad he sent me the photo.

Here's a few growing on our property. While we don't have many, the rains this year caused them to come out. I've mentioned before that they seem to grow in the poorest soil and this patch is no exception.

If you look closely, you can see a red spot on some of the flowers. I have heard that this spot, which starts white, turns red when a bee has pollinated the flower. After doing a bit of research, I think that might be a bit of a tale. It seems the spot does indeed start white and turns red, but that happens because the flower ages.

This is an example of a correlation, but not a causation. It is more likely that an older flower has been pollinated versus a newer flower, but that is not the cause of the color change.

In any case, a marvelous example of nature's ways, and a method to guess how old your bluebonnets are!

Spring Has Sprung!

It was foggy yesterday morning, so I grabbed my camera on my way to breakfast. I had been watching the bluebonnets all week and was hoping to get some good shots. I was not disappointed.

The fog, along with the hour, created a soft, diffuse light. This means no harsh shadows and nice even tones in the scenes.

This first photo is along the roadside with a nice fence line disappearing into the distance and fog. I don't know what the small yellow flowers are, but of course the scene is dominated by bluebonnets (Lupinus texensis). Bluebonnets are the Texas State Flower. It's also known as Texas lupine, Buffalo clover, and  Wolf-flower. I've only ever heard them called bluebonnets and the name fits because the petals resemble sun bonnets.

The second photo was taken about an hour later the same morning and the fog is starting to burn off. My eye was drawn to the stair step appearance of the hillside road-cut and the reminder that bluebonnets grow in the rockiest soil imaginable.

Finally, while I was tramping along the road side and fence lines, I spotted this spider web, outlined and accentuated by the dew. I didn't see the spider, but the web was about six inches in diameter and hung between two barbed-wire strands.

Walking The Nest Box Trail

We walked our nest box trail today, as part of our wildlife management activities. We have eight boxes up now, with plans for more. We put them up in October last year and have been checking them semi-regularly since.

We're now in the nesting season and this is our first formal check. We keep a log of what we find and take photos as part of the record. In a random check a couple of weeks ago, I noticed that some of the boxes had nests in them, so we wanted to check every one.

Five of the boxes contained nests. I wonder why the birds decided not to use three of them, or at least not yet. Two of the unused ones are along our driveway, so I thought maybe there is too much human activity nearby for them to be attractive. One, though, is not near our daily activities.

This is nest box #1 which is near our house. The nest is made of ashe juniper needles, a few twigs and leaves, and some fur. The fur might be from our dogs.

Nest box #6 is near our neighbor's horse pasture and it has quite a bit of horse hair in it. It also has bits of cellophane and grass stems. The nest is lopsided and tilted. It looks like the opening is off to the side, in the lower right of this photo.

Nest box #7 is also near our neighbor's horse pasture, but it looks different than #6. The nest is round and level with the opening on top.

Nest box #8 which is near one of our wildlife water dishes had three eggs in it! The eggs are very small and a uniform light blue. I estimate they're about 1/2 inch long. The nest is made almost entirely of grass and is very neat, round, and well-made. We think they're bluebird eggs but I'm going to ask an expert for confirmation.

Nest Boxes - Moving In

I checked three of our blue bird nest boxes last week and they all showed signs of nest-building!

I happened to go by two of them as I was trucking water out to the wildlife water dishes and decided to check them. After seeing those two with nests in them, I checked on one by the house and it too contained a nest. I think the odds are that all of them have nests in them, but because of the rains we haven't had a chance to check them all.

The first one was right next to one of the wildlife water dishes on the eastern edge of our property. The nest is made of grass stems and fills about half of the box. You can see the cedar shavings, that were in the box at the start, at the bottom.

I couldn't see any eggs in the nest, but the view into the nest was difficult because it was filling so much of the box. I will take a mirror next time to be able to see inside. Eastern bluebirds make their nests from grasses, so this might be one.

The next box is further south on the same eastern fence line. This one is definitely made of different materials than the first one. It appears to contain grass, twigs, feathers, and fur. It also appears to be at an earlier stage of construction, but that's only a guess because it's smaller. It looks looser and more disorganized than the first one. My guess is this one is another bird species, but I don't know which.

It stopped raining today and the sun is shining. Maybe we'll make the nest box rounds and get a full inventory of the activity. Along with all the other signs of spring, the birds are building homes!

Light My Fire

Mary and I had the great opportunity to work at a prescribed burn today at Eagle Rock Ranch. The ranch is privately owned but is under a conservation easement and is part of the Texas Land Conservancy.

A prescribed burn, also known as a controlled burn, is a vital part of a land management plan, especially for prairie restoration. The prairie grasses evolved under conditions of regularly occurring natural wildfires. The grasses thrive after a burn and many of their woody or shrubby competitors are removed by the fire.

Prescribed burns are very weather-dependent. This one was originally scheduled for late February and then for yesterday, but was postponed either because of winds or because the fuel was too wet.

A group of about 15 Hays County gathered to help the ranch manager, Pokey Rehmet, with the burn. The field we were burning was surrounded by a dirt and grass road which provided a natural fire break. Our main job was to stand watch at the fire's edge and make sure the fire did not get past the break.

Preparing the water sprayers.

Pokey used a propane torch to set the fire.

The burn begins.

Here he is burning along the boundary road to form a back burn.

An up-close view of the propane torch.

We stood at the fire's edge and kept an eye on it. Some of us had water spray bottles, but most had rakes or shovels to help direct the fire.

Mary standing watch.

Once the main fire had passed, we then put out any hot spots so that once we left the area, the fire would not restart.

Putting out a hot spot.

In this shot, the fire is well-underway. You couldn't stand too near it for too long because of the heat. The wind shifted throughout the burn, so we had to place ourselves strategically to avoid the smoke. This was not always possible though.

The fire is well-underway.

We worked for about two and a half hours. The field burned pretty completely and there were no mishaps. All in all, a successful day!

Most of the field is burned.