More cool birds

I must be getting old. My brother reminded me this past weekend that I'd given him a hard time last year about sitting out back of his new house, drinking coffee and watching the birds.

"You're getting to be just like Dad," I said.

Seems like we're both getting to be just like Dad.

Papa lives in Longview, and from his back porch he watches several varieties of woodpeckers, mockingbirds and thrashers, jays and cardinals, doves and I'm-not-sure-what-else. He is engaged in a running battle with the squirrels. They have their own feeders in the yard, but still try to get to the bird food. His latest ploy is to smear the bird feeder poles with axle grease.

Pineywoods humor, I guess.

Our backyard bird count is up to ... 14 species, now, not counting the vultures that wheel overhead. With the arrival of the first real cold front of the year, I'm looking forward to seeing more northern species push through on their seasonal journey south.

A recent repeat visitor to the yard is a single golden-fronted woodpecker. It's quickly become my favorite, with its bright orange nape patch and finely detailed black-and-white back. It's the only bird in the yard that will take on the thuggish white-winged doves.

The other day, the woodpecker left the suet feeder and flew right at a dove parked on a nearby branch. There was a feathery explosion, the dove departed post-haste, and the woodpecker returned to the feeder.

I quietly applauded.

I often hear the golden-fronted woodpecker before I see him, a soft "churrrr-kek-kek-kek," or sometimes the knocking of his bill as he tests various oak limbs for soft spots and insects.

He's recently discovered the peanut butter I left smeared into the crevices of an oak tree. It was gone after three visits.

TPWD ornithologist Cliff Shackelford recently helped me identify another "new" bird to our backyard -- a pair of Lesser goldfinches. There are lots of small yellow birds in Texas -- finches, warblers, vireos -- and it's going to take me a while to sort them all out, I'm afraid.

Home for lunch one day last week, I counted 10 species of birds in the backyard at the same time. That was not only fun to watch, but pleasant to listen to as well; it was a riot of birdsong.

Another work colleague, Bruce, who produces TPWD's PBS show, suggested a neat trick using the call of the Eastern Screech Owl. Twice I've been able to call one of the resident owls in to the back porch by playing the "A" song (see "The Owl Pages" link in the column to the right).

Bruce suggested playing it during the day, beneath a low-hanging limb.

Songbirds of all types seem to be powerfully motivated to harass a raptor should they come across one, and owls are frequent targets of this mobbing behavior.

Sure 'nuff, by playing a loop of the owl song on my laptop (strategically placed underneath a low-lying bush), I soon had a dozen birds of half a dozen species lined-up in the vicinity. Pretty cool.

[Top to bottom: Golden-fronted woodpecker, Carolina chickadee, House finch, Lesser goldfhinches (with a female house finch), Carolina wren]