May 2005

March 2005

Recorders Report
Esther M. Key, Summer 2005

Summer is a great time to observe local activity while birds stay in one place for a short time so they can pair up, build a nest, lay and incubate eggs, feed young, train fledging to fend for themselves, and then assemble for migration.  The scissor-tailed flycatchers arrived at the office parking lot on April 15th and the western kingbirds arrived on May 9th.  While I never found a nest, the kingbirds settled down in the area, but the scissor-tailed flycatchers wandered away.  They reappeared on June 17th, and I found their nest on the 21^st.  July 1^st two juvenile western kingbirds were seen and were gone from the area a few days later.   

Things remained quiet at the scissor-tailed flycatcher nest until July 22nd when a tiny head peeked over the edge as we passed it on the noon walk.  On June 29^th two juveniles were seen standing up in the nest, and on August 1^st there were three practicing their flying skills in the nest tree.  By the next day they moved across the lane to a lacebark elm where there was more leaf cover and protection from predators.  They were gone on August 3^rd.  It seems so quiet now as we walk around the parking lot.

While summer is a very busy time for bird parents, it is slow for the recorder’s report.  Nancy Vicars saw one Inca dove sitting on the utilities wires in her backyard on the morning of June 23 for the first time.  July 7^th Pat Velte and Terri Underhill saw at least 5 Monk parakeets nesting at the Cedar Valley Golf Course in Guthrie.  They are nesting in the eastern red cedar trees and coming to nearby homeowner feeders. The residents and golf course staff think the birds are special.  Other golf course summer residents include Baltimore oriole, mourning dove, green heron and a ruby-throated hummingbird.  

Dora Webb reported an American pipit on July 8^th.  July 27^th in Edmond , a friend of Jane Boren has a white-winged dove taking up residence in her backyard, and it built a nest in a Bradford pear tree.  I saw a green heron flying over Lake Hefner , but there have not been any reports to date of a yellow-crowned night heron.  While leaving home in Piedmont around 7:00 am on August 6^th, I saw 6 upland sandpipers migrating overhead and heard them again the following Saturday.  

Dennis Siegfried, a graduate student at OU, reported a friend, Andrew, in the Meteorology Department, sent him some radar images from the August 9th sunrise over eastern Oklahoma to central Arkansas .  There were three concentric circles on the images, and they were wondering what birds would make that type of image.   

Shelly Harris found a similar circle in the Oklahoma City area and with her daughter Amanda went in search of it the evening of August 10.  They found a purple martin roost at NE 13^th and Phillips Avenue at the Oklahoma Allergy and Asthma Building . The sky was literally filled with purple martins in every direction as they poured into the site continuously for 35 minutes. She would estimate clearly over 100,000 purple martins, possible as many as 300,000. It was a phenomenal experience. There was a brief news report on Channel 4 the next day, but by the end of the month they had moved on in their journey to Brazil .  

Debby Kaspari saw a red-breasted nuthatch in her Norman yard on August 12.  Debby Gibson has a hummingbird at her feeder on August 13.  Other locations reported the beginning of the hummingbird feeder wars.  Least and black terns were seen by Richard Gunn on August 15 on the Canadian River in Norman , and shorebirds are being reported at various locations in Oklahoma . But this year Lake Hefner is filled to capacity, and there haven’t been any reports of shorebirds or terns.   

Pat Velte reported the return of the merlin at the ‘merlin tree’ on Prairie Dog Point at Lake Hefner on August 15. On August 23 Pat saw a laughing gull near the Stars and Stripes Park on south Lake Hefner , and Terri Underhill and Bret Mayden saw it on the 22^nd.  Pat Velte and Terri Underhill got a great look at an Osprey as it flew from a utility pole near Rose Lake near Yukon .  They also report the laughing gull and Merlin are still at their respective locations on Lake Hefner . 

Around July 7, someone spotted a Swallow-tailed Kite at Red Slough.  

Thanks to all those that sent reports. I can be contacted by email at emkok@earthlink.net, leave a message at 405-373-2738 or mail to PO Box 291 , Piedmont , OK 73078 .  Monthly backyard reports are welcome.  Esther M. Key