Learning, Birding and Nature with Charmaine Ganson

09/21/2024

Collins and I had a Dickcissel show up here at the Hacienda. Yard bird #179! It was calling and finally came out from behind the oak leaves for me to get a shot.
They are a grassland bird and we have a field out back. Probably why it stopped by. This might be a female. The males have a black bib.

09/02/2024

Lately there has been a large amount of butterflies around. Literally billions. The American Snout is doing it's short migration and really messing up the front end of cars and windshields when they get hit. Takes awhile to clean off your car!

Below you will find a variety of butterflies that we are seeing in The Texas Hill Country River Region.

Here's a link to the Texas Butterfly Ranch's site.
https://texasbutterflyranch.com/2016/09/10/invasion-of-snout-nosed-butterflies-returns-to-central-and-south-texas/

08/30/2024

3 Juvenile Hooded Orioles come to nectar & jelly together.
They hatched in a nest nearby, parents brought them to my porch & taught them how to eat the grape jelly & drink the nectar.

Now they come on their own, parents may have migrated as I haven't seen them lately.
The males have black spot on throat, which will eventually become a black hood on head too.
And males will sliwly turn bright orange.
Hill Country Adventures & Nature Center
Indian Blanket Ranch

08/22/2024

Lights out, Texas!

Learn how you can best prepare for nearly 2 billion birds that will be passing through the Lone Star State from now until November 30!

Details below:
Did you know 1 out of every 3 birds migrating through the U.S. passes through Texas? That's nearly 2 billion birds by Nov. 30th!

Learn how to help them travel safely:
https://tx.audubon.org/urbanconservation/lights-out-texas

05/27/2024

Temperature 105 degrees today!!
I decided to give shade to these 5 Eastern Bluebird eggs.
Didn't want them to cook!!
LeAnn Garrison

10 miles west of Utopia Texas,
5 miles east of Garner State Park.
www.hillcountryadventures.com
www.indianblanketranch.com

05/12/2024

I've posted a number of times about the importance of turning off your lights during bird migration.
LAST NIGHT MORE THAN FIVE MILLION BIRDS MIGRATED OVER THE TEXAS HILL COUNTRY WITH MORE THAN 750,000 IN THE AIR AT ONE TIME.

Keeping lights on all night disrupts all wildlife and migrating birds!!
Please turn off your outside lights, especially between 11:00 PM and 6:00AM. Thank you!!

04/24/2024

🚨LIGHTS OUT TEXAS ALERT! 🚨

Peak Migration has began!
Protect migrating birds by turning off all non-essential indoor and outdoor lights from 11pm – 6am every night.
Learn more at: https://tx.audubon.org/urbanconservation/lights-out-texas

04/18/2024

Our Smoke tree looks great again this year. You can definitely see how it got its name. Those are where the flowers were & they look like smoke at the end of the branches. It’s a very drought tolerant shrub or small tree.

03/19/2024

Here is our pair of Canyon Towhee's. They are a type of sparrow. They live mainly in the arid SW, also in shrubby areas and in Mexico. Fairly common here in the Texas Hill Country. They have an orange brown color on the head and vent areas. Their eyes are reddish colored. They have a tan color on their throat area with streaking there.

They are very tame around us and have bred on our property for years. They come and check on us when we go outside. A fun bird to watch.

They eat mainly seeds so they come to eat under the feeders on the ground.

02/08/2024

Here are photos of the Eastern Screech Owl in our backyard. Don't want to get to close. Notice the lighter color of the bill. Generally Westerns have a darker bill some don't. Hopefully it will call at night. They sound a bit different.

This is a gray morph. They also come in a red morph. Females are larger than the males. No way to tell unless you see both together. Then you can see a size difference. In most raptors the females are larger. That's hawk, owls,and falcons.

They will eat birds and insects but primarily mice, voles, etc..

They are strictly nocturnal in their hunting but can be found looking out their nest box hole sunning themselves.

01/12/2024

Saw a juvenile Bald Eagle while driving down the hwy. to Kerrville. These young ones have a lot of white on them.

12/08/2023

A little left of center you can see the aloe vera is about to bloom. It’s winter in South Texas, that’s how you know! 😁

11/25/2023

Ever witnessed thousands upon thousands of warblers streaming overhead nonstop? In early October, birders in Chicago experienced a migration spectacle that they won’t soon forget. Nathan Goldberg, Marky Mutchler, and Jacob Drucker report on this megaflight, what caused it, and how birders made sen...

11/17/2023

We now have 2 Anna's hummingbirds. The spotting is different and have seen both at the same time. Generally it's unusual to get one much less two. Since the drought out West we have started to get them more often out here in the Hill Country during migration the past 2 years.

They primarily breed along the west coast. Look up Anna's to see the pictures of adult males They are stunning.

10/30/2023

This article by ABC has some good info on keeping wild bids safe.

You may have noticed it. The chill in the air. The leaves crunching under your feet on your morning walk. Pumpkin spice proliferating on menus and grocery store shelves. Fall — or as many call it, “spooky season,” — has officially arrived.  For birds, fall can certainly be a spooky time of ...

09/27/2023

Sat outside in 91 degree heat for over and hour and got a few migrants, finally!

09/10/2023

It's been a busy week here!
A Roadrunner showed up for the first time in years. Probably heard we had some good lizards! 🙂 Also had a Two-tailed Swallowtail land on the Lantana.
A spiny lizard showed up too. It must have not heard about the Roadrunner!
Also another Rock Squirrel showed up. This one is smaller. You can see his cheeks are getting full!
The Gray Fox was here eating a dead bird. The drought has been really hard on the birds and animals. He has lost a lot of the red he had in his thicker coat this past Winter.
Also an immature male Summer Tanager was at the drip and down by the creek we had a couple of young Vermilion Flycatchers.

09/05/2023

Was coming back from my walk when I heard the scrub jays screaming by the bird drip. I walked over there and they took off. I looked past the Bird drip, where we have a tangle of limbs on the ground that we have cut and there was a 5 - 6 ft. Indigo snake.

He was pretty well hidden inside the limbs, except his head was sticking up. This is a protected species of snake.

They use their powerful jaws to kill their prey by crushing them in their mouths. Unlike other snakes, that use constriction or venom.

08/29/2023

Lack of rain & not enough native nectaring flowers is bringing the bees to my feeders & jelly. So put out enough for the birds & the bees!

Others have asked how to keep bees off feeders??

Use a shallow pan with nectar water put it out away from feeders.
Try to see direction bees come from & set it out there, up on something or hanging in tree, so fireants & animals can't get to it.

Then get a natural spray with cinnamon, cloves etc like ingredients pictured.
Don't spray on feeders, but fold a paper towel & spray it.
Then wipe over the holes.
This deters them & they eventually move over to the pan.
You may have to repeat this daily, or not.
Just watch your feeders to see.

08/25/2023

Found this black Rock Squirrel on the feeder log. First one we have seen on our property. Very wary. Found mainly in south central Texas.
https://www.depts.ttu.edu/nsrl/mammals-of-texas-online-edition/Accounts_Rodentia/Otospermophilus_variegatus.php

05/26/2021

JB Journeys will be going to Cuba this year! This is an awesome trip! Here is the info for those that are interested.

Nov 30 - Dec 12, 2021 with Cuban ornithologist Maikel Cañizares Morera & JB Journeys’ Eric Stager

05/24/2021

Prairie coneflower on our property. Three different color varieties.