Posts from Bexar Audubon
South Central Texas:
birding and conservation articles, programs, webinars, classes, and other newsworthy items for BAS members.
December 18, 2024
HAPPY HOLIDAYS!
The last post for 2024 is a link to a great list of Backyard Birding Resources from The Birding Wire, which gathered information from a multitude of sources.
Read, Enjoy, Learn, Practice!
October 30, 2024
Female Bird Photos – Audubon’s Best
Many times, photographers overlook female birds as photo subjects, so to emphasize that female birds are stunning in their behaviors and activities, the Audubon Bird Photography Awards introduced the Female Birds category in 2021. By creating a space for photographers to intentionally focus on females, Audubon’s aim was to draw more attention to female birds as photo subjects. In a new collection of 10 Female Bird photos, the story behind the image is provided, along with a tip about how you can more easily identify a female of that species.
See the results for yourself HERE.
September 4, 2024
Hawk Migration Week:
September 14 to 22
Help celebrate International Hawk Migration Week by visiting a hawk count site near you from Saturday September 14th to Sunday the 22nd. This particular week in September is one of the best to see the highest daily counts of migrating raptors across North America. Last year, 113 sites across Canada, the United States, and Mexico tallied more than 700,000 migrating raptors during International Hawk Migration Week! This year more than 50 raptor migration monitoring sites will be celebrating with special raptor events, workshops, demonstrations, and festivals.
Throughout the fall migration period, now through November, you can monitor numbers of birds of prey migrating above raptor count sites across North America. In some cases you can see live updates of the number of eagles, falcons, hawks, and kites being seen, all provided at the HawkCount website, operated by the Hawk Migration Association of North America’s (HMANA). It’s also possible to see totals for each month, and to compare numbers with past years’ count totals. Even now, on peak days hundreds of raptors are being counted – even thousands!
Check out our closest Hawk Watch International site at Hazel Bazemore Park in Corpus Christi at this LINK.
August 21, 2024
Exemplary Avian Olympians
The Olympics showcased the world’s best athletes with their speed, agility, endurance, strength, and keen abilities. But even beyond the most impressive human records, some birds are capable of extraordinary physical records. For example, the annual 50,000 mile marathon that Arctic Terns endure while flying from the Arctic to the Antarctic and returning annually, or the 80 mile per hour sprinting flight of a Red-breasted Merganser. How about the longest non-stop flight, documented recently by a young Bar-tailed Godwit (photo) that flew 8,435 miles nonstop over 11 days, flying from Alaska to Tasmania in south Australia!
Learn more about avian Olympians in an interesting Audubon article online at These 5 Birds Are All Winners in the Migration Games | Audubon
Birds included in the article include Northern Pintails, Red Knots, American Golden Plovers, Sooty Shearwaters, Harlequin Ducks, Scripps’s Murrelets, Gray-cheeked Thrushes, Pacific Golden Plovers, Semipalmated Sandpipers, Whimbrels, Common Murres, and Blackpoll Warblers.
August 3, 2024
Two books to check out and
add to your birding library.
Tracking the natural beauty that surrounds us, The Backyard Bird Chronicles maps the passage of time through daily entries, thoughtful questions, and beautiful original sketches. With boundless charm and wit, author Amy Tan charts her foray into birding and the natural wonders of the world.
In 2016, Amy Tan grew overwhelmed by the state of the world: Hatred and misinformation became a daily presence on social media, and the country felt more divisive than ever. In search of peace, Tan turned toward the natural world just beyond her window and, specifically, the birds visiting her yard. But what began as an attempt to find solace turned into something far greater—an opportunity to savor quiet moments during a volatile time, connect to nature in a meaningful way, and imagine the intricate lives of the birds she admired.
Buy the original flexibound version
to get the look and feel of a
personal nature journal.
Renowned naturalist Kenn Kaufmanexamines the scientific discoveries of John James Audubon and his artistic and ornithologist peers to show how what they saw (and what they missed) reflects how we perceive and understand the natural world.
Raging ambition. Towering egos. Competition under a veneer of courtesy. Heroic effort combined with plagiarism, theft, exaggeration, and fraud. This was the state of bird study in eastern North America during the early 1800s, as a handful of intrepid men raced to find the last few birds that were still unknown to science.
The most famous name in the bird world was John James Audubon, who painted spectacular portraits of birds. But although his images were beautiful, creating great art was not his main goal. Instead, he aimed to illustrate (and write about) as many different species as possible, obsessed with trying to outdo his rival, Alexander Wilson. George Ord, a fan and protégé of Wilson, held a bitter grudge against Audubon for years, claiming he had faked much of his information and his scientific claims. A few of Audubon’s birds were pure fiction, and some of his writing was invented or plagiarized. Other naturalists of the era, including Charles Bonaparte (nephew of Napoleon), John Townsend, and Thomas Nuttall, also became entangled in the scientific derby, as they stumbled toward an understanding of the natural world—an endeavor that continues to this day.
Despite this intense competition, a few species—including some surprisingly common songbirds, hawks, sandpipers, and more—managed to evade discovery for years. Here, renowned bird expert and artist Kenn Kaufman explores this period in history from a new angle, by considering the birds these people discovered and, especially, the ones they missed. Kaufman has created portraits of the birds that Audubon never saw, attempting to paint them in that artist’s own stunning style, as a way of examining the history of natural sciences and nature art. He shows how our understanding of birds continues to gain clarity, even as some mysteries persist from Audubon’s time until ours.
Available in Hardback and Kindle.
August 2, 2024
Help Birds Beat the Heat
Many people love a cool dip on a hot August day, and birds love it, too.
A simple birdbath makes a big difference, especially with recent scorching temperatures. Provide fresh water for cooling off, bathing, and drinking with a birdbath! Putting a birdbath in your yard may attract birds that don’t eat seeds and wouldn’t otherwise come to your feeders.
Be sure your birdbath gets the "Birds Prefer" Seal of Approval.
Shallow is Better! Birds don't like to get completely submerged in a bird bath (that would make it too difficult to escape a predator). If you have a deep bird bath, put a flat rock in it to life the birds above the water.
Place the bird bath near cover so that birds can quickly fly away and hide to continue their preening safe from harm. Would YOU like to bathe in the middle of a bare yard?
When you get a bird bath, be sure to keep filled and clean it regularly to help prevent the spread of disease. And the sound from dripping water really brings in the hot, thirsty feathered crowds. A plastic bottle with a pin hole in the bottom will do the trick, or invest in a dripper that attaches to your water supply.
For more information on providing water for birds, please see and download the free PDF brochure about providing water for birds from Cornell Lab of Ornithology.
SPLISH SPLASH!