Birds of Crescent Bend, Part 2

Monday, January 14, 2013 *

Today's photos are from my walk at Crescent Bend Nature Park on Monday, December 17, 2012:

There are 437 species of birds listed on the San Antonio Audubon Society's checklist of birds that have been reported to have been sighted in Bexar County. I am fairly good at spotting and photographing the birds, but I am still learning to identify many of the species.

I find the sparrows especially difficult to distinguish one species from another. With that in mind, I think the first bird in this series is a savannah sparrow. The next two birds are an eastern phoebe and a house finch. The fourth bird is another sparrow that I think is a Lincoln's sparrow.

The two photos following that are of the same bird. The best I can tell, it appears to be a house wren. Then there is a black-crested titmouse, a northern cardinal and a northern mockingbird.

The last five photos are all of the same sparrow. It appears to me to be another Lincoln's sparrow.

* Due to the full schedule I have this week taking a class, all the posts for the week will be from previous walks.

The Eastern Phoebe

Quite frequently I only get a fleeting glance at a creature before it vanishes out of sight. With these, I don't have time to raise the camera, much less get a photograph. Often enough though, one will hang around long enough for me to get one or two photos. Then there are the rarer times when one will stick around long enough for me to get a series of photos. Some of these even seem to be curious about what I am doing.

On my walk this past Monday on the Medina River Greenway, what appears to me to be an Eastern Phoebe gave me one of those rare opportunities that I cherish so much. My only hesitation in saying this is an Eastern Phoebe, even though it looks all the world to me like one, is that the Medina River Natural Area bird checklist indicates that Eastern Phoebes aren't present in the area during the summer.

But then, maybe this one didn't get the memo. As will be seen in some upcoming posts, there are birds that apparently haven't read what has been written about them.

I really have a feeling this little one was showing off for the camera from the first time it saw me until it dove to catch an insect. (They are in the flycatcher family.):