Blog of the El Camino Real Chapter, Texas Master Naturalists, Milam County, Texas
Author: Sue Ann (Suna) Kendall
The person behind The Hermits' Rest blog and many others. I'm a certified Texas Master Naturalist and love the nature of Milam County. I manage technical writers in Austin, help with Hearts Homes and Hands, a personal assistance service, in Cameron, and serve on three nonprofit boards. You may know me from La Leche League, knitting, iNaturalist, or Facebook. I'm interested in ALL of you!
Some of you who are originally from the North may think it’s not cold. But those of us born in Central Texas think even barely freezing is terrible. I am one of those people.
I can hardly bear it to go below 50 degrees. I hate it. It makes me crazy to worry about our wildlife friends.
But, they are adapted more than we think.
The birds have a harder time finding food when it’s cold. That is because the insects they like are not moving around.
One way we can help during this time is to put out suet for them. You can make your own or purchase it. I found that making it is messy. So, I bought some. Now is the time to put it out.
It needs to go in suet holders and placed near feeders. You can make your own holders and make them suit your location. A suet holder can be as simple as a small cage made from hardware cloth. Anything that a bird can cling to. Many species will come to a suet feeder. Even woodpeckers like them.
The suet provides needed energy to help the birds keep warm.
Right now, I am waiting for a new product to arrive that keeps hummingbird feeders from freezing. As soon as I receive it, I will put that info out for everyone.
So don’t forget our feathered friends…
“I cannot do all the good that the world needs, but the world needs all the good that I can do.
Since we’re not getting many submissions lately, I’ll go ahead and write up some of my little naturalist projects. Too bad I don’t get volunteer hours for this kind of stuff, but I enjoy it anyway, because it gets me out in nature and my data is useful to someone.
Where I listen to birds.
What I’ve been doing involves using my eyes and ears to track the bird species in an area of northern Milam County about a half mile in diameter around my property. It contains pastures, woodlands, ponds, and a creek.
Mmm, fish
I’m keeping a record of what birds I observe with my eyes (I do try to get photo confirmation on iNaturalist for unfamiliar birds, but I trust myself to identify the two vultures I see as well as crested caracaras. For listening, I use Merlin Bird ID, which is really quite accurate (only twice has it found birds that shouldn’t be here, and who knows, the wind could have brought them in).
It’s a mockingbird, not a loggerhead shrike.
I use Merlin for between half an hour and an hour a day, and I have three places I usually listen. Mostly I listen between 8 and 10am, depending on my schedule, though I occasionally listen around dusk so I can get owls (barred and great horned so far).
I have a bird journal that my spouse made for me. I record weather notes as well as how many birds I hear each day. I also note birds I get to observe up close or with my binoculars, and any new arrivals.
Where the research part comes in is that I have started a spreadsheet that lists each species I observe each month. I’m looking forward to spring migration to see what passes through as well as to record when winter residents leave and summer ones arrive. I miss the painted buntings and their friends, though the twelve kinds of sparrows here do keep me on my toes. Yes, twelve.
Current birds observed
By the end of the year, I’ll have a good idea of the patterns here in this small area. My hope is to keep observing for a few more years, so I can see how climate or big weather events affect this area.
I’m a black vulture.
I’m going to put in another plug for the Merlin Bird ID app on my phone. All the observations go into the eBird database, since it’s from Cornell Ornithology Labs. You can contribute photos as well as record sounds of birds. I say sounds, because it identifies mourning dove wings correctly!
Sound ID told me this one’s a ladderback woodpecker.
I’ve learned so many bird calls that enrich my life. I drove my spouse crazy yesterday identifying all the birds on the Nature PBS show yesterday. There was one persistent Phoebe. I now know Carolina Chickadees have many more songs and calls than I’d realized and that we’ve had a few Black-capped Chickadees drop by.
Some of our sparrows. Mostly white-capped, some house sparrows, maybe a Harris’s sparrow in there.
The part I find funny about this app is that it refuses to identify chickens, Guinea fowl, and turkeys, at least at the Wildscape. The last one confused me, because they are native. but maybe it “knew” these were at a facility for raising turkeys.
Just as our weather starts to turn cold and windy, for Martin landlords it is time to get ready for the return of our beloved Martins.
Right now they are still in Brazil. Very soon they will feel the time-long urge to migrate back to their breeding grounds. That would be across the border into the US and Canada. From my experience, the birds will arrive in Milam County around February.
Times vary a little from year to year.
The first to arrive are called scouts. They tend to be the adult males looking for nesting areas that will best attract females. Last year’s birds will arrive later, up to four to eight weeks.
Right now is the time to get your houses ready. It is harder to assemble an Owl guard when the weather is cold and windy. Putting your gourds or apartments up nowmakes sure you are ready as soon as they arrive. Do NOT open the cavities yet. You need to wait till you hear the bird’s arrival and open only a few cavities. This keeps unwanted birds (House Sparrows) from taking over. Block the entrances with foam or something you can easily take out. Duct tape is NOT a good option.
I have people ask me how I know I have a Martin? Their song is different from any other bird. Believe me, they will let you know they have come home.
So, I had help putting up my gourd rack, and all I will need to do is add the pine-needles in a few weeks.
I have both a Gourd house and an apartment house. I have noticed here at our site, the gourds are the most favored.
Also, it is best to add new housing, or make changes before the Martins arrive. They don’t like change.
Wolf spiders can be a winter activity; just use a headlamp at night when it’s relatively warm and humid.
Last Wednesday, I went out there to see what I could find, and came up with five species. Most were juveniles of course, and now is a good time to photograph them as they grow.
The ones I saw covered most of the possible size range. The smallest had a body length of 0.11″/2.8 mm. At this size it could still be with its mother. The legs are short (fully stretched out in the photo) and they don’t run very fast. Their best defense is to pull their legs in close, stay still, and pretend they’re a wee lump of nothing worth notice.
Juvenile
The largest had a body length of 1.1″/27 mm. I’m still not certain which of two species it is and should have used a larger container for photos so she could stretch out her legs and show me another clue of her identity.
Adult
Doing the math suggests that the weight of 1,000 of the little ones would equal the weight of the large one.
On Christmas Eve I walked around outside after we had three inches of rain during the night. I wanted to see what everything looked like. The sun was out.
I found a little Black Oil Sunflower blooming that had been dropped by a bird. It was right beside one of my bird feeders. Nothing else blooming but that little flower.
Of course, the warm weather and rain has made many Gulf Coast Fritillaries wake up from their winter nap too early. But this one little flower held the hope of a much-needed sip of nectar.
The flies and bees were also trying to be first in line for a drink. I wish I had more for them.
Maybe they will be lucky and find more flowers in the fields around our home.
It is always amazing to see nature at work. Who are you gardening for?
Nature Along the El Camino Real 