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FIELD NOTES
Winter 05-06

The House Wren is a rare winter resident in southwestern Oklahoma.

A brief dawn drive through Hackberry confirmed the same waterfowl levels as reported this past Sunday. Two immature Bald Eagles were present with one helpful in getting the ducks up off the central diked wetlands. If anything shoveler numbers have doubled. The reservoir was completely unfrozen and diving duck numbers had increased slightly. A flock of 11 Long-billed Dowitchers were evident fom the observation tower but I did not check the mudflat along the north boundary road.

Along Rt. 70, just 2 miles east of Davidson, I had my first of 4 Harlan's Hawk on the morning. Three adults and an immature, with three photographed. Indeed, that proved the theme of the day ... birds hunkered down in the wind rendered pishing and my usual census effort inefffectual yet permitted closer approach to individuals for photography.

The N-S running road 1 mile west of Davidson hosted two flocks of Lark Buntings totalling 430+ birds. A little later just 4 miles WNW on N2130 Rd. I located another 190. This same section of road, a half mile N from E1910 saw a good concentration of White-crowned Sparrows with not less than 185. Driving these roads north to Tipton brought me into contact with numerous White-crowned flocks of 5-15 birds often with 2-4 Lark Buntings in the mix.

Loggerhead Shrikes were especially conspicuous as they were the previous day on the backroads in SW Comanche County. The two-day total was a healthy 35 birds or about 1 for every 2 miles driven.

A field on the south side of E1880 (Delorme ref.) near where that road dead-ends at the Red River had a flock of 350+ McCown's Longspurs. These longpsur flocks are proving a real treat for me, even if I must leave half of them unidentified (when I fail to hear them or they are quick on the move). But after sifting throuhg the dozens of digital images I shoot of circling flocks (to refine field estimates of flocks sizes multiple digital images of tight flocks can prove valuable) I noticed what Sibley illustrates, the pale wing linings of the McCown's and Chestnut-collared vs the dark of Lapland and Smith's. What it took these images to fully appreciate, was the translucent nature of the primaries on McCown's which cause a flock caught against the morning sun to flash so starkly black and white as to recall Snow Buntings (only with a reverse wing pattern). I have to admit watching this flock whirling about for some time quite mesmerized.

And I ended this day no less impressively than finding an adult female Prairie Merlin perched on a fence just off RT 62. The bird was a quarter mile N on N2140 Rd (which ends at the Navajo Mtns east of Altus). In a stiff wind, the bird proved reluctant to flush and allowed me to sidle the car up to it for my best shots of the subspecies.