Great Backyard Bird Count - Marathon style

The Great Backyard Bird Count is a great opportunity to get involved in citizen science - or just have an excuse to sit around and watch your feeders all day! With as little as 15 minutes of effort, you can enter your data at the GBBC web site. Here's our list from a slow afternoon at the Marathon Motel:


Locality: 79842, Marathon, Brewster County, TX
Observation Date: FEB 19, 2011
Start Time: 1:00 PM
Total Birding Time: 3 hours

Location Type: Commercial Property
Party Size: 2
Skill: excellent
Weather: excellent

Habitat(s):
scrub
grassland
rural

Number of species: 23

All Reported: yes

Species Count

Red-tailed Hawk 1
Eurasian Collared-Dove 6
White-winged Dove 15
Mourning Dove 2
Northern Flicker (Red-shafted) 1
Say's Phoebe 3
Verdin 1
Cactus Wren 2
Ruby-crowned Kinglet 1
Northern Mockingbird 1
Curve-billed Thrasher 2
European Starling 2
Green-tailed Towhee 1
Canyon Towhee 8
Chipping Sparrow 1
Lark Bunting 1
White-crowned Sparrow 20
Pyrrhuloxia 3
Eastern Meadowlark 6
Brewer's Blackbird 20
Brown-headed Cowbird 23
House Finch 25
House Sparrow 30

***

The morning, for a rare change of pace, was quite foggy and cool with a trace of actual precipitation! So the morning was best left to hot chocolate and getting work done. Even in the mist, however, House Finches were warbling their enthusiasm and Cactus Wrens were whirring their calls through the bleak gray. The afternoon was clear and pushing 80 degrees, so in between painting door frames, I snuck out to see what was around.

The resident Pine Siskin was playing hard to get, as were the Scaled Quail who sneak to the pond for drinks. The Greater Roadrunner, Loggerhead Shrike, and American Pipit who frequent the property were also unaccounted for in our brief census, so hopefully they'll show up in the next few days to be counted. Yesterday would have addeded the siskin, but work was a bit busier. Perhaps tomorrow?