15 April 2014 - A really great day!

Yesterday I flew to Tulsa for a meeting. Today, I had a couple of hours to kill before my flight home. I consulted the googler for some places to bird in and around Tulsa.  Oh my!  I need to go back for a week!

I settled on the Oxley Nature Park as it was a stone's throw from the airport.  After arriving, I was pulling gear out of the car, getting ready to start on a trail.  I spied an older gentlemen in total birder attire: hat, backpack, binocular harness. I hailed him and asked him some questions about his recommendations for trails and what I was likely to see. After a 15 minute conversation, he said, "Why don't you tag along with me?"  I didn't even blink. YES!

Ed is a retired pathologist (both practicing and teaching) who has been birding most of his life. He is just like me. He wants to know what he is looking at. His backpack, it turns out, was stuffed with field guides: birds, butterflies, trees, insects, amphibians and wildflowers. 

I can't begin to explain what a wonderful time I had walking the trails. He was always pushing his binoculars on me to make sure I could see the field marks. In a few short hours I learned so much.  

The 2800 acre area is comprised of lakes, streams, wetlands, hardwood forests, dry grass fields,  and boardwalks over the wetlands. 

After two hours of walking, looking, listening, looking. . .we came to a beautiful stone bench. "Sit." He said.  I sat.  He rummaged around in his backpack and pulled out a 12" Subway sandwich. He laughed and told me that he never buys the 12" sandwiches because they are way too big for one person, but today there was a special on, so he thought why not? In addition to having a fabulous guide and great teacher, I had a nice lunch as well. 


We saw 22 species of birds, three of which three were lifers for me: Northern Parula, White-Eyed Vireo and Harris's Sparrow.   

This picture (not mine) is a Northern Parula - a member of the warbler family. He is tiny. The guide book says 4.5 inches. A chickadee is 5.5 inches, so you get the idea just how small it is.

 

Here is the White-eyed Vireo. Again, this is another small bird. Five inches from tip of bill to tip of tail. Bigger than a Parula and smaller than a Chickadee. 

                                                         And finally, the Harris's Sparrow. In SLC, I spent a lot of time out at the Lee Kay Ponds trying to find one-- just one that people were reporting having seen in a flock of sparrows. Here I saw about ten.


Another wonderful part of the trip was hearing two barred owls talk to each other. We could hear the call and answer, could tell about where they were coming from, but didn't find the birds. 

The open water was full of blue-winged teals--as many as several hundred. Didn't see a single mallard. That was nice. 
 
Along the way we saw many, many red sliders.  Any submerged log or rock had a pile of turtles.

In addition to turtles, there were bull frogs and chorus frogs and tadpoles for both. There were thousands and thousands of chorus frog tadpoles. Chorus frogs are about an inch and a half long, their little tadpoles were not even a half inch long. 

The bullfrog tadpoles were a good 3 1/2 to 4 inches long. We also saw a black rat snake and a skink.  The damselflies were out in huge numbers,  plus a few dragonflies. 

My new friend, Ed, was learning about butterflies as well. We identified eleven different kinds. That was so much fun that I bought the Kaufman Guide to Butterflies before I left.  

My only disappointment was that I didn't see any scissor-tailed fly catchers-- they like big open areas. Ed told me how to get to the airport on the back roads. He said I would see them on the fence around the airport. He was right!

This is a juvenile. The tail is shorter and the coloring is different from the adult. 

And here is an adult. Much longer tail! I couldn't catch one in flight for the full scissor tail effect. 

How many ways can I tell you what a great day this was!