Guest post: BBNP and Marathon

Ultimately, I need to check my pre-sorted emails more frequently: this information is nearly a month old (posting date is 23 Sept, but this will be backdated for the archives). These are from Sue Heath's posts from 28 and 29 Aug, 2015.

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White-eared hummingbird, Brewster county

All,

Found a white-eared hummingbird along the boot spring trail in Brewster county this morning. It was past the buildings but before the juniper canyon trail goes left. It was defending a large patch of flowers against a black-chinned hummer and a blue-throated hummingbird. Appeared to be a female or young bird as it had no gorget feathers. I posted a full description on ebird. Got some very blurry photos but can't post them til I get better internet. Good birds up there today. Many townsends and Wilson's warblers, one Colima warbler, four or five painted redstarts.

Tad thinks he had a buff-breasted flycatcher in the same general area as the white-eared hummer but we could not relocate it so I didn't see the bird.

Sue

Susan Heath
Gulf Coast Bird Observatory
Lake Jackson, TX
Sent from my iPhone

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Burrowing owls & long-billed curlews, marathon prairie dog

We found three live and one road kill burrowing owls at the marathon prairie dog town along U.S. 385 in Brewster county today. The live ones were near the northern end. There were also eight long-billed curlew which ebird flagged as rare. Also a dead badger that some vultures were investigating. It looked like it got hit by a car and was just able to drag itself about 30 ft out Into the field before expiring. I wish I would see a live one sometime. The dead owl was unfortunately too far gone for a specimen.

Sue

Susan Heath
Gulf Coast Bird Observatory
Lake Jackson, TX
Sent from my iPhone

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The only corrections are to obvious phone-typos, many thanks to Sue for the permission to share!!