10-15-09

Observations from Holiday Park, Benbrook Lake, site 66:
I spend most of the day out here today. Didn't see anything new, but I watched my buddy the male Belted Kingfisher awhile today, as well as an earlier day this week. I think it's the same bird, as I've never seen more than 1 at a time, and always a male, in this park. This little stretch seems to be his main fall territory, as he spends most of the day in a 200-foot stretch along the shore here. There are a lot of trees along the waters edge here right now, as the lake is up some from earlier in the month (the trees were 10-15 feet from the shore before that), so maybe that's why he likes this area right now. Anyway- I have watched him dive for fish many times now in this area. Unlike the first time I saw him fish, when he fluttered weakly over the surface and lightly grabbed fish, he plunge-dove many times, reminiscent of a diving gannet. Sometimes he did a kind of belly-flop but continued on to submerge. He was very efficient in his fishing here; nearly every time when I was able to see him after he flew back to a perch, he had a minnow in his beak. He would fly to perches on one of the trees near the waters' edge and eat. He calls frequently with his now-familiar rattling, pugnacious, challenging call, although I've never seen another kingfisher, or seen him challenge any other bird. He flies from perch to perch, often calling right after he lands.


I also watched a cormorant swim up and down the shore, diving for long periods of time, apparently fishing. I've been studying the cormorants and the cormorant colony that perches on a line of dead trees that runs through the lake 100-200 yards from site 66. I've been able to definitely id them as cormorants, not anhingas, and studying the range maps in my Peterson and national geographic guides shows they are almost certainly Double-Crested Cormorants, references show that Neotropic Cormorants occur at Benbrook Lake, at least during the summer. I want a close look at one before I call it a Double-crested and count it as a lifer.