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Birders get up early to beat the heat
Oklahoma Mesonet provided no rainfall for the past weekly time frame.
There were also no rare birds listed for the same time period.
The nationwide rare/vagrant birds listed for the week include mostly continuing birds – Newfoundland and Labrador’s Steller’s Sea-Eagle and York County, Maine’s Fork-tailed Flycatcher.
Wisconsin is still holding steadfast onto Kelp Gull, while Florida again tagged Thick-billed Vireo and Texas retained Cattle Tyrant.
Arizona added Berylline and White-eared Hummingbirds, Flame-colored Tanager, Buff-collared Nightjar, and Tufted Flycatcher. Colorado shared Yellow Grosbeak.
California is still reporting White-winged Tern and Rednecked Stint. The only first-time individual for the week is Kent County, Delaware’s Curlew Sandpiper.
Writer had some brief entertainment. A crow was minding its own business and crossed under the powerlines at Lakeview and Husband, when it picked up an irritated Scissor-tailed Flycatcher, the tyrant. It brought a hearty grin.
El Nino and La Nina (Southern Oscillation or ENSO) reported the final La Nina advisory. After just a few months of La Nina conditions, the tropical Pacific is now ENSO-neutral, and forecasters expect neutral to continue through the Northern Hemisphere summer.
To touch upon ENSO—= – El Nino and La Nina are the warm and cool phases of a natural climate pattern across the tropical Pacific known as the El Nino-Southern Oscillation, or ENSO for short. The pattern shifts back and forth irregularly between every
DEB HIRT
two to seven years, bringing predictable changes in ocean temperature and disrupting the normal wind and rainfall patterns across the tropics. These changes in the seasonal climate of the world’s biggest ocean have a cascade of global side effects.
The ocean temperatures work opposite one another during this time, which will bring either warmer or cooler air that rides on colder temperatures in the south, the west is wetter (which we border) ocean/wind currents. El Nino gives us a drier Midwest, and warmer north central to northwest temperatures with an extended Pacific jet stream, amplified storm track.
Typical La Nina winters see a colder Great Plains through central Alaska, wetter weather from northern California to Oregon/Washington, wetter around Ohio-Indiana and generally the northern Deep South. While it is drier in the general South, with a small band between the latter two of warmer weather.
With our current heat wave birders have been at Boomer Lake for first light, reporting Canada Goose, Mallard, Mourning Dove, Chimney Swift, Ruby-throated Hummingbird, Turkey Vulture, Mississippi Kite, Great Crested Flycatcher, Eastern Kingbird, Scissor-tailed Flycatcher, Bell’s Vireo, Blue Jay, American and Fish Crows, Carolina Chickadee, Tufted Titmouse, Purple Martin, Barn Swallow, Carolina Wren, European Starling, American Robin, House Sparrow, House Finch, Baltimore Oriole, Red-winged Blackbird, Greattailed Grackle, Northern Parula, Northern Cardinal, and Painted Bunting.
Sanborn Lake counted Great Blue Heron, Carolina Wren, Northern Mockingbird, and Indigo Bunting.
Lake Carl Blackwell – Hwy 86 Bridge tagged Prothonotary Warbler, American Goldfinch, and Indigo Bunting.
Stay inside as much as possible, as well as hydrated. This weather is not for the faint of heart.
Keep your eyes on the ground and your head in the clouds.
Happy birding! Deb Hirt is a wild bird rehabilitator and photographer living in Stillwater.
A Curlew Sandpiper.
EL GOLLI MOHAMED, CC BY-SA 4.0
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