Scissor-tailed Flycatchers south of Florence and their behavior

[SeEttaM .]

I was able to get out to look for the Scissor-tailed Flycatcher found by Rich Miller south of Florence this morning.  I drove past a Scissor-tailed Flycatcher in the same dead tree previously described a couple of times, pulling over when safe to take a couple of photos. After reading that Mike Gaylord observed a second bird yesterday raising thoughts that they might be nesting I drove into a pull-off over a hundred feet south of the target tree and watched.  After about 10 minutes the second bird flew into the tree.  I continued observing birds for over an hour as it remained overcast and did not heat up too fast.  I have uploaded several good photos of the bird(s) to my Birds and Nature blog along with my observations about their behavior in protecting that area, etc.

Since it is possible this rare species is nesting here it is important to not disturb them with recordings.  They do flush when cars stop nearby and cameras click--that happened to me and I observed it occur when one of two cars with birders parked across the street from the tree for several minutes while taking photos.  Neither the other birders nor myself got out of our cars. So please be judicious about stopping your car near the tree or one of the birds.  You can also observe the birds without disturbance either from the pull-off on the east side of the highway about a hundred feet south of the tree that has a good view of the tree or from a private drive-way (do stay outside the fence) a similar distance north but on the west side of the highway.  Be aware that this highway often has a lot of traffic and with a 65 mph speed limit and the hill just south of the tree it makes for a risky location.

SeEtta Moss

Canon City

http://BirdsAndNature.blogspot.com