The Baffled Bird Watcher

I’m the Baffled Bird Watcher

A cuckoo? Are you kidding me? I thought cuckoos were itty bitty wooden birds that jumped out of fancy clocks! But there he/she was, in all its glory. A yellow-billed cuckoo. Wow! And I got a photo of that one.

Of course I would not have known that without my bird ID book, through which I had to go from cover to cover to find the cuckoo. Of course it was written that cuckoos, although shy, are common in Oklahoma. 

I always wanted to know what birds I was looking at but never had the time to figure them out, or look them up in a bird book, until I sort of retired. Now I thumb through that book on a daily basis. But I’m still baffled.

I’m baffled because every time I spot a new bird (well, new to me), my book tells me that particular bird is common in Oklahoma.

Then it tells me there are hundreds, if not more, types of sparrows. How am I supposed to tell sparrows apart if they won’t stand still for identification, and they all look alike anyway? I’m baffled by sparrows.

This past weekend a bird of prey baffled me. Why are most hawks brown and speckled? Hawks are gorgeous. I love hawks and birds of prey. I can ID two – the bald eagle (we all better know that one) and the red-tailed hawk (all Oklahomans better know that one). All the rest baffle me.

A little brown speckled and barred bird of prey baffled me mightily on Saturday. Nothing better than sitting on the back porch watching my backyard birds eat on a spring day. Then, out of nowhere, one of my songbirds (couldn’t tell which one cause it was flying at super-sonic speed for good reason) plunged from over the roof above my head, and dived into a large crape myrtle bush. Tiny bird didn’t stop there. It kept right on flying.

That’s because right behind it was a small hawk of some sort. But this poor hawk wasn’t small enough for that overgrown shrub. He/She came to a crashing halt in the crape myrtle. He/She was small, but not small enough.

I heard the crash and watched the bird quietly, to make sure it was OK. Hawk took a while to recover, but it did. Then it took wing and flew off to the west and perhaps better hunting on Kerr Lake.

And that is when, and only then, I got to see it was a little hawk with speckled feathers and a barred tail. Couldn’t wait to get to my bird book to figure it out. Oh dang. According to the IDs, most all Oklahoma birds of prey are speckled with barred tails. I’m never gonna’ figure this out.

I’d like to think the little bird of prey was a peregrine falcon. But more than likely was a sharp-shinned hawk or a Cooper’s hawk, according to my book. They are both quite common in Oklahoma.

And I’m sorry, but both look alike to me, and my hawk didn’t stand around waiting for his/her photo op. But I’m not giving up. Maybe someday I’ll have camera in hand, and I’ll get a photo of my bird of prey, and be able to figure out who is or trying to eat, my sparrows.