Yesterday was a teacher work day so we played a few holes of golf in the morning and then made it to the school to at least walk through the office and be seen. The little while that I was there was pretty exciting. I saw an indigo bunting for the first time in my life at the feeder outside my window. After that I was glued to the window eager for his return. While I was watching I saw a bird fly out of the top of the 25 foot oak tree outside of my window with a super long black and white tail. I immediately thought it was a scissor tailed flycatcher and started checking sites on my computer to see if I could be confused.
http://www.birds.cornell.edu is my favorite place to check on birds. The good folks at Cornell said the scissor tails were in Oklahoma and surrounding areas. Gastonia, NC is pretty far on the outskirts of Oklahoma. Our school is in a pretty rural area with plenty of wide open space that is a good area for flycatchers. We have eastern kingbirds, bluebirds, and occasionally phoebes, but never scissor tails. I started doubting myself so I walked down around the baseball field and onto the soccer field in the direction the bird flew. I looked on top of every fence, every pole, and power line, but no scissor tail. I told the baseball coach mowing the grass to keep an eye out for a bird with a really long tail, and he looked at me like he wanted to punch me in my face. I'm not really expecting much help from coach in finding this guy but I'm excited about finding him.
5/5/12- It was definitely a scissor-tail and I hope he makes it back this year. he caused a lot of commotion last year. I wasn't looking at an indigo bunting on my feeder though. That was a male blue grossbeak and he's back again this year.
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