What is your favorite golf course bird and why?

[Garland Bayley]

Nothing like walking the Links of ND and only sharing the course with the meadowlarks.

[Joe Hancock]

OT, slightly, but when choosing one's least favorite golf course bird, how do you choose between the Canada Goose and the Coot?

All of the coots I know can't stand Canada geese.

I didn't think I needed to tell YOU this, of all people...

Leave the easy ones for the amateurs.....(omitted face)

Joe

[Brock Peyer]

I like the Condor.  Are there any left?

[Brock Peyer]

I might have misread the question, I have played a few courses that have great chicken salad sandwiches and some with awesome turkey club sandwiches, I may change my answer, I like a good turkey club, so the turkey is my favorite golf course bird.

[Evan Fleisher]

Okay...I've got an unusual one for you!

I have no idea what kind of bird it is (since I've never actually seen one)...but here in the Midwest we have a bird whose whistling tune sounds like Nelson Muntz from the Simpsons:

Nelson's Laugh

I always feel like the bird is mocking/laughing at me while I play.  Tells you the sorry state of my golf game...  

Evan,
   That would be the black-capped chickadee.  I'm sure you've seen them, but most people associate their namesake call with them and not this call.  Go to this link
http://identify.whatbird.com/obj/680/overview/Black-capped_Chickadee.aspx
and click on the "listen to call" link.  I think of Nelson when I hear that call, too.

Cheers,
Brad

Eureka!  That's the one!!!  Damn...why is that bird always laughing at me?

[Bob_Huntley]

This has to be one of the beautiful threads ever.

Thanks for starting it.

Bob

[Mike_Cirba]

John K.,

I poke fun at Falcon's Fire, but I arrived at the course in pitch darkness.

We were the first group out about 20 minutes later, and in the first hints of light, standing before us about 30 yards from the first tee were a bevy of giant whooping cranes, looking much like those "Walkers" you see on Star Wars, each about 4 feet tall.

Surveying the light fog and dew across the mounded and sculpted landscape, with these incredible, long-legged creatures walking obliviously past our intended route, I felt lighthearted and glad to be alive.



The third member of the crane family found in Florida is the endangered whooping crane, which was first reintroduced to the Kissimmee Prairie region in 1993. Whoopers once wintered in Florida, but hunting and habitat loss eliminated the Florida population by the 1920s. The birds were on the verge of extinction in the 1940s and today only about 275 birds remain in the wild. More than 250 captive-reared whooping cranes have been released in Florida since 1993 and about 90 survive today. The whooping cranes in this reintroduced population are not migratory, and scientists expect that with successful reproduction, the population will eventually be self-sustaining.

[John Kirk]

Birdwatching is an important part of golf for me.  I spent a few years in my 20s photographing and identifying birds in the San Francisco Bay Area,  which is a very diverse area for birds.

I just like to spend my time inbetween shots enjoying nature.

There are so many good ones, how can you pick?  The rare bird sighting, the one you see once in a blue moon, is most exciting.

At Pumpkin Ridge, the pileated woodpecker is common, but you only see 1-2 per year.  Rare finds include a lesser yellowlegs, or a hooded merganser.

Stanford University had lots of birds.  The ubiquitous acorn woodpecker is great.  They have red shouldered hawks there, a little smaller than the redtail, and so beautiful.  Probably the most beautiful bird there was the occasional wood duck, which you could find down in the San Francisquito Creek around the 12th or 14th hole:

[John Kirk]

This has to be one of the beautiful threads ever.

Thanks for starting it.

Bob

Bob,

Your area of the world is filled with different kinds of shore birds.  Stilts and sandpipers and oystercatchers and dowitchers and avocets and...

Really great.

One of the JKs, not the one who started this thread.

[igrowgrass]

[James Bennett]

Some Monday Members at Meadow Club



And local Monday Members at Grange West (Adelaide)



And some of the local birds at my home club in winter last year, by the walkoff from 17 green to 18 tee.



James B

[Joe Hancock]

Gotta go with a bird I can eat.  


Though the Red Kites of Huntercombe are awful cool as well.


Ciao

My favorite bird on the golf course...

Hancock,

I can't believe you haven't put these two post next to each other yet?  Must be a busy day over there.

Cheers!

JT

 

I have no idea what you're talking about....and, even if I did, I would have added the Woodpecker to the mix, along with a Morning Dove for good measure........

Joe

[John Kavanaugh]

I wanted to show this thread to my wife last night but couldn't because of the continued posting of pin up girls.

[john_stiles]

For golf course plus bird combination,   it is  the oyster catcher at Machrihanish for me.

My closest to the bird experience were the pheasants at Gleneagles half way house.  They walked right into the kitchen looking for sandwich droppings.

At home in the states,  I like the great blue heron, the red tail hawk, the pheasant, the pileated woodpecker, the turkey, the sharp shinned and cooper's hawk, osprey, the kingfisher, and the ruby throated hummingbird.

My favorite at the moment is the American goldfinch.  I like to see the color change in the male as the seasons change.  I can hear their call now.

[Evan Fleisher]

About two weeks ago at Lakewood Country Club in Westlake, OH...I was walking back to my cart after playing the 15th hole and there was a large hawk (not sure of the variety) standing on the roof!!!

Apparently there was some bushes right there and this mother was "protecting" her young.  She stared me down as I slowly approached and placed my putter back in my bag.  I grabbed an iron for my next tee shot to the par-3 16th and she did not budge!  It was quite intimidating being a mere 2 or 3 feet from her.

I played my tee shot on 16 and by then she had flown off the cart's roof onto the ground next to the cart.  I slowly put my club away and drove off as easily as I could.  A couple had been watching this whole affair and as I passed them they said they'd never seen anything like it...neither had I...

[Doug Siebert]

Bald eagles are pretty common where I live but I never see them on the golf course.  But when I played at Lawsonia this summer on the Woodlands course there was a nesting pair high up in a tree just off one of the fairways (I think maybe the 7th?)  I'd post a photo but it didn't turn out all that well because my camera is one of the older ones that doesn't have the image stabilization feature, so any photos I take on a windy day end up blurry

That's maybe not the coolest looking bird you can see on a course, but it is kind of neat considering they were pretty scarce in the lower 48 30 years ago before the government got serious about trying to protect them.

I've never seen one on a course but I'm sure its happened down under at some point....I think the coolest golf course bird would have to be an ostrich!  Nothing like running into a bird on the course that could kick your ass

[KBanks]

Great thread guys.

Ocean Forest on Sea Island used to be home to several families of bald eagles. I'm not sure if they are still there.

My favorite is the lark, because of their strong association with links courses. The way they seem to hover in position in a sea breeze is remarkable.

Ken

[Pat Brockwell]

I saw a Whooping Crane flying with Sandhills a few years back when I was working at Cochiti, between Santa Fe and Albuquerque, on the Rio Grande Flyway.  We also had a Burrowing Owl at Santa Fe CC when I was a kid.  My favorite though is the Western Meadowlark.  Great musical call and a sporty black and yellow V neck.

[wsmorrison]

The Pectoral Sandpiper.  It reminds me of the Creek Club.

[Jason Topp]

In Minnesota it has to be the loon:

[Stan Dodd]

The White Tailed Kite...there are a few that patrol the grounds of MPC.

[henrye]

Last night's newscast on the CBC (Canada's answer to the BBC) had a wonderful piece on the changes to the bird landscape over the past few years.  Thought I'd share the link with anyone who's interested.

http://www.cbc.ca/national/blog/video/environmentscience/bye_bye_birdies_1.html

[Brad Swanson]

The club symbol for Castle Pines Golf Club is three hummingbirds (I think), which is very fitting.  The hummingbirds there are thick and can be found all over the course feeding on the flowers during the early morning and late evening.  They're quite territorial and combative, which makes for some entertaining birdwatching.

Cheers,
Brad

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