Hitting a Milestone

I had to be home by 2 pm on Sunday so I couldn't go back to High Island. Checking out Birdseye on my iPhone I could see a couple of birds I needed still had been seen at Quintana Neotropical Bird Sanctuary in the Brazosport area. That would work nicely and I headed out just before sunrise.

As I was getting close a small raptor soared out of the neighborhood by the road, Unmistakable with its pearly white head and long black forked tail, Swallow-tailed Kite was Year Bird 366!  366 is a major milestone as it is the total I had for last year (2014). Its not my best  year ever but it was one of my best so now I feel like I'm getting there.

Quintana Neotropical Bird Sanctuary from the tower

On to Quintana Neotropical Bird Sanctuary. It was not very active but I joined the zombie-esc march of people walking the loop there. On my second pass a small bird caught my eye by the drip. In a moment it popped into view, Philadelphia Vireo was Year Bird 367.

I tried to make this an Elegant Tern

I joined forces with a friend and drove the beach down to the Brazos River hoping for a Great Black-backed Gull that was reported earlier that week. Lots of good birds, but no luck on the gull. We did find this weird looking tern that I'm guessing is just a Royal, but that bill made me want to make it into an elegant Tern. The bill just looked very long and "droopy" to me.

Next weekend (April 25, 2015) should be a good one, I'm doing the Upper Texas Coast section of the Great Texas Birding Classic with my team. I've been "saving" a lot of birds for this day because I'm confident we'll get them. We're hoping for a 200 plus bird day. That single 24 hour day works out to about 3 days of my usual birding. I think I should be knocking on the door of 400 at the end of the day. Stay tuned,