Here Chickie chickie chickie

Attwater's Greater Prairie-Chicken

Greater Prairie-chicken is one of the weirder birds you can count in Texas. In 2014 the ABA checklist committee decided that Greater Prairie-Chickens at the Attwater's Prairie-Chicken National Wildlife Refuge are countable. So this is a gimme bird, sorta.

There are two ways to see this bird. One is to drive the newly expended tour loop at the refuge and hope to get lucky. The new loop is very good, but eBird shows you have about a 10% chance of seeing a prairie-chicken on the loop. I've made about 7 trips this year with no luck. My last trip through in October someone reported one about an hour after I was there.

The other way to see one is to sign up for the tour the refuge gives the first Saturday of the month. You have a much better chance of seeing a chicken on this tour. There were two tours left this year and I was able to get on the November tour. Its not a sure thing but your odds are much greater than 10%

I got in about midnight from my trip to the panhandle. The tour meets at 7:45 am so I got less than 6 hours of sleep after I got back from my panhandle trip. On way my car started making a loud dragging noise. I pulled over and investigated. On my way home from Canyon an 18-wheeler threw some tread in front of me and I hit it. I didn't think any harm had been done, but now I could see it had damaged a plastic guard under the front of my car. It seemed mostly intact but had come loose and was dragging. I pulled it off and threw it in the hatchback hoping I could reattach it later.

On the tour I ended up in the back of the van. A big year doesn't require a spectacular view, just an identifiable view so no problem.

The tour is really not a birding tour although the tour does try and find Prairie-Chickens. It is more about the effort to restore and preserve the native prairie there. What you get to see is pretty spectacular if you have an eye for prairie. The new expanded tour loop is good, but this is even better.

We had been going a while and a hawk was called a Red-tailed and flew close. I realized the was wrong the large white wing patches proved it was a Ferruginous Hawk, a new county bird for me.

We continued. Finally the we spied my target. Out the front windshield was a lone Greater Prairie-Chicken for Year Bird 492. I got some poor shots out from the back. At this point they are all good!

After the tour I headed home, ready for a long nap! Next week is the Rio Grande Valley Birding Festival and with some luck I can get a few more birds there