500 Gold at the end of the Rainbow

I got word late Saturday afternoon that Shepdawg had found a Golden-crowned Sparrow at Lake Palo Duro. Lake Palo Duro! I was just there three days ago! Lake Palo Duro 676 miles from my house and ten and half hours drive.

The next morning I got a positive report at 8 am of the bird, actually two birds. Last night I thought Tuesday would be my first chance to chase it. Now I started to formulate a faster plan. If I gave up going to a beer dinner (serious business a beer dinner) and left around midday and spent the night in Pampa I could get a reasonable night sleep and get to the sight close to sunrise on Monday morning.

I got out of town about 12:45 pm a little later than I wanted but still ok. Other than getting rerouted to a surface street in Fort Worth because I missed an exit because of the sun glare I made the 600 mile drive without incident and made the hotel in Pampa a little after 10 pm.

With a sunrise of 7:45 am I was able to get breakfast at the hotel and get on the road for sunrise. Just me and school buses on the road as the sun peaked over the horizon. I have to admit, the panhandle does grow on you after a time.

I pulled into the park by the lake right after sunrise at 7:45 am. The hill where the sparrows were being seen was still in shadow. I had set my GPS to the exact spot Shepdawg had found it. I drove up and saw it was a small line of trees with a log pile behind it. A few small trees lead back into a small ravine.

I had been listening to the call notes in prep for this for a couple of hundred miles. To my ears the call of a Golden-crowned Sparrow sounds much like a Savannah Sparrow and the White-crowned is more of a "plink" and the Golden-crowned a "seeeep". When I got out of the car I will swear I heard that call. The only birds I located was a small group of Dark-eyed Juncos.

Golden-crowned Sparrow
Lake Palo Duro

I watched the sun sweep across the hill in the space of a few seconds. Sparrows started popping up now. A group moved down to the lake shore and I followed. White-crowned Sparrows, Song Sparrow. A fair number of American Tree Sparrows. Boy this is the place for for American Tree Sparrow this year.

I worked flocks up the hill and back down. The tumbleweeds slowing my roll, sometimes chest high. I worried that I would have to consider a heard only bird.

After about 35 minutes a bird perched up and I could see it was a chunky bird with no white supercillium. I got glass on it and it turned toward me and I could see the golden crown! Golden Crowned Sparrow was Year Bird 500! Now that's a milestone. I hit 400 species for the year on April 26. It took 229 days for the next 100 birds.

I followed the bird around for a few minutes getting pictures. At one point I thought I had three birds in view at one. Now looking at my pictures I'm not so sure. I'm reasonably certain I was photographing this bird and could hear that "seeep" call note off to my right. All my certain pictures are off the initial bird though so I don't know how many were actually present.

Northern Shrike
Lipcomb County

This chase was 1,410 miles for me. Here's the funny part, Another Golden-crowned Sparrow was found at Warbler Woods near San Antonio, just about 200 miles away. It would have been easier, but I have to admit, 33 hours to the panhandle and back makes a much better story and it's hard to get tired of American Tree Sparrows, Northern Shrikes, and Rough-legged Hawks.

I planned to stop by Lake Marvin and prospect for Trumpeter Swan, but Joe Fischer was there that day ahead of me and had no swans so I headed south via US83 and birded a little in the four counties I still had not been in for the Panhandle, picking up a Northern Shrike outside of Canadian.

Aud the Dinosaur 

You do see some interesting things driving across Texas, like Aud, the Canadian Dinosaur. If it was at least a theropod I might find a way to count it as 501, but alas Aud is a Sauropod and likely cold blooded and unfeathered unlike theropods.

I'm still pushing my count, there are a little more than two weeks left in the year and Christmas counts start this week. I could certainly pick up a few more rarities and I still have three realistic non-review species, Parasitic Jaeger, Black-legged Kittiwake, and Little Gull. A big year is not over until January 1!