End Game

The year was winding down and opportunity was slipping away. I had to make a final push and see what I could do.

With really only one totally free day left for me in the year I headed to Galveston. Of the none review birds left on my list two would be possible in Galveston. My plan was to hit East Beach then cross over to the Bolivar Peninsula and head around the bay checking all the gull spots for something unusual.

Brown Booby
Texas City Dike

I decided to start my day at the Texas City Dike since it can be a good gull spot and is best early. It was just after sunrise and almost right away I found a Brown Booby! It appeared to have an injured wing. I called the Texas City Animal Control and they said they would come pick it up. About 30 minutes later the Animal Control Officer arrived and she and I looked for it but it had disappeared. I hope that means the bird wasn't really injured.

I got to East Beach about 10 am. Lots of gulls there and a lot of large gulls. The lyrics of the popular birding song "I like big gulls and I can not lie" ran through my head. I scanned through them and found nothing unusual. I noticed lots of ships on the move in the channel and some had good size gull flocks behind them. On the Freeport CBC seawatch we have occasionally have had a jaeger come in with a ship in bound. A ship was making its way inbound many be once every 20 minutes. I see maybe 1 ship a year on the Freeport CBC so a couple of hours here could equal a decade of the seawatch in potential activity. I headed to the end of the seawall where I could have a good view of the channel.

I set up at the Fort San Jacinto Historic Point as the historic marker there call it. It turns out its a very good seawatch spot. The channel comes pretty close to the point and you get a pretty good view with the scope of the passing ship's gull flocks. I see a lot of dark first year Herring Gulls, more than I saw roosting on East Beach and Boddecker Rd telling me I was at least seeing different gulls. It wasn't too long before a Lesser Black-backed Gull made an appearance. Lots more Herring Gulls.

After a couple of hours I saw a small gull in a flock and the dark underwings jumped out at me. I could see the I could make out a small cap and an ear spot, and most importantly no white triangle on the wings. This had to be a Little Gull, Year Bird 503.

Parasitic Jaeger
Left of the Buoy

I figured my good luck for the day was used up, that's two really good birds in a day. Off in the distance I could see another ship inbound. I decided to stay until it passed. As the inbound ship passed another ship outbound two flocks merged. A very dark bird jumped out at me. It was ring-billed gull size and darker then any juvenile Herring Gull. It had a lighter belly and a more narrow tail than the gulls. I could only make this bird into one thing, Parasitic Jaeger and Year Bird 504. I tried a photo, but its just a dark dot way out there.

Two more days left in the year for me. Who knows what could turn up. It would take some fancy footwork on my part to get to some birds now. I have left only two non-review species left on the table. If I get something else this year, its going to be a great bird.