Two in the Bush

Today I was heading south to the Laredo Birding Festival. To break up the five hour plus drive I made a few stops.

Stop one was the Lake Texana- Navidad River Boat Ramp on US 59. I had a Fox Sparrow here back the first of November 2014 so I was hoping maybe it had stuck around. A few minutes after I got there I could hear it doing the classic "smack" call from the bushes. I pished as much as I could but it would not show itself for a picture. Still Fox Sparrow became year bird 262.

A very boldly marked Savannah Sparrow

Another good find here was a pair of Couch's Kingbirds. They were acting very paired up, It was pretty birdy there today. I had 30 species in just 25 minutes. This location never disappointments me. eBird.org lists 166 species for this location. I rarely spend more than 30 minutes there but often get something good.

Great Horned Owl

The next stop was the Calliham unit of Choke Canyon State Park. This is usually a good location for Wild Turkey. I started out on the Emperor Road. It was good, but nothing new for the year. On my way back I heard some Great Horned Owls dueting. I think there were at least three, and perhaps four calling. Eventually I found one perched where I could get a photo.

I circled the park but no turkeys to be found. I had to get to Laredo so I headed out, hoping to catch some Turkeys along the road. I spotted something down a pipeline and did a U-turn to check it out. Fiddlesticks, just a couple of javelinas. But then two small birds flew up from the roadside and Common Ground-Dove became year bird 263.

The rest of the drive uneventful, Lots of Harris Hawks and Crested Caracaras. Looking forward to tomorrow an the festival.

Red-tailed Hawk

Starting off February Right

Sunday's February 1, 2015 weather forecast was for the rain to start about 10 am. I figured the day would be mostly a rain out but decided this was my best chance to get the Greater Pewee that continues at Bear Creek Park in the area around Restroom 9.

The weather couldn't have been nicer and the place was very birdy. Bluebirds and Chickadees were singing everywhere. The last time I saw this bird was in November and it was in the trees to the west of the restroom along Kunz Rd. I checked this area and had plenty of activity but no Greater Pewee. I then stared to circled the area slowly and carefully. Circle number one, no luck.

My 1.94 mile route to find the Greater Pewee
in Bear Creek Park

I started circle number 2. On this pass I did pick up Red-headed Woodpecker for year bird 259. At least I wasn't going to go home empty handed. I finished circle number 2 with no pewee yet. I had been here over an hour too. 

Patient is a virtue and I know the bird is here So I decided to concentrate on the area I saw the bird in before. At this point I toyed with he idea of just getting out the speaker and playing calls for it. Tempting because there is no prohibition on it here. I was alone, virtually no one else within a quarter mile of me in the park.

I'm personally not against playing calls to attract birds. Its not that its bad, its about how much is bad. So here is my personal checklist on when is ok to use playback. 1) is there a  prohibition on it here? 2) is there a chance that others would use playback here. To me #2 is the the important one. If the site is publicly accessible and popular you can never be sure how many people have been there before and after you. Just because I'm alone now doesn't mean ten other parties won't follow me today, and everyone could be playing calls.

So no playback would be right here. I'm not kidding myself, someone is surely coming to this park and using playback, someone will be the straw that breaks the camel's back, but it won't be me. So back to waiting. 

I got up to check out a drumming woodpecker close by. It was so loud I was guessing a Pileated, but it turned out to be a Downy that had found a VERY good hollow branch to drum on. Something right at the edge of my field of view caught eye. Hooray! it was the Greater Pewee! It gave me a couple of seconds of good looks the flew up to a spot I couldn't see and gave a few "pip-pip" calls that are diagnostic. Greater Pewee became year bird 260.

So expecting the weather to turn on me I headed home. Unfortunately the weather did not turn and it was great weather all day and I should have headed to Attwater Prairie Chicken NWR and chased Sprague's Pipit and Grasshopper Sparrow. Hopefully I'll find a way to get out there before the end of February.

Wrapping Up January

One day left in January and couldn't see a way to reach 300 that day. I decided to wrap up some low hanging fruit and run the Bolivar Peninsula and pick up some "beach birds" I would also have a chance at Northern Gannet and Surf Scoter there too.

Sunrise had me on the Bolivar Ferry from Galveston. Lots of dolphins including a pair very close to the ferry with a small calf between then. Scan as I might I found nothing interesting on the ride across to the Bolivar Peninsula.

My first stop was Frenchtown Road, a traditional spot for Nelson's Sparrow. Things were pretty dead and while I saw some distant sparrows flitting about, none were identified as a Nelson's Sparrow. Strike 1 and off to the Bolivar Flats.

The Bolivar Flats are one of those places that possesses magic. By the time I worked my way out to the end of the point there I was all alone. I realized I was hearing some strange almost musical noise. I finally figured out what I was hearing. The ground had a lot of bottles washed up and the wind was blowing over them creating many different tones. There were all kinds of harmonies and as the wind varied so did the "tune". It was like some avant garde music recital.

One of the first birds I found at the flats was Long-billed Curlew. Not a bird I was worried about, but Long-billed Curlew became year bird 254. After setting out on foot I found a small group of 9 Red Knots for year bird 255.

I spent a lot of time looking for small ringed plovers. I found more than a dozen piping plovers but no Snowy Plover. Strike 2.

American Avocets put on the real show at the Bolivar Flats. I put the number at 4500 but it would take a lot work to figure out an accurate number for them. There are just so many and they move around in dense groups.

Suddenly the magic happened. First large numbers of Forster's Terns moved towards me and then other species join the feeding frenzy. Large numbers of Avocets moved in close. There were gulls, terns, a good size group of White Ibis, a Reddish Egret. Suddenly more than a dozen Bonoparte's Gulls where feeding just in front of me. I felt invisible and totally in the middle of it at the same time as I stood there on the hard packed sand.

I made my way down the peninsula and checked out Bob's Road. Bob Road is usually good, but today it was dead too. My next stop was Yatch Basin Road in Gilchrist. 

The tides were in my favor and I located a few more target birds quickly. Short-billed Dowitchers became year bird 256. A bit of scanning with the scope and I found American Oystercatcher for year bird 257. I pished and scanned but no luck again on Nelson's Sparrow.

Like the wizard of the same name, a Merlin appeared out of nowhere for year bird 258. This Merlin ignored me and let me take a couple of good shots. 

So January ends with 258 species on the books. Its lower than I hoped but I don't think I missed too much. Only Varied Thrush and Common Crane seem out of reach now. I managed 17 days in the field out of 31 and traveled 4100 miles. I took over the #1 spot on eBird for Texas for the year. It's going to take work to stay there. I'm only going to be able to manage 7 days in the field for February, I've got to make them count.

The First Chase

While I was out gulling on Saturday I got word that a Gray-crowned Yellowthroat has been located in the Rio Grande Valley. Ideally I would have dropped everything and headed south. Life is not ideal though. I had an obligation Saturday evening so I wasn't able to get home and get ready to leave until about 8 pm.

My original plan was to head for the Brooks County Safety Rest Area south of Falfurias and get the Painted Redstart that's been there, then head for a cache of Live Oak County hummers at a private residence, then on to Port Aransas to try for Little Gull, then swing by Rockport for a try at Whooping Crane.

Well you have to chase a review species when its there, so I decided to leave an hour earlier and head for Estero Llano Grande State Park for the yellowthroat. I planned to get up at 2:30 am and be on the road by 3 am. That would put me in to the park about 8 am.

Well the best laid plans. I get my gear together, laid out cloths, set the coffeepot to brew at 2:30 am. Jumped into bed. At 3:20 am I work up and saw I had over slept. Damn, forgot to set an alarm. I jumped up and got out as quick as I could but didn't hit the road until 3:40 am.

The drive was uneventful and it was light enough to see some birds as I passed through Kenedy County on US77. Red-tailed Hawks were on poles rubbing the sleep from their eyes and Crested Caracaras were everywhere. As I hoped I spotted a White-tailed Hawk for Year Bird 232 on a post.

Cinnamon Teal, Estero Llano Grande State Park

I made it to the park about 9 am. No word yet on the Gray-crowned Yellowthoat. At least oversleeping didn't hurt my chances for the bird. As I walked out to the site I got a nice shot of a Cinnamon Teal up close.

When I got to the site the crowds were restless and starting to scatter. I found my fried Dave Dolan who I planned to bird back to Houston with. I realized it was getting warm and sunny so I head back to the car for sunscreen since all was quit. I picked up several year birds like Tropical Kingbird, Couch's Kingbird, Plain Chachalaca, and Buff-bellied Hummingbird.

I didn't miss anything while I was away. A Northern Beardless-Tyrranulet was calling for Year Bird 242. Suddenly there was shift in the crowd, someone has the bird in view! The mob quickly coalesced in to a line that was working to get everyone on it. I got a quick look I was willing to count but unsatisfying. The bird dropped out of sight and I kept looking. then it was back up and I could see it well. We got several more on it. then it flew and the crowd shifted location and relocated it. Suddenly it flew in pretty close and oh and ah's all around as it showed its bright yellow chest and throat to all. Gray-crowned Yellowthoat was Year Bird 243 and review species number 3.

Yellow-crowned Night-Heron,
Estero Llano Grande SP, Texas

It was only a little after 10 am now and Dave and I went after a few more year birds for me, like Yellow-crowned Night-Heron for Year Bird 244, Least Grebe for Year Bird 245, and Green Kingfisher for Year Bird 246.

We grabbed a bite to eat and gassed up and head for the Brooks County Safety Rest Area about an hour away. The Painted Redstart has been very easy to find. We jumped out and started looking. First bird I found was a Blue-headed Vireo for Year Bird 247, then Dave located a Yellow-throated Warbler for Year Bird 248.

Painted Redstart, Brooks County Safety Rest Area

Lots of Eastern Bluebirds were calling and giving us good looks. I wasn't too worried yet, but I was starting to have thoughts like "Damn, I'd hate to miss a gimmie bird like this". Thankfully it started to call and we quickly located the Painted Redstart for Year Bird 249.

On to the cache of hummingbirds. That worked out well and I picked up Rufous, Black-chinned, and Ruby-throated Hummerbirds right away. Finally the main target, Costa's Hummingbird for Year Bird 253 was identified.

No time left to try and chase Little Gull and Whooping Crane, but at least the Cranes are not going to be easy to miss and I have other chances. If they stick around for next week they are also 2 hours closer that the Rio Grande Valley.

Breaking 250 Year Birds was a psychological boost. I know its terms of effort it is maybe 25% there, but seeing the halfway mark really feels good. Next weekend I'm going to see how close to 300 I can get myself, that is unless there is something I have to chase!

Golden-fronted Woodpecker, Estero Llano Grande State Park

Tropical Kingbird, Estero Llano Grande State Park

White-tipped Dove, Estero Llano Grande State Park

Buff-bellied Hummingbird, Estero Llano Grande State Park

Least Grebe, Estero Llano Grande State Park

Great Kiskadee with frog, Estero Llano Grande State Park

Eastern Bluebird, Brooks County Safety Rest Area

Gulls, Gulls, Gulls...

When I wrote the title of this post for some reason the 1962 Elvis Presley movie "Girls, Girls, Girls" flashed into my head. Oh well Saturday morning I decided to test my gull sex appeal and see what I could "pick up" at Thompson's Bait Camp and Ash Lake in far east Harris County.

Thayer's Gull, Thompson's Bait Camp, Harris County, Texas.

When I pulled up to Thompson's I could hear some hushed excited voices from the dock on the other side of the building. A small group had a Thayer's Gull just sitting a few feet out on the dock. Was nice to get to study a gull like this for a while and really soak up it "Thayer-ness". Thayer's Gull was Year Bird 229.

I had not been watching and did not know that the area Iceland Gull was seen at this site the day before. I stuck around for a while chatting and scanning, only yielding some Lesser Black-backed Gulls. After about an hour of that I exchanged phone numbers with all and extracted promises that they would call if the Iceland showed up and headed over to Ash Lake where I hoped there would be a good number of gulls.

Ash Lake is best viewed from the end of FM 2354 (Tri City Beach Road). If you go, park well back from the end of the road, preferably back from the driveways because someone is spreading nails and screws on the road. I wasn't disappointed; there were thousands of gulls on the water but many were quite distant. The landfill across the channel was active and gulls circulated from the dump to the lake so there was a lot of turn over. I stayed a couple of hours hoping for Glaucous, Iceland, or Great Black-backed Gulls. At noon I had just the usual suspects including a few more Lesser Black-backed Gulls. I decided to head out and go look for sparrows at Anahuac National Wildlife Refuge.

No sooner than when I crested the Trinity River bridge on I10 than I got a call that a Glaucous Gull has just made an appearance. I exited and turned back and made it as fast as I could. It took about 25 minutes to back track. Unfortunately as I was pulling up I was greeted by flapping arms, a signal that the Glaucous Gull had flown just 2 minutes before I got there. Such is the luck of the game. I hung out for another hour but no gull joy.

I made my way to Anahuac National Wildlife Refuge and checked the sighting board. Slim pickings. I started at Jackson Prairie Woodlot and immediately flushed a covey of about 10 Northern Bobwhite for Year Bird 230. They must have been wearing floaties because the whole area was ankle deep from the rains the past week. I worked some areas that had been good for Le Conte's Sparrow on the Christmas Bird Count with not luck. Everything was super wet, Anahuac NWR is going to be lush this spring.

I still need one freshwater duck, Fulvous Whistling-Duck so I checked the Deep Marsh Unit and while it was packed with waterfowl, no luck on Fulvous. A Gull-billed Tern did a flyby for Year Bird 231.

Peregrine Falcon, Anahuac NWR

On the entrance road on the way out. I spotted a bird perched that wasn't a Red-tailed Hawk. Close examination showed it was actually a young Peregrine Falcon for Year Bird 232.

Not a lot to show for the day, but that's to be expected. I need to plan a mop up operation to get the last of the Upper Texas Coast easy ones out of the way so I can make better use of the eBird alerts. I might have 20 species I could find in a day to go yet A few local sparrows are starting to haunt me. As I figured, gulls are going to be a grind. I fear until migration starts up its going to be gulls, gulls, gulls!

The Mad Dash Home

Started Monday, January 19, 2015 in Brownfield, TX. We left the hotel about 6:20 headed for Paul's Lake at Muleshoe National Wildlife Refuge. Our timing was perfect and we were able to scan the flock of Sandhill Cranes in Paul's Lake for the Common Crane. An hour of scanning and we felt like we had looked at all the cranes, maybe 5,000 for the Common Crane with no luck. We also able to scan many more thousands as they flew over heading to other areas.

Thousands of Sandhill Cranes land in a field
near Muleshoe NWR

If you have never been to Muleshoe National Wildlife Refuge in the winter you are missing one of the great avian spectacles in Texas. I have seen numbers that perhaps 75,000 of this amazing bird winter here, about 15% of the world population.

We had about an hour left before we needed to head south towards Austin. We drove the roads looking for groups of cranes and while we found many Sandhill Cranes, no Common Crane. I did add Chestnut-collared Longspur for year bird 223 and Lapland Longspur for year bird 224.

White-cheeked geese on Brashear's Lake, Levelland, TX

Since our route took us back through Levelland we decided to check out a large concentration of waterfowl we saw in the dark on the way through. It was almost all white-cheeked geese and we easily found Canada Goose for year bird 225 and Cackling Goose for year bird 226 and about a bazillion geese I just didn't want to put a name too. This pond is shown as Brashears Lake as an eBird hotpot and is located at the east end of 13th Street.

Too soon we had to load up and go and make the 425 mile drive to the Lake Creek Trail in Austin where the Eurasian Wigeon was reported. I agonized the whole way looking for positive reports but alas there were none.

Raptors were scarce of the drive, I was counting on getting a Ferruginous Hawk today. Hawks were scarce, just a few red-tails until we got to Lubbock and then none for about 200 miles.

We made it to the site a few minutes after 5 pm. I jumped out and started scanning and almost immediately found a "Storm Wigeon". A rare variation of Wigeon with a white face. There are some good pictures HERE on this blog.

I asked John to take a look at it and while John was looking through the scope he says "there's the wigeon" I took a quick look and coming out of the edges was a gray bodied bird with a reddish head and a creamy white "bald pate". Almost immediately it disappeared though and although we looked until we lost light we never saw it again, but we did see new ducks all the time so there were a lot of hidden birds. We also saw "Stormy" a couple of more times but he would disappear too. I'm still weighing this one, did I see the Eurasian Wigeon? I've not ticked it yet.

Our trusty rental Nissan Versa looked like it had been rode hard and put up filthy. as an insurance policy we decided to run it through a car wash. Check out the before picture. We had been hearing chunks of mud dropping off since Lake Balmorhea. We actually heard the last chuck fall less than a hundred miles from home.

This road trip was about 2150 miles and I added 62 year birds. I think our trip list is going to be about 160 species.

One thing I learned is I'm going to need to train a bit before my next mountain trip. Bear Canyon was hard, although its a hard trail. I also think I need to get a carbon fiber tripod to lighten the load, like the Manfrotto MK294C3-D3RC2. I would love to hear recommendations for a tripod that will hold a Bushnell Elite Scope.

It was a good trip, but I did manage to leave some birds on the table. Ones I should be able to make up during the year are Ferruginous Hawk, Rough-legged Hawk, Sagebrush Sparrow, and McCown's Longspur. Those are pretty straightforward to make up and some can be found at least a day trip from Houston. Harder to make up are the review species I left behind, Varied Thrush, Common Crane, and Eurasian Wigeon.

Its not going to be easy to get up to 300 by the end of month and stay married. I need to stay close to home and will have to pick my targets. Priorities will be birds that are hard to get after mid March.

The Guadalupe Mountains

The Western Escarpment of Guadalupe National Park

Got a little bit of a late start this morning heading for Guadalupe Mountains National Park. The sunrise blinded me right at the Hudspeth County line as we headed due east. We really wanted to be about 30 more miles down the road.

Our first target bird of the day was Sagebrush Sparrow. We had a report from a good observer that he had found some along the road between FM1111 and the Culberson County line on US180. That is about a 25 mile stretch. We looked at several picnic areas and several other good looking spots along the road but never found anything but Brewer's, Savannah, and White-crowned Sparrows. We did spy a pair of Golden Eagle for year bird 218.

Blinded by the light on US180 Looking for Sagebrush Sparrow

On to Frijole Ranch at Guadalupe Mountains National Park. This was my first visit to this spot. It was swarming with bluebirds, a couple of Easterns, but loads of Western Bluebirds and lots of Mountain Bluebirds. Mountain Bluebird was year bird 218.

We decided last night to see if we could reach some higher elevations. We took the Frijoles Trail and along it in a small grove of trees we found Townsend's Solitaire for year bird 219. We continued up the mountains along the Bear Canyon Trail. Not very fair up the trail we heard and then saw a pair of Cassin's Finches for Year bird 220.

The view from our high point, 7100 feet on the Bear Canyon Trail

We made it up to about 7100 feet before we ran out of time but the canyon held nothing but a bunch of Canyon Wrens. To tell the truth it looked like we had just made it to the better habitat. Unfortunately we had to head down the mountain,

Along the trail down John's boot started to fall apart. Actually the sole pealed off. Yes the trail up Bear Canyon is a Sole Destroyer!

Just as we got back to the parking lot we spotted a Sage Thrasher for year bird 221.

We decided to just see how far we could make it up McKittrick Canyon before the gate closed. We hustled down the trail as fast as we could and ran into our friends John Berner and Ken Hartman who had started the day with us at Frijole Ranch. Right was we approached them Ken says "Do you need Mountain Chickadee?" and pointed to one flying over. Fortunately it landed and Mountain Chickadee became year bird 222.

Tomorrow, we chase the Common Crane!