December 22, 2019
Laurel and I started our birding marathon in Houston but found very few birds under dreary skies
Our first stop on our birding trip was to Goose Island State Park to camp and bird the area. I told Laurel we HAD to go out on Captain Tommy's Skimmer to see the whooper cranes and associated birds. This is a report of that trip. Otherwise, it was the same few birds that were no fun to hunt for in an almost empty landscape. And we only had thirty some species from the boat. I usually get around 50 species with about 64 expected species in the spring when migration is starting.
We didn't find enough birds to blog about at the state park. However we each took some 50 pictures of a brown pelican trying to choke down the remains of a fish after a fisherman filleted it.
We only saw about thirty species - can't find my notes - on the tour. I expected to find around 50 species. And in late March/early April, we can expect 60+ species as we add in early migrants, sometimes seen flying in the last mile over the Gulf. But I still enjoyed my whooping crane fix.
Laurel and I started our birding marathon in Houston but found very few birds under dreary skies
Our first stop on our birding trip was to Goose Island State Park to camp and bird the area. I told Laurel we HAD to go out on Captain Tommy's Skimmer to see the whooper cranes and associated birds. This is a report of that trip. Otherwise, it was the same few birds that were no fun to hunt for in an almost empty landscape. And we only had thirty some species from the boat. I usually get around 50 species with about 64 expected species in the spring when migration is starting.
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| Morning View |
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| Snowy (L) and tri-colored heron (r) |
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| Great blue heron |
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| Tri-colored heron hunting |
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| Avocet in prison (winter) attire |
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| Whooping crane |
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| Whooper pair |
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| A single bird - we saw no juviniles although some have been seen |
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| Mostly double crested cormorants with one neotropical - the little guy |
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| Pelicans, gulls, and cormorants |
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| Same birds flying |
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| Royal tern |
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| Oystercatchers |
We didn't find enough birds to blog about at the state park. However we each took some 50 pictures of a brown pelican trying to choke down the remains of a fish after a fisherman filleted it.
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| Brown pelican working on swallowing a large fish after fisherman removed fillets |
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| Laurel editing pictures back at camp |
We only saw about thirty species - can't find my notes - on the tour. I expected to find around 50 species. And in late March/early April, we can expect 60+ species as we add in early migrants, sometimes seen flying in the last mile over the Gulf. But I still enjoyed my whooping crane fix.
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