Tis the season...for Christmas Bird Counts

 I have been consumed with birds the last few weeks. First I started going birding to remember some species I haven't seen for several years. Then I signed up to do four Christmas counts. Two of them were back to back and one a few days earlier. 

The Galveston Count will be remembered as super foggy and bird sparse. I drove an hour and a half through thick fog to get there, only to stand around and wait for almost an hour, until we could see anything but the gulls and great tailed grackles.

Then, on the way to our first spot on East Jetty, both our leader and I got stuck in the sand, for another half hour delay.  Then we could see shadows of birds but they weren't their usual colorful selves. We birded in the fog until about 11:00 AM.  Then we REALLY noticed the lack of birds. We missed species that are found every count year. Many of the avian scientists and experts think we lost thousands of birds in the big freeze last year, and the extremely warm temperatures are causing birds to linger further north.

Even the gulls didn't want to fly in the fog

This was a few hours into the count and we could see mergansers 

Sanderlings in the fog

The same group of birds an hour later 

Then came Brazos Bend Christmas count on a day with a 90% chance of rain.  Fortunately the rain waited until almost noon.  After the first soaking, our group of seven suddenly turned into a group of three: best friend, Natalie, Leader Bruce, a favorite partner in crazy adventures,  and me. We ate lunch under a group shelter and kept hanging out until the rain settled down to just a light rain. Natalie left about 4:00P to feed her dogs. Bruce and I continued to look for birds until supper time. 

It appeared that only about a tenth of those who signed up for the supper showed up.  We were urged to eat all the BBQ we could hold, then take home bags of leftovers.  All the windows were open and the night rapidly got colder. Soon we were shivering in our wet clothes and couldn't wait for the species to be called so we could leave. The first count was 137 species, several species under the expected 150 or so. 

The next day was the Freeport Count of which Brazoria National Wildlife Refuge is a part. I was signed up to count birds on a part of the auto tour with one other lady.  I soon found out why the Freeport count is always one of the top ten in the nation. We were divided into pairs and given a very small area to cover. I lucked out in getting a young woman as my partner. She was a fabulous spotter and took pictures of every bird or group of birds we saw.  We started off on an exciting note - we got a low flyover of thousands of birds. Most were laughing gulls. Emily took picture after picture of them and reported back that there were two ring-billed gulls in her pictures. Other flyovers included ibis, duck species, sandhill cranes and snow geese, all seen in black and white against a grayail sky. We sat for at least 30 minutes feet away from our starting point, till the sky finally emptied of birds. We didn't find a lot of expected birds or large numbers, except for flyover birds, and sleeping black crowned night herons. The best birds of the day were a Virginia Rail that Emily saw and photographed in the two seconds it was in sight, and the bird I begged for and got in the last bit of time we had - a white-tailed kite. 

Greater White Fronted Geese 

Virginia Rail (Photo by Emily Neale)

Snow geese flyover the following day in beautiful light

I went to the supper at the Wurst House in Lake Jackson. I enjoyed the German Food and was excited to find Victor Emmanuel was there.  He started the count when he was sixteen years old and apparently has helped with it ever since. I have met many of the people who run his tours and he showed me my first bobolink when I encountered him at a birding site in Pennsylvania, giving a couple a private tour. He talked to me because I was wearing my Anahuac rail shirt. And my friends and I had a wonderful tour of King Ranch with his Nature Tours people.  

Happy Holidays and hoping you all have a great next year.

A Visit to Sheldon Lake State Park

Sunrise on Sheldon Lake

Last Wednesday,  a friend invited me to lunch. I couldn't stand to not spend some time outdoors.  She hadn't quite decided on the time and place, so I texted her that I just needed an address and a time to meet her before I set off on about a thirty minute drive to a very urban state park. It is located just minutes out of Houston proper and was originally built to provide water for the war effort.  It has become a very valuable wild place in a mostly concrete area. It also was once a fish hatchery and still has ponds that are going wild. It provides important environmental education to school children as well as to aspiring master naturalists and the general public. 

I have fond memories of taking my inner city Outdoor Club there for a day of birding, fishing, and a cookout lunch of hot dogs and S'mores. I had only been able to raise enough money for half the binoculars I needed and the kids had to pair up to look at birds. I had to slow the volunteer from the Environmental Center way down as the kids were entranced by every bird, even the most common. We brought our own worms and the Park staff provided fishing gear. The pond had just been stocked, and the kids caught fish the size of their smiles.

This day, I started at the fishing parking lot, on the north side of the lake, squeaking in just in time to catch the last minute of sunrise through cypress trees standing in shallow water. Then the glowing cypress trees caught my attention, and I spent several minutes trying to capture their awesomeness.

Cypress at sunrise

The sun on the trunks caught my eye

A few minutes later, I was trying to figure how to detour around closed roads to get to the south side of the reservoir where I wanted to walk the bank fishing trail. A few minutes after that, I was back on track and approaching the boat launch parking lot. The light was still beautiful on the trees in the lake. A pair of fishermen were the only other people around here, although there were at least a dozen vehicles at the north end.  I walked the fishing path, stopping to frame pictures at each opening. I got down to the fishing pier and stopped to enjoy the views and to look for wildlife. 

I noticed a swirling cloud of birds, looking like gulls.  But when I put my camera on them, I found they were a huge gulp of double crested cormorants. (I had to look up the name for a congregation of cormorants. Isn't it appropriate?) 

A small part of the gulp of cormorants

The gulp landing
 

Then  they swirled down to land on the west side of the lake and began swimming towards me, then around me.  Mesmerized, I just kept snapping pictures. I picked out ones with the most action to share. It seemed the back birds would leapfrog through the air to land back in the water in front of the pack, only to have the last line of birds repeat this action. Two more small gulps flew in and joined in the fun.

 

The birds came close to the pier

They were still leapfrogging,  as they passed the pier, then began flying away.  The splashes
are from their little runs to get in the air.

They became a column of birds circling back to their start and disappearing into the sky

Finally there was only one

I was happy to see something was eating the invasive apple snails -mabe the limpkin?

A great egret flew in as I passed this tree

Another few minutes of driving got me to the entrance to the main visitor area. Again I had to stop as flying V after flying V came over the horizon.  Again I found each was a gulp of cormorants, There were at least ten gulps of them.

I took a stroll through the prairie to look for the pothole I had helped plant after staff located it in the old rice field by doing soil samples, then evacuating foreign soil. But I couldn't find it, and think the entire prairie is being taken back to a wet prairie and perhaps has engulfed it. 

The rest of the time, I wandered the wooded trails between the ponds, finding few birds, but a few lovely pictures.  Enjoy.

Lincoln sparrow

What passes for fall color in Texas

atu

Nature's painting

A rare oak whose leaves have fall color

My favorite picture of a closeup of cypress needles

When all you need is one leaf to show all the colors of fall

My friend texted me to come meet her, so I started back, only to discover that tower was open. I raced up five flights of stairs to grab a picture in the now unforgiving light.  (I still have all those extra red blood cells I need to work in Colorado at 7500 feet.) Then I had a wonderful time and lunch with my friend and another mutual friend who stopped by to visit me in Colorado, changing from a virtual to a real friend.

The tower....

...Gives you a view of a good part of Sheldon Lake