Birding with Laurel: New Year at Choke Canyon

December 30, 2019-January 2, 2020

Laurel and I moved to Choke Canyon State Park to look for birds still common to the Valley, but also eastern and western birds. I always set out food for the birds, picking it up at night to prevent feeding deer, javelinas, and feral pigs. The green jays immediately show up, followed by the other birds that eat oranges. I had black oil sunflower seeds and peanut butter/lard mix I put in cracks of tree bark.  Our days there were mostly cloudy and we were shut out of my favorite birding area, Seventy-Five Acre Lake and the area accessed from it because it was closed for hunting. So, once again we didn't have a huge birding experience.

This was the first time I ever found a brown creeper here - distant and in bad light

All the following pictures were taken from my camp chair, sitting under the shelter over our table.

One of the specialty birds is the black crested titmouse.  It is a very fast moving species but this guy was forced to wait his turn to get a seed and I got a poor picture of him.

Black crested titmouse

The first visitors to our food offerings were the green jays.  Eventually we were seeing up to eight of them at a time.

One of the reasons jays, as well as all corvids are successful is that
they are willing to try most foods

The main reason we put up oranges is to attract the Audubon's oriole. But they are attractive to many other species.

We mainly put up oranges for the Audubon's orioles but they attract many other species

A golden fronted woodpecker checking out the peanut butter mix

Golden fronted woodpeckers eat a lot of different foods as well - this one is enjoying sunflower seed

Gotta get WAY in there to find some juicy parts

Yum

A few bugs would be good about now

A yellow rumped warbler is trying to figure out what all the excitement is all about

A long-billed thrasher visited the area, mostly to check out the activity

As did a Lincoln's sparrow - the ONLY sparrow I saw in the park

A cabbage butterfly on one of the last flowers

One of the most fun block of times we had at the park was photographing and observing a family group of javelinas. It was the first time I've seen baby javelinas since I once almost intercepted a family of them with a few females, juveniles and a boar while hiking in Bentson Rio Grande State Park.

Javalina - relatives of our domestic pig

This mom had two babies - they are also losing their reddish color they had at birth

The day was gray and Laurel was cold, and didn't want to hike so we went out and checked some of the little sub roads and checked out the boat launches to the lake and river. We had several birds along one road as well as some interesting brahman cattle. We had been looking throughout the valley for road runners and saw several dart across the road and disappear before we could photograph them at Falcon Dam. (We took a route that took us by it on way to Choke Canyon.) We finally got this guy, sitting in a tree under the dreary skies.

Roadrunner

Curious cows

We also stopped to check what was behind a tall fence and found exotics.

Nilgai?

Since we were here for New Year's Day, we had to document our first bird sighting of the new year.  It turned out to be a green jay, with the Audubon's oriole a close second.  It had only taken a day to get the birds coming for our offerings.

First bird sighting of the new year

This bird was barely the second sighting for 2020

I actually found the most birds at Choke Canyon way back in 2011.  I captured many of them from my hammock in site 107.  For that story, click here.

Annual Visit to Choke Canyon State Park

My friend, Natalie was busy getting her house ready to sell- she just closed on it - and was ready to take a break.  Meanwhile, I was stuck in the government closing and not getting to do much work, so I was bored. My summer boss said she would love to have me come up for the Crane Festival and then Natalie started asking several of us if we wanted to camp out a few days in mid February at Choke Canyon State Park, the northernmost of the south Texas parks. It is at the junction of Mexican and American birds, and eastern and western birds, and is the westernmost place to find the American Alligator.  It has javelina also.


It has been a tradition for me to camp and paddle and birdwatch there the third weekend in February, which is the unofficial first day of Texas spring. I started going by myself, then offered it to friends, then even advertised it on line, which netted me several more close friends. When she asked me what dates I could come, I told her to make a date in early to mid February and I would set my leave time so I could get there.

This visit was not quite as wild as some of them have been.  I couldn't paddle and we had some big winds, so no one paddled. But we had a great time looking for wildflowers and birds and visiting.

We always set up oranges and sunflower seeds in our camp. Many species come to them.

Audubon's oriole

We visited Seventy Acre Lake a few times and always found some good birds.  But there are not as many as we have had in the past. The most exciting bird we have ever seen there was a jacana, visiting us from Mexico.

I think this is a juvenile Lincoln's sparrow

A mix of shovelers and blue-winged teal

One of our walks was on alongside the lake, and then on to the group camping area. Wildflowers were just starting to bloom.

Verbena

I think this is Mexican Primrose

Not sure what this is but had very interesting leaves

A pair of pelicans hanging out together

I think this is a white evening primrose 

Blooming yucca

A closeup of its flowers

Nature's own arrangement

I think this is sweet acacia

 I also love to go find the invasive Mother-of-thousands and see how it is spreading. It must cover about an acre now. On one of my early trips, I found it and thought it was a native plant. I pinched off a little cutting. A piece of that cutting fell into a crack in my steps to my upstairs condo. I came back from a long summer vacation to find it thriving in its crack.  THEN I found it was very invasive.

Mother-of-thousands around a yucca

The bloom is gorgeous 

I caught a caracara watching me take pictures of the Mother-of-thousands

Agarito  blooms - this is know as a nurse plant because deer
won't stick their noses into it to get a seedling of another species

I think this might be bristleleaf pricklyleaf

Part of a large patch of verbena

 A young female vermillion flycatcher

The great egrets were already in breeding plumbage

A lovely sunset

On a personal note.  I have arrived and am almost settled in to my little house in Colorado.  I judged a part of a regional science fair this past Thursday and Friday.  Monday will get hectic as we all ramp up get the physical stuff done to be ready to the Crane Festival next weekend. Part of our staff meeting will involve digging out the pullouts along the nature drive. I'm hoping it will rain enough over the weekend to take care of most of it.  But we have so much snow, we had to plow it up so the thousands of sandhill cranes could find the barley seeds we grow for them.

Weekend at Choke Canyon State Park

I had to drive about five hours for a checkup on my rehabilitation progress after my surgery, so decided I might as well drive another four hours and spend a long weekend with friends at Choke Canyon State Park. I invited my friend, Julie, from Florida to come join me and arranged to get her paddling equipment so she could go have fun.

I finally made it to Corpus, after having started off at 6:45AM  from Galveston, so I would have time to stop at a Texas Birding Hotspot or two and bird on the way down.  I was only five miles from my first planned stop, and an hour from Galveston, when I discovered I had lost my phone.  I was sure it had fallen out in Natalie's bathroom so drove back to get it.  So I missed birding at Quintana, which usually has a few wintering warblers. After a few more minor adventures, I made it to the Corpus Christi airport to pick up Julie.  I hadn't had time to go grocery shopping, so that was our first task.  Then we had barbeque before heading to the state park. I had gotten Winnie to pay the money I still owed so we could have a prime campsite. We found out site just after dark, then set up camp before going back to build a campfire and visit with Winnie and Wayne, the only other campers on site.

Galveston sunrise as I left

We spent Friday looking for cheap firewood, and after an offer to follow a guy home for free wood, came back with my Honda about a quarter full of firewood as well as with beets, shallots, and two huge cabbages. Julie planned to take hers cabbage back home on the plane. We spent the rest of the day hiking, and Julie also did a short paddle in Winnie's kayak.  I cooked supper in my crock pot to share with Winnie and Wayne. People started coming in that afternoon and early evening.

Then we got a scary call from my friend, Bob.  He was in the emergency room with his friend, Karen and they didn't know if they would even make it.  Since he was bring a kayak for Julie, this was devastating news.  We were very worried about Karen, who had recently spent eighteen days in the hospital with spleen and pancreas problems and were afraid she was starting a repeat. However, an hour later,  we got another text that they were on the way.

Julie loves to be in trees and this one was just too inviting

Saturday, Wayne and I followed the kayakers down to their put-in on the Frio River.  Wayne has just retired as a drone pilot for the Border Patrol and has several drones he flies for a hobby.  He wanted to take still pictures of the group leaving. And I wanted pictures as well .

Loading up the kayaks

Winnie ready to leave

Julie boarding 

Bob drawing over for the pre departure group picture

The group picture as seen from the  drone

Wayne's drone with camera

The last view the drone got of the paddlers

Then I mostly hung out in my hammock as the temperature climbed to ninety-three degrees. This was the hottest day I'd have to suffer through in two years. The paddlers all had a great time and Julie came back with pictures that she shared with me so I could be duly envious.

I hiked back to the group site to see if the Mother-of-thousands was still growing there.  Many years ago, I took a piece home and easily got it growing in a pot.  Then I found it was invasive so destroyed it.  However a tiny plantlet grew in a crack in my steps all summer without water. It's a very tough plant and makes lovely blooms in the late winter.

Mother-of-thousands bloom

This duckweed covered red ear slider was searching for diggable dirt - in very short supply there

Tree tobacco was also in bloom 

On Sunday, everybody wanted to go home and not do another paddle, so Winnie loaned Julie her kayak and I took her to the put-in in camp.  Then I went to the previous day's put-in to retrieve her.  In between, as well as before, I birded and hiked. Sunday evening Julie and I packed up everything but our tents.

The rising moon on Sunday night

We got up early on Monday to go visit the Padre Island National Seashore and set Julie off on another short paddle from Bird Island Basin.  She got back in time for us to drop off the kayak at Winnie's house and  to go eat Galveston Bay oysters before putting her back on a plane.

Julie paddling behind a sandbird of loafing birds

Picture by Julie of the some of the sand dunes she paddled by

Then I drove the four hours back to Galveston, and managed to see Natalie a few minutes before going to bed so I could get up early and head back to Louisiana.