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.

Birding with Laurel: Brazos Bend State Park

January 7, 2020

We spent our last four birding days at Natalie's house.  Natalie was able to go birding with us  one day and picked Brazos Bend State Park.  That park still has enough birds to be fun.

Blue winged teal were the ducks de jour

You know birding is tough when coots start looking good

I think this was the only little blue heron we saw on our tour

Common birds looking pretty - Great egret and white ibis

Vermillion flycatcher - one of the few birds holding their own or even expanding their territory 

White ibis

Tricolored heron

We saw ring necked ducks only twice on our tour - but there were several in forty acre lake

A serendipitous find - I practically  fell over an American pipet when I stopped to find a restroom 

We have to take an alligator picture or two here

I saw my first ever black bellied whistling ducks here my first Christmas count in Texas - I think 1990 -
since then,  their population has exploded

This ibis was under the roots of a tree making it possible to get a good picture in bright sunlight

I don't know where the cormorants are - hopefully still up north - but we only saw a few on our tour

When there are few birds, turtles will do

A little orange crowned warbler that made me work hard for this picture

I got separated from my buddies, but they had no problem entertaining themselves

I joined them on the bench and we sat there, recuperating and enjoying the black bellied ducks, when a couple biked past us exchanging hellos. I was in the process of chasing down the orange crowned warbler when I realized they had screeched to a halt and were coming back.  I heard "Marilyn".  I said yes and the woman said, "it's Chuck and Jill. Do you remember us?" I replied, "Chocolate Peanut Butter Unbaked Cookies. " (We had camped together a few decades earlier, and Jill had taught us to make them. ) We enjoyed a visit with them - they were camping at the park-  then they asked me to take a picture with them. We also asked them to take a picture of the three of us.

Jill, Chuck and Yours Truly

The three stooges

We had a wonderful time birding and visiting.  We didn't find either woodcock or snipe, although both had been found on the Christmas count. 

Our adventure will end tomorrow - at Anahuac National Wildlife Refuge.

Birding with Laurel: Galveston Island

January 5, 2020 - morning

Laurel and I left most of our upper coast birding for last, as I was going to be Natalie's house sitter while she went to be with her daughter for her grandson's birth. I figured we could easily bird as long as we got back in time to let the dogs out.  I was pretty sure we could get the early parts of our tour in before that happened. We started our last four tour days with a visit to Galveston and Bolivar Peninsula birding hotspots.

As usual for this tour, I promised many more birds than I could deliver. We stopped at Lafitte's Park on the way to Galveston Park and found only a handful of birds. Often the ponds outside the boardwalk part of the park can keep me entranced for a half hour.  This day they only had a pair of ring billed ducks.

A ring-billed male  duck 

And his female

On  the other side of the pond, around the block, we did find a healthy number of sleeping black crowned night herons. I took a picture of one right by the road.

Black crowned night heron

There were NO birds visible at the start of the boardwalk. We have seen up to five species together there.  We walked on to the large pond and only found a great blue, a pair of buffleheads, and a trio of white ibis.

Great blue heron and bufflehead pair

The back pond only held another bufflehead pair and we found no birds along the walks. This place is best in migration, but we usually find hawks, doves, and small wintering birds here. 

In only a few minutes, we proceeded on to Galveston State Park where I got to visit with my friend who was on duty there. We couldn't access the beach - it is closed for two years as the park gets rebuilt with a permanent visitor center.  But we looked high and low elsewhere until we were too depressed to continue. 

I practiced chasing flying birds on this Forester's tern

Just before we left, I spotted a bird in a bush and walked out far enough to find it was a white tailed kite, one of my favorite wintering Texas birds.  It was kind enough to come closer and stoop, giving me several pictures.

White tailed kite

Stooping

Another picture in the stooping series

That's all folks.  We saw a couple of grebes and a few white ibis through grass but nothing else that was close.  We did see a few little birds but didn't chase them.  And this in a place where a morning walk usually brings in twenty or more species. 

However, I checked back on my blogs on Galveston Island State Park and found I was already complaining of missing expected birds. Check that visit from 2015 here. 

Our day continued with a ferry ride to Bolivar Island and finally to the Bolivar Jetty where we had enough birds to entertain us for a few hours. Stay tuned. 

One of my favorite spring visits to this park gave us forty-seven species and includes one of my favorite bird group picture. Click here for that blog. 

Remembering the Birds Part I

I try to spend a lot of my time looking at birds for fun or work.  Right now I'm in the midst of Christmas counts and had one yesterday and will have three more next week. This is free time birding.

But at this time of year, I always like to reflect back on what I've done.  A lot of my time was spent birding with friends, especially while I was recovering from three surgeries and thus not working.  January saw me going off on several short to long birding trips, as well as birding while traveling.

I was very surprised to find a juvenile wintering purple gallinule at Anahuac NWR. I took a picture of it in January, and again in April, just before the rest of his species was supposed to arrive to breed there. And on a trip there with several friends, we found a completely albino pie-billed grebe, complete with pink eyes.

Purple gallinule in January

Albino pie-billed grebe

Several of us went to Rockport to take the Skimmer out to look for whooping cranes and other wintering birds on the Central Texas Coast.  I HAVE to do this trip every few years and can't recommend it highly enough. Some years, I take it in late March or early April, so I can get the whooping cranes and the first of spring migration. Whether in the winter, or early spring, we usually see more than 60 species in about 4 hours. Sometimes we even see small groups of passerines flying just above the waves as they come in on their last energy stores.

A pair of whooping cranes

It's not often we get to see American white pelicans and brown pelicans together
 so I really like this picture

Another great memory was of a trip I took by myself to Bolivar Flats, getting there for the golden hour before sunset. Watching the birds and their reflections felt like a dream. And I watched hundreds of skimmers come in to roost. These are some of my favorite pictures from that trip.

Willet and greater yellowlegs. 

A lot of marbled godwits were feeding in that beautiful light

I ended up doing a couple of birding trips to the valley and some of my favorite places, including South Llano River State Park. The birds there are always fabulous but this year, I got to see a black capped vireo for the first time, WHILE in the presence of Greg Miller, who was one of the birders portrayed in the movie, The Big Year.  (But couldn't capture it's picture.) Greg was a featured speaker at a local bird festival and was preparing to lead a tour of the park. And I got my first ever - for the park - picture of a road runner.  Otherwise the park was full of all kinds of sparrows, orange-crowned warblers,  painted buntings, hummingbirds, flycatchers, chats, verdins, and lots of other wonderful birds, including those signature birds, bell vireos that come in to nest there and sing all day.

The roadrunner near the camping area at South Llano River State Park

Bell's vireo taking a breath between songs

I did a two week trip across several sections of Texas.  The only sad part about it was that I planned it for a special friend and then she had a family emergency and couldn't come. But several other friends were on different parts of it, so, I at least got to have fun.  I got several special birds there, including some new life birds.

First year altimira oriole

Green jays - I get them regularly but only in the valley or just outside it

My first ever rusty blackbird

The olive sided sparrow - a valley special

A bird I love - and often see in other parts of Texas  - the fulvous whistling duck

A first for me - a white -tipped dove - now expected to invade the US, following the path
of the white- winged dove - which I saw in Montana this year.  And now the
white-winged dove is being reported in North Carolina

Common pauraque  at Estero Llano Grande - although we know where it is,
within a few feet, we still have to hunt for it

Some other birds that were firsts for me or almost firsts included several birds we saw on the all day King Ranch bird tour. This was a wonderful experience and a tour I highly recommend. I got several friends to go and fill up the van and we all had a fabulous time. Then we had a slumber party at the friend's house who lives nearby.

I've only seen dicksessels a few times - this is first photo

Grooved-bill anni

Ferruginous pygmy owl - another lifer

For more great blogs on wild birds, click on the picture.

I wish all of you the happiest of Holidays and the hope for lots of chances next year to get outside and marvel at our natural world, and maybe also to do something to help save our plants and animals. And I hope I can wish all of you Merry Christmas Bird Counts. There is probably a few count circles near you.  If you haven't registered for one or more already, there may still be some near you.  Click here to check.   Remember  this is one of the best ways to gather data on how well each species of bird is doing. And you only need to be able to tell a bird from another animal to be useful.