Best Christmas Gifts: Paddleless Christmas Bird Count

I had to go back to Houston for a few social events, a haircut, and a visit to my surgeon.  Christmas bird counts were still going on and I ALMOST got around to looking the dates up, when I got an email from my friend and leader of several parts of several counts, Bruce. He invited me to the San Jacinto Wilderness Christmas Count, and said my friend, Bob had volunteered to paddle me.  I called Bob, and he said yes, that was all true, and he had already sent me an email. Further, he would need to borrow Natalie's canoe.  Natalie was still visiting her mother for Christmas, so I got permission to borrow the canoe and Bob picked it up. Then Bob and I met at a New's Party and I followed him home and slept on his couch so we could be leave at 5:30A.M.

We got to Lake Houston Wilderness Park a little before dawn and, by the time it was getting light, there several people committed enough to spend New Year's Day out on the streams, counting birds. I hauled our lifejackets and paddles the long way down to the put-in.  After that I mostly just took pictures and helped find the very few birds we saw.  We ended up doing an up and back paddle, so we counted seven and a half  miles for the bird count but fifteen miles of total paddling. I was the most rested at the end of the trip because I only dipped my paddled into the water to help steer through a couple of tight corners - we explored several little side waterways.

My first view of Peach Creek

Bob arriving with our canoe

Traffic is getting heavier

Taking this pre paddling picture was the first hard job of the day as three of us set up 4 cameras
 and ran to our places.  My personal favorite picture my camera
took was of Bruce - on the front, from the rear. Then he got faster. 

Getting on the creek

Waiting for the rest

Bruce leading us out 

A little visiting went on

My hard working paddler

Our lunch stop

Harmon jumping a log from a little area most of us stayed out of

There I was doing the hard work while Bob merely moved us through the water

Birds were in such short supply that finding this snowy egret was exciting

And he had this little buddy, a killdeer

This tree, heavily draped in Spanish moss, caught my eye

A Goodbye Trip by Land and Water

March 23, 2016

My paddling buddy, John, and I were assigned the honorous duty of checking out the paddling trails at Alligator River. I STILL had not encountered any bears there, so I went early to do a personal bird survey and look for bears.

The moon was setting as I got to the refuge and sinking into the pine trees. Then, as the sun came up, it turned the western sky around the setting moon pink.

Several raptors were hunting in the early light.  I saw a couple of red tail hawks,  a Swainson's hawk and a harrier.

Red-tailed hawk

Several times, as I stopped along the driving tour, I  heard the "wheep" of an eastern towhee and finally the light was right to catch one.  I also heard and saw at least fifty yellow-rumped warblers who will also be leaving soon.

Eastern towhee

At several of the stops where I listened and looked for birds, I heard distant Onk-ah-loonk calls of bitterns setting up their territories. At one stop it was very near the car, so I eased a little further down the road to a stand of grass and stopped again.  The bird came toward me and filled up its esophagus, then called. Click here if you haven't experienced that wonderful call.

American bittern calling

I think this is a nutria

I admired how crooked this tree had grown, probably
while in the shadow of a larger tree

This was the closest I got to a bear but I found several piles of fresh scat

Swamp maples added color 

A close view of the maple seed pods

As the sun rose higher, turkey vultures spread their wings to warm up, then started soaring.

Turkey vultures

Several species of butterflies, including a couple of species of swallowtails, were feeding on the blooming Carolina Jasmine and willow blooms.

Black Swallowtail

Carolina jasmine

New leaves

Then it was time to get my canoe in the water. John was late so I put my canoe in I started paddling.  Finally he called me to tell the intern that he needed her to come unlock the canoes as he had the wrong key.  He finally showed up with a visiting woman who had her family with her.  She was part of a program to share how best to do cooperative work with landowners. John paddled with the son while the parents paddled their own canoe. They were not paddlers and the wind was picking up, so we could not do anything put a short paddle in protected waters. (Most of the trails are on wide creeks where the wind can be a big problem. )


I put up wood ducks while waiting for the rest of the group to show up and enjoyed the new growth.

My favorite kind of paddling

Pickerel weed was just starting to sprout

Volunteer John and a visitor

A visiting staffer and her husband as we came back

Even without bears, and with a way too short paddle, this was a beautiful morning.

As this posts comes out,  I'll be on my last day in the Pittsburgh and will be reporting for duty the following Friday.   Can't wait to see my summer home.


I'm linking up with Wild Bird Wednesday.  Click on the picture to see many more blogs on birds from around the world.

A Magical Monday

Our spring is continuing with a parade of days with cloudy skies and lots of rain. The big rain storms of Saturday and  Sunday caused migrant fallouts, some in time to be enjoyed by Featherfest tours.  We went outside early Monday morning to find several migrants in the yard: indigo buntings, baltimore orioles, American redstarts, white-eyed vireo, summer tanagers, and even several of our here-to-for missing ruby-throated hummingbirds. A common yellowthroat fell to the ground almost at Natalie's feet.

A Baltimore oriole recharges after a hard night's flight

We had planned a paddle for the afternoon and had been watching the forecasts anxiously, hoping the little window of opportunity - chance of rain under twenty-five percent - would hold up.  By mid-morning the clouds were clearing and soon we were under a brilliant blue sky with a few fluffy clouds drifting about. The temperature was rapidly climbing and it looked like a perfect day to paddle on Sheldon Lake and check out the nesting water birds.  Natalie announced it as a Houston Canoe Club trip and several other people came to paddle with us, some of them my old friends and others new.

I planned to paddle Swamp Sprite, my solo canoe, just out of hospital itself, but, when I got back from doing a little birding with Winnie, before she left, Natalie had already loaded a kayak for me. I was glad she did, because it was somewhat windy and the little blue kayak (Eddyline Merlin) paddles like a dream, no matter what quarter the wind is coming from.

Natalie's car at the put-in 

A cypress tree decorated in neotropical cormorants - couldn't ID the background bird

White Ibis

Will shows off his beautiful paddling style in a canoe I sold him several years ago

I couldn't quite catch the anhingas' conversation but I think they were talking about the deterioration of the neighborhood when that other species moved in

This is not a breeding spoonbill so I don't know why it was in the rookery

Birds are just starting to nest. Some years, most of the trees behind the paddlers are speckled with nests and birds

Little blue herons were abundant and pairing up

Cattle egret 

What could be better?

A few white ibis

An immature white ibis hangs with a spoonbill

The day remained perfect and clear until we were on the way home after eating a delicious scallop dinner with some of the paddlers. Then the sky started clouding over as the rain chances once again began rising. By early Tuesday morning, we were, once again, experiencing thunderstorms and heavy rain.  What kind of magic was that?

Me, the very happy camper, trying to stay in place in a little wind

On the personal front, my friend I was so excited about seeing, had to cancel her trip.  But since we were planning to bird together and with friends, I'm going to do a slightly modified version of the trip. There are more adventures to come. I'll be driving to Corpus Christi as this blog comes out and will be birding in the Valley in a few more days. Stay tuned.

Cattle egrets were starting to do a little hanky panky. This one is dressed in his party clothes.

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