Travels With Laurel: Birding in the Rockport Area

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.

Morning View 

Snowy (L) and tri-colored heron (r)

Great blue heron

Tri-colored heron hunting

Avocet in prison (winter) attire

Whooping crane

Whooper pair

A single bird - we saw no juviniles although some have been seen

Mostly double crested cormorants with one neotropical - the little guy

Pelicans, gulls, and cormorants

Same birds flying

Royal tern

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.

Brown pelican working on swallowing a large fish after fisherman removed fillets 

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.

Constructions of Cranes

January 29, 2018

A group of cranes is sometimes called a construction.  I decided to go to Wheeler National Wildlife Refuge,  in Alabama, which has lots of sandhill cranes, and sometimes whooping cranes.

Since it is some four  hours away, not counting stops, I decided I needed to leave at 3:15 A.M. to get there near sunup. I was a little late leaving but then gained an hour going to Alabama, which is in the Central Time Zone.  So I got there just after sunrise, before the road to the Visitor Center was open, but I was able to visit the boat launch park just across the road.

There I found cranes crowded onto sandbars with small groups periodically flying out. I spent at least thirty minutes there, engrossed in photographing them, both on the ground and in the air.

Sandhills waking up 

And flying in the golden light

A pair of cranes feeding

Then I went on to the Visitor Center. I has a very nice display, a little gift shop and friendly rangers. I got a map and great directions to places to see lots of ducks and geese. But first I went to the Observation Building, a two story edifice with glass walls on three sides. Soon after I got there, I found the ONE whooping crane that is currently on the refuge.

I was fun to shoot flying cranes through the windows of the Observation Building

Whooping crane drinking

You can see how much bigger the whooper is than the sandhill

I didn't get close enough to see many other birds, but this thrasher was in the bushes along the trail to the observation building. I caught him in the midst of his morning's grooming.

Almost got this pair flying in beautiful light

One of the few passerines I saw was this brown thrasher who was grooming

The ranger told me how to find a large flock of snow geese.

Snow geese resting at midday

Then something put them up

After taking a break for a late lunch, about three o'clock, I came back to the visitor center area so see if there was anything exciting happening. Clouds were forming in the sky and making a nice background for the still flying cranes.

Cranes in late afternoon

I came home feeling that I had definitely seen several constructions of cranes.

Whooping Crane Adventure

I seldom go to Rockport, without signing up for a tour on the waterways around Aransas National Wildlife Refuge on the Skimmer.

Five of us got up at 5:30 and ate a quick breakfast sans coffee and got to the Simmer's site before 7:00 A.M., our check-in time.  We were almost the first in line and soon were wandering around, looking for coffee.  We crossed to an inn and found they had breakfast set out.  The receptionist let us have a cup each, which held us until after the Skimmer left the dock.

All our days had beautiful sunrises and sunsets, and I was in place to capture the morning's beauty. I was mesmerized by the rapidly changing sky. Soon we all boarded and Captain Tommy gave us the safety speech. Then I escaped to the top, along with a couple of other people who were willing to live with the cold morning and the wind chill from the speeding boat.

View from the pier 

Warm inside and much more fun outside (photo by Natalie Wiest)

Captain Tommy managed to find all the birds in the bay, even while traveling at high speeds and would slow down so the rest of us could observe them. We saw lots of birds loafing on oyster reefs.  Many birds were in the air or perched in trees along the channel, after we got into the ship channel.  

Think all these terns are Caspians with laughing and ring-billed gulls and ??? - that little guy scratching 

Resting  oystercatchers

Juvenile  pelican

When we reached the marsh lands we started seeing lots of herons and egrets.  then we a group of juvenile whooping cranes far back in the marsh.  We saw a few other pairs of cranes at great distances before drifting close to the bank to observe two coyotes hunting.  One was trying to eat a turtle.

Part of a group of nine "teanager" cranes - these are two years old

Coyote with turtle

They blend well with the grasses

The only blue little blue heron we saw - the other one was a first year white one

We saw lots of great blues - we have ours and the northern ones 

Finally we got to the pair of cranes that live close to the waterway and drifted almost to the shore to watch them feed.

This brown looked really small against the background of the white ones

Crane pair

This peregrine falcon was on this structure - his normal resting place

We also got to watch the boats, running the oyster dredges.  The men sorted the oysters so fast, that it looked as though their hands were trembling.

Oyster boat leaving just before us

The dredge is pulled up and opened on top of the sorting table

The workers throw back all oysters under three inches

We completed this trip with a visit to Charlotte Plumber's Restaurant, next door to the Skimmer's building.  We all had to have raw oysters for appetizers, thinking we would be eating ones from the bay.  But our hostess said the oysters are mostly too small and they are getting their oysters from further down the coast. We had a lovely lunch, all finding our entrees to be very tasty.

After than, it was back to camp to pack up and then complete the four hour trip back to Galveston.  It was a very good weekend with good friends, good food, great weather, and good birding and paddling.

On the personal front,  as this post comes out, I'll be driving to visit one of my favorite friends,  Hulin, who is one of my adventuring mentors. At  91, he still is riding his bike and doing a little paddling. He needs a hip replacement to get back to his hiking.  He still cooks divinely and has introduced me to one of his best friends, Maria who is the age of my daughters.  I'm looking forward to spending time with her as well as with other mutual friends.


Stay warm, and have fun wherever you are.  Tell me what you are doing in the comments. I'd love to hear from you. 

In Search of Whooping Cranes

A friend and I decided to go birding around Rockport, Texas. We planed  to take the Whooping Crane tour with Captain Tommy Moore, on the Skimmer. I have to get my Skimmer tour fix every few years and have been out with him several times and am never disappointed in him. He is a fantastic birder and describes field marks on birds while I'm still trying to find the bird. 

I was going on to Corpus Christi  to visit friends, and even planned a four-day camp-out with several of those  friends at Goose Island State Park.. This got cancelled when heavy rains, hail, and high winds were predicted. I ended up begging a corner of Becki and Robin's room. (Becki brought her niece, another great photographer with her.)  My friend, Winnie drove up to meet us and then, after this tour,  we camped one night at Goose Island State Park and visited with a third friend the next day.

 I came down between storms and the clouds were often dramatic. I had to stop for  a picture of these clouds.

Becki, Robin and I arrived at the Skimmer parking lot just at dawn,  to find Winnie already there. The sky was still cloudy but the sun was peaking out.

But soon we were registered for the trip and were waiting in line for the boat to be ready for us to board. Winnie and I knew Becki but were meeting Robin for the first time so we enjoyed chatting while we waited.

My friends waiting to board

Boarders being greeted by Capt. Tommy

As soon as we listened to the safety talk, down below, my group spent the rest of the trip on the top deck.  The temperature was in the low 50's when we started so everyone was pretty bundled up. But we were all ready to take pictures.

Becky watching birds as we leave the marina

A few of the  birds on a gravel bar

Marsh waders

Roseate spoonbill and tricolor

 Normally we see about 60 - 65 species on the three hour trip and see thousands of birds.  But this tour was very sad because the whoopers and other wintering birds are in serious trouble. The bay is not getting enough fresh water, so invertebrates and blue crabs are in short supply.  The cranes are not staying on their territories but are having to range around looking for food.  They are eating acorns and corn, both not their normal diets. During last winter, which had the same problem, over 20 cranes died of starvation. To make matters worse, the refuge is no longer counting the cranes but only doing a rough estimate.  I think it is off +/- 60 cranes, which out of a population of 250 - 350 covers up the ones that die.  A family of whoopers normally defends a territory that the Skimmer can approach within feet of. They are often only yards from the boat when Captain Tommy  stops, asks us not to talk and then tells us about the family. But the birds were not even on their territory this year. This is in comparison to several years ago, when we saw sixteen whoopers at fairly close range. 

We saw both few species of birds and fewer numbers of each species. Great blue herons, white and brown pelicans,  laughing gulls,  and cormorants seemed to occur in normal numbers but all other species were much in diminished numbers. Usually we see several large groups of ducks and see several species.  This time we only saw a few ducks. I didn't keep notes but I think we only saw a couple of green-winged teals, maybe a pair of blue-winged teals, one or two pintails, a pair of mottled ducks, a couple or red-breasted mergansers, and a small flock of bufflehead. Wading birds were also in short supply, except for a lot of western willets.

The only whooper pair got close to

Brown and white pelicans

 On the way back, Capt. Tommy saw some dolphins and took off, making a big stern wave.  The dolphins rushed over to surf it. (I too love surfing off the stern wave of idling fishing boats when I'm kayaking but could never do this.) I tried my best to take a picture of one of them leaping out of the water but neither my camera nor I was fast enough. This guy rode in the same place relative to me for several seconds.

Bottle-nosed dolphin

This trip was still wonderful and we had a beautiful, clear sky.  We caught the only fully sunny day between two storms.

As I get ready to publish this, I'm packing up to rush back to Houston for a haircut and a doctor's appointment.  Then I'll get back to Galveston and start getting ready for a long weekend of play.  Winnie, and a new paddler, Gail, will be coming up to stay with Natalie and me and go to the kayak club meeting on Thursday, play around Galveston on Friday, paddle with the kayak club on Saturday and go on a private paddle with Natalie and me and other friends on Sunday. They'll return home on Monday and I plan to take a big nap then