Hill Country Trip: Day 3

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On Monday morning we rounded off our trip with a visit to Mitchell Lake, just south of San Antonio. We'd wanted to go back there ever since our first visit, in December on our way home from Big Bend.

The Bird Pond was busy with hundreds of American Coots as well as numbers of Gadwalls and Northern Shovelers.

Mixed in among the other ducks were a few Ruddy Ducks, the females looking much drabber than their mates.

 

One of my target birds for the day was Least Grebe and we saw half-a-dozen.

Moving further into the refuge, we checked out several of the other ponds. The first had a Cinnamon Teal paddling along in front of Blue-Winged Teal. 

A few minutes later, we spotted a small group of Green-winged Teal. That's the first time I've ever seen all three Teal in one area.

In the next pond a solitary Double-crested Cormorant looked out of place perched on some kind of pipe in the company of a hundred White Pelicans.

 

As we watched, the Pelicans gradually hopped into the water and floated slowly away.

 

 

In one case, though, this was preceded by a good bout of bill scratching.

The site had a nice mixture of other birds, including Crested Caracara, Yellow-rumped Warblers, American Pipits and Savannah Sparrows. More exciting was a good look at a Grasshopper Sparrow, a bird I rarely see.

Red-winged Blackbirds were everywhere. Most of the males were showing off their shoulder flashes and singing to attract females.

Most of the females didn't seem to be very impressed!

Back at the entrance, we spent a few minutes outside the visitor center. I was pleased to see several Purple Martins using the martin house there - until Dee pointed out that they were fake birds. Two Black-chinned Hummingbirds chasing each other around the gardens were definitely real, however, as were several White-crowned Sparrows and Brown-headed Cowbirds perched near the feeders.

It was now time for us to hit the road back to Houston after what had turned out to be a very rewarding three days. Luckily, spring break had only just begun and I was hoping to fit in another short trip later in the week, perhaps in conjunction with a drive down to Galveston to see some friends who were staying there. The landscape and birds on the upper Texas coast would certainly be very different from those in the Hill Country.
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Mitchell Lake

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We arrived at Mitchell Lake at 9:00 a.m. Sunday, intending to spend an hour or so there before heading home. However, we enjoyed the site so much that we ended up spending over three hours there!

We started at the visitor center, which is surrounded by a really beautiful garden.

The staff were excited because an Audubon's Oriole had been seen nearby. We walked around the garden but saw only White-crowned Sparrows and White-winged Doves.


Out on the auto trail, we stopped at the first pond and were treated to some excellent birding, even though many of the birds were too far away for photos. The water had American Coots, Blue-winged Teal, Northern Shovelers, Gadwall, Lesser Scaup and a solitary American Wigeon.

American Coot

We were hoping for Least and Eared Grebes and we saw several of both species, as well as lots of Ruddy Ducks.

Female Ruddy Duck

The edges of the lake had Double-crested Cormorants, Eastern Phoebes, Spotted Sandpiper and Vermilion Flycatchers. There was a Belted Kingfisher as well as both Great and Snowy Egrets. Killdeer wandered by the trail, too. 

Great Egret

 

Further along the trail we parked the car and walked up between two more large ponds. We again enjoyed seeing Eastern Phoebes and Vermilion Flycatchers but the main attraction here was a group of White Pelicans. We watched for a while as they fished. Their technique is very different from that of Brown Pelicans. The latter fish by diving into the water from the air. White Pelicans are much more sedate. They float along and fish by ducking their bills into the water. They often work as a group, forming a ring around a shoal of fish.

 

Several patches of trees had Savannah Sparrows, Ruby-crowned Kinglets and Yellow-rumped Warblers, while American Pipits were grazing on the path itself.

Yellow-rumped Warbler

Back at the car, we saw more Golden-fronted Woodpeckers and then a Ladder-Backed Woodpecker.

Ladder-backed Woodpecker

We'll certainly return to Mitchell Lake in the winter, when more ducks and sparrows shoud have arrived.

Note:
Our weekend trip hadn't been quite as productive for new year species as I had hoped but it raised my US total to 273 and my Texas year list to 235 species.
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