Anahuac National Wildlife Refuge

.Saturday morning we drove down to Smith Point in hopes of seeing migrating hawks. The previous day more than 8,000 hawks had been spotted from the observation tower but we weren't so lucky. In fact, after 40 minutes without seeing a single bird, we gave up and headed over to Anahuac NWR.

The entrance road was lined with Scissor-tailed Flycatchers.

There were other flycatchers, too, including this Western Kingbird.

The area near the visitors center was busy with hundreds (if not thousands) of Brown-headed Cowbirds.

A few European Starlings were keeping the Cowbirds company.

As the road around Shoveler's Pond is currently closed, we drove down to Frozen Point, passing several Loggerhead Shrikes and Turkey Vultures along the way.

Frozen Point was very quiet for birds. Apart from a Great Blue Heron and a Laughing Gull, we initially saw only a Wilson's Plover.

A walk along the water's edge then turned up a Black-billed Plover.

There was a solitary Willet.

Just as we were leaving, a couple of Seaside Sparrows came foraging through the rocks on the beach.

As it was now late afternoon, we decided to call, it a day and head to the motel where we were going to spend the night. On our way we say the first hawk of the weekend.

It wasn't too difficult to ID this one as a Red-tailed!

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