Cold and Windy Birding

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Yesterday morning I dragged Dee out to do a couple of hours birding in cold and windy weather, mainly because I wanted to add some more species to my 2013 list for Harris County.

Our first stop was at Sheldon Lake, where we almost immediately saw an American Bittern flying from side to side of the first fishing pond. Other new birds that we turned up on our walk around the Environmental Center area were Anhinga, Double-crested Cormorant, Laughing Gull and Snow Geese (below).

We decided to move on to Baytown Nature Center as several interesting birds had been reported from there during the past few days.

The wind was blowing hard as we drove towards the fishing pier at the end of the road. On the way we passed several Brown Pelicans, a Belted Kingfisher, a Mallard and a Snowy Egret.

The water was rough on the bay and all that I could see from the pier were a couple of hundred Lesser Scaup and a score or so Ruddy Ducks, all too far away to photograph.

We drove back and parked near the hummingbird garden, from where we watched an Osprey kiting as it fished the choppy waters.

Other birders had spotted Eared and Horned Grebes but the only grebes we saw were two Pied-billed Grebes. However, they were accompanied by a Common Goldeneye (below), another new bird for 2013.

As neither of us likes cold weather, we left Bayiown after only 30 minutes and headed home. It hadn't been the most pleasant or productive of outings but we had seen a few good birds and I had boosted my year list from 82 to 93 species. 
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