Late December Birding

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I haven't posted for more than a week because our daughter and grandsons have been visiting from Barcelona and they have kept us very busy.

Before they arrived, I managed to fit in a couple of hours' birding at the Thompson Fishing Camp in Baytown, where I was hoping to add a few new species to my 2014 Harris County list.

The main jetty at the camp was crowded with gulls. Most of these were Laughing Gulls.

I scanned the others, looking for a Lesser Black-backed Gull, but there were only a few Ring-billed Gulls and several Herring Gulls (below).

The occasional Royal Tern was sharing the jetty with the gulls.

A couple of Ruddy Turnstones, which wandered along the jetty, made a new addition to my county list.

So too did a Red-breasted Merganser.

Further out on the water were four Buffleheads, a Horned Grebe and a Common Goldeneye (below), all of which were new to my county year birds.

As always at the camp, there were lots of Brown Pelicans, most of which were busy grooming.

Another birder, Dennis Cook, very kindly offered me a ride on his boat. 

We headed over towards the local dump in hopes of finding some more interesting gulls. There were certainly plenty of gulls around - thousands of them, in fact. 

Unfortunately, all the ones we could ID were Laughing Gulls and the other species we had seen at the bait camp.


Although my trip to Baytown didn't produce any unusual sightings, I enjoyed the range of birds that I saw there. And I was pleased to finally get my county year list over the 200 species mark.  .