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I went over to Bear Creek Park again last weekend, once more looking for the Greater Pewee which is wintering there. The same bird spent last winter in the park and was easy to spot.
For some reason the Pewee is proving to be a lot more elusive this year and I still wasn't able to find it. However, there were enough other birds around to make my visit enjoyable.
As usual in the park, American Crows were everywhere.
Bear Creek is always good for woodpeckers and I saw several species. Two Downy Woodpeckers and a Yellow-bellied Sapsucker never came close enough to photograph but some Red-bellied Woodpeckers were within reach.
A Pileated Woodpecker led me on a chase from tree to tree for ten minutes before I finally got a clear look.
The trees were busy with the usual collection of small birds: Carolina Chickadees, Tufted Titmice, Pine Warblers and Yellow-rumped Warblers. There were also lots of Eastern Bluebirds.
I walked over to the wet area near the junction of Golbow and Fox in hopes of seeing the Rusty Blackbirds that were hanging out there earlier in the month. Although the blackbirds had gone, a Great Egret and several White Ibis were lurking in the mini-wetland area.
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When Ibis are hunting they always remind me of those cartoons of burglars sneaking around.
Just before I left the park, I saw my first Merlin of the year. It was circling too high for a photograph and so I had to make do with taking a picture of a nearby Red-tailed Hawk instead.
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In the final few days of 2010, I spent a morning birding Bear Creek Park in Houston.
The park was very busy with birds: I saw 35 species, including my first-of-season Cedar Waxwings and a Merlin.
Most exciting of all was seeing a couple of female Purple Finches, a new bird for my Texas list.
All in all, I did much better with my birding in 2010 than in previous years: My Texas year list was 263 species (vs. 203 in 2009) and my USA year list was 299 (vs. 271 in 2009). My USA/Canada life list moved up from 442 to 456 species.
With regard to Texas counties, I have now passed the 100 species mark in five counties: Harris (225), Galveston (153), Brazoria (134), Chambers (107) and Fort Bend (104).
It's certainly going to be a while before I reach 100 species in any other Texas county. However, the effort to do so will insure that I keep getting out and looking at birds in less familiar areas - which is the only reason for bothering to keep lists.
BTW, my 2011 birding begins later this morning, when Deanne and I are heading over to the Attwater Prairie Chicken NWR.
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Early on Sunday I drove down to Cullinan Park. Unfortunately, there were very few birds around - except for ducks - and it was bitterly cold.So after 20 minutes I gave up and drove back up Highway 6 to Bear Creek Park, where I bumped into Jim Hinson again.
We spent a couple of hours birding together, looking for Dark-eyed Juncos. We didn't have any luck with these but there were plenty of other birds around, including four Pine Siskins in one tree at the same time.
There were several woodpeckers, too, including a Northern Flicker.
As seems to be normal this year, there were Eastern Phoebes everywhere.
At 11:00, I left Jim and headed home, taking one final swing along Fox Road as I went. It was there that I came across a Red-tailed Hawk perched among the trees. I love Red-taileds and so I just had to stop to admire the bird. She seemed to be feeling the cold as much as I was, because she had one foot tucked up into her beast feathers. Perhaps because of the cold, she stayed where she was and let me take a series of photos.
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