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Sunday morning we decided to take advantage of the long-wished-for good weather and so headed over to the San Jacinto Monument, where I was hoping to add some birds to my 2015 Harris County list.
There were plenty of birds around but most of them were either too distant or too skittish for me to get photos.
The most cooperative were Turkey and Black Vultures, which were mainly clustered around an area where the park staff dump the carcasses of dead animals.
Several Black Vultures were showing off their wings.
Then one of the Turkey Vultures put them in their place by displaying its magnificent wings.
I was pleased to see a small flock of Roseate Spoonbills fly into view. However, only one of them came anything like near enough for my camera to handle.
Before leaving, I looked around the area at the head of the reflection pool, hoping to see the female Vermilion Flycatcher that has been hanging out there for weeks. It wasn't long before she turned up and posed for pictures.
Although the visit didn't produce many photos, it turned up some interesting birds and added ten species to my year list.
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Late Saturday morning we spent an hour in the park around the San Jacinto Monument.
To be honest, the park isn't one of my favorite birding sites: Although it can host some good birds, the latter are usually too far away for comfortable viewing and photographing. So why did we visit? We were on our way to have lunch at the nearby Monument Inn, and I thought the park might have one of the bird species that has eluded me so far this year: Black-crowned Night-Heron.
We started our visit with a quick walk along the boardwalk, which yielded only very distant views of a few common wading birds, such as Great Egret and Great Blue Heron.
When we drove to the two areas that give views over the bay, we had better luck, although most of the birds were still so distant that photographing them was a challenge.
Several Cattle Egrets in breeding plumage were wandering about on the grass.
A couple of American White Pelicans were cruising the waters while others had settled on islands.
One of two Brown Pelicans was much closer to the shore.
I was delighted to spot two Black-crowned Night-Herons as they flew off when I approached the water. Although I didn't manage to get a photo of them, I did manage to get some shots of seven Wood Storks perched in nearby trees. What extraordinary looking birds they are!
A Tricolored Heron was too intent on fishing to notice our presence.
The size of the prey it caught hardly seemed to justify the effort involved.
A Great Egret was rather more successful.
Further out, Neotropic Cormorants were lined up. These ones were in the company of a Snowy Egret.
A handful of Roseate Spoonbills were grazing in the water.
Other birds, such as a Brown Pelican and a Great Blue Heron, were perched on rocks or pieces of debris that protruded from the water.
So while the park didn't provide great birding, we saw enough to make an hour's visit worthwhile.
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On Sunday morning I left home early to drive down to the San Jacinto Monument Park, hoping to see the Surf Scoter that has been hanging out there. We saw Surf Scoters all the time in San Francisco but it's a very rare bird for southeast Texas. Unfortunately, when I reached the park at 7:30, I discovered it didn't open until 9:00. So I drove the short distance to the Lynchburg Ferry landing to see what birds were hanging out near there.
Eastern Phoebes were all over the place and some let me have good looks at them.
A Loggerhead Shrike was equally obliging.
I wasn't surprised to see that the roadside utility wires had a Belted Kingfisher. I knew that, in typical Kingfisher fashion, the bird would fly off if I approached it. So I used the enormous zoom on my new camera to grab a photo from far away.
When I was finally able to enter the park, I stopped to take photos of a group of Black Vultures on the road. It was interesting to compare the gray, heavily wattled heads of the adults with the blacker, more feathered heads of the juveniles.
Down on the water a number of White Pelicans were fishing as a group.
There was a steady stream of other White Pelicans overhead.
The Surf Scoter had previously been seen mainly with a raft of Ruddy Ducks, and so I scanned the several groups of Ruddy Ducks in hopes of spotting it. No luck! The water was choppy and the only ducks were far away from the shore.
Disappointed, I wandered over to the boardwalk, where I was surrounded by Marsh Wrens.
Then I headed to the reflection pool, the side of which was crowded with Neotropic and (much larger) Double-crested Cormorants, along with a few Great and Snowy Egrets.
A flash of red on a chain-link fence caught my eye. A Northern Cardinal? No, it was a magnificent male Vermilion Flycatcher. I imagine it was the same bird that spent last winter at the park.
Before leaving, I decided to spend five more minutes looking for the Scoter. As it happened, I didn't need five minutes because the Scoter popped up immediately in the middle of a group of Ruddy Ducks. It was difficult to see the bird clearly but there was no mistaking the vertical white lines on its face.
So, mission accomplished.
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Saturday morning we drove over to the San Jacinto Monument site on our way to Baytown Nature Center.
The boardwalk had several Sedge Wrens, as well as a Tricolored Heron (below).
The bare trees in and around the bay were crowded with Neotropic Cormorants, drying their wings or simply resting.
The bay itself was busy with hundreds of American White Pelicans.
Lines of Pelicans were crisscrossing the water.
Brown Pelicans fish by diving headfirst into the water. White Pelicans fish by floating on the surface and dipping their heads into the water. They often fish in groups, forming a semi-circle or complete circle in order to corral their prey.
After watching the pelicans for a while, we headed to Baytown via the Lynchburg ferry. Before taking the ferry, we stopped to check out the beach below the Monument Inn. I was hoping for a range of shorebirds but the only birds there were American Avocets (below) and Laughing Gulls.
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Saturday morning I spent an hour at our nearest birding site, Little Cypress Creek Preserve. It was busy with common birds but not much else. However, I did see my first Golden-crowned Kinglet of the year as well as a pair of Red-shouldered Hawks.
On Sunday we drove down to the San Jacinto Monument in hopes of seeing the Long-tailed Duck that has been hanging out there for several weeks. It would be a life bird for me. From the parking lot and the boardwalk I spotted a flock of scores of American White Pelicans (below) plus several new year birds - Vermilion Flycatcher, Brown Thrasher, Roseate Spoonbills, Green-winged Teal and Mottled Duck.
From the end of a park road I walked out to where two other birders were scoping the bay. One of the birders, Paul Sellin, had the Long-tailed Duck in his scope and let me view the bird. Unfortunately, the duck was too far away for a photo, which was also true of other new year birds I could see - American Avocets and Long-billed Dowitchers.
We drove on to take the Lynchburg Ferry across to Baytown. The beach near the ferry landing had many Laughing Gulls and several more new year birds - Sanderlings, Herring Gulls, Forster's Terns and Royal Terns.
Just after disembarking from the ferry, we had a good if brief luck at a coyote trotting across a grassy area.
Baytown Nature Center was fairly quiet when we arrived and so we had a picnic lunch in the hilltop pavilion. In the distance an Osprey was standing on a partially completed nest while closer to hand a Loggerhead Shrike was hunting.
A Great Egret walked slowly through the water on one side of the hill.
We watched a Brown Pelican fishing on the other side of the hill.
After lunch we strolled along the bayside trail looking for the Eared and Horned Grebes that have been seen many times over recent weeks. We had no luck with the Grebes but I added to my year list with distant views of a Tricolored Heron and a pair of Hooded Mergansers (below).
The walk also produced flyovers by Great Blue Herons and distant looks at some Northern Pintails.
We saw what at first glance looked like a two-headed Red-eared Slider!
We did a quick drive out to the furthest jetty but saw only Great-tailed Grackles.
On our way out of the park we stopped to admire a distant Belted Kingfisher (below) and an Osprey lunching on a fish.
Nearby a Snowy Egret was resting by the edge of a pond while another Snowy was rushing about trying to scare up fish.
Our final sighting was of a Killdeer and a Spotted Sandpiper (below).
All in all, it wasn't a great day's birding. However, we had seen some interesting birds, including one lifer (Long-tailed Duck) and 13 other year birds, taking my 2013 total to 108 species.
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