Bolivar Flats Bird Sanctuary

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We drove slowly down Retilion Road without seeing a single bird. The beach between there and the sanctuary was empty except for Laughing Gulls and a few Willets. Even the sanctuary beach itself was nowhere near as busy with birds as I'd expected.

The first interesting bird up was a Long-billed Curlew, perhaps my favorite shorebird and one that I hadn't seen yet this year.


We then had to walk west almost to the end of the beach before we saw more birds on the ground or in the water. Brown Pelicans were sharing the area with perhaps a couple of hundred other birds: Laughing Gulls, Royal and Sandwich Terns, Black Terns, Sanderlings and a solitary Neotropic Cormorant.


There were a few Gull-billed Terns, too.


Least Terns were nesting in the grass behind the beach, and parents kept zooming over carrying small fish to their young.

The only plovers around were three Wilson's Plovers.

My day was made when I came across a pair of Black Skimmers. With their huge bills, they are such comical and yet graceful birds. These two seemed to be enjoying a pleasant walk together.

As we approached, they stopped as if to discuss me.

When they turned, I was amazed to see just how thin their bills are. I've never been close enough to notice this before. I suppose it is to allow the bottom mandible to cut through the water with minimum drag when they are fishing.

So not a great number or variety of birds on Bolivar Flats this time, but still well worth the visit, if only for the close-up views of the Skimmers. My year list moved to 256 with the addition of Long-billed Curlew, Black Tern, Sandwich Tern, Wilson's Plover, Western Sandpiper and Red Knot.

Galveston to Bolivar

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At 10:00 a.m. Saturday we met up with Carlos and took the ferry from Galveston to Bolivar. The 15-minute ferry ride is always fun: It's free and it's usually enlivened by the appearance of dolphins.

Saturday was no exception and several dolphins turned up to entertain us and the other passengers.
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As usual, Brown Pelicans also flew and fished near the ship.

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Galveston and Bolivar harbors are excellent places to get close-up photos of Pelicans.
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Once we had disembarked, we headed to the North Jetty, hoping it would give us good views of shorebirds and waders fishing the shallow waters.
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The beach area here was badly hit by Ike and it was very sad to see people picknicking among the wooden pilings that had supported someone's home until September last year.
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In the event, the jetty wasn't very productive for birding. Several Great and Reddish Egrets were fishing but they were quite a distance away. However, one Reddish Egret was close to the jetty and not at all shy.
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It was so unconcerned by our presence that it felt free to deal with a bothersome itch.
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Nearby we saw the only Western Sandpiper of the day.
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Also, as everywhere else on the trip, we saw Willets.
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By 11:30 we were back in the cars and heading for the Bolivar Flats sanctuary, one of my favorite birding sites and somewhere that never fails to produce a good range of birds.

Galveston: Part 2

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I've visited Galveston State Park a few times but I have never had much luck with birds there. On Saturday I limited myself to the northern section of the park and I fared a little better.
Although most of the trees look unlikely to recover from Ike, the grasses are certainly flourishing.
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As everywhere else on Galveston, I saw plenty of Willets and Laughing Gulls.

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Laughing Gull

Butterflies and dragonflies were plentiful, too.

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A clump of trees provided a roost for these and other Great Egrets.

I was initially so focused on the Egrets that I didn't notice that the same tree contained a White Ibis ...

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... and a Black-crowned Night Heron.

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Meanwhile the next tree had a Green Heron.

By now it was 8:45 and time to go to pick up Dee from the motel to make a 10:00 rendezvous with Carlos Aguilar, with whom we were going to visit Bolivar and Anahuac.

Galveston: Part 1

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As we drove into Galveston on Friday evening, we were welcomed by a Magnificent Frigatebird and lots of Brown Pelicans.

Saturday morning I was up and out early. As usual the Seawall beach was busy with Laughing Gulls and patrolled by Pelicans.



Heading west along Stewart Road, my first stop was at Settegast Road. As soon as I got out of the car, I came across this Willet.
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The pond was full of Roseate Spoonbills grazing with Great Egrets, Tricolored Herons, White Ibis and Black-necked Stilts while Barn Swallows swooped overhead.


The lighting was difficult but I got lucky when one group of Spoonbills stepped out into the open and showed off their magnificent plumage.


The roadside was decorated with Mexican Blanket.



I stopped in at Lafitte's Cove and was shocked to see that, while the trees are recovering well from Hurricane Ike, the pond and the wetlands area are totally dried out.


The only birds at the cove were White-winged Doves and Northern Mockingbirds but butterflies were plentiful.
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After that, it was on to Galveston State Park.

Fall is Here Again

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Thank goodness, it’s fall again!

No, I’m not confused. And yes, I know it’s only mid-July and that we still have at least two months of very hot summer weather to go. But it’s the start of fall, at least as far as bird migration is concerned. So we’ll soon be seeing lots of new species passing through our area.

Although the bulk of fall migration happens in August/September, a lot of migrant birds visit the Upper Texas Coast in July on their way south to Latin American countries. For example, Black-and-white Warblers have probably already started arriving in numbers and they’ll shortly be joined by Louisiana Waterthrush, Least Flycatchers and other landbirds. Down at the beach, shorebirds such as Western and Semipalmated Sandpipers and Piping Plovers have no doubt begun turning up again and their numbers, too, will increase dramatically over the next couple of months.

Partly with migration in mind, Dee and I are heading to Galveston this afternoon and we will be birding the Bolivar Peninsula and maybe even High Island on Saturday. If we’re lucky, I’ll have plenty of photos to post here on Sunday or Monday.

In the meantime, here are some photos of birds who have visited the feeder outside our living-room window this week.

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Female House Finch

Male Northern Cardinal

White-winged Dove

Ducks and More Ducks

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Over the past weeks, I've been watching Black-bellied Whistling Ducks bringing up their young on the retention ponds at the CyFair campus.

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The ducklings, born last month, are growing up fast and I saw two groups of them yesterday on the southern pond. They were being escorted by their parents, as they will be for about the first six months of their lives.

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Family #1

Family #2

As I was looking over the northern pond, more Whistling Ducks emerged from the reeds. This time it was a group of of two adults and 7 young. Judging by their size and how striped their heads are, these ducklings seem to be rather younger than the others.

Whistling Ducks weren't the only birds down at the ponds. The trees had several Great-tailed Grackles and European Starlings, while the edges of the water had Mourning Doves and Killdeer. Our two resident Green Herons were out and about - unfortunately, I haven't seen any sign of baby herons yet - and a Great Egret was fishing the northern pond.

Meanwhile a Snowy Egret was pacing around in the smallest of the three ponds.