Beating the Drought

.It has been consistently hot for over two months now and in our area we've only had a couple of heavy showers since January. So our birds are really suffering. They seem grateful for the fact that we always keep two birdbaths full of water.

As we have more House Finches than any other species, we naturally see more of them at the birdbaths.

However, although they can be very aggressive when other birds try to reach the feeders, they are better about sharing water.

It's fun watching birds bathing and then, like this young Northern Cardinal, drying off on the fence.

This afternoon we were sitting on our tiny front porch while the sprinklers were soaking the yard. To our surprise a juvenile Red-bellied Woodpecker flew onto our mulberry tree and spent several minutes drinking the water trickling along one of the branches.

Then he spent almost fifteen minutes taking a shower.

When his father turned up and scolded him, he hopped onto another branch to dry off in the sunlight before they both flew off.

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Bolivar Beach Birding

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The open beach at the end of Rettilon Road was packed with people, tents and cars (not to mention trash). However, we were pleased to see that the sanctuary area behind the wooden pilings was deserted. A rather dishevelled Great Blue Heron - the only Great Blue we saw the whole weekend - was perched on the pilings. 

As we strolled along the beach, numerous Brown Pelicans, Terns and Gulls patrolled the water's edge.

Shorebirds were comparatively scarce. The first ones we came across were a pair of beautiful Long-billed Curlews.

Further along were a couple of Willets.

Willets look a little drab - until they stretch their wings and fly.

Least Terns were nesting behind the beach and flying back and forth to the water. And sometimes they were resting halfway.

Bolivar Beach is a great place for watching large wading birds fishing in the shallow waters. This Snowy Egret was rushing about scaring up fish with its bright yellow feet.

A Reddish Egret was fishing at a more leisurely pace.

The real stars of the beach, though, were the Black Skimmers. But I think they deserve a whole blog post to themselves.
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Bolivar Peninsula

.By 9:00 a.m. Saturday we were driving west along Bolivar Peninsula from High Island.

Our first stop was at Rollover Pass, where the north side of the road was crowded with fishermen (and women). As usual, too, the sandbars were crowded with thousands of birds - Brown Pelicans, Laughing Gulls, several species of Terns, Black Skimmers, etc.

I was hoping that some of the Skimmers would start fishing but the only ones that were flying seemed just to be moving from sandbar to sandbar.

Plenty of Brown Pelicans were also flying around but none of them were fishing either.

We both love watching the interaction between birds and so we parked on the beach and waited for birds to forget about us and draw nearer. It didn't take long. Within a couple of minutes the sand 20 feet away from our car was populated with a selection of Terns and a scattering of Laughing Gulls. Several of the adults were fishing very successfully.

Many of the Terns were chicks and were spending all of their time begging for food from any adult bird that they could find. Unfortunately, some of them hadn't quite mastered the art. This particular chick didn't seem to realize that it's best to beg from adults that have caught fish rather than from those that haven't. It also seemed to be unsure of its own identity, since it didn't confine its begging to adults of one species.

After Rollover Pass, we kept driving west and did a short diversion up Bob Road to see what was hanging out on the ponds there. It turned out not to be too exciting. There were some Great and Snowy Egrets and a couple of Roseate Spoonbills but they were quite a distance from the road. We checked the water's edge for shorebirds but found only a few Willets and a few dozen Dowitchers.

So after 10 minutes we left Bob Road and headed for the Audubon Beach Sanctuary, always one of our favorite areas for a walk and almost always one that is very productive for birds. 
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Early Morning at Anahuac NWR

.I was up and on my way back to Anahuac NWR at 6:15 on Saturday morning. It was raining a little and the sky was dramatic.

A Great-tailed Grackle greeted me at the turning towards Shovelers' Pond.

Great Egrets were perched in trees and snags along the road.

The ditch around Shovelers' Pond had only Common Moorhens and Black-necked Stilts - and the light was too poor for me to take photographs of them. I was luckier when I came across a Common Nighthawk just as it was illuminated by some sunlight.

When I first arrived at the refuge, I had noticed that the water channel that cuts under the road just before Shovelers' Pond was very busy with birds, although the lighting made it difficult to watch them closely. By the time I had finished my drive around the pond, the light had improved and so I parked by the channel to watch the action.

The banks were lined with dozens of Great Egrets, together with a scattering of Snowy Egrets, Green and Tricolored Herons, and White Ibis.

Most of the wading birds fished from the banks but occasionally one - like this Great Egret - would venture out into the water to look for fish.

Meanwhile the air over the channel was filled with Laughing Gulls and Terns, which constantly swooped down to take small fish.

Before I drove back to the motel to collect Dee, I stopped to take a few photos of the scenery along the road to Shovelers' Pond. Unfortunately, they do not at all do justice to the beauty of Anahuac's marshland scenery. One of these days I must take a wider-angle lens to Anahuac and really concentrate on getting photos of the landscape!

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Anahuac and High Island

.We started our weekend trip with a visit to Anahuac NWR.

The pond near the old visitor center was completely dry and the only birds around were the Barn Swallows which were busy nesting on our last visit. A few birds were still sitting on their nests under the building's eaves.

However, most were busy flying and catching bugs or else resting.

The ditch around Shovelers' Pond was completely dry in places and the most common birds were Black-necked Stilts. Some of these seemed to be trying to deal with the heat by balancing on one leg, while others frequently lay down on the ground.

There were also many Cattle Egrets, all of which were visibly panting to keep cool.

As usual, Red-winged Blackbirds were out in force, the males singing and fluffing up their red shoulder patches.

A couple of Green Herons, Great Egrets and a solitary Tricolored Heron were fishing in the wet areas of the ditch.

Leaving the main part of the refuge, we were struck by the number of Eastern Kingbirds lining the access road.

They were accompanied by a single Scissortailed Flycatcher.

We headed down to the Skillern Tract section of the refuge, where we had lunch by the river.

Flyovers there included a Fulvous Whistling Duch, several Black-bellied Whistling Ducks, a Little Blue Heron and a Yellow-billed Cuckoo. Two Green Herons were fishing in the river.

Lunch over, we drove down to High Island to check out the Smith Oaks rookery, where we were surprised to see that there was now no water between the viewing platforms and the island. The latter had a few birds still on their nests - Great and Cattle Egrets, Tricolored Herons, Cormorants and Anhingas.

Roseate Spoonbills and Great Egrets were flying about or posing on the snags.

There were many other birds on the other side of the pond and I was thrilled to see that these included dozens of Wood Storks as well as scores of Roseate Spoonbills. Unfortunately, we weren't able to get any closer to these birds and we had to content ourselves with observing them through binoculars.

As is to be expected in southeast Texas in mid-July, it was brutally hot. So we called it a day and drove up to the Econolodge in Winnie to rest up and look for somewhere to eat dinner.
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