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On Saturday morning I drove to a birding site I'd never visited before - Highlands Reservoir, a few miles north of Baytown. I was hoping to see some of the Longspurs that have been seen there over the past couple of weeks. Any Longspur would be a life bird for me.
Unfortunately, after tramping over the area for an hour, neither I nor any of the other birders there could find any Longspurs. So I decided to leave. The trip wasn't wasted, though, as I saw several good birds. A Sprague's Pipit let me have a good look at it.
Two Le Conte's Sparrows disappeared before I could take a photo but this Grasshopper Sparrow was slower off the mark.
Skeins of hundreds of geese passed overhead and I was able to pick out several Ross's Geese among the more numerous and larger Snow Geese.
As I was leaving the site, I noticed a Red-tailed Hawk perched in a nearby tree and I couldn't resist taking a photo.
On my way home, I stopped off at the Atoscacita landfill near Humble and quickly found three Fish Crows. This life bird took my year list to 133 species.
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I was driving home from work yesterday when something on the grass verge ahead caught my eye. After quickly checking there were no cars behind me, I pulled over. This is what I had attracted my attention.
A Red-shouldered Hawk.
I watched as the hawk tore and ate pieces of flesh from what looked like a small bird.
Certainly not one of the most beautiful aspects of nature. But I guess a hawk's gotta do what a hawk's gotta do.
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Mid-afternoon on Saturday we boarded the Bolivar-Galveston ferry. As we waited for the boat to leave, we watched numerous Laughing Gulls circling overhead and crowding perches on the ferry and around the harbor.
The jetties had lots of Neotropic Cormorants and Brown Pelicans, as well as a few White Pelicans. Much more exciting, the water had three Red-breasted Mergansers.
The ferry ride was uneventful except for the appearance of one dolphin and a solitary Forster's Tern.
Before heading over to our motel, we paid a quick visit to East Beach. We were greeted by hundreds of Laughing Gulls and a few Brown Pelicans. However, one section of road gave us distant views of a dozen Black Skimmers and close views of a Snowy Egret and a Great Egret.
Sunday morning we drove through slowly dispersing fog to Settegast Road to look for the Sandhill Cranes that usually winter there. Sure enough, there was a group of 16 Cranes but they were rather too distant for good photos. Disappointed, we headed for Sportsman's Road, only to stop a few hundred yards later when Dee spotted three Sandhill Cranes foraging near the road.
Sportsman's Road had its usual complement of Great and Snowy Egrets, White Ibis, Tricolored Heron and Roseate Spoonbills.
Unusually, we also got distant views of a Yellow-crowned Night Heron in the marsh reeds and a Common Loon in the bay.
As we were aiming to get home around lunchtime, we started our drive back to Cypress. We stopped for a short break at El Franco Lee Park and we arrived just in time to see a pair of Bald Eagles circling over the duck-filled ponds there.
Even though no individual site on our trip had been very productive for birds, we ended up seeing 75 species, of which 41 were additions to my 2012 year list.
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Given that it was a beautifully warm and sunny afternoon, we were surprised to find that the beach at the end of Retilion Road was almost empty of people and vehicles. Luckily, it wasn't empty of birds.
The water's edge had small groups of Laughing Gulls and Royal Terns, while Ruddy Turnstones, Willets and Short-billed Dowitchers fussed around looking for food.
Dowitchers
Willets
The occasional Sanderling raced across the sand, legs moving almost too quickly for the eye to register.
The posts that mark the start of the shorebird sanctuary were occupied by Neotropic Cormorants, the edges of their bills outlined in white even though we were still months away from breeding season.
Every few yards we came across Long-billed Curlews, one of our favorite shorebirds.
A solitary Reddish Egret was dashing about in the shallows, trying to scare up fish for its lunch.
Finally, just before we ran out of beach, we came upon the birding highlight of our trip thus far - a thousand American Avocets clustered along the water's edge.
Every so often the Avocets would take fright and rise up in a swirling, flashing cloud of black and white. Magic!
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By 9:15 a.m. on Saturday we were at the first of the birding sites we planned to visit over the weekend - Sheldon Lake. The corner of the reservoir visible from the southern end of Pineland Road was crowded with American Coots, Double-crested Cormorants and Gadwalls, while the banks had numbers of White Ibis and Great and Snowy Egrets. There were several Anhingas, too, one of which did a head-waving display from a perch on a jetty before flying away.
Down at the Environmental Center many of the ponds had little or no water and we didn't see a single wading or water bird or duck. Orange-crowned Warblers, Yellow-rumped Warblers and Ruby-crowned Kinglets were plentiful but the best sighting was of a flock of 100-200 Cedar Waxwings at the end of the parking lot.
Our next stop was Anahuac NWR, where we wanted the drive around Shovelers Pond and then have lunch in the old Visitors Center. Unfortunately, the road to and around Shovelers Pond was closed for construction and the old Visitors Center was already occupied. So after taking a quick photo of a Red-shouldered Hawk perched by the road, we set off for the refuge's Skillern Tract instead.
Although the tract had many fewer birds than during our last visit, there was still enough action to keep us entertained while we ate our picnic lunch.
A pair of Red-tailed Hawks kept moving from tree to tree near the parking area whenever visitors came too close, and one or other of them would occasionally soar up into the sky for a while.
I missed seeing a male Vermilion Flycatcher that Dee saw but I did get to spend several minutes watching a female as she chased bugs from nearby trees.
Lunch over, we drove down to Bolivar Peninsula, counting hawks and American Kestrels along the way. (Between Anahuac and the Bolivar ferry, we saw 9 Kestrels and 78 hawks, of white 64 were Red-tailed!)
Although the sandbars at Rollover Pass had masses of birds, including many White and Brown Pelicans, we didn't stay long because all the birds were far away from the parking areas. The exception was a Great Blue Heron that spent a long time struggling to swallow something it had caught.
Since leaving Sheldon Lake, we hadn't been very lucky with the sites we visited but we had great hopes for the next stop on our itinerary - the shorebird sanctuary at Bolivar Flats. Surely a walk along the beach there would produce a range of interesting birds!
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While we're away in Galveston, here are some more bird photos and notes from this week.
Our Yards
We continue to have several Orange-crowned Warblers frequenting our suet feeders. The least colorful of all our winter visitors, they are nonetheless attractive little birds.
Dee and I both enjoy watching this Ruby-crowned Kinglet as it fusses around our feeders. It has loads of personality and is totally unafraid of us.
The most common winter warbler in our area is undoubtedly the Yellow-rumped Warbler. This one demonstrates nicely how the species gets its name.
Katy Prairie
I normally see only a handful of Field Sparrows each year but this winter they are really plentiful.
Harris's Sparrows, too, are present in larger numbers than I've ever seen here.
Last month the prairie had Green-tailed, Spotted and Eastern Towhees. This month I've seen only one, this female Eastern Towhee that hangs out at the Cypress Creek bridge on Sharp Road.
I get so used to seeing Northern Cardinals in our yards that I tend to forget that they are wild birds. However, I never overlook the fact that the male Cardinal is one of the most beautifully colored of all North American birds!
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So far this first week of January has been a good one for birding. Although bird numbers in our area are well down on last month, there are still plenty of good birds around.
For example, yesterday I was surprised to spot a group of Lark Buntings in a children's playground only a couple of hundred yards from our house. Later, I was pleased to find that the female Pyrrhuloxia that had been hanging out on Longenbaugh Road is still present.
While the CyFair campus has been largely empty of birds apart from American Coots and Ring-necked Ducks, it did produce the sighting of an Osprey (carrying a fish) the other day.
The Katy Prairie still has a good range of sparrows (which I will blog about on the weekend). However, it also has a lot of large scavengers and predators. Yesterday some roadkill on Sharp Road had attracted several Turkey and Black Vultures as well as three Crested Caracaras.
Turkey Vulture
Crested Caracara
American Kestrels and Hawks are plentiful. Over the past few days I've seen Red-shouldered and White-tailed Hawks as well as a Merlin.
American Kestrel
However, the most numerous predator is the Red-tailed Hawk. They are everywhere. Unfortunately, although they are omnipresent, I've been finding them hard to photograph. They typically stay perched on a utility pole while I park the car and get my camera ready. Then, the instant I open the car door they are off. So yesterday I was delighted when I finally came across a Red-tailed that was not so skittish.
Keeping Track
My 2012 year list of species is moving along nicely and has already reached 74. Dee and I are heading to the coast this weekend and I'm hoping we'll see a good variety of new birds on our trip.
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