Brazoria Rediscovered

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On Saturday we headed down to Brazoria National Wildlife Refuge. This used to be one of our favorite birding sites but it was so badly affected by Hurricane Ike that we stopped visiting about three years ago. This weekend's trip was prompted by seeing birding reports from there posted by other birders.

First impressions weren't good! The entrance road was dry and empty of birds. The pond by the visitor center looked dry also ... 

but it turned out to have some water in it.

A Least Bittern disappeared into the reeds before I could get a photo. An alligator wasn't so shy. 

Several White Ibis flew over, followed by a much more interesting bird, a Wood Stork.

Parts of the auto-loop were depressingly dry.

However, Olney's Pond had plenty of water - and plenty of birds.

Most of the birds seemed to be of three species: Great Egret, Snowy Egret and White Ibis.

Great Egrets were easy to pick out because of their height.

Snowy Egrets were fewer in number.

Many of the White Ibis were adults and therefore almost completely white. However, there were quite a few juveniles also.

Not surprisingly given the crowded conditions, tempers sometimes frayed a little. Here two adult White Ibis got into an argument that was more dramatic than truly violent. 

A careful look over the pond turned up several other species: Great Blue Heron (below), Little Blue Heron and a dozen or more Tricolored Herons.

Among the most numerous birds were Yellow-crowned Night Herons, almost all immature birds.

Here and there, Roseate Spoonbills added a splash of pink, although some Spoonbills were juveniles and therefore still very pale.

As the heat was brutal and the light was very harsh for photos, we decided to leave Brazoria and to head for the coast, stopping off at the Texas Sea Center in Lake Jackson on the way. We limited our visit o a walk along the very attractive boardwalk at the front of the center. 

I would have missed this Little Blue Heron if Dee hadn't pointed it out to me.

A White Ibis was much harder to miss.

Two other White Ibis were grazing nearby.

The only other birds visible were a family of Black-necked Stilts.

When we arrived at Surfside, we found that there was an entrance fee to drive onto the beach. As we were only going to stay for a short while, we drove a few miles further east until we found a free beach.

A drive along the beach turned up very few birds, except for the inevitable Laughing Gulls.  

Several Ruddy Turnstones were wandering along the sand, sometimes accompanied by Sanderlings. 

The Turnstones looked particularly splendid in their breeding plumage.

A solitary Willet prowled along the water's edge, stopping occasionally to dig for food.

When walking, Willets are very nondescript birds. However, when they open their wings, they are anything but nondescript!

By now it was almost 3:00 pm, the check-in time at our hotel, and so we headed back up 288 to Clute. The plan was for Dee to rest up in the hotel while I drove back to Brazoria to take some more photos.
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Different Strokes for Differernt Folks

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I recently joined a new group on Facebook. It's called 'Birds of Texas' and it has 16000+ members. I've been posting some of my better photos there for the past couple of weeks and it has been interesting seeing how many people like which ones - and trying to work out what it is that attracts people to particular ones.

The most popular pictures were ones of a Vermilion Flycatcher (798 likes) Ruby-throated Hummingbird (766 likes). It's easy to see why people like these: They are sharp close-ups of two really beautiful birds.

 

The next most popular shot was of a Common Pauraque (453 likes). As it isn't a particularly good photo, I can only assume that people thought the bird itself was pretty cool - which it certainly is!
 

 

 373 people liked a photo of two Royal and two Sandwich Terns. I was surprised by this and I can only imagine that the main reason for this picture's popularity is the fact that there is a certain comical aspect to the photo.

Over 300 people liked each of the two shots below. American Coots are very common, rather drab birds but I managed to catch one as it dashed across the water in order to take off. The reflection adds to the photo also. The Red-tailed Hawk shot isn't very special but it is sharp and it shows the bird's magnificent plumage well.

 

 

Four pictures got 250+ likes and I think it's easy to see the different reasons why quite a few people would like each of these particular shots.

 

 

 

Inevitably, some other photos weren't so popular. In most  cases, these were reasonably good photos but were of common subjects, such as yard birds. I was a bit surprised, though, when the photo of a Crested Caracara below netted only around 85 likes.

If you ask me, it's a much better picture than most of the ones that were much more popular: It's a pretty sharp photo of a really interesting and iconic Texas bird in flight. I guess it just goes to show that, when it comes to bird photos, it really is a matter of different strokes for different folks!
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Down by the Bay

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This weekend I thought it was about time I added some birds to my year list for Harris County. (As I haven't birded much this year, my list on Saturday stood at only 172 species.) So on Saturday morning we headed over to the Baytown Nature Center, where I expected to see a good range of large waders, plenty of gulls and terns, and perhaps several shorebird species.

In the event, there were fewer birds visible than on any of my (many) previous visits. After half-an-hour, we had seen only a couple each of Great Egrets, Snowy Egrets and Cattle Egrets, and a few Yellow-crowned Night Herons (below).

As we walked back to the car, we did get to see a flight of five Wood Storks, a welcome addition to my county list.

We decided to drive home via the San Jacinto Monument, which I thought was bound to be buzzing with birds.

Sure enough, our visit to the Monument grounds started off well when we passed a group of a dozen Black Vultures near the road and then spotted three more Wood Storks.

However, my hopes the boardwalk didn't produce a single bird except for a flyover Great Heron. 

At first glance, the main bay area seemed fairly empty except for a few Egrets on small islands and a few gulls and terns fishing far out in the water. But then I noticed a large number of birds were stretched out in a long line at one end of the bay.

While the smaller birds turned out to be mainly just Laughing Gulls, the bigger birds were of several different species. Brown Pelicans, Neotropic Cormorants, Great Egrets and Snowy Egrets predominated.  

An American White Pelican was tucked in among the Browns. 

A single Black-bellied Whistling Duck was barely visible but here and there I caught sight of some juvenile and adult White Ibis (below).

A Little Blue Heron and a Great Blue Heron refused to let me photograph them, while a Green Heron and a Yellow-crowned Night Heron were out of camera range.

While none of the birds were new for the year or in any way unusual, their presence certainly made the visit worthwhile.  
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Hotter than You Know What

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The past week has been really hot here in southeast Texas, with highs getting pretty close to the 100F mark. We've been avoiding the heat and enjoying our air-conditioning but our birds have been suffering.

It has been toughest for the young birds, the ones born this spring and early summer. The juvenile Blue Jays have coped by puffing up their feathers to provide insulation from the heat but they haven't looked or sounded too happy about it.

Our young male and female Northern Cardinals have been looking stressed, too.

Their parents haven't looked like they're handling the heat much better.

Our White-winged Doves think that fanning out their wings and tails is the answer.

At least one of our Blue Jays has been trying out the same technique.

One odd thing about this is that our backyard is so small that the birds are never more than a few yards from a birdbath, which we keep full. The birds know it's there because lots of them come and drink from it. However, only one bird - a Blue Jay - seems to have taken full advantage of during the current heatwave.

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