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In a typical year, I don't get to see many owls. So after seeing the Burrowing Owl at Anahuac NWR, I wasn't expecting to see any more owls for a while. However, a few days ago I noticed that someone had spotted Great Horned Owls very near CyFair College and I decided to go and look for them.
It didn't take me long to see that there was a large nest in the area where the owls had been reported.
As I approached the nest, I was delighted to see that it was occupied by an adult Great Horned Owl and a juvenile.
A couple of days later I went back to check on the nest and I was surprised to see that there were actually two young birds in it.
I scanned the branches around the nest but couldn't see any sign of the parent.
Then as I turned to leave, I realized that the adult owl was perched just a few yards away and was obviously watching me.
I hope to get back to the nest later this week to see how the two owlets are developing.
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After largely dipping on birds on Bolivar, I wasn't too optimistic about Galveston. However, although birds were fairly scarce, there were some good ones.
I was too slow stopping and getting out of the car to get photos of a pair of White-tailed Kites on Stewart Road but three Sandhill Cranes on 8 Mile Road were more obliging.
Sportsmen Road is normally an excellent place for watching and photographing Egrets, Herons and other large wading birds. On this trip, though, there was only a single White Ibis in the channel next to the road.
Nearby was a rather forlorn-looking Osprey.
Our final stop was at the end of 8 Mile Road. In spite of the fact that the area was busy with anglers, there were several Ruddy Turnstones.
A solitary Willet also seemed to be oblivious to the people.
I was hoping that the site would still have the Common Loon that we'd seen there at the end of last year. Sure enough, there it was again.
Of course, I can't really be sure that it was the exact same bird but it seems likely to me!
By now it was time for lunch at our favorite Galveston restaurant, Mario's on the Seawall. And after that we would have to start the drive home. However, we'll no doubt be doing the same trip again at least twice in April, when spring migration should insure that we see many more birds than we managed this time.
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We didn't have a lot of luck with birds along the Bolivar peninsula on Sunday morning. Rollover Pass had thousands of birds but all of them were on sandbanks far away from the beach.
The beach at Retillon Road wasn't much more productive either. All we saw were Brown Pelicans, a Long-billed Curlew and Ring-billed Gulls.
Things picked up when we reached the ferry harbor, which had many handsome Brown Pelicans.
There were also several groups of American White Pelicans, most of which were busy grooming.
Only one of the American White Pelicans was fishing.
As usual, the ferry ride over to Galveston provided lots of opportunities to photograph Laughing Gulls.
I was very taken by the beautiful eyes of this Ring-billed Gull, as I'd never before noticed the red eye-ring.
Luckily, I had remembered to bring along some Triscuits and so Dee was able to have fun feeding Laughing Gulls from the stern of the boat.
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After leaving Anahuac on Saturday, we paid a brief visit to Smith Oaks in High Island.
I was amazed to see that the rookery was already busy with hundreds of nesting birds.
There were some Roseate Spoonbills, but only a few and they hadn't started nest-building yet.
In contrast, there were scores and scores of both Double-crested and Neotropic Cormorants, some of which were nesting.
Here's a Neotropic Cormorant, identified by the white line at the base of its bill.
Outnumbering all other species were Great Egrets. They were in full breeding plumage and had adopted their green faces.
Several pairs were busy mating.
One of the wonderful things about Smith Oaks is that you always get wonderful looks at Great Egrets (and, later, other large waders) as they fly in and out of the rookery.
I love watching them as they come in to land on top of the trees.
On Sunday many of the Egrets were flying in with twigs and branches that they had collected for nest-building.
It's fun to watch the way the birds waiting at the nest-site react when their partners fly in with their contributions.
It's fun, too, to see the care with which the birds place the twigs and branches.
I hope we'll be able to visit High Island several times in April, by which time the rookery should be absolutely packed with nesting Great Egrets, Snowy Egrets, Roseate Spoonbills, Cormorants and other large birds. It's the best springtime show in Texas, bar none.
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We took the opportunity of having a free weekend to do our favorite birding loop: Anahuac NWR, High Island, Bolivar and Galveston. To give ourselves plenty of birding time, we arranged to spend a night in Winnie after visiting High Island.
Shoveler Pond at Anahuac looked as beautiful as ever.
Surprisingly, though, there were many fewer species of birds around the pond and elsewhere on the refuge than usual. Probably at least 80% of all the birds we saw were American Coots.
Pied-billed Grebes provided a little variety.
Geese were totally absent and the only ducks we spotted were a few Northern Shovelers and a handful of Ring-necked Ducks (below).
This Snowy Egret was a welcome sight.
So, too, was this Double-crested Cormorant, which we spotted when we were unsuccessfully looking for the Groove-billed Anis that had been reported earlier in the week.
On this trip we only saw one alligator on the Shoveler Pond loop.
However, we did also see what looked like a very handsome cottonmouth.
I looked for the male Vermilion Flycatcher that spends each winter near the Visitor Center but he was nowhere to be seen. So we headed down towards Frozen Point. On the drive we saw plenty of Red-winged Blackbirds along with Boat-tailed and Great-tailed Grackles (below)
When we reached the bay, we were disappointed to find no shorebirds and just a solitary Ring-billed Gull.
The main reason for driving down to Frozen Point was to see the Burrowing Owl which has been delighting local birders recently. Unfortunately, although we found the owl's burrow, the bird itself never appeared and so we headed for High Island, to check out the Smith Oaks rookery.
I'll blog about High Island another day but let me finish here by saying how I started the following day.
Sunday Owling
Sunday morning I was at Anahuac well before dawn, in hopes of finding owls along the entrance road. However, three drives along this road in thick fog didn't produce anything at all! So I headed down to Frozen Point in search of the Burrowing Owl.
Several other birders were already waiting for the owl to show. I waited with them and it wasn't long before the bird started to peep out.
Ten minutes later it began to move further out.
And finally it came completely out into the open and wandered around near the entrance to its burrow.
I had seen several Burrowing Owls when we lived in California but this was my first look at one in Texas. It was certainly made getting up at 5:30 a.m. and driving around in thick fog worthwhile!
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