A Very Good Day!

We had a very good day's outing yesterday: Good company, mild weather, excellent birding, beautiful landscapes and no mosquitoes. What more could you ask for?

Sheldon Reservoir

We started by meeting up with Carlos and Macarena Aguilar on a cool, gray morning at Sheldon Lake/Reservoir. The Carpenter's Bayou end of the lake had some nesting activity (mainly Great Egrets, Night Herons, Anhingas, White Ibis) and a nice variety of the larger wading birds. Snags in the bayou were occupied by Great Blue Herons, Anhingas and Black-bellied Whistling Ducks, while Barn Swallows swooped around the Garrett Road bridge and a large flock of Neotropic Cormorants flew in and settled on the lake. Meanwhile Common Moorhens and a young Little Blue Heron meandered among the waterlily pads.

Carlos' Photo of a Young Little Blue Heron

The fishing jetty on Fauna Road had more Whistling Ducks, plus a Red-tailed Hawk, Red-bellied Woodpeckers, Red-winged Blackbirds, Great Egrets and Cedar Waxwings.

The ponds at the Environmental Center had a couple of alligators as well as a nice group of herons' and egrets' nests.

Anole at the Environmental Center

Waterlilies were much in evidence.

Baytown Nature Center

At noon we drove over to the Baytown Nature Center and had a picnic lunch in the butterfly garden. It was now warm and sunny, and lunchtime entertainment was provided by a Common Loon and several terns.

Carlos and Macarena

Then we walked the peninsula trail, stopping frequently to admire the flowers, butterflies and birds that lined the pathway. Brown Pelicans patrolled the channel, while Ospreys and Laughing Gulls circled overhead. Ponds by the trail were busy with Great and Tricolored Egrets, Tricolored Herons, Blue-winged Teal, Mottled Duck, Killdeer, Willets, Black-necked Stilts, Lesser Yellowlegs and Roseate Spoonbills.

Black-bellied Whistling Ducks

White Ibis

Great Egret

Yellow-crowned Night Heron

Tricolored Heron

Killdeer

Lesser Yellowlegs

We were all struck by how beautifully nature has managed to reclaim this housing subdivision, abandoned 20+ years ago because of hurricane damage. Flowers are everywhere and they attract lots of butterflies, bees and other insects.

Indian Blanket

Sulphur Butterfly

Birding Total

For a relaxed few hours of birding, we saw a very good range of species: 28 at Sheldon, 30 at Baytown and 45 overall. My year list moved to 160 with the addition of Common Loon, Yellow-crowned Night Heron and Marbled Godwit.

Bear Creek Park

Bear Creek Park was looking beautiful and was busy with common birds Sunday morning. I didn't spot any warblers but I was delighted to see and hear my first White-eyed Vireo of the year.

The resident Eastern Bluebirds were much in evidence.

Eastern Bluebird

The inside corner of Golbow where the road turns south - always great for woodpeckers - had many Red-headed Woodpeckers. At one point, I had five in view at the same time.

Red-headed Woodpecker

I managed to get some reasonable video. If it's wobbly, it's partly because, while I was filming one Red-headed, the tree I was leaning against was vibrating from the drumming of another.

The same area had a Barred Owl, the first owl I've ever seen at Bear Creek, although I imagine there must be quite a population in the park.

Barred Owl

My "goodbye birds" were a pair of Broad-winged Hawks, which circled overhead.

Broad-winged Hawk

The hawks brought my 2008 bird list to 154 species. Cliff Swallows flying under the 290 flyover at Huffmeister raised the total to 155.

A Good Morning at Anahuac

Dee and I spent a couple of hours at Anahuac National Wildlife Refuge this morning. It was a cloudy, windy day but there were wildflowers galore and the refuge was even more beautiful than usual. Better still, it was almost empty of people - and we didn't see a single mosquito.

Evening Primroses ...

Shared the Verges with Other Wildflowers

The birding excitement started right at the registration office, where Barn Swallows nesting under the eaves kept swooping past our heads.

Barn Swallow on Nest

The first pond had a good range of ducks - including Redhead - as well as all three types of Ibis.

Shoveler Pond was busy, too, with Red-winged Blackbirds singing and displaying everywhere. (We both love Red-winged Blackbirds, partly because they always remind of us birding trips we did in northern California.)

Red-winged Blackbird Displaying

Boat-tailed Grackles were also displaying, while Northern Harriers kept gliding over and disturbing flocks of Blue-winged Teal. American Coots and Common Moorhen were very numerous. The waterside was lined with alligators; we counted 11 and probably missed many more.

The Willows were very quiet but turned up three good birds: our first Palm Warbler in Texas and our first-of-the-year Eastern Kingbird and Yellow-billed Cuckoo. The road nearby had Savannah Sparrows, too.

Savannah Sparrow

The main boardwalk was very worthwhile. We had good views of Black-necked Stilts and Mottled Duck, as well good looks at Seaside Sparrows and a Sora.

Black-necked Stilt

The refuge produced a list of 42 species, which wasn't bad for less than 2 hours. It took my year list to 144.

We returned home via Boy Scouts Woods at High Island, where we had a picnic lunch. We were amazed to see how much damage had been done by the last hurricane to hit the area: Almost all of the huge trees in the "Cathedral" had been destroyed and some other parts of the site were also very badly damaged.

We didn't manage to see the Buff-bellied Hummingbird which has been there for several weeks, but we did get to watch the bathing antics of a Brown Thrasher, another first-of-year bird for us both.

Exotic Visitors

Sitting on our tiny front porch yesterday afternoon, Deanne noticed a tiny brown bird with large beak and scaly-patterned breast among the Chipping Sparrows and House Finches in our mulberry tree. A quick search through the Sibley guide revealed that the bird was an adult Nutmeg Mannikin. A moment later, it was joined by a juvenile and we were able to watch both parent and offspring for several minutes.

The Nutmeg Mannikin (aka Munia or Spice Finch) is an exotic bird that has become established in the wild for many years in California and Florida and more recently in the Houston area. I have seen reports of Mannikins from Kleb Woods, which is 10 miles northwest of us, but I certainly didn't expect to see any in our yard. It will be interesting to see whether the individuals we saw decide to take up residence in our area.

P.S.
The Mannikins were back later this morning and I managed to grab a quick photo of the adult.

January 2 Birding at Longenbaugh

I decided to do my first birding of the year at Longenbaugh Road, where I saw 30 species in two hours. I'm finally getting used to my compact digital camera but it certainly isn't ideal for photographing birds.

Vesper Sparrow

Savannah Sparrow

Pyrrhuloxia

Black Vulture

Just Another Cardinal - Or Not?

On Wednesday I took an hour away from work to check out Longenbaugh Road again. Among many other birds, I spotted what I was sure was a Pyrrhuloxia. But when I checked on the Internet, I found out that this bird would be very unusual here. So I assumed I was mistaken and didn't report the sighting.

This morning I read a message on Texbirds from Jim Hinson (a great local birder), saying that he had seen a Pyrrhuloxia at exactly the same place where I saw my bird.

Naturally I did a detour to Longenbaugh Road on my way to work. And the Pyrrhuloxia was very obliging this time - not only did she appear, but she kept coming out into the open over and over again.

Pyrrhuloxia

The site also had several sparrow species, including Field Sparrow (US life bird #396 for me), White-crowned, Vesper, Song and Lincoln's.

Field Sparrow

White-crowned Sparrow

Immature White-crowned Sparrow

Vesper Sparrow

The busiest and perhaps the prettiest bird was this Blue-gray Gnatcatcher.

Other birds included American Robin, Roby-crowned Kinglet and Orange-crowned Warbler.

American Robin

Birding Longenbaugh Road

At 7:30 this morning I drove down to Longenbaugh Road, 20 minutes southwest of where we live. It's a farming area where they flood the fields and attract ducks in the winter. It didn't feel like winter, though: 72F at 7:45. (Yesterday it was 83F or about 27C!)

It was very misty at first, muffling the sound of hundreds of Snow Geese in the fields and occasionally passing overhead in V-shaped flocks. There were also flyovers by flocks of Canada Geese and groups of White Ibis. A Bald Eagle and a Great Blue Heron were just visible on the ground through the mist.

I spent some time trying to get photos of some of the Red-tailed Hawks and American Kestrels on the roadside wires, but they would move on as soon as I stopped the car opposite them. All in all I saw maybe ten Red-tailed, varying from a dark morph right through to one with a pure white breast and a complete brown helmet. I saw about the same number of Kestrels, interpsersed on the phone lines with twice as many Loggerhead Shrikes and Northern Mockingbirds. The hedges had Savannah and Lincoln's Sparrows, as well as an Eastern Phoebe engaged in its morning grooming session.

A Distant Red-tailed Hawk

Further along, I stopped at a small bridge over Bear Creek. The latter had only a trickle of water but this was enough for morning baths for Chipping Sparrows and Red-winged Blackbirds. The water also attracted American Goldfinch, Carolina Chickadees and Northern Cardinals. I caught a brief glimpse of a different sparrow and managed to grab a quick photo: Harris Sparrow, a new life bird for me.

Further east, mourning doves and European Starlings lined the wires, while a pair of Northern Harriers buzzed a field on my left, followed by a pair of Crested Caracaras crossing the road just ahead of me. The trees at the road end had more Red-tailed Hawks and Eastern Phoebes, and a single Yellow-rumped Warbler.

Heading back west, I saw several Great Egrets in the fields and caused panic in a flock of 7 Killdeer.

Visibility had improved by now and I was able to make out a few Northern Shovelers and Snow Geese among hundreds on Northern Pintails in the flooded fields on both sides of the road. Every so often hunters would fire a salvo and the air would fill with Pintails.

Back on the Katy-Hockley Cut-off, there were two Black Vultures. Then my final bird: a solitary and rather unexpected Roseate Spoonbill fishing in a small creek by the roadside.




So an enjoyable two hours of birding, with a total of 30 species.

Back at home, Dee and I sat in the backyard for half an hour and were rewarded by seeing a Cooper's Hawk fly onto a branch not 20 feet away in our neighbor's yard. The front yard had House Finch, White-winged Dove and Pine Warbler.

One for the Record Books

We have a small bed of mainly native flowering plants in our back yard. Yesterday I noticed an unusual butterfly there and managed to grab a photo of it.

A web search revealed it to be a Rusty-tipped Page, a resident of Mexico and other Latin American countries. My sighting is only the third ever in the USA: It was seen once before in New Mexico and once in southern Texas, way down near the Mexican border.

Judging by the condition of its wings, the specimen in our yard probably got swept up to Houston by a recent storm front.