Total Species seen by Month's end: 505
Number of species added during month: 5
Miles Driven: 6631
Review Species Added:
Summary & Highlights:
6-8 December (501
species)
My dad and I had signed
up for the TOS field trip to Daphne Prairie in northeast Texas
(Franklin county) on 7-8
December, so I found myself up in that area on Saturday the 6th.
I birded Lake O' The Pines in the
morning and Wright Patman Lake in the afternoon and was able to
wrangle up a single Laughing Gull
and 6 American Avocets on Wright Patman, though nothing new for
the year. Sunday morning, we were
with a group of TOS'ers on the Daphne Prairie. We did lots
of walking that morning thru short
grassy areas and were able to get some great looks at Sprague's
Pipits. Our target bird, Smith's
Longspur, was not as cooperative, though we did get a fair look at
one flying & calling individual and
a not-so-fair look at 2 more calling birds later. This was
#501 for the year.
Monday was spent
birding Dupree Park in Mount Vernon, and then I visited Lake Fork and
Lake Tawakoni on the way
home but didn't see much perhaps owing to the very strong winds
that makes lake-birding quite difficult.
10 December
(502 species)
There has been a
dark-backed gull present on Balmorhea Lake since at least 1
December. It was thought to be a Lesser
Black-backed Gull until Dale Ohl & Carolyn Ohl-Kolb observed it
on 6 December and
determined it was a Slaty-backed Gull. This was finally
confirmed early on the 9th by Martin Reid who
had been sent some pictures. Thus, I picked up Phil Rostron
at 1 a.m. on 10 December and we made the long drive from Austin to Balmorhea
Lake, arriving at the lake
just as the sun was rising.
We found the bird immediately and were joined shortly by Mark
Adams,
and we all watched it
preening peacefully for the next hour and a half, just south of the dam.
This was #502 for the year and
only my 3rd new Texas bird for the year. There had been only
one previous documented record of
Slaty-backed Gull in Texas - a bird that spent some time at the
Brownsville Dump in February 1992.
13-14 December
(502 species)
I stayed around Austin
the weekend of 13-14 December, birding only on Saturday morning.
I worked the Colorado
River area near Tahitian Village in Bastrop County, as well as
stops at Webberville Park and
Walter E. Long Lake in eastern Travis County but didn't find
anything new nor exciting.
20-21 December
(503 species)
Saturday the 20th, Mark
Lockwood and I started out at a private ranch near the west Texas
town of Marfa. Our
plan was to walk the grasslands on the property and hopefully come
across a Baird's Sparrow.
We walked a promising looking section for about 45 minutes and the
only sparrow that we found
was a single Vesper Sparrow. The next area we birded was a
weedy area near some water tanks.
The weeds were full of sparrows, some longspurs and Horned Larks.
In short order, Mark found
a Baird's Sparrow and called me over. I had a brief but
sufficient look before the bird flew
down to the ground. We were able to pish the bird up into
view a couple more times, getting
excellent looks at this seldom seen skulker (#503 for the year). With that bird
out of the way, we ended up going over to
Balmorhea Lake where Mark located the 1st-winter Thayer's Gull
that had been discovered a
week earlier by Mike Austin, and we ended up taking several
photos
of this bird.
Sunday the 21st, I
participated in the Davis Mountains CBC. My section was the high-county on the Davis
Mountains Preserve.
We had only a small number of species (including 1 Cassin's Finch) and
I ended up heading back for
home in the early afternoon.
22 December
(504 species)
A Thick-billed Kingbird
had been found (for the second year in a row) on the Mad Island
CBC on 14 December. The
bird was on the South Texas nuclear power plant facility and there
was no way to get access to that
property. However, thanks to help & directions from Mike
Austin, I was able to try for the bird
from adjacent property on 22 December. I spent much of
the day at a spot where the bird had been
seen previously (being joined by Lynn Barber late in the afternoon), and had
a few interesting species
(Summer Tanager, Yellow-throated Warbler, 3 Baltimore Orioles) but
the kingbird was nowhere to
be found. At around 4.30pm (I had been there since 8.50am),
I drove around for one last
look in the general area and when I returned to where Lynn & I
had been waiting, she was
motioning frantically - she believed she had just seen the bird
fly nearby. An anxious few minutes
passed while we searched around, and Lynn finally found the bird
again and we were both able to
get good looks and photos (#504 for the year) over the next few minutes just before
dusk.
24 December
(505 species)
On the 23rd, I
contacted Guy Luneau, who lives up near Kilgore, and inquired
about Purple Finches in his area. Sure
enough, he let me know that there were some birds on his property
and it would be okay to come up and
try for them the following day. So, early on the 24th, I met
up with Lynn Barber and we arrived
at the Luneau's property just after sun rise. We walked down
a trail where Guy had said the birds
could be and within a few minutes, I heard at least 1 finch.
In a few moments, I was able to locate
the bird (#505 for the year). Lynn and I were able to get some very good looks
at 3 Purple Finches (2 males, 1 female)
overall in the next few minutes. We birded a little bit more and
ended up meeting and thanking Guy about an
hour later before we parted ways and I headed down to my parent's
house for Christmas.
26-31 December
(505 species)
No surprise, I spent
the last five and a half days of the year birding. Two and
half days were out in west Texas and two days I
was up in the Panhandle with Fred Land. The last day of the
year I checked out some of the
reservoirs in west central Texas as I made my way back to Austin.
Also not surprising, during
this time, I could not come up with a new bird for the year.
On the 29th, I did locate my first ever
blue-phase Ross's Goose, a morph of this bird that I had always
hoped to find. On the last day of the
year, I also managed to locate a first-year
Red-throated Loon at EV Spence Reservoir (Coke County).
I called Lynn Barber who happened to be "nearby" near Monahans and
I kept track of the bird
for a couple hours until she was able to see it for her year list
(this was bird number 485 for her Big
Year).