Total Species seen by Month's end: 320
Number of species added during month: 30
Miles Driven: 6357
Review Species Added: ZERO
Summary & Highlights:
1-2 February (302
species)
I had planned on heading
over to northeast Texas for the weekend of 1-2 February but opted at the
last minute to try for some of the recent rarities reported down in the
lower Rio Grande valley. I would search for Mew Gulls (San Ygnacio
landfill), Costa's Hummingbird (Santa Ana NWR) and Gray-crowned
Yellowthroat (Laguna Atascosa NWR) but didn't have success with any of
these birds. Still, I managed to add 12 year birds on my trip. The
most productive spot was Laredo Junior College (in Laredo) where I
started Saturday morning and added Yellow-crowned Night-Heron, Northern
Rough-winged Swallow, Solitary Sandpiper, Green Kingfisher, Clay-colored
Sparrow and Cassin's Sparrow. Sunday morning I started at Santa Ana NWR
where I quickly found a female Black-chinned Hummingbird and a Rufous
Hummingbird. I got a good look this time at the Tropical Parula
that has been there most of the winter. From there, I made it over to
El Canelo Inn/Ranch and got the very easy Ferruginous Pygmy-Owl that is
resident there, plus Bronzed Cowbird. I decided to head back down
towards Laguna Atascosa to search for a probable Gray-crowned
Yellowthroat that had been seen over 3 weeks earlier (but just recently
reported). I didn't have much luck with this bird, though some of it
was surely due to the very windy mid-day conditions. From there, I
headed to Port Mansfield where I added a group of Short-billed
Dowitchers - my first for the year. I ended the day watching huge rafts
of Redhead and Lesser Scaups in the Baffin Bay/Riviera Beach area before
heading back home.
4-9 February (308 species)
Petra Hockey and I headed
up to the Panhandle on the afternoon of the 4th, returning on the 9th.
Late that first afternoon, we stopped at Kenedy Park, OH Ivie Reservoir
where Petra located a Pacific Loon that I was able to get on for just a
short time before dark. On the 5th, Petra and I scouted out the
Dalhart/Rita Blanca Nat'l Grassland area for field trips that I would be
leading on the 7th and 8th for the TOS convention. We are able to
easily find most of the normal Panhandle birds, including 3 new year
birds (Ring-necked Pheasant, Rough-legged Hawk, and American Tree
Sparrow), all of which were seen again on the field trips. The 6th was
a cold and snowy day where we never saw the sun as we wandered around
the Lake Meredith area. Petra helped me lead my trip on the 7th, but
then she went on a different trip to the Caprock Canyon area on the 8th,
where Petra identified an immature (brown) Northern Shrike, which was
easily the best bird of the convention. The next day, Petra and I
braved a stressful 3 hour drive (at 4.15 am) in the icy snow from
Amarillo to a Lesser Prairie Chicken lek southeast of the town of
Glazier, where we were able to flush three birds in about three or four
inches of snow. From there, we headed straight over to the area (3
hours away) where Petra had the immature shrike and ran into Laura & Jay
Packer who told us that both the immature bird as well as an adult bird
had been seen that morning by several folks. In a very short time,
Lorna Engleman stopped by where we were at and told us that her
husband, Dodge, had an adult bird in his scope up the road some distance
away. Quickly, Petra, the Packers, and I piled in my car and raced up
to where Dodge was - and we were all able to get looks at the adult
Northern Shrike thru our scopes. From there, Petra and I started the
long haul back to Austin, stopping at EV Spence Reservoir, but not
adding any new year birds.
15-17 February
(313 species)
I spent my three-day (President's day) weekend up in the northeast Texas area.
Saturday and
Sunday were cold, windy and very cloudy; Monday was very nice and sunny.
I started off
on Saturday in the Trinidad area checking out several spots where Truman
Powell and
others have reported Smith's Longspurs this winter and in previous
years. I did run into
nice groups of American Pipits and Vesper Sparrows (plus year-bird
Harris' Sparrows) but
could not locate any longspurs. In the early afternoon, I headed over to
Tyler State
Park and spent a couple hours walking the woods where I added
(year-birds) Hairy &
Pileated Woodpeckers plus other usual piney-wood species. Sunday, I
started out at Wright
Patman Lake dam scanning the large Bonaparte's Gull flocks for either
Black-headed or
Little Gulls but could find nothing exciting. A strange first sign of
spring was my
first Purple Martins of the year, braving sub-freezing wind-chills
around the
headquarters building next to the dam. After a couple hours of checking
out the gulls, I
headed over to Daingerfield State Park where I spent about 1.5 hours
hiking around the
woods, which produced my first Brown Creeper of the year. A visit to
Lake O'The Pines
was next, where I spent the rest of the day and found the lake full of
scaup (both
Greater and Lesser) but not a single loon (I had 46 Common Loons on my
visit a month
earlier). Both Willie Sekula and Brush Freeman had called me in the
afternoon to let me
know Martin Reid had found a 2nd-year Mew Gull at Village Creek and so I
ended up talking
with Martin that evening and meeting him (and Rich Damron & Lynn Barber)
at that location
the next morning. Thanks to Martin, we were able to get access to the
stirring tanks
where Rich and I stayed until about 1pm, waiting for the bird to show
up (which it
didn't do on this day).
22-23 February (317
species)
I spent Saturday the 22nd at Red Bluff Lake in west Texas, initially looking for
the Black-legged
Kittiwake found that Wednesday by Mike Overton. I didn't have any luck
with the kittiwake
(they rarely linger for more than a day or two) but did discover (and
photograph) an
adult Tundra Swan on the eastern side of the lake. Other birds on the
lake included my
first Tree Swallows of the year, plus a good group of sparrows in the
Sandy Beach area,
including about a dozen Sage Sparrows, plus my first Brewer's Sparrows
of the year. That
evening I made the long drive up to Amarillo. Sunday morning, I met up
with Barrett
Pierce at Cedar Canyon on Lake Meredith. With Barrett's help, we were
able to find the
Red-throated Loon (present for a couple weeks already) while braving
freezing temperatures
and very gusty winds. Barrett and I then headed over to Lake Tanglewood,
where we looked
(unsuccessfully) around for almost two hours for Evening Grosbeaks that
have been seen
on-and-off for a few weeks. We also made a brief stop at Buffalo Lake
NWR before I
started the long drive back to Austin.
26-27 February (320
species)
I did some birding around
town during the week. On Wednesday the 26th, following the ice/sleet storm that hit the Austin
area on Tuesday, I
headed out to Granger after work to try again for Mountain Plovers (my
6th attempt this
year). As I has hoped, there was still plenty of ice in the fields that
pushed some of
the birds closer to the edges. I had great scope looks at a flock of 200+ and
30+ McCown's
Lonspurs within 20-30 yards of the road. Along CR 360, I had almost as
near
looks at 5 Mountain
Plovers (finally!) that were actively working the fields. The next day at lunch I
headed over to
the fields (on Old Manor Rd and on Blue Goose Rd) near the BFI Landfill
in northeast Austin. I
was able to find my first Franklin's Gull of the year, as well as my
first Barn Swallow,
flying over the pond at nearby Harris Branch.