Total Species seen by Month's end: 441
Number of species added during month: 65
Miles Driven: 6223
Review Species Added: 2
-
Surfbird - 6 April - along beach, 13 miles west of McFaddin NWR,
Jefferson Co.
-
Dusky-capped Flycatcher - 13 April - Boot Canyon, BBNP, Brewster
Co.
Summary & Highlights:
3 April (377
species)
Thursday April 3rd after
work, I had my first Swainson's Hawk of the year out near Webberville in
eastern Travis county.
5 April (381
species)
Saturday morning 5 April,
I once again started off on the Upper Texas Coast. I managed to get down
to Anahuac NWR before first light on Saturday morning and was able to
hear 2 Black Rails which continued to call even after daybreak (and
apparently were calling all day according to others). From there, I
headed over to Sabine Woods, though there were very few birds. So, I
decided to go up along the beach area west of there and had huge numbers
of Lesser Scaup as well as 1 female Black Scoter and 3 Surf Scoters. I
returned to Sabine Woods in the afternoon and was able to add singletons
of three new birds for the year: Summer Tanager, Yellow-billed Cuckoo
and Tennessee Warbler.
6 April (383 species)
Sunday the 6th, I again
decided to start off at Sabine Woods. The winds were blowing quite hard
out of the south and I guessed it would be a hard day sitting there
waiting for migrants (though I did have a nice Palm Warbler at the Sea
Rim Willows). So, I opted instead to drive the washed out highway
between Sabine Woods and High Island to see how passable it was and if
there were any unusual birds in that section that probably sees few
birders. One mile past McFaddin NWR, I had an adult
Lesser Black-backed
Gull; 3 miles later I had my first Black Tern, an early one in with a
group of Least Terns. The best bird of the day turned up about 13 miles
west of the entrance to McFaddin NWR - a winter plumaged Surfbird flying
with 2 Ruddy Turnstones. I got good looks at the key field marks for
this bird as it flew though I never was able to see it on the ground -
despite driving 9 miles back east along the beach looking for it. This
Surfbird was the first Review-list bird I had found on my own during the
year and I submitted the details of it to the state records committee (as I
did with all Review-list birds I encountered during 2003).
12-13 April (386
species)
The weekend of 12-13 April, I led a field trip to the Devil's River area for the
Houston Audubon
Society. Ten folks signed up for the trip and we spent most of Saturday
at Devil's River
State Natural Area followed by Sunday morning at Fort Clark Springs and Sunday afternoon
at Park Chalk
Bluff. We had many of the same birds that I had on my scouting trip a
couple weeks earlier,
including the
Lewis's Woodpecker. I was able to add 3 new year birds in addition - Barn Owl
(on my way down to
Del Rio at 4am in the morning on Saturday), Yellow-breasted Chat and Bullock's Oriole.
14 April (397
species)
I took a vacation day from work on Monday, April 14th to bird Sabine Woods and
surrounding areas
again. The winds were blowing out of the south, though not very hard and
there were a fair
number of birds hanging around during the day, with a slight push of
new birds late
in the afternoon. I was able to add 11 new migrants for the year, with the best bird
being a
Black-billed Cuckoo. The other new migrants: Chuck-will's-widow, Acadian
Flycatcher,
Swainson's Thrush, Yellow Warbler, Cerulean Warbler, American Redstart,
Scarlet Tanager,
Blue Grosbeak, Painted Bunting, and Baltimore Oriole. I also
birded a bit along the beach and found another
Lesser Black-backed Gull (at
least my fifth different bird of the year), a bird approaching
first-summer plumage.
19-20 April (418
species)
The weekend of 19-20 April arrived and I was planning on birding Jefferson
County (Sabine Woods)
again until I
heard early Friday evening that Mike Overton had located an Aztec Thrush in Boot
Canyon, Big Bend
National Park. As I was already rather close to my parents' place in The
Woodlands, I
continued on to their house, ate dinner, and then turned around and
started the long
drive back across the state to Big Bend By 8.30am that morning, I was hiking up the
Pinnacles Trail and had
reached Boot Canyon by 10.00am. I birded the canyon area for 6 hours.
Although I didn't
relocate the Aztec Thrush, I did have several good birds on my hike. The
best birds
were: a Hermit Warbler with a large flock of Townsend's Warblers, a
calling Dusky-capped
Flycatcher and a very approachable Painted Redstart which was around
most of the
afternoon. Other new birds for the year were the typical Chisos
Mountains
summering birds:
Mexican Jay, Hutton's Vireo, Colima Warbler, Violet-Green Swallow,
White-throated Swift,
Cordilleran Flycatcher, Blue-throated Hummingbird, Hepatic Tanager,
Black-chinned
Sparrow, and Broad-tailed Hummingbird.
Sunday morning the 20th, I started out at Cottonwood Campground (also in
Big Bend) and before
it was really
even daylight I already had Western Screech-Owl, Lesser Nighthawk and
Lucy's Warblers. I
birded the campground for a couple hours more and also added a Bank
Swallow. I headed
over to Rio Grande Village and on the way over, I had my first
Zone-tailed Hawk of the
year, just north of the turn-off to Boquillas Canyon. The wind was
howling out of the
northwest and it was tough birding at Rio Grande Village though I did find a
female MacGillivray's Warbler. I
started the long drive home and added one more bird for the year - a
flock of
Yellow-headed Blackbirds on US 190, about 14 miles east of Iraan.
23 April (424
species)
On Wednesday April 23rd, Petra Hockey called me at work in the early
afternoon to tell me
that she had seen a Reeve (female Ruff) on some property in Calhoun County
on the central Texas coast. I decided to
try for it immediately that afternoon and I raced down to the coast and met up with
Petra. Unfortunately, we were
unable to relocated the bird. It was still a good trip though as it yielded
me 6 new birds for the year
- Mississippi Kite, Buff-breasted Sandpiper, Hudsonian Godwit, White-rumped
Sandpiper,
Common Nighthawk and Dickcissel.
25-26 April (429
species)
Friday 25 April, I took a day off from work and headed down to Jackson County. to
scout out the area
for a field trip I was leading the following day for the Pt Lavaca TOS
Convention. Mark
Adams called me from High Island while I was doing this to tell me that
a male Cape May Warbler was being seen up that way. Unfortunately, I
didn't feel that I could get away at that time (and I would end up
missing out on Cape May Warbler for the year).
Saturday, I lead the Jackson County. field trip for the TOS Convention. The
group and I had
a rather productive trip (105 species, 10 warblers) and I was able to
get 5 new year
birds: Eastern Wood-Pewee, Philadelphia Vireo, Blackburnian Warbler,
Chestnut-sided
Warbler plus 2 Black-headed Grosbeaks (at Olivia).
27 April (437
species)
Sunday April 27th, I started out at San Bernard NWR on my own and quickly got 3 new
year birds -
Rose-breasted Grosbeak, Least Bittern, and Gray-cheeked Thrush. My next
stop was the
Quintana Sanctuary near Freeport, where Charlie Brower and others were participating in
a Big Sit. I
missed a Golden-winged Warbler (I was getting worried about this bird)
that the group saw but did add
Bay-breasted Warbler, Blackpoll Warbler and Magnolia Warbler. I also had
a Trail's-type
(Alder/Willow) Flycatcher that wasn't vocalizing at all. I then went to
Lafitte's Cove
on Galveston Island. There was a Glossy Ibis on the pond there and one
of the first
birds I saw when I entered the wooded area looked to be a golden-winged
warbler.
Unfortunately, as I got a look at the bird's face, I could tell that it
was a Brewster's
Warbler (the most common Blue-winged X Golden-winged hybrid). I headed
over to High
Island and a quick hour pass thru Audubon Woods finally lead me to a
genuine
Golden-winged Warbler and a sense of relief. I had noticed on the
scoreboard there that
Bobolinks had been seen a few times in the last few days at Yacht Basin
Road, including
the previous evening. I decided to spend the remaining couple of hours
at Yacht Basin
Road searching for those birds. As I was walking along the road, I ran into Gary Hodne Around
6pm, we were
talking a little and not birding as hard as we could have been.
Gary was scanning with his binoculars when he thought
he noted a dark
bird with a bit of yellow on it, off a bit of a distance in the fields
east of the road.
Gary got his scope on the bird and it turned out to be a Bobolink (at
least 2 birds).
I got on the birds for a short time and felt even more relief as this is
one of the
toughest non-review birds (and a previous nemesis of mine).
28 April (441 species)
Having done so well Sunday with Bobolink and Golden-winged Warbler, I
decided to
try to fill in my east Texas gaps on Monday the 28th. I started out at Boykin Springs in
Angelina National Forest where
I immediately heard a Bachman's Sparrow and was able to track it down 15
minutes later.
From there, I headed over to the Silsbee/Kountze area where I heard (and
tracked down 10 minutes later) a singing Prairie Warbler during my third
stop along Gore Store
Road. My next
target was Swallow-tailed Kite - so I drove over to Liberty and spent a
few hours at the
Municipal Park and nearby church. It was a bit of an overcast day,
perhaps not a good
day for kites, as I didn't have any luck with this bird - though I did
add my first
Red-headed Woodpecker for the year. There was only 1 remaining eastern migrant I
felt I "needed" this
week - a Veery
- so I headed down to the coast again to look for one. I did indeed find
one at Audubon
Woods and another one later in the afternoon at the Willows by Sea Rim
State Park. While I was
at the Willows, I got a call from Brush Freeman that a Little Gull had been seen
at the Beaumont
Sewage Ponds the previous day. I decided to race over there and got
there about 5.30pm.
I stayed until about 6.15pm but saw no signs of a Little Gull.
29-30 April (441
species)
Tuesday morning the 29th, I started back at the Beaumont Sewage Ponds but had no
sign of any Little Gull after about 45 minutes. I decided to head down to Sabine Woods. I
birded the woods, the Willows at Sea Rim as well as the beach area and
had few migrants and ended up spending time digiscoping terns (adult Black, Forsters and Common)
along the beach.
Early in the afternoon, I returned to
Sabine Woods and ran into Mike Overton there. He had seen the Little
Gull earlier that day around
11am - and he knew of a Birding Classic Team that had tried for it at 11.30am
and missed it. We
talked for a bit and then I headed back over to the Sewage Ponds. I
manned a short
vigil from just before 4pm until around 6.20pm when the last of the
gulls left w/o any
luck (struck out again!). I would return to the Sewage Ponds again
on the morning of the 30th in hopes of running into the gull. I
spent most of the morning there, waiting unsuccessfully, until I headed
back to Austin around noon.