Total Species seen by Month's end: 488
Number of species added during month: 4
Miles Driven: 2968
Review Species Added: 1
Summary & Highlights:
4-6 July (486
species)
On the 4th of July, I headed out to the Davis
Mountains. On the way out, I
stopped at the
Sheffield/Ft Lancaster Loop west of Ozona and came across 5 Brown-crested Flycatchers and
1 Eastern
Wood-Pewee on a nest, both along Live Oak Creek. Once in the Davis
Mountains, I
stopped over at
Marc & Maryann Eastman's home to watch for a White-eared Hummingbird
that had been
appearing at their hummingbird feeders. That bird didn't make an
appearance that
afternoon or the following morning, but I had a great time sitting with
the Eastmans and
watching their other hummingbirds. The hummingbirds visiting their
feeders included a Green Violet-Ear, the first for the Trans-Pecos
region,
that had shown up a
couple days prior. The next morning July 5th, I again made the long haul from
the Davis Mountains
down to the lower Rio Grande Valley. The drive took all day and so
I wasn't birding again until Sunday morning, when I got to Santa Ana NWR. I
waited with a couple other folks and finally did see the summering Short-tailed
Hawk make its brief
appearance at around 10.15am around the Cemetery on the refuge. I did little other birding and drove home
from there.
Along the way home in Live Oak County, I encountered 2 soaring Wood
Storks - my first of
the year.
7-25 July (486
species)
The middle part of July was
spent with me not doing any real birding.
26 July (488
species)
Saturday July 26th, I opted for an off-shore fishing trip to try to
knock out my
remaining "pelagic" birds. I took an all day ScatCat fishing trip that went
about 47 miles out
of Port Aransas. It was a long, hot trip but also rewarding, as I was
able to get both
target birds - Masked Booby (3 different birds) and a Cory's Shearwater
(just a single
bird).