Texas Birding Day 3
On day 3, I drove about an hour and forty minutes west to Salineño Wildlife Preserve where I met my guide Evan. One reason for starting at Salineño was the Brown Jay pictured above. There are only a couple of Brown Jays that show up in the US every year, and this one had reliable been coming to a set of feeders in the Salineño Wildlife Preserve.
Also at Salineño, I was also able to photograph this Audubon’s Oriole on an island across a shallow channel of the Rio Grande. I confirmed with Evan that the island was US territory rather than Mexican since one reports birds based on the location they are in not where you might be standing. So if this island had been Mexican, I would not have been able to count this particular Audubon’s Oriole on my US list. The Audubon’s Oriole was another new species for me, my seventh Oriole species of the year.
Here is the head of a flock of about 300 American White Pelicans swimming up the Rio Grande River with the island behind.
As Evan and I observed birds flying up and down the river, this Spotted Sandpiper kept returning to a rock below me at the river’s edge.
After a couple of hours at Salineño Wildlife Preserve, we headed to some other nearby parks trying to find additional new species for my year or life list. Driving along, I spotted this beautiful Gray Hawk pearched just to the side of the road. While not a new species for me, I am always eager to get nice photos of any bird.
Much of the day we were unable to find new species. Obviously, the more species of birds one has seen, the fewer species remain that are new. Like the Gray Hawk above, this Blue-Gray Gnatcatcher is not a new species for me, but I liked the photo.
Evan has an excellent ear for bird calls, so he heard this Cassin’s Sparrow well before my phone app Merlin recognized its call. The Cassin’s Sparrow was deep in a bush, so it took quite a while before I was able to get any reasonable photo of it.
The fourth new species of the day was the Northern Bobwhite. Again, I spotted it while driving slowly on a dirt road as we travelled between parks. While I was able to snap a couple of frames before they disappeared into the brush, none of the images were very good. However, two days later, I again came across some Northern Bobwhites and was able to get a better photo as this new set scurried off into the brush.
On my way back to the hotel, Evan gave me the location of a place that I might find Yellow-headed Blackbirds. He mentioned that there were a handful mixed in with hundreds of other blackbirds. When I arrived, I saw countless blackbirds of several species. Fortunately, the bright yellow heads were like a radiant beacons allowing me to easily find 8 Yellow-headed Blackbirds.