Texas Birding Days 5 and 6

I started day 5 with my third visit to a location where a Burrowing Owl had been reported. While the first two visits had been unsuccessful, this time the owl was out. When my daughters were young, I remember watching Carl Hiaasen’s movie Hoot with them. It is the story of some teenage kids in Florida working to save a colony of endangered Burrowing Owls from being destroyed by a company attempting to build a restaurant. Ah, memories.

One of the target birds that I had been looking for was the Scissor-tailed Flycatcher. While I was failing to find one, I was reading about one that was currently being a local celebrity in Essex Massachusetts, a rarity for the state. However, at my second location, I spotted this one flying by and was able to get this photo. Unfortunately, I was not able to get a good photo showing off its beautiful scissor tail.

My third stop was a flooded farm field. While I did not see any new species, I did like this photo of Snow Geese with some blue morphs mixed in with the standard white morphs.

My fourth stop was some marsh lands. When I saw this bird, I was not sure what species it was. Once back to the hotel, I discovered that it was an immature Great Blue Heron which I had never seen before. Its coloration was fabulous for hiding in this particular habitat.

I spent the night on South Padre Island, and returned to the Birding and Nature Center first thing in the morning. This Great Egret met me on the boardwalk.

As I made my way to the mangroves to search for the Mangrove Yellow Warbler that had thus far eluded me, I walked by this Muscovy Duck.

After about 30 minutes of searching for the Mangrove Yellow Warbler, I was finally successful.

Following that success, I drove several hours up to Corpus Christi where I was departing to fly back to Boston the following morning. About 40 minutes north of Corpus Christi, I found a small collection of Whooping Cranes. They were perhaps 200 yards into a private field, so I was only able to get this distant shot.

I found my final new species on the trip on a dumpster in downtown Corpus Christi. This is a Cattle Tyrant. It is a South American flycatcher that does not belong in Texas. Somehow it has made its way to Corpus Christi. Instead of feeding on flies from cattle, it has taken up residence around a trash dumpster which also seems to have a satisfying selection of flies.

All told, I saw 176 species of birds during my 6 day trip with 38 being new to my life list and 2 being new to my US list. It was a wonderful trip.