31 DEC 2017
Well, I went out to the Texas City Dike this morning to try and get a last minute bird or two. Very cold and rainy conditions which are perfect for driving down the dike looking for rare gulls and such but I was unable to find anything new for the year. Every year my "goal" is to get 300 bird species in Texas. I put goal in quotes because that number is really more of a target of what I think I should be able to get. I usually get pretty close to this number. My last 5 years look like this: 2013 - 261 species 2014 - 270 2015 - 334(the year I went to west Texas) 2016 - 288 2017 - 305 I was at 299 species this year until December 22 when I went to Galveston to find the Black-throated gray warbler that was reported on a Christmas bird count for number 300. But it did not stop there. It seemed like rare birds kept popping up all over like this Black-legged Kittiwake at the Houston Yacht club that was also found on a bird count for year bird 301. Ne...