Brianbirdbrain

I had an emergency alert on my phone at 4:40 a.m. stating there was a flash flood warning for the area. So 20 minutes later I roll out of bed get the coffee going and try to plan my day. I figured I had 3 or 4 options. 1. It was raining so hard I should probably stay home...naaah 2. There have been reports of a Snowy Owl on a telephone pole in the parking lot of a Discount Tire Store in Odessa....tempting. 3. Work on my life list, a county list, or just my year list At this point life birds are becoming more difficult unless I do some major traveling or something rare happens to pop up in the area.  I wanted to do a few things with my dad in Beach City so my mind was made. Chambers county.  The only problem was the flash flood I mentioned earlier.  Unfamiliar dark and wet roads...eesh.  I guess if I am willing to venture out on frozen bridges and overpasses with icicles hanging off my truck then flooded roads should be no problemo.  But I better take my ...

Heading to Harlingen for a funeral I was not expecting to do any serious birding so I could devote all my attention to family.  At best I was hoping to see one of the 5 or so parrot species that call the Rio Grande Valley home.  As it turns out I had Thursday morning free until around lunch time so I went to a nearby park called Hugh Ramsey Nature Park.  It was a beautiful little park where I saw some birds that I have not seen in years like verdin, buff-bellied hummingbirds, and curve-billed thrasher.  But no parrots or other life birds.  So after a great morning of birding in cloudy, drizzly, freezing weather I decided to get back in the car, thaw out, and head back to the hotel a few miles down the road.  On the way back I figured I might as well keep my eyes out for parrots and then Bamm I saw a group in an oak tree on the side of the road so I pulled over and whipped out my camera for Texas Life Birds 410 AND 411.   Red-Crowned Parrot and Red-Lor...

Winter weather advisory.  A perfect time to go to the Texas City Dike and look for rare gulls and other seabirds. Temperatures were below freezing and dropping, wind was blowing so hard all of the porta potties had been blown over, and it was drizzling turning to sleet and wet snow.  Work was cancelled so I headed to the dike.  It was a pretty slow day bird wise as most of the smarter birds were hunkered down somewhere. I got to the end of the dike ready to head back and call it quits when I ran into Dennis Shepler who saw a Parasitic Yaeger the day before.  We've met many times while birding so we thought it would be a good idea to exchange phone numbers in case one of us saw a good bird we could contact each other. That good idea turned out to be a great idea! I went back to my house to eat some lunch and watch some winter weather related news. The roads were starting to get icy as temperatures continued to fall so I figured my day was pretty much over.  T...

Sorry about the cheezy title but it seemed to be less cheezy than my other choices: Whoop there it is or The crane the crane. Anyways Whooping crane was my target bird for this the second weekend of the new year.  Last weekend I attempted and failed to find a tiny and secretive little brown bird.  So this weekend I would try to find a big white bird that stands almost 5 feet tall and has a wingspan of over 7 feet.  Can't miss right? I started the morning out before sunrise as usual and headed out to Aransas National Wildlife Refuge.  This area is the only place wild whooping cranes are found in the winter, in the summer they are nesting in Canada.  I believe there are some in Florida just in case there were a disaster along the intercoastal waterway.  The Whooping Crane is one of the greatest success stories in conservation.  In 1941 there were only 15 birds left on the planet and Aransas NWR is where these birds spend the winter.  Their curre...

A Henslow's Sparrow had been photographed and reported earlier in the week on an old unpaved road in Hardin county so I planned my Saturday morning to get up at 4:00 a.m. and be at my first stakeout by sunrise. My friend Bob had given me some advice on how to find a HESP because he had success finding one a month ago and was able to get real good photos of one.  Henslow's sparrows(HESP) are very irregular birds that are findable some winters and not others.  They are very secretive and spend most of their time on the ground in dense cover and when they fly it is low and over a short distance and then drop right back in to thick grass. So that is why they are hard to find and harder to photograph. I arrived at the Big Thicket National Forest HQ in Hardin county by sunrise and began birding in 28 degree weather when I realized I forgot my hat...aaargh.  So after getting there on time the rest of my day seemed unsuccessful. 1. I wanted to see and hopefully photograph a H...

2018.  New year means all my year stats go back to 0.  Again my target for 2018 is 300 bird species for Texas.  My goals for the year are undecided so far.  One thing I like to do is to see how many species I can get in each county.  There are a group of people called the century club which means they want to get 100 bird species in 100 different counties.  That would be a fun goal if I had more of a time commitment. Currently I only bird on Saturdays and occasionally on Sunday if we are out of town or something.  I usually devote my Sunday to church and rest.  So far I have 9 counties with 100 or more birds: Galveston-266 Jackson-222 Harris-206 Chambers-198 Matagorda-183 Brazoria-180 Calhoun-133 Jefferson-129 Fort Bend-121 Most of these are coastal counties that are not to difficult to get 100  and some are counties that I am able to bird often because they are close to my Galveston county home. I guess the next milestone for me ...