Brianbirdbrain

What a great day of birding!  Several adventures on this trip could have filled a blog on their own.  During the day on Friday I was trying to figure out some plans for the weekend and since my good friend Bob Friedrichs found a Purple Sandpiper a mere 10 minutes away from my in-laws house in Jackson county it would be a hard bird to pass on.  Bob lives in the area so I always ask him to join me when I go down that way but this time he could no join me until later in the morning so I was on my own for the Purple Sandpiper search.  I arrived at the area near the causeway at 6:55 a.m. where the bird had been seen for the past week or so and it did not disappoint.  I had found Purple Sandpiper in about 10 minutes for Texas Life Bird 416. I hung out at that location for almost an hour mainly to see who else was gonna show up looking for the bird but I was also hoping to get a better picture of the bird with the increasing daylight.  The bird never returne...

Well the forecast called for rain.  Armand Bayou has a monthly bird count that was postponed last weekend because of rain and then again this weekend.  During spring migration these conditions would have been great, but in the middle of February not so much.  As it turns out, no rain and I actually saw the sun for a few moments.  I wanted to stay pretty close to the house because my daughter is turning 17 today so I opted for a stroll around some trails in Seabrook.  Not looking for anything in particular and that is exactly what I got.  Good birds, just nothing new for the year or for the county.  The highlight of the morning was when I heard a Snow Goose overhead and looked up and saw 2 White Ibises, and thought to myself "man that was strange" am I hearing things?  No, 1 lone Goose was flying right behind them.  Nothing new for the past 2 weekends has knocked me out of the top 100 in Texas for the year but I stayed in it longer this year t...

I don't mind the rain too much but every Saturday kinda puts the limit on things.  I figure with a radar like this in the morning I would have to plan on birding in or near my truck. Sometimes during the week I give myself ideas on where I could go birding on the weekend.  I have been trying to justify a trip to Odessa to see a Snowy Owl but so far no.  There has also been a sighting of an Elegant Trogon in New Braunfels.  A bit closer and maybe doable.  I also considered trying for Henslow's Sparrow again in Hardin county  but the events of the week put a stop to any of those plans.  My mother-in-law had an aneurysm earlier in the week and had to undergo many procedures, tests, and several days in the hospital but praise the Lord she is in good shape and should be released from the hospital late Saturday. Snowy Owls are Arctic birds and have only been documented in Texas 7 times. Elegant Trogon is a Tropical bird with about 6 Texas records. ...

Si! I saw the sea bird I wanted to see. Another Saturday another decision to make.  It was raining of course, like it does every Saturday, so I needed to go somewhere where I could spend time car birding if the rain was too heavy for walking.  Brazoria National Wildlife Refuge has a pretty good auto loop where one could see lots of ducks and other water birds but I have most of those already on my life list and my Brazoria county list so the wildlife refuge would be my backup plan if the rain got too intense.  Northern Gannet is one of the only life birds in the area I need and there are a few other species I could pick up for Brazoria county with a little effort.  Northern Gannet is a sea bird and the only pelagic bird that you could expect to see from land, others are possible but not very likely.  I needed a place where I could get out in the gulf a little ways  so I was off to the Freeport jetties. You could use a scope from the beach but with the win...

If it were not for my obsession with birding I probably would not even own a computer.  I was probably one of the last people to own a flip phone, which I would probably still have if I did not leave it in my pocket when I got in the water at work one day.  But now I could not live without my smart type phone with my ebird app, my bird identification guide app, my weather app, my google maps app, my bible app, my, well you get the idea.  So now I have learned to use the computer for all kinds of things including this map I made that I am super proud of. It shows all the counties of Texas I have birded and how many species in each.  It makes it pretty obvious where I spend most of my time. And what post would be complete without an update on some bird I have seen or something like that.  I got a report of an uncommon duck in Shore Acres so I made a quick detour the next morning. I pulled into the little parking area Miramar Park, saw the duck, snapped a f...