It's saturday, it's supposed to be raining.

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 than any other thanks to the early year trip to the valley.  I have finished the year in the top 100 one time but that was with a trip to west Texas.

Last blog I mentioned perhaps taking a trip to Odessa for Snowy Owl or a New Braunfels trip for Elegant Trogon but it turns out I would have missed them both. They both moved on sometime during the week disappointing many birders last weekend I am sure.  A trip like that would not have been a complete waste however, I would have had an opportunity to bird new counties and also meet other birders.  When you go chasing birds like that you are bound to run into someone you know.

So since I've no new pictures to post, I will share a link to my ebird profile instead.
https://ebird.org/profile/MzE2MzQ4

Edit: apparently you need to have and ebird account to view this secure page.  So click on the link, make an account, look at my profile, go birding, and become an obsessed weirdo like me!

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

A Day Late And A Dollar Short

Image
I'm not sure where that saying originated but it pretty much perfectly sums up my birding year so far.  I started the year off a little more patiently than in previous years not trying to get em all in one day.  While working on getting my Orange County up to 100 species and Jefferson to 200, I stopped at Anahuac in late January and picked up Short-eared Owl for Texas Life Bird 442. Good start for 2019 I thought so attempting to keep up the pace I headed out to Uvalde the following weekend for a quick 10 hour round trip.  A Rufous-backed Robin was being seen in the area for a solid month so I needed to go see it before it split.  Well, it split.  I hung out at the place where it had been seen just about every day, including the day before, for 5 hours but it was a no show.  And it had not been seen again.  So I missed it by ONE day. A couple of weekends later I invited my good friend Dirk with me to chase another rare bird that had been steadily...
Read more

31 DEC 2017

Image
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...
Read more

Saturday=rain

Image
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. ...
Read more