Anahuac - finally!

The cacophony of  thousands of Snow Geese greeted us as we arrived at Anahuac National Wildlife Refuge yesterday morning for our twice-postponed January visit. We have a tradition of visiting the big refuge on Texas' upper coast on New Year's Day, but this year the weather was not cooperative and it had not been cooperative since then. Yesterday, there was a temporary break in the rainy weather and we decided to take advantage of it.

We arrived at the refuge on the tail of the day's last heavy downpour. The birds had certainly had their baths for the day. We saw evidence of that sitting on the entry gate.

This big hawk was waiting for the sun to come out and dry his feathers. He was so bedraggled, I wasn't sure of his identity, although I suspected he was a Red-tailed.

Nearby on a utility wire, an equally bedraggled American Kestrel was also hoping the sun would come out.

In the butterfly garden near the refuge entrance, I found my first real treasure of the day, a male Vermilion Flycatcher, who was happy to pose for me.

A little farther along the path, I found his pretty mate, too.

This White-crowned Sparrow apparently didn't get enough of a dousing in the rain. He plunged into a puddle and splashed around, then flew up into a tree to preen and dry off.

There were lots of White-crowned Sparrows about and among them were some like these. At first, I thought it was a different species, but upon more research, I decided that it was a first year bird that simply hadn't developed its white crown yet.

There were plenty of Eastern Phoebes around. They were doing their best to make a dent in the mosquito population, but they were badly outnumbered.

We stood and watched as skein after skein of Snow Geese passed overhead. It was impossible to count them, but my numbers man made his best estimate - 5,000. I'm sure there were at least that many. It seemed more like a million!

There were both white and blue phase geese present but the whites were more numerous.

What would a day on the coast be without a Great Egret or ten? This one was taking a stroll on the boardwalk.

There were big hawks everywhere in the refuge this day - Northern Harriers, Red-shouldered, Red-tailed. I was unsure of the identity of many of them, but I believe this one was a Red-tailed.

There were not too many shorebirds active in the areas that we visited. There was water everywhere - I've never seen so much water there - and that might have inhibited them. I did find a few Killdeer.

Both Brown and White Pelicans were present today. These Brown Pelican youngsters had found one of the few dry places to stand - the road.

The Neotropic Cormorants were loving all the water.  I found a large group of them splashing around, seemingly having a wonderful time, and managed to get three of them to pose for me.

A bit farther along, we saw one of their Double-crested cousins, standing in the middle of the road.

A Snowy Egret posed on a rock near the bay.

This magnificent hawk had gotten lucky. You can't see it because of the weeds, but he is clutching a snake in his talons. Lunch!

A Willet walked across the rocks searching for his lunch.

Of course, a day at Anahuac wouldn't be complete without seeing at least one alligator, and that's what we saw - one alligator. Also, a number of turtles, all of whom seemed intent on crossing the road.

We spent four hours birding at the refuge and came out with 47 species on our list. As always, I lamented the fact that the list could have been much longer but for the "ones that got away." But, also as always at Anahuac, it was a great day.

Barn Swallows

It was always fun to visit Anahuac National Wildlife Refuge in summer to see the swallows. The refuge was famous in former years for the Barn Swallows which nested in the eaves of the visitors' center that stood at its entrance. The visitors' center is gone now, destroyed as so much else was by Hurricane Ike, and it has recently been replaced by a state-of-the-art new center that is actually several miles away from the refuge, two miles off Highway 10E at the 810 exit. It is a beautiful center and serves not only Anahuac but other wildlife refuges in the area.  

Where the old visitors' center used to stand, a new gazebo has been constructed, and the Barn Swallows have returned and now nest in the gazebo. When we were there last week, it seemed to me that there were not as many nests as in previous years, but still there were plenty of the beautiful fast-fliers around.

Some of the nests appeared to have young in them, but most still had brooding parents sitting on the eggs.

As I walked around the pond next to the gazebo, I saw evidence that some of the pairs of birds had already raised their young.

I came upon this dead limb which stretched out over the pond and it had five fledgling chicks lined up in a row on it. They had obviously just left the nest within the last day or so.

At first I had thought there were only four babies, but when I looked at them from another angle I could see that there were five.

While I watched, the parents would fly by every few minutes and bring food for the hungry chicks. They fed them literally on the fly, only hovering briefly to deliver the meal.

One of the parents decided to take a rest on the limb. It's hard to tell if this is Mama or Papa since they essentially look the same, but the female is slightly lighter on the belly, so I think this is probably Mama.

The babies seemed in no hurry to stretch their wings and sat tight with their parent, while the other parent continued to deliver food.

Anahuac National Wildlife Refuge is still recovering from the devastation caused by Ike, but the swallows are back in good numbers, and that is a very good sign.

Anahuac National Wildlife Refuge: Common Nighthawk

I have mentioned here on different occasions in recent years about how I have missed the sight and sound of the Common Nighthawk over my yard in spring and summer. They used to be quite common - as their name implies - but in the last two or three years, they just haven't been around. I'm happy to say that has changed this year. Any late afternoon, they can be heard as they wheel around the sky searching for flying insects. I saw three in the skies over my backyard just this past weekend. All of which leads me to the conclusion that these birds are more plentiful in the area than they have been in recent years. I didn't realize just how plentiful though until we went to Anahuac National Wildlife Refuge last Friday.

As soon as I got out of the car, I heard the sound of nighthawks hunting overhead, even though it was well up into daylight hours. These birds are usually at their most active at dawn and dusk, and they can sometimes be seen and heard hunting at night on moonlit nights or around lights in urban areas. But it's not totally unheard of for them to be flying during the middle of the day and they certainly were on this day. Everywhere we went their voices could be heard.

More typically though, the birds settle down during daylight hours and they are so cryptically colored that they often go unnoticed even when they are right out in plain sight. It was really a matter of chance that, on Friday, I started noticing the birds everywhere I looked!

This was the first one that I saw on a fence post next to the road. These posts are convenient places for many types of birds to perch and rest, or perch and sing as the various members of the blackbird family often do.

After I noticed the first one, I began seeing that every fourth or fifth post along the way seemed to have a nighthawk sitting atop it!

One even perched on the barbed wire. This is an unusual pose because the bird's legs are short and its feet small in relation to body size. It's not really made for perching. When it perches in a tree, often it will sit lengthwise on the limb rather than across the limb as most birds do.

You can see that lengthwise-perching behavior in this bird that was sitting in a tree. You can also see how very well camouflaged the bird is. If its eye is closed and its head is down, it just looks like a bump on the limb and you wouldn't give it a second glance.

The nighthawk is a member of the nightjar (Caprimulgidae) family which is characterized by short bills that open up to very wide mouths. When the mouth is open, it gapes nearly as wide as the bird's head and it uses this big mouth to scoop up insects as it flies about erratically.

This wide open mouth and the fact that the bird often flies over pastures in the late afternoon gave rise to a myth and a nickname, "Goatsucker". The myth goes back at least as far as the third century B.C.E. in Greece where country people claimed that these birds milked goats!

The bird had another nickname in the area where I grew up. We called it "Bullbat." I'm not really sure why but I assume it had to do with the fact that the bird does fly erratically like a bat and it's normally in the sky at the same time as bats, plus it is bigger than the other bats that were around at that time. There is also a sound that the males make during courtship, a kind of basso profundo booming that might recall the voice of a bull. They make the sound by flying high into the air and then going into a steep dive. As the wind rushes through the wing feathers, it causes a distinct "boom" which, if you have heard it, is not easily forgettable. It was part of the background music to the late spring and summer afternoons of my childhood.

The helter-skelter flight of the nighthawk is not so easy to catch on camera, but on Friday, I got lucky.

Two (I assume male) nighthawks were flying low over a meadow and seemed to be engaged in a territorial dispute. I tried to capture the two together but those pictures were just a blur

.Note the very long, narrow wings which give these birds excellent control in the air. The white spot on each wing supposedly can serve to startle insects and perhaps make them easier to catch.

I must have seen a score or more of Common Nighthawks at the wildlife refuge. I don't think I've ever seen so many at one time and place. I assume they must have just arrived on migration and perhaps were hungry which may explain why so many were hunting during the day. Whatever the reason, I was delighted with their presence on this day and delighted with the chance to say hello to a friend from my long-ago childhood.

Anahuac National Wildlife Refuge: Least Bittern

On our trip to Anahuac National Wildlife Refuge last Friday, there were three birds in particular that I had hoped to see: Least Bittern, Roseate Spoonbill, and Purple Gallinule. Well, I didn't completely strike out, but I did go one for three. I couldn't find a gallinule or spoonbill, but the most difficult of the three, the bittern, proved unusually cooperative.

As we headed around the loop that would take us to Shovelers' Pond, we stopped briefly at The Willows. It really should have another name now. The willows that gave it its name were drowned by Hurricane Ike four years ago. Vegetation has grown back but it's quite a different habitat from what it used to be. On this day, I found Orchard Orioles, Northern Mockingbirds, Mourning Doves, Red-winged Blackbirds, Great-tailed Grackles, and plentiful butterflies working the Joe Pye weed.

Just a bit farther along the loop, I caught a glimpse of a big bird flying into the weeds on the right hand side of the road. We stopped and I focused my binoculars to get a better look. I was delighted to find that it was, in fact, one of my target birds, the Least Bittern.

The bird was looking back and forth among the weeds.

Was it actually looking for something, I wondered, or was this part of a display?

Then there was a blur of movement among the weeds and a fuzzy chick appeared. The adult began to feed it. I realize you can't really tell much about this picture, but that is what is happening here. As soon as the baby finished feeding, the adult flew away.

  The chick stood looking in the direction where its parent had flown.

It continued to stand there for a minute, maybe hoping Mama or Papa would return with a second course. Then it dropped into the weeds and completely disappeared! If I hadn't seen it, I would never have known there was a chick there.

One almost has to be lucky to see a Least Bittern, because it lives in dense, tangled vegetation where its narrow body allows it to move about with ease. It is one of the smallest herons in the world and it is well-adapted for life in dense marshes. Its diet is mostly fish and insects and it would certainly find plenty of both at ANWR.

The nests of bitterns are usually widely scattered but they do sometimes nest, as many herons and egrets do, in colonies. In one study in South Carolina, these bitterns nested in close association with Boat-tailed Grackles. It is possible that they have the same association with Great-tailed Grackles at ANWR. There are plenty of those big grackles around.

Their clutch of eggs may number from 2 - 7, but most often are 4 - 5; however, I only saw one chick on this day, although there could easily have been others among the reeds. Both of the parents feed the young through regurgitation. A pair may produce as many as two broods of chicks per year.

Seeing the bittern was really the high point of my day of birding and it happened very early, but there were some other nice moments and nice birds seen. I'll share more of them with you over the next couple of days.

Wordless Wednesday: Blowin' in the wind

New Year's Day birding: Anahuac National Wildlife Refuge - Part 2

On our way to the wildlife refuge on New Year's Day, we took the exit that announces "Anahuac National Wildlife Refuge Visitor Center." This beautiful new visitor center, built since the devastation of Hurricane Ike, is about two miles down the road from I-10E, on the right side and is several miles from the main entrance to the wildlife refuge. It is a state-of-the-art construction, impressive in design and concept and very user-friendly. It has a walking trail and small pond and it was on the grounds of the center that I recorded my first official Anahuac NWR bird of the day, the American Pipit. A flock of the birds was feeding among the grasses and shrubs that bordered the parking lot. They flew up, flashing their white outer tail feathers at me as we returned to our car.

The visitor center itself was actually closed on New Year's Day, but the restrooms were open and that was the most important thing! And information kiosks outside offered a number of informational pamphlets about both Anahuac NWR  and nearby McFaddin NWR. One of the pamphlets was a bird list for the refuge, always useful to have when birding.

After our brief stop at the visitor center, we headed on to the refuge, going first to the Skillern Tract as I mentioned yesterday. There we encountered large flocks of egrets and ibises.

 This is just a small section of a flock of the birds that contained a hundred or more individuals. The egrets all appeared to be Great Egrets. There were also a number of White Ibises, the white birds with the long curved bills, three of which can be seen in the center of this photo. The dark birds are either Glossy Ibises or White-faced Ibises. They are often difficult to distinguish in the field, especially in winter, and these were a good distance away. The most likely choice would be White-faced Ibis which is more common here, but I just couldn't be sure.

No doubt about what this is! The red tail names it. This is a Red-tailed Hawk. They, along with Northern Harriers, were the most numerous hawks at the refuge on this day.

This Red-tailed Hawk had recently made a kill and was perched in the middle of a field plucking its dinner. It was a bird of some kind - I could see the feathers flying - but it was hidden among the grasses and I couldn't see what species it was.

Black-necked Stilts always look so fragile to me as they totter along on those long, skinny legs, but evidently they are quite hardy. There were certainly plenty of them around.

This little Snowy Egret was caught in the same strong winds that were blowing my hair every which way!

All the usual members of the blackbird family were represented today, including the Red-winged Blackbirds. There were also the largest flocks of Eastern Meadowlarks I had seen at the refuge as well as Common Grackles and Great-tailed Grackles.

This Eastern Phoebe called its name to us from across the way.

Savannah Sparrows were everywhere in the refuge this day.

The dark phase Snow Geese were much in evidence also. They stood out among the more dominant white phase birds.

  

Here an adult white Snow Goose feeds with a darker juvenile. In addition to the Snow Geese, we saw one large flock of Greater White-fronted Geese.

The most numerous shorebird that we saw was the Willet. They seemed to be flying up every few feet along the roads as we passed. This one posed nicely for me on a rock by the bay.

My favorite bird of the day, though, had to be this Vermilion Flycatcher we saw at the Skillern Tract.  At first I was in a quandary as to whether it was an female or a young male, but when I uploaded the pictures and was able to view the head better, I could see the red feathers peeking through there. So it is a first year male bird.

He's so beautiful, here's another look.

Anahuac National Wildlife Refuge is always a great birding trip at any time of the year, but I do love visiting it on New Year's Day when it is relatively deserted and quiet. In spite of the fierce, unrelenting wind, this New Year's trip was one of the better days we have spent there.

New Year's Day birding: Anahuac National Wildlife Refuge - Part 1

The New Year's Day trip to Anahuac National Wildlife Refuge has become a tradition in our family and it is one that we observed again this year. We got up before the sun and the birds in order to make the almost two-hour trip to the refuge. We wanted to get there while the birds were still in their early-morning active period. We managed to do that all right, but unfortunately, the wind was in its active period, too. It blew fiercely for the entire four-and-a-half hours that we spent at the refuge.

Flights of Snow Geese greeted us everywhere we went in the refuge. They seemed to be about two-thirds white phase geese and one-third dark, of the kind that used to be called "Blue Geese" - and still are by some.

Northern Shovelers, like this female, are common sights at the refuge.

This Lesser Yellowlegs probed for tasty morsels in a shallow pond.

Out on the bay, a small flock of Lesser Scaup floated on the sparkling waves.

Even farther out across the bay, a group of four White Pelicans, of which this was one, winged their way toward the Bolivar Peninsula.

A large flock of Red-breasted Mergansers were feeding very actively in the bay waters. Note the very long, thin bills typical of all mergansers.

The little Pied-billed Grebes are among my favorite water birds.

Most bodies of water of any size in Southeast Texas are likely to have some of these guys on them. American Coots are among our most common water birds.

The Forster's Tern is one of the most common terns along this stretch of the Gulf Coast and it was the only species of tern that I saw this day.

The Double-crested Cormorant is also ubiquitous here, although this was the only one that I saw during the time we were there.

This Ring-billed Gull was also the only one of its kind that I saw.

Long, skinny, yellow legs and a slightly upturned bill, along with a white "eyebrow" mark this as a Greater Yellowlegs. He cooperatively posed while standing on a rock.

We started our visit at the Skillern Tract section of the refuge. (If you've never been there, the entrance to it is on the right just about seven miles past the main refuge entrance.) It is a very birdy place and is where several of these pictures were taken, as well as more that I will show you in part 2 of my report tomorrow.

We ended our day with 46 species on our checklist and, as always, with regrets for the ones that got away. There were others that we could have had with a little more luck, less wind, better equipment, not to mention better birding skills. Still, 46 species is not a terrible way to start a new year of birding. I'll take it.