There are birds in the mountains during the winter; there just aren’t a lot of birds in the mountains during the winter. A trip to Houston, Texas, over the holidays to visit family, provided a fix for my winter birding jones.

Houston, like the rest of the South and eastern U.S. was experiencing record low temperatures. Fortunately, record low temperatures for Houston and the upper Gulf coast means high 20s to low 30s at night and mid-40s during the day. That doesn’t mean it isn’t cold. When you’re standing in the marsh and it’s 35 degrees and the wind is coming off the Gulf at 10 to 15 mph, there’s a definite bite in the air.
We chose a simple route. We birded along the coast from Galveston to Freeport, then headed inland, making Brazos Bend State Park our last stop. We finished the day off with a little star gazing at George Observatory.

We left Houston just before 8 a.m. It was a crisp clear morning. Our first stop was a tidal pool just outside of Galveston. Stately white pelicans steamed across the pond. Brown pelicans flew overhead. Hundreds of avocets probed the mud flats for food. Ring-billed herring and laughing gulls were present as well as Caspian terns, white ibises and others.

After a short time, the chilly gulf coastal wind chased us back into the car. My birding companions -- my wife, Denise and my 13-year-old niece, Karysa Tawney -- came up with a strategy.

I would be point man. They would wait in the warmth of the car while I surveyed likely habitat. If I found something interesting they would come and join me. Places where we could view the marsh or other habitat from the car -- and there were many along the coastal highway -- were preferred stops.

As we merged back onto I-45 after our first stop, I caught a flash of color from a bird flying over the marsh. I pointed the bird out to Denise and concentrated on merging. Not many birds excite Denise. This particular species does, however. It was a roseate spoonbill.

There is something pretty impressive about a pink bird nearly three feet tall with a four-foot wingspan and a bill the size and shape of a small spatula. The wonderful pink plumage was nearly the undoing of the roseate. They were nearly hunted to extinction during the early 1900s to provide feathers for the millenary trade. Fewer than 200 roseates were believed to be left in Texas by 1920. Given protection, these birds began to rebound. Today there are healthy populations along the Gulf Coast of Texas and Louisiana.

Our next stop was along an inlet to Galveston Bay, where between 20 and 30 common loons were fishing. At this stop, Karysa spotted an immature brown pelican and an immature ring-billed gull. It was encouraging to hear this young birder was not only interested in learning the difference between species but also the different age and seasonal variations within species.

Not long after the inlet, we pulled over to get a good look at an eastern phoebe. After studying the phoebe for a few minutes we started to pull back onto the highway when a red topknot became visible just across a roadside ditch. We pulled ahead slowly along the road shoulder and found about a dozen sandhill cranes grazing in a field about 50 feet from the roadside.

One of Karysa’s favorite birds of the day was an American bittern we saw in a marshy area behind some dunes. These rather secretive birds are also known as “shy poles.” They camouflage themselves by standing perfectly still in the reeds or grass with their beaks pointed straight up.

We saw roseates at about three more places in the marsh, where we could get some good views. Red-tailed hawks, northern harriers, kestrels and white-tailed kites were abundant. We also got a good view (through the spotting scope) of a pair of crested caracaras.

Birding was also great at Brazos Bend State Park. We saw anhingas drying their wings in the sun. Black-bellied whistfing-duck and cinnamon teal were also recorded at Brazos along with an early cave swallow.

By the time the sun set in Brazos Bend, we had recorded over 100 species of birds for the day. Then we went to George Observatory, where we looked through their 36-inch telescope into the clear Texas skies and saw Saturn nestled like a glowing yellow egg in the center of its shining rings. It was a day that won’t be forgotten.
(Don Hendershot can be reached at don@smokymountainnews.com)

 

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