[texbirds] North East Travis County Wed January 23

From: Mary Ann Melton <mammelton50@xxxxxxx>
To: TEXBIRDS <texbirds@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>
Date: Wed, 23 Jan 2013 22:42:11 -0600
North Eastern Travis County continues to be an interesting birding area.  Three 
of us drove around together and thoroughly enjoyed getting great looks at 
northern harriers and other red tailed hawks.
The short eared owls came out at dusk at their location near New Sweden 
Lutheran church.  However, I think birders need to be aware that the nearby 
homeowners seem uncomfortable when they come to check on who we are and what we 
are doing.  I've been there twice now in the afternoon when they made a special 
trip up the road to check on who we are and what we are photographing even when 
we were over a mile from their home.  Both times I explained we were watching 
the short eared owls and northern harriers.  Tonight after they checked on us 
this afternoon when we were starting our birding watching the harriers, we made 
sure that we were parked where we could observe the owls facing away from their 
home.  We were always on the public roadway - never trespassing - always 
observing either northern harriers or short eared owls.  Sadly I will probably 
not go back there to see those owls but I do plan to go check out the Lake 
Granger short eared owls - hoping to see them again over there.  They are so 
amazing to watch in flight.

There are many northern harriers working the fields and pastures as well as 
various red tail hawks in the area north and east of the church.  We went all 
the way to Coupland.  We saw one raptor we couldn't identify that was smaller 
than the harriers but not a kestrel.  We found the great horned owl sitting on 
its nest.  We were there perhaps too late in the day for the Carlson Road 
specialties, but the landowners over there were friendly - making sure we got 
to the right area when I had turned first on the "other" Carlson Road one mile 
north.

We were hoping for longspurs, but no luck today.

3 Black Vulture
1 Turkey Vulture
10  Northern harrier
8 Red tailed Hawk (various color morphs)
1 Crested Caracara
3 American Kestrel
10 Rock Pigeon
2 Eurasian Collared Dove
5 Mourning Dove
1 Great horned Owl
3 Short eared Owl
4 Loggerheaded Shrike
2 Carolina Chickadee
1 Orange-crowned Warbler
1 Vesper Sparrow
2 Savannah Sparrow
1 White crowned Sparrow
1 Northern Cardinal
30 Red winged Blackbirds
12 Eastern/Western Meadowlark
100+ Brewer's Blackbird

A great afternoon's birding!


Mary Ann Melton

Mary Ann's View Nature Photography Website
http://www.maryannmelton.net  

Mary Ann's Blog
http://maryannmelton.blogspot.com/ 







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[texbirds] North East Travis County Wed January 23

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