[texbirds] Virginia Rail photobombs Travis Audubon Sparrow Class field trip today, Saturday November 22, 2014
- From: "" <dmarc-noreply@xxxxxxxxxxxxx> (Redacted sender "drbirdie@xxxxxxx" for DMARC)
- To: texbirds@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
- Date: Sat, 22 Nov 2014 18:05:53 -0500
Hi Texbirders & Sparrowhawks,
As late as last night, optimistic weather models forecast the rain in central
Texas to start falling in earnest today after 12 noon.
The optimistic models were wrong.
Between episodes of intermittent heavy rain, 8 intrepid Sparrowhawks from the
Travis Audubon Society Sparrow Identfication Class slogged through portions of
Hays and Guadalupe Counties in south central Texas from 7:45 a.m. to 12 noon
today and recorded 12 sparrow species, 9 of which were seen by all or almost
all participants.
Our first stop was Aquarena Springs in San Marcos, where we found several Swamp
Sparrows down in the cattails, allowing almost everyone in the group to get
good looks. The star of the show, however, was a Virginia Rail that walked
furtively near the edge of the cattails, and then scampered across a small
opening, allowing brief but good looks for all. Sparrowman was amazed!
We also had a couple of wet Couch's Kingbirds perched in a pecan tree near the
parking area.
We then headed down to Warbler Woods, where Susan Schaezler had confidently
assured me that the rain was not going to start up again until 1 p.m. Wrong
again! We slogged through wet fields chasing elusive LeConte's Sparrows which
absolutely refused to land in any of the nearby wet bushes. So we had to be
content with multiple close views of LeConte's Sparrows in flight. We did get
pretty good looks at several Vesper Sparrows and at a Lincoln's Sparrow perched
in a small tree near Scout Pond. The covered blind at Scout Pond offered a
slightly drier vantage point from which we ventured out during brief lulls in
the rain to try for LeConte's Sparrows.
Don then cheerfully led us through wet, muddy paths to the covered blind at
Chat Pond, beside which several seed feeders are stationed. When the downpour
subsided temporarily, we were finally able to observe several sparrow species
feeding on the wet ground below the feeders, including Chipping, Lincoln's and
White-throated Sparrows. We also had a Common Ground Dove come in briefly with
a bunch of Incas.
Just before the rain started up in earnest again, we headed back to the house
and the dry interiors of our vehicles.
Many thanks to Don and Susan Schaezler for allowing us to visit their beautiful
property, which is going to be made even more beautiful by all this rain.
Our merry band of Sparrowhawks had 9 sparrow species today (not counting 3 more
detected only by Sparrowman).
Two of these nine, Swamp and White-throated Sparrow, were not encountered on
our first field trip, and another, LeConte's Sparrow, was not viewed well by
most field trip participants on our first trip. So we have now encountered 15
of the 20 regularly-occurring winter sparrow species on our first two field
trips.
A birdlist for today follows:
Pied-billed Grebe - 3
Double-crested Cormorant - 2
Great Blue Heron - 1
Black Vulture - 45
Turkey Vulture - 14
American Kestrel - 1
White-winged Dove - 55
Mourning Dove - 45
Inca Dove - 7
Common Ground-Dove - 1
Eastern Screech-Owl - 1
Golden-fronted Woodpecker - 2 - Aquarena
Ladder-backed Woodpecker - 1 - WW
Eastern Phoebe - 2
Couch's Kingbird - 2 - Aquarena
Black-crested Titmouse - 1 - WW
Carolina Wren - 3
Northern Mockingbird - 3
Yellow-rumped Warbler - 2 Aq
Chipping Sparrow - 15 WW
Field Sparrow - 2 - Not seen by rest of group
Vesper Sparrow - 4 - WW
Lark Sparrow - 1 WW
Savannah Sparrow - 7 WW
Grasshopper Sparrow - 1 - Aquarena - not seen by rest of group
Le Conte's Sparrow - 3 - WW
Song Sparrow - 1 - WW - Not seen by rest of group
Lincoln's Sparrow - 3 WW
Swamp Sparrow - 3 - Aquarena
White-throated Sparrow - 2 - WW
White-crowned Sparrow - 5 WW
Northern Cardinal - 3
House Sparrow - 15 - WW
Despite the rain, it was a good day to be a Sparrowhawk!
Byron Stone, Austin
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