[texbirds] Fwd: Tawakoni CBC - Deja Vu Birding

From: "Richard" <dmarc-noreply-modpost@xxxxxxxxxxxxx> (Redacted sender "rdkrsh@xxxxxxx" for DMARC)
To: texbirds@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
Date: Tue, 30 Dec 2014 22:12:53 -0500
Here is what Clay Taylor has been trying to post all he couldnt get texbirds to 
take inn English so he sent it to me and I decided to try it.

Richard Kinney
near Lake tawakoni



-----Original Message-----
From: Clay Taylor <Clay.Taylor@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>
To: Richard (rdkrsh@xxxxxxx) <rdkrsh@xxxxxxx>
Sent: Tue, Dec 30, 2014 9:05 pm
Subject: Tawakoni CBC - Deja Vu Birding



Hi all â  
   
Well, I was one of the people sitting in Jâs Chevron and watching the rain 
pour off the roof, when Richard came through the door, shaking his head.   OK, 
I get it, not the best day for staying dry or birding by ear, but I have done 
worse CBCs.   Remember, I grew up in Connecticut, and in the 70s our Salmon 
River CBC circle was lucky to have ANY unfrozen water save for the CT River.   
I remember starting owling at 4am when it was dead, clear calm and the 
thermometer read -7â° F.   Standing still in those temps while listening for 
owls (the ones dumb enough to answer your tape, anyway) was OK for the first 45 
minutes or so, but by the time dawn came we were FROZEN.   Brrrrrrâ¦..  
   
Ok, so back to Edgewood, TX; windy, rainy, and 40â°.   Richard led me to the 
lake and passed me off to Ross Rasmussen, and we passed the next hour trying to 
steady the scopes and find waterbirds on the decidedly rough waters of Lake 
Tawakoni.   I had a blast!   Reminded me of scanning Long Island Sound on the 
New London, CT CBC, looking for Gannets and alcids, except we were trying to 
find loons , grebes, and the wayward Brown Pelican that had been seen the day 
before.  We did not see the BRPE (others did), but I did spot the only Eared 
Grebe for the count (yay!).    
   
Ross had other areas to cover, so we left the windswept boat launch and headed 
over to the forests below the dam.   Once inside the woods, the wind was 
negligible, the rain had mercifully gone away, so we tried to coax reluctant, 
cold, wet birds out of thickets.   Actually, it was not that hard, although 
Ross was commenting on how many MORE birds had been active there the day 
before.  Thankfully, he did scout the area the day before, and so we knew where 
to look for goodies.  
   
Somewhere around 10am I stopped, looked up, spun around and just drank in the 
scene.  I was in an oak forest, no leaves on the trees, overcast skies and 
40â°, cat briar and various tangles on the ground, listening to and counting 
Blue Jays, Tufted Titmice, Downy and Red-bellied Woodpeckers, Song and Field 
and White-throated Sparrows, Golden-crowned and Ruby-crowned Kinglets.   Hey, I 
was back in Connecticut!!!  Thatâs exactly what I would see there!  
   
Um, well, not exactly.  Those chickadees over there were Carolinas, and that 
towhee in the tangle was a Spotted.   Those big white birds on the pond were 
American White Pelicans, not Mute Swans.   Ah, the fun of birding in Texas!  
   
Back in the 1970s, Bald Eagles were VERY scarce winter residents in 
Connecticut, and for our CBC we had to keep accurate records of when and where 
we saw one on the CT River, taking note of age and pattern peculiarities.  Then 
the Count Compiler would draw up a little map / flow chart to determine whether 
we had seen 3, 5 or maybe even 8 eagles for the day.   By the 2000s, there were 
MANY eagles breeding in Southern New England, so they were less diligently 
recorded on our CBC.   Back at Twakoni, there were little groups of Bald Eagles 
soaring along the dam, using the updrafts from the winds to scope out the 
waterfowl battling the winds and waves.  It was kind of fun watching Rossâ 
reaction to the numbers, as evidently this is a pretty new phenomenon.   Hah 
â been there, done that.  
   
Our only really unexpected bird was a lone Black-bellied Whistling Duck, 
standing on a concrete pad in the middle of a field.  Ross was perplexed.  
   
All too soon, I had to head back to Corpus Christi, so I bid Ross and my 
pseudo-CT goodbye and prepared to battle the I-35 traffic.  
   
   
Clay Taylor  
TOS Life Member  
Calallen (Corpus Christi), TX  
Clay.taylor@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx   
   
   
   



Edit your Freelists account settings for TEXBIRDS at 
//www.freelists.org/list/texbirds

Reposting of traffic from TEXBIRDS is prohibited without seeking permission 
from the List Owner
[texbirds] Fwd: Tawakoni CBC - Deja Vu Birding

Other related posts:
