WYKE BIRDING: Blue-headed Vireo

Monday, 23 February 2015

TEXAS - 23rd February

A horrible, cloudy and wet day with a very cold, brisk wind didn’t encourage me to do much birding so I made today my main travelling day and l left the Rio Grande Valley and headed back north, back up to near Houston. I stopped late morning at Choke Canyon State Park for a bit of walk round despite the unpleasant weather where there was a nice selection of the usual woodland birds including a Vermillion Flycatcher, Blue-headed Vireo, White-eyed Vireo, Ruby-crowned Kinglet, Myrtle Warblers, Green Jays, Bewick’s Wrens, Blue-grey Gnatcatchers, Black-crested Titmouse and Ladder-backed and Golden-fronted Woodpeckers. There was little on the bits of the windswept lake that I looked at with 2 Greater Yellowlegs and a handful of Killdeer of note.

I got a motel in a town called Eagle Lake and a little walk in a park late afternoon in the still cold and drizzly conditions produced a big flock of Chipping Sparrows, a couple of White-throated Sparrows (the first I’ve seen since the first day) and a Brown Thrasher.

Vermillion Flycatcher

Black-crested Titmouse - really cool birds!

Blue-headed Vireo

Ruby-crowned Kinglet

Sunday, 22 February 2015

TEXAS - 22nd February

It clouded over during the night so the morning was pretty dark and breezy so a walk round the loop in Falcon State Park was fairly quiet with the highlight being a covey of 3 SCALED QUAIL flushed from one of the tracks; otherwise it was similar to yesterday with several Black-throated Sparrows showing well, singing Bewick’s Wrens and a couple of Vermillion Flycatchers. I then drove back to Salineno but it was much quieter here than yesterday (admittedly it was late morning at this stage!) but I did get much better views of an Audubon’s Oriole coming down to the feeders.

At lunchtime I drove north to Zapata where birds around the Library Pool in town (a nice little oasis in the now very hot afternoon) included two pairs of HOUSE FINCHES, a Common Yellowthroat, both Myrtle and Audubon’s Warblers, Orange-crowned Warblers, a female Summer Tanager, a single Scaled Quail, a Ladder-backed Woodpecker, a full adult male Vermillion Flycatcher, Long-billed Thrashers, a Pyrrhuloxia, a Blue-headed Vireo and a single female Ring-necked Duck.

Also in Zapata there was an impressive gathering of waterbirds in one of the arms of Falcon Lake including 600+ Neotropic Cormorants, 80+ White Pelicans and a nice array of Egrets and Ducks with the pick being a pair of Cinnamon Teal with Shoveler and Blue-winged Teal.