Houston Area from the Holidays: Brazos Bend State Park

Less than an hour drive from where we were stay in Missouri City, TX when we visit family, a big beautiful park has been hiding right under our noses. A lovely drive down some country roads, much like the back roads we drive around here in Oregon, led us to Brazos Bend State Park.

Oaks and Spanish Moss

Cypress tree

Little Yellow

As soon as we stepped out of the car, a bright male Vermillion Flycatcher greeted us as he flew back and forth from his little stand of branches in the lake, catching some tasty, Texas-sized bugs for sure. Although we had recently seen a female VEFL at Bear Creek Park a couple of days before, it’s really quite breathtaking to see a gorgeous, vibrant male.

Just moments after we saw this little guy, we were graced with the presence of our lifer Least Grebe! They were actually in the same field of view. I just kept zooming in and out with my binoculars and scope to toggle between checking out the handsome flycatcher to ogling the adorable Least Grebe! I could have just wiped my hands together in a satisfactory manner and said, “Well, we’re all done here!” But of course, we had just gotten started.

Least Grebe in the background, and that splotch of red is a Vermillion Flycatcher!

Least Grebe

Least Grebe

Least Grebe (chased by a Pied-Billed Grebe)

Here's that mean Pied-Billed Grebe

This is a big park, but we did not have all day, so we had to prioritize where to go. We decided to first walk the 1.7 mile loop trail around Elm Lake. We were on the hunt for some Eastern warbler species that had recently been seen there, but we didn’t have luck with those. But the Little Blue Heron, Common Gallinule, and Eastern Phoebe were kind to us.

Little Blue Heron

Eastern Phoebe

Common Gallinule (Still want to say Moorhen)

Common Gallinule

"I'm so pretty, oh so pretty!"

We also had quite an exciting moment when we had a fly by Crested Caracara!! It happened all so fast that we didn't get any photos. These are such handsome birds, and we had not seen them since our South Florida days. And even then, we had only seen them a couple of times. This was also a target bird for us once we saw that there were recent sightings for it. We couldn’t believe it was so close and accessible to us! Since I have no photos to share, enjoy these lovely Blue-Winged Teal and Alligator instead. :)

Blue-Winged Teal

Blue-Winged Teal

Blue-Winged Teal

Gator

Walking around the lake, we had some nice views of some other old friends, like Anhingas and White Ibis. They politely posed for us as we strolled around the trail. Also, it was an eerie sight to see the waterline from when it had likely flooded during the recent Hurricane Harvey. It’s good to know that these natural spaces can bounce back, especially with the help of dedicated employees and volunteers.

Evidence of how high the flood waters rose 

Notice the dark layer showing the flood line across the trees

White Ibis

White Ibis checking his pulse

Anhingas (aka Snakebirds) are really quite striking, especially when they are spreading their wings. And contrary to what many believe, Anhingas do have an oil gland! We saw it! I've read that the spread-wing posture may be more for thermoregulation rather than drying off.

We had a little bit of time to check out Creekfield Lake before heading out. We heard a Barred Owl asking, “Who cooks for you? Who cooks for you all?” But as hard as we tried, we could not find him up in the tree to answer him! Along the swampy area, we mostly heard more of the appropriately named Swamp Sparrows. We really could only see obstructed views of them in the tall grasses. They know just how to fly high enough to get us excited, but duck down low again just enough to frustrate us. Just let us love you and see you!

Swamp Sparrow

Blue-Gray Gnatcatcher

Blue-Gray Gnatcatcher

Blue-Headed Vireo (such a cutie!)

Well, at least another handsome male Vermillion Flycatcher was much more obliging – leading us along the trail and posing ever so nicely for us as we crept up on him.

This place was so special, and we will definitely be back!

All I Want for Christmas... are Some Year Birds

Guess what, folks – New Year’s resolutions work. If they didn’t there’s little chance you’d be reading this. Back in August we took an epic road trip throughout California, and around the same time we bought our first house, so there’s been plenty to keep us busy over here in Hipsterland. We’ll tackle CA in due course, but recently we’ve been sorting through photos from our holiday circuit, which brought us over to Upstate NY to visit my parents, and then down to Houston to see Maureen’s family.

Black-capped Chickadee

(Slate-colored) Dark-eyed Junco

We usually don’t have a lot of time to bird when we fly to NY, but the one patch we visit reliably is Schodack Island State Park, which BirdLife International deems an Important Bird Area because of its status as a breeding ground for Cerulean Warblers. No chance of seeing them in December – someday we’ll have to make it up there in spring – but we can usually turn up an American Tree Sparrow or two. Or in this case, 30.

American Tree Sparrow

In Texas we stayed in Missouri City, a bit southwest of Houston-proper. The manmade ponds in the local neighborhood are a sure bet for scads of Black-bellied Whistling Ducks and assorted herons. The herons are a special treat, since we don’t get to spend much time with Snowy Egrets, Little Blue Herons, or Tricolored Herons these days – also herons are what got me into birding initially, given the diversity of the eastern varieties.

Black-bellied Whistling-Ducks

Little Blue Heron

Snowy Egret

Bad hair day, or best hair day?

On our way out to the ponds, a pair of Black Vultures were picking over the remains of a roadkill squirrel. The vultures were crushed in turn by Maureen, who mercilessly slayed them with her lens. Circle of life. The vultures scarfed down their Sciurid lunch in the road, but scooted out of the way whenever a car passed. Seems like a crow would know better, and maybe remove the corpse to a sidewalk where it could enjoy its squirrel guts in peace. Vutures: they’re no crows.

Black Vulture

"Have Fun"

A stroll through Sienna Plantation is a major boon to our year lists and we can generally turn up birds we won't see anywhere else in our annual travels. Neotropic Cormorants are present in smaller numbers than the Double-cresteds, but we've been able to find them pretty reliably over our past few visits. As for Ruby-throated Hummingbirds -- I can't believe we used to live where we only had one species of hummingbird. As spoiled as we are to live out west now, I sure miss these guys. At least we still have a chance to find them now and again.

Neotropic Cormorant

 

Ruby-throated Hummingbird

One Houston park we’ve enjoyed in the past is Bear Creek Park where we visited last spring and picked up some good stuff, like Acadian Flycatcher, Summer Tanager, Prothonotary Warbler. When I was looking through eBird reports this time around, I saw there were recent sightings of Couch’s Kingbird, LeConte’s Sparrow, and, oh yeah… Greater Pewee! (Spoiler, we didn’t find any of those)

Pileated Woodpecker

Pine Warbler

Blue-gray Gnatcatcher

But we did still manage to leave perfectly satisfied with ourselves after tracking down a female Vermilion Flycatcher. We saw our first and only Vermilions in 2014 during our cross-country move. We’d hoped to find some at Joshua Tree this summer without luck, so this was a bit of a redemption.

Next time we'll pick up with a day-trip to Brazos Bend State Park to finish off our Texas trip.

Northern Mockingbird with a cutworm of some kind. Maybe we should import some mockingbirds to our yard while we still have some grass left.

Northern Cardinal