February 10, 2007
Thirteen participants enjoyed a lovely morning walk around Lake Houston Park on a chilly overcast day. It was still wet and muddy even after several days of dry weather and those that brought their mud boots were glad that they had them. Jerry Walls the park naturalist was our guide for the morning and he was able to find us some good birds in addition to the Henslow's Sparrow the bird we were came there to find. We started the morning off by walking around the front part of the park spending the most time at the photo blind waiting to see if either of the two Eastern Towhees would come in to the seed pile near the photo blind. While we were waiting for the Towhees to make their appearance we got great looks at Eastern Bluebirds, Pine Warblers, and Chipping Sparrows some of which had really rufous crowns and looked like they were already in breading plumage. After waiting a while RJ finally spotted the female towhee and a few of the participants got brief glimpses of it. It never came into the seed pile. Other highlights around the front of the park were a Brown Creeper seen real close at eye level by all participants and hearing several calling Golden-crowned Kinglets that we could not locate up in the pine trees.
At about 10:30 we decided it was time to go after the bird that we came for: the Henslow's Sparrow. We drove back to one of the areas where they were being seen, which was along a pipeline easement. After walking about 500 feet along the easement we flushed our first Henslow's and it took the group a little while to get the technique of surrounding the bird with out getting too close to it down and we lost the first bird in the woods. A little while later we flushed another one but we again unfortunately lost it in the woods. Finally, just before we reached the creek we flushed a third bird and were able to surround it and everybody got great looks at it. I guess the third time really is the charm. It never really poped up and perched on the pine saplings like we were hopping they would. In all for the trip we totaled about 35 species and all participants had a great time and got great looks at the Henslow's Sparrow. I would like to thank Jerry Walls for taking time out of his busy day to show us around the park and help us find the Henslow's Sparrow. A complete list of birds seen on the trip is below.
Location: Lake Houston
Observation date: 2/10/07
Number of species: 35
Great Blue Heron 4
Black Vulture 5
Turkey Vulture 5
Red-shouldered Hawk 1 (heard)
Killdeer 1
Red-bellied Woodpecker 5
Yellow-bellied Sapsucker 4
Downy Woodpecker 2
Northern Flicker 2
Pileated Woodpecker 1 (heard)
Eastern Phoebe 2
Blue-headed Vireo 1
Blue Jay 4
American Crow 6
Carolina Chickadee 8
Tufted Titmouse 4
Brown Creeper 2
Carolina Wren 3 (heard)
Golden-crowned Kinglet 6 (heard but two seen)
Ruby-crowned Kinglet 8
Blue-gray Gnatcatcher 1 (heard)
Eastern Bluebird 6
Hermit Thrush 3
American Robin 25
Brown Thrasher 2
Yellow-rumped Warbler 2
Pine Warbler 15
Eastern Towhee 2
Chipping Sparrow 20
Henslow's Sparrow 3
White-throated Sparrow 4
Northern Cardinal 20
Red-winged Blackbird 15
Brown-headed Cowbird 1
American Goldfinch 15
Participants: Nancy Hannan, Kay Piper, Margaret Butler, Marilyn Crane, Paul Downey, Layton Guinn, RJ Pautsch, Karen Vargas, Pam Smolen, The Rhodes, and Adam Wood
~ Adam Wood, OG Field Trip Coordinator, birdman_570@yahoo.com, 713-515-1692 |
