May 26, 2007
The trip started early in the morning (5:45 am) at Jones State Forest for a Chuck-wills-widow hunt for which there were four takers. Steve Gross our leader for the trip had gotten to Jones State Forest 15 minutes early and had a Chuck-wills-widow staked out for the four participants who made it for the early morning search. With in seconds of stepping out of the vehicles when we got to the spot Steve had one calling from when he first got there we heard it singing away. We were close enough to it to hear the “chuck” which is hard to hear if you are not real close to it. We did mange to get a good look at it singing away with a spot light after chasing it around for several minutes. I believe all four who got up early and came out for the hunt for this bird were glad that they did. Since it did not take us too long to get the Chuck-wills-widow and it was still an hour before we were due to meet the rest of the group for the main part of the trip. We decided to spend the remaining time staking out the Red-cockaded Woodpecker and Brown-headed Nuthatch our other two target birds at this spot. Steve wanted to get everybody a look at the woodpecker and nuthatch as quickly as possible so we could hit the road for Sam Houston National Forest and get there while it was still prime bird singing time. We did not have any luck finding either the woodpecker or the nuthatch before I left the group to go greet the rest of the participants that were due to arrive at 7:00 am. Shortly after departing the group Steve called me and said they had both birds and he would keep track of them until I got there with the rest of the group.
It took a while getting the group assembled so by the time we meet up with Steve and the early group they had lost track of the birds. So we spread the group out along the trail and asked any participant that saw either the woodpecker or the nuthatch to whistle or make some sorta gesture to alert the rest of the group that they had found the bird. It took about 20 minutes for one of the participants to spot a female Red-cockaded Woodpecker tending to a cavity. The woodpecker was very cooperative giving all participants great looks at it through the scopes. It would from time to time go into the cavity but would emerge again a few seconds later. That wound up being the only Red-cockaded Woodpecker we saw during our time there and we just got flying away glimpses of a few Brown-headed Nuthatches. Other highlights included hearing singing Eastern Wood-Pewees, Yellow-throated Vireo, and Hooded Warbler and seeing several Red-headed Woodpeckers and a pair of Eastern Bluebirds. We wound up spending just a little over an hour in Jones State Forest before departing for Steve’s breeding bird survey route in Sam Houston National Forest.
We got onto Steve’s breeding bird survey route shortly after 9:00 am and proceeded along it not having much luck until a stop at a creek crossing along Forest Road 200 in Walker County. There immediately after getting out of the cars we heard singing Northern Parula, Prothonotary Warbler, Red-eyed Vireo and White-eyed Vireo. Steve was surprised that we were not hearing any Acadian Flycatchers. Steve first taped in the Northern Parula that gave all of us absolutely stunning looks at this handsome bird. It hung around for a good ten minutes after Steve had stopped the playback. He next tried to tape in the Prothonotary Warbler, which at that point had stopped singing with no success. Then he tried for the Red-eyed Vireo again with no success. So what started out as a promising stop turned into a not so promising stop from a visual stand point. We then drove up the road a bit further to where Steve had had a singing Swainson’s Warbler two weeks ago. While listening for the Swainson’s Warbler a participant heard a Yellow-breasted Chat sing so I tried to tape it in but while I was in the process of trying to lure out the chat I heard the Swainson’s Warbler sing. So I immediately switched to the Swainson’s song to try and bring it in and within minutes it flew across the road in front of us and into the dense brush. With a little coaxing from the play back the warbler did perch for a few minutes in a fairly visible area through the dense brush that enabled most of the participants to get a decent and relatively unobstructed veiw of it. It was the best look I had ever had of this elusive and secretive skulker of the dense underbrush and it made the trip for me. Unfortunately, a few of the participants were not able to get the looks they desired at the bird. After deciding that we had harassed the warbler long enough we got back in the cars and moved on to the final stop on the route, which would also turn out to be our most productive stop. However, on our way to the stop we heard another Swainson’s Warbler sing close to the road so we stopped briefly to try and tape it in but we found it to be uncooperative so we moved on.
The last stop was our best shot for Prairie Warbler and at first we were only hearing the Prairie Warblers calling from a distance and were not feeling confident about our chances of bringing one in. But before we tried for the warbler one of the participants spotted a male Painted Bunting that was most obliging giving all if us absolutely stunning looks at this stunning bird. After we had had enough of watching the Painted Bunting Steve began playing the Prairie Warbler song and after a few minutes I spotted a bird flying silently into the top of a Pine Tree and it was a Prairie Warbler. Everybody got great looks at this splendid bird as well. We wound up finding three in this location. To top it all of before leaving Steve taped in two male Indigo Buntings. After watching the Indigo Buntings and being unable to get a chat to emerge from the brush we decided to call it a day at 11:00 earlier then Steve and I had expected. One other highlight along the route in the Sam Houston National Forest was a breif look at a male Hooded Warbler.
It turned out to be a lovely morning of birding with the rain striking as we finished up birding and were headed for home. It also was a very pleasant morning not getting very hot or muggy. We had 22 participants in total and saw 39 species of birds and most of our targerts during the trip. The only dissappointments were not getting good looks at Brown-headed Nuthatch at Jones State Forest and not getting looks at the Prothonotary Warbler, Yellow-breasted Chat and Acadian Flycatcher in the Sam Houston National Forest. A big thanks goes to Steve Gross for leading this trip and sharing his breeding bird survey route with us. It is through some truly wonderful habitat and we saw some great birds with most of the participants adding a life bird or two to their life lists. A list of birds seen during the trip is below.
Location: W. G. Jones State Forest (JSF) and Sam Houston National Forest (SHNF)
Observation date: 5/26/07
Number of species: 39
Participants: Jerry Stanislav, Peg McNealy, Mary Dodson, Jim Winn, Claire Moore, Pam, Marie Asscherick, Sally Rigg, Ann Wood, Hooker Wood, Bill Saulmon, Eric Clum, Howard Smith, Bob Schwartz, Adam Wood (co-leader), Steve Gross (leader).
*Notes: Birds bolded were target birds for the trip and birds in bold and italicized were rare or endangered birds seen on the trip.
Great Egret 1 (SHNF)
Turkey Vulture 1 (SHNF)
Wood Duck 2 (JSF)
Red-shouldered Hawk (Heard) (SHNF)
Chuck-will's-widow 1 (JSF)
Chimney Swift (Heard) (SHNF)
Ruby-throated Hummingbird 1 (SHNF)
Red-headed Woodpecker 5 (JSF)
Downy Woodpecker (Heard) (JSF)
Red-cockaded Woodpecker 3 (JSF)
Red-bellied Woodpecker (Heard) (SHNF)
Acadian Flycatcher 1 (Heard) (SHNF)
Great Crested Flycatcher 1 (Heard) (SHNF)
Scissor-tailed Flycatcher 1 (SHNF)
Eastern Wood-Pewee 3 (JSF/SHNF)
White-eyed Vireo (Heard) (SHNF)
Red-eyed Vireo (Heard) (SHNF)
Yellow-throated Vireo 1 (Heard) (JSF)
American Crow 3 (JSF)
Blue Jay 2 (SHNF)
Carolina Chickadee (Heard) (JSF)
Tufted Titmouse (Heard) (JSF)
Brown-headed Nuthatch (Heard) (JSF)
Carolina Wren (Heard) (JSF)
Eastern Bluebird 2 (JSF)
Wood Thrush 1 (Heard) (SHNF)
Northern Mockingbird 3 (JSF)
Pine Warbler 15 (JSF)
Hooded Warbler 2 (JSF/SHNF)
Northern Parula 2 (SHNF)
Prairie Warbler 3 (SHNF)
Prothonotary Warbler 1 (Heard) (SHNF)
Swainson's Warbler 3 (SHNF)
Yellow-breasted Chat (Heard) (SHNF)
Summer Tanager 1 (Heard) (JSF)
Northern Cardinal (Heard) (JSF)
Indigo Bunting 3 (SHNF)
Painted Bunting 3 (SHNF)
Brown-headed Cowbird (SHNF)
~ Adam Wood, OG Field Trip Coordinator, birdman_570@yahoo.com, 713-515-1692 |
