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January 19, 2008
The early morning rain gave way to clear skies and an absolutely lovely day although it was very cold during the morning. Seventeen participants braved the cold weather and came out to enjoy a nice full day of birding with Darrell Vollert in Washington County. We started the morning out at the cemetery were we found a nice size flock of Cedar Waxwings, a stunning male Pine Warbler, a beautiful adult Red-shouldered Hawk and a few Eastern Bluebirds. The rest of the morning was spent driving and birding along Old Chappell Hill Road. We stopped at several locations getting different sparrows at each location. The highlights were finding a Harris's Sparrow, a couple of Lark Sparrows, several Vesper Sparrows, hearing a Western Meadowlark sing briefly, a Palm Warbler (second county record), having a flock of seven Canada/Cackling Geese flyover. There were lots of Meadowlarks flying around with varying degrees of white on their outer tail fathers. While the amount of white on the outer tail feathers can be variable in Eastern Meadowlarks and should not be the only field mark used when trying to identify a meadowlark I am sure that several of the meadowlarks were in fact Westerns. Once it got to be nearly one o-clock we picked up and headed for lunch at a local country restaurant in Brenham. After lunch we stopped at a couples house that we had permission to bird their back yard. This was one of the best stops of the day. All participants got great looks at a female Red-breasted Nuthatch that put on a show for us, a few got decent looks at a Brown Creeper and a female Rufous Hummingbird. Darrell informed us that he has recorded 30 species of warblers in that backyard and a total of 134 different species. Pretty incredible and it is a nice yard with several Pecan Trees and a fair amount of Shrimp Plants for the hummers. As well as bird feeders of course. Unfortunately, I had to leave the group when we finished birding the yard and were headed to a pine forest. However, a report from Darrell said that after I had left they found a Le Conte's Sparrow and had two American Woodcocks displaying right in front of the group. One was so close that one participant said they could see the beak open when the Woodcock made the classic "Bent" before taking to the sky. It was quite the way to end the day. We saw 65 species on the day, which is higher then what I thought we saw considering the conditions. A big thanks goes to Darrell Vollert for leading this trip.
Birds in bold were target birds for the trip and birds in bold and italicized are rare birds for the area or season they were seen in or endangered.
Bird List
~ Adam Wood, OG Field Trip Coordinator, birdsondabrain@earthlink.net, 713-515-1692
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