We made it to 500 birds on our life-list the first of May. We’ve added a couple cool little owls, ferruginous pygmy owl and elf owl, and a mourning warbler. Now we’re left with only three birds we expect (hope) to see this season in Texas: the golden winged warbler, white rumped sandpiper, and hudsonian godwit. Today, we went after the hudsonian godwit. They only pass through the Texas Gulf Coast during spring migration. There has been a flock of them in some flooded rice fields about a hundred miles north of us, so off we went this morning to Indianola, outside Port Lavaca. We saw lots of birds, including five purple gallinules, but no hudsonian godwits. So we headed a hundred miles south to the sod farm west of Corpus Christi where a couple have been seen recently. Lots of meadowlarks and sandpipers, but no godwits, so we checked out Hazel Bazemore Park close by. We got wilson’s phalaropes and stilt sandpipers, but no godwits. On to Packery Channel Park. Long billed curlews, American oystercatchers, but godwits; none. That was enough for today. We gave it a good effort. We still have three birds we need for the season.
