Some birds just don't want to be found

 

Like that darned seedeater in Salineno along the Rio Grande.  We didn’t want to get there late and miss him, so we got up a little earlier than planned, 5am, and drove the hour and a half to Salineno in the dark.  We gave him two hours of daylight, walking up and down the river trail, but he wouldn’t make an appearance.  We saw so many cool birds we’ve already seen this year, but no seedeater.  The tropical parula at Bentsen State Park however, that could be a different story.

 

Off we went downstream to Bentsen.  Two hours of scouring the flocks of little perching birds.  We saw hummingbird, white-eyed vireo, house wren, blue-gray gnatcatcher, ruby-crowned kinglet, orange-crowned warbler; all little chirping chipping perching birds, but no parula.

 

But wait!  There is still hope!  The tropical parula at Estero Llano Grande State Park.  Off we went again.  And again, two hours of watching trees full of chirping birds, but no parula.  We gave up and headed back to the car.  When we got out to the parking lot, we ran into John, the ranger who runs all the birding there.  He commiserated with us about not being able to get that one last bird.  During the conversation, we mentioned that the only two birds we needed that had been seen in South Texas lately were the tropical parula and the barn owl.  “Barn Owl?” he said.  “We’ve got a barn owl!”  “Go back into the tropical zone and find two great big shaggy palm trees next to each other.  You’ll have to walk out into the grass and will probably get chiggers, but he will be in one tree or the other.  You won’t be able to see him, but when you get right up to the tree, he’ll flush.”

 

So back we went into the park in search of the palm trees and barn owl.  We located the trees, tucked our pant legs into our socks in an attempt to thwart the chiggers, and headed out into the grass.  Nothing.  We took a big stick and pounded on the trunk of each tree.  Still nothing.  We thought we had three shots at two birds and it turned out to be four shots at three birds, but even that wasn’t enough.  We finish the year with 474 birds.

 

Really, seeing that many birds in one year doesn’t totally suck, and it’s by far the most birds we’ve ever recorded in one year before; the best we’ve ever done.  So what if we didn’t make our target of 475.  A hundred years from now, who’ll care anyway!

 

Happy New Year everybody!