Three TX Statebirds – Swallow-tailed Kite, Heermann’s Gull, and American Bittern, March 2016

Although my TX state list is my largest, I continue to set up eBird Needs Alerts for TX on each of my monthly trips to the state.  And those Needs Alerts keep pointing me toward at least a few possible new statebirds for my TX list.  The first bird I looked for in the Needs Alert for my upcoming March trip was Swallow-tailed Kite.  Back in summer 2015 when I started to do TX Needs Alerts I realized that the Kite was especially regular at one location (Port-o-call Street) a bit east of Houston in Crosby, but was only seen there in spring and early summer.  But by the time I knew about this spot, and realized I actually needed Swallow-tailed Kite for my TX list, it was too late in the year.  Though I did try for them in the heat of on late afternoon in July 2015.  So I made a mental note to check the Needs Alerts for the Kite on my first spring trip in 2016.  Sure enough, the Kites had just started to show up, and there were a couple sightings at Port-o-call Street.  Since my flight was to arrive around dinner time, I would have time to try for the Kites the evening I arrived.

But as they say in the infomercials – “But wait there’s more…”  The Needs Alert also mentioned several American Bitterns spotted recently at Sheldon Lake State Park.  Since that’s a pretty common wintering bird in TX, I was a bit surprised that I still needed it for my state list.  The park was only a short distance off my route from the airport to the Kite location, so I figured I would have enough time to quickly try for the Bitterns first, then head a bit farther east to try for the Kite.  Two possible statebirds in one evening of birding – not bad.

My flight landed 20 minutes early, giving me lots of time to try for both of my targets.  Less than 20 minutes after leaving the airport I neared the entrance to Sheldon Lake State Park, only to find that the park closed at 5 PM.  That was a surprise, and a disappointment as well.  So I headed over to Port-o-call Street to look for the Kites.  I’m not sure what is so special about this location, except that it offers a good panoramic view of the sky.  I started my vigil scanning the sky with no luck for the first 30 minutes.  Then I noticed something soaring in the distance.  Despite harsh lighting looking toward the setting sun I could pick out all the field marks of a Swallow-tailed Kite.  While watching it another passed through my binocular field, and then another.  Soon I had a flock of at least 6 birds soaring in the distance.  TX was my fifth southeast state for this species, plus I’ve seen it as a rarity in RI.

As my Houston trip progressed a couple of my meetings got cancelled, giving me a bit of spare time in the early morning one day.  With some free time on my hands, I checked the Needs Alerts again and noticed multiple sightings of an extremely rare immature Heermann’s Gull at the Texas City Dike.  Plus a Glaucous Gull was spotted there as well.  I had never birded there before, and just assumed it was pretty far away.  But it turned out to be just an hour southeast of Houston.  And if I arrived there at dawn, I would have enough time to be back in the city in plenty of time for work by mid-morning.  And if the gulls were really cooperative, I could even make a short side trip to Brazos Bend State Park where multiple American Bitterns had been reported recently. 

The Heermann’s Gull was being seen quite cooperatively among a flock of Laughing and Ring-billed Gulls at the westernmost parking lot on the Texas City Dike.  And the Glaucous Gull was seen in the immediate area as well.  Those directions were very explicit so I knew exactly where to search.  However, both gulls were only seen there for 1 day (the Heermann’s was seen several days earlier in nearby Galveston), so I was a bit worried about how reliable they might be.  If they were one-day wonders at this site I would make the long drive for nothing.  But despite a few misgivings, given how rare the Heermann’s was, I decided to take a few hours off and give it a try.

I arrived at the Texas City Dike right at dawn and quickly found the parking lot where the target gulls had been reported.  There were a number of Laughing and Ring-billed Gulls loafing around, with a few Herring Gulls sprinkled in, but no rarities.  I drove a 100 yards farther east to check out another small gull flock but again just saw Laughing and Ring-billed.  Suddenly I had that sinking feeling – had I made the trek for nothing?  Then I scanned back to the west and noticed an all-dark gull on the rip-rap – it was the Herrmann’s!  Within a couple minutes it flew to the parking lot and took its place among the other more common gulls likely looking for handouts.  I took a few record shots of this tame bird with my iPhone. 

I’ve now seen this species as a rarity in TX and FL, along with its regular West Coast states.  And come to think of it, I remember seeing flocks of Heermann’s acting just as tame on the CA coast, loafing in mixed flocks in coastal parking lots. And the FL bird I saw was quite tame as well.

Just then I ran into a couple other birders who were there the previous day and had seen the Glaucous Gull.  They mentioned that the Glaucous was there all morning perched on light poles around the parking lot.  But the bird was not seen there the rest of the day despite many searches.  With those tips, I did a couple scans around the area especially focused on birds perched on the light poles.  But there was no Glaucous in site.  Now it was decision time.  Since the Herrmann’s was so cooperative, if I left now I still had time to try for the American Bittern.  Or I could stay longer to hope that the rarer Glaucous would return, but that would mean passing on the more regular Bittern.  Despite my preferences to try for the rarer bird, I had a feeling that the Glaucous was not going to cooperate, and decided to head to Brazos Bend State Part to try for the Bittern.  As a side note it turns out I made the right decision since the Glaucous was apparently not seen at all that day.

The reports of American Bitterns at Brazos Bend State Park were pretty amazing.  Just in the past week this shy and elusive bird had been reported daily on eBird, with 3 birds seen the day before and one report of 11 birds earlier in the week.  Looking back at earlier posts I saw one birder remark - “continuing and obvious". So the good news was there were a number of Bitterns in the park.  However, the bad news was that no locations were given in the recent posts.  I had downloaded a park map the night before and there were numerous wetlands that could be suitable for Bitterns, so I would need some advice where to look for these birds, especially given that I had limited time.  Finally I decided to look back into older eBird reports and started seeing a couple locations given repeatedly – 40 Acre Lake and Elm Lake.  So I was hopeful that my detective work would be sufficient to finally check this bird off my TX list.

I arrived at the State Park and went right to 40 Acre Lake near the entrance.  The lake had a long boardwalk surrounded by low wetland vegetation that I hoped would harbor a Bittern.  As I neared the lake I noticed a photographer out on the boardwalk and I crossed my fingers that he could help me with my search.  It turned out that he was a volunteer at the park, and was very familiar with all the Bittern sightings – he mentioned one birder counted 26 there last week!  Instead of birding the middle of 40 Acre Lake along the boardwalk he directed me to a trail along the north side of the lake and told me to check the edge of the wild rice to the north of the trail.  A few minutes later I was slowly walking along the trail and something caught my eye at the edge of the marsh – it was a nearly motionless American Bittern.  Here’s a shot of the bird taken with my iPhone – can you pick out the bird?

A couple minutes later I had two other Bitterns in flight chasing each other.  I would have really liked to continue down the trail and see how many Bitterns I could find, but I had to get back to work.  And even though I was just there for five minutes, I probably saw more Bitterns that day than almost any other day of birding.

Although American Bittern is a rather common bird seen virtually throughout the country, I’ve usually found this to be a very elusive bird, mostly because it can stay motionless for such a long period of time.  As a result I still need it in 16 mainland states.

With three additions to my TX list that gives me 429 for the state, 20 more than my next highest statelist.  Though since the total possible TX list is so large, I’ll undoubtedly still have many more possible statebirds to try for on future trips to TX.