Short Trip to Galveston County, Texas Yields 2 Statebirds, January 2017

Prior to my regular January business trip to Houston I set up an eBird Needs Alert to see if there might be any target birds in the area.  I’ve birded the greater Houston area enough times that few if any new statebirds are likely in the immediate area on most all of my trips.  And that was certainly the case this time – in fact there were no possible new statebirds at all in and around Houston. 

As a result of the limited opportunities in Houston I’ve recently started to expand my horizons a bit in search of new statebirds.  For instance Galveston is less than an hour away, and last year I was able to squeeze in a couple short birding trips down that way while in the area.  So I checked the Needs Alert for possibilities in Galveston County, and sure enough there were a number of targets -

• Texas City Dike had 2 reports of Thayer’s Gull, and 1 report each of Glaucous Gull and Pacific Loon, but with no details provided as to specific locations. 
• Offat’s Bayou in Galveston had several reports of a Red-throated Loon.
• Several locations along the coast had reports of Nelson’s Sparrow – one of the most common birds I still needed in TX.
• Bolivar Flats had single reports of both White-winged and Black Scoters in large Scaup flocks offshore, along with an occasional Gannet.

My birding time was limited to just a late afternoon after work, so that wouldn’t give me enough time to try for all of these birds.  (All of a sudden I went from no target birds to more birds than I had time to search for.)  The Texas City Dike is nearly 5 miles long, with lots of good habitat along almost the entire length.  And given the lack of details for the locations of each species, and only 1 or 2 reports of each, the targets reported there seemed like long shots.  So instead I focused on stops at the coast with 5 possible targets.  I would start at Offat’s Bayou in Galveston, then I would take the ferry over to Bolivar with a stop at Frenchtown Road for Nelson’s Sparrow, and then end the day doing a seawatch at Bolivar Flats.  I wouldn’t be able to spend much time at any of these stops, but it all seemed feasible despite the limited time.  And in the last couple days before my trip there were also reports of Pacific Loons at Offat’s Bayou – yet another target bird to try for. 

I was able to get out of the office on time, and headed south toward Galveston beating at least a little of the rush hour traffic.  Within an hour I had reached Offat’s Bayou and started to scan the bay from the little park on 61^st Street.  I instantly started to pick out several Common Loons scattered across the water.  Although most birds were distant, I soon noticed a small feeding frenzy which was much closer to me.  I counted 7 Common Loons and 21 small Grebes which I identified as Horned.  But the “eBird police” thought they should be Eared Grebes, so I changed the ID to “grebe, sp.” in eBird.  Unfortunately the frenzy included no rare Loons.  So I went back to scanning in the distance and got a quick look at a bird that I thought was a Red-throated.  But the bird dove, and I couldn’t re-find it, so I assumed my ID was incorrect.  Or maybe the bird just resurfaced too far away.  In any case I didn’t count it.

With more scanning I found even more Common Loons in the distance, and finally found a candidate for a Pacific.  I eventually got some pretty good looks at the bird (though it too was diving a lot), and I could see the smaller size and darker back than the Commons, and abrupt edge of the dark coloration on the side of the neck.  Pacific Loon indeed!  I then went back to looking for my possible Red-throated, but with no success.  Along the way I made an exact count of 126 Common Loons scattered across the bay.  By now most were quite distant to the northwest, and I started to think about driving to a different spot to get closer to them.  But I had already spent more time here than expected, so I decided to move on to my next location instead.  My statebird map for Pacific Loon is pretty interesting – I’ve seen this species in more states as a rarity (10) than in states in its regular Pacific coast range (4).

I drove to the east end of Galveston Island and was almost the last car to board the ferry before it departed – tough to beat that timing.  Soon after leaving the ferry on the Bolivar Peninsula I turned left onto Frenchtown Road to try for the Nelson’s Sparrows.  Although there had only been one recent Nelson’s report from this spot, there were several reports here in recent winters.  And the satellite view on GoogleMaps showed what appeared to be a nice patch of saltmarsh along the road.  So I was optimistic that this might be a regular wintering spot for this species.  A couple minutes later I reached the saltmarsh and it was indeed very nice habitat.  But it was so large I was a bit worried whether this could be a needle in a haystack kind of search.  And I didn’t have the proper footwear to wade out into the marsh to try to flush them.  Then I remembered that Nelson’s are quite responsive to playback (based on successful searches in VT and Nova Scotia), so I decided to give it a try right from the road.  Within a few seconds I got a fleeting glimpse of a sparrow fly toward me.  And just before it dropped into the grasses it perched long enough for me to ID it as a Nelson’s Sparrow.  I did a bit more playback hoping that the bird would come out into the open.  But instead of views of that bird, 3 other Nelson’s flew in to investigate.  Who knows how many birds might have been in this marsh.  Not bad when a 2-minute stop can yield a new statebird. 

And now a little side-story about my experience with Nelson’s Sparrow across the country-  Most of my winter birding in the southeast coastal areas came before what used to be known as the “Sharp-tailed Sparrow” was split into 2 species – today’s Nelson’s and Saltmarsh Sparrows.  So although years ago I saw birds of this complex in all the Gulf Coast and southern Atlantic Coast coastal states, I did not record what was at the time considered to be the races of these birds.  As a result I’ve conservatively decided to count all my sightings on the Atlantic Coast to be what is now called Saltmarsh Sparrow, and my Gulf Coast sightings as Nelson’s Sparrow.  Chances are I saw both species in most all the Atlantic states, but have decided to take this conservative approach to counting this species in that region.  Not to mention I've tried for it unsuccessfully in MN, ND, and MT on the breeding grounds of the inland nelsoni race.  Hence I have big gaps in my statebird map for Nelson’s Sparrow, though I'm happy to have it as a rare migrant in WV and VT.

 

That gave me quite a bit of remaining sunlight to try for the Scoters and Gannets off-shore.  After a short drive I had reached the end of Rettilon Road, where the pavement ends at the hard-packed sandy beach (luckily safe to drive on even in a 2-wheel-drive sedan).  With a quick binocular scan I spotted a very large flock of diving ducks offshore.  I got out the scope and estimated a whopping 4,000 Lesser Scaup.  But the raft was far off-shore, and even at 50 power under nearly ideal viewing conditions, there was no way I would be able to ID a Scoter mixed in.  I looked to the west and saw another large flock of divers, and these birds were closer to shore.  So I drove down to the western-most part of the beach, identified as the eBird hotspot “Bolivar Flats Shorebird Sanctuary”, and started to scan this flock.  The birds were indeed a bit closer, and I was able to spot an occasional Redhead mixed in with the estimated 1,000 Scaup, but still no Scoters.  I also scanned the coast for Gannets with no luck – though distant plunge-diving Pelicans got my interest at times. 

It was now getting late, so I decided to call it quits content to add 2 more birds to my TX statelist – now at 434.  As I was driving away in the fading light I had a flashback to another sunset visit to this same spot more than 10 years ago in November 2006 when I successfully added Short-eared Owl to my TX list.  Some fond birding memories…