Ferruginous Hawk, Attwater Prairie Chicken NWR, TX, February 2018

While on my November 2017 trip to Houston my eBird Needs Alerts included several reports of potential new TX statebirds in and around the Attwater Prairie Chicken NWR west of the city.  Not only does the refuge have countable Greater Prairie Chickens, though precious few of them, there have also been a few reports over the last several years of Ferruginous Hawks and Prairie Falcons wintering in and around the refuge.  Both raptors are reasonably common in far western TX, but they are rare this far east in the state.  I need all 3 species for my TX statelist, so I spent a couple hours late one day birding the area.  Although I didn’t come up with any of my targets on that November trip, I got a good feel for the area and made a mental note to try to come back to the refuge on a future winter day.

The opportunity for that return trip occurred in February when another Houston business trip would afford me a few hours one early morning to bird the area.  There were a couple Ferruginous Hawk and Prairie Falcon sightings in the area in the previous couple months, so both were potential targets, though I figured each was a low probability.  Unfortunately most of the wild Prairie Chickens did not survive the flooding associated with Hurricane Harvey, so the chances of running into one of these critically endangered birds was close to 0. 

As I neared the refuge that morning I started to find several Red-tailed Hawks perched in trees along the road.  And an occasional Kestrel kept me on my toes.  And as I started on the auto tour road I spotted a couple more Red-tails, multiple Caracaras, and several Harriers.  Definitely good numbers of raptors in the area – but none of the target species.  Then I spotted a large Buteo flying low over the grasses with shallow wing beats alternating with short glides.  I quickly hopped out of the car and looked for additional field marks – reddish mantle, white patches near the wing tips, pale reddish tail with white base – it was a light phase adult Ferruginous Hawk!  I followed the bird until it landed on a low post in the distance.  With the bird facing me I could see the pale chest and reddish feathering of the legs.  Nice to get such a cooperative bird.

I continued around the auto tour road and found quite a number of additional raptors, but no more targets.  One of the other highlights though was a recently burned field that was absolutely loaded with passerines feeding on the bare ground – I made a conservative estimate of 250 Savannah Sparrows, along with numerous Red-wings, Cowbirds, and Brewer’s Blackbirds, Horned Larks, and Pipits.  A nice collection of birds.  And nice to get a new statebird so quickly before heading off to work.

Ferruginous Hawk was number 440 for my TX statelist.  TX was my 15th state for this widespread bird of the west (see my statebird map below).