My friends, fewer than 60 days remain until the end of 2015, which would also (mercifully) happen to be the end of this Big Year.
As we wrapped up our Yellow Rail Fest, we interrogated the Festival Organizer for how and where to find an elusive Bachman's Sparrow (well, really we just asked nicely, as she was pretty cool). She told us about the habitat it preferred (grassy areas in pine forest), and her main tip for finding it at this time of year was, "Just zig-zag through the grass until one pops up". OK, that sounds like something I can do.
We drove about 90 minutes north into the Piney Woods of Louisiana, to the point on a forest road where the birds had been reported recently. Sure enough, the road was surrounded by pine forest (hence the name!) and knee-high grass interspersed with small islands of brush. Wandering randomly through the grass, a sparrow flushed within about 30 minutes and started yelling at us. As she gave us her opinion on how grossly offensive our presence was, we got one really good look at her perched on a branch and sure enough, that was a Bachman's Sparrow! Check.
So, now what? We had a whole weekend until our boat trip out of South Padre Island, and the drive there was only about 9 hours. [Note how twisted one's perspective becomes after a Big Year... a 9-hour drive is "nothing"!] No birds we needed had been reported along the whole Texas coast, so we decided to just take things easy for a couple days.
Pro Tip: If you're going to make a last-minute trip to a city for a few days, check the weather forecast before you book your trip!
Given its proximity to our route, we made San Antonio our destination. Which, we discovered after making hotel reservations, was under a Flash Flood warning. The weekend turned out fine, and running to dinner in a dumping rainstorm was kind of fun, so all's well that ends well.
Fun Fact: Did you know that if the government issues a flash flood warning, your cell phone will start screaming an alarm? Even/especially if the warning is issued at 2AM? And if you have two phones, they both will go off?
So, after a semi-relaxing weekend, we arrived in South Padre Island on Sunday night, and woke early Monday ready to check off all kinds of new birds on our last scheduled boat trip of the year!
Unfortunately, nobody told the birds.
On the entire 12+ hour trip, we found maybe 15 species of birds, most of which were seen in the first hour, and zero new birds for the year. This trip defined, "slow day". Bummer! So, we're still stuck at 674 for the year.
Next up, we'll attend some of the festivities at the Rio Grande Valley Birding Festival here in south Texas, then take a field trip on Thursday, and then we're not sure. We have a trip booked to hunt for Lesser Prairie Chicken and Boreal Owl, but those are both going to be very difficult. We may rebook our trip to hunt for something else. My Excel script is crunching the numbers as we speak...
Crunch, crunch, crunch,
Me
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