Our Texas Big Year

It is Christmas Day 2018 and Deb and I are in Fayetteville, Georgia visiting family.  We will head back to Texas on the 29th where we will prepare to begin our Texas Big Year.  Our first stop will be Caddo Lake SP in far northeast Texas.  While in the area we plan on doing two more Christmas Bird Counts, Tanaha CBC and Lake of the Pines CBC.  These counts will provide the first species for our Big Year List.  From here we will head to Tyler SP, then Angelina National Forest before heading to Huntsville SP,  then back to Georgetown in time to attend the Good Water Master Naturalists board meeting on January 14. Target birds in this first couple of weeks will be Henslow's and Bachman's Sparrow, Red-cockaded, Red-headed, and Piliated Woodpeckers, Brown-headed, Red-breasted, White-breasted Nuthatches, Brown Creeper and any unusual species wintering in the area such as Purple Finch.   Back in Williamson County we will attempt to find Short-eared and Burrowing Owls, White-tailed Hawk, whatever long spurs might be present and mountain plover.  If the Black Scoters continue down at Hornsby Bend, we will check the out as well.  We might have time to squeeze in a short trip to our cabin on the Frio to see what we can add there.  On the 27th of January or thereabouts we will head to the LRGV for some birding to add to our list.  While there we will focus on Aplomado Falcon, Golden-crowned Warbler, Hook-billed Kite, and Roadside Hawk if they are still present.  In addition, we will seek the usual local wintering species before heading up the river to Starr and Zapata counties for some additional local specialties.  Then it will be on to Laredo for the birding festival.  After the festival I hope to visit some old friends in Realitos, Texas, Gordon and Lynn Snook.  Then it will be on to Ingleside to stay visit family and lead a Williamson Audubon Group field trip to see the Whooping Cranes at Aransas National Wildlife Refuge.  While in the coastal area we will of course be looking for shorebirds, hopefully a Seaside Sparrow, and other wintering species.  We will return home on February 18.  It will be interesting to see where our count stands.  

Our goal for this year is, of course, to see as many species in Texas as we possibly can.  However, I am not and never have been one who considers birding a competitive hobby.  For me, and for Deb, this is a year of fun chasing birds, enjoying the sights that our beautiful state offers and visiting the many state parks our great State of Texas has to enjoy.  I am not one who enjoys staying in commercial RV campgrounds which I will avoid at all cost.  It is very sad to me that the LRGV no longer has a state park that offers RV camping so there we will be forced to find a commercial alternative.  

If any of you are interested you can follow along our journey by signing up to receive our blog and the updated list of birds we will have seen.  If you should find an unusual species please feel free to contact me.  You can do so by emailing irasciblej@gmail.com or commenting on this blog.  Of course, we will be monitoring TEXBIRDS and all the other pages where such sightings are normally posted.  Deb just recorded here 500th species last week on the Matagorda NWR CBC near Tivoli--Sprague's Pipit.  She has only been birding for two and a half years.  It took me seven.  So here goes, January 1, 2019 and we are looking forward to this year.