Buckhorn Campground—Lake of the Pines—January 4, 2014—DD +3—The rain has finally stopped!  This morning it was still overcast but there was no precipitation.  Instead there was a brisk Northwest wind that whipped up whitecaps on the lake and the temperature was in the mid 40’s.  I will take the wind over the incessant rain we have had for the past two weeks.  We headed off to chase the Fork-tailed Flycather reported near Willis, Texas.  It is about two hour drive from where we are, but it would be a great bird for the list.  As we headed west on I 20 the sky began to clear and by the time we arrived at our destination there were clear skies and lots of sun.  We scoured the are noted on E-bird and the area which Bob Metzler had seen the bird on Monday.  We made several runs through the area but we came up empty.   Then we headed to Towakani State Park.  We were very disappointed that there were very few waterfowl.  We were able to add Swamp Sparrow and got to observe a Red-shouldered Hawk enjoy a fresh fish lunch.  On I 20 I saw a Swainson’s Hawk but Deb did get to see it.  Then we added two easy ones—Killdeer & European Starling near Willis.  We took a dirt county road after leaving the park and were lucky to add Creasted Caracara, Loggerhead Shrike and Common Grackle, & Eastern Meadowlark.  Then we returned to the task of locating the flycatcher.   Unfortunately, we never were able to locate the bird.  On our way back I posted to TEXBIRDS our miss and was shortly informed the bird had been reported at 12:44, during the time we were in the State Park.  We will go back when we move to Tyler State Park on Sunday.  On our way back we took FM 155 to go to the FM 155 bridge to look for a reported Black Scoter but nothing was there.  On our back to camp we did pad our list with a Belted Kingfisher, Ring-necked Duck and Common Loon.  Tomorrow is the Lake of the Pines CBC.  Another early morning.

Red-shouldered Hawk --enjoying fish dinner

Crested Caracara