Savannah Sparrow

Lake of the Pines CBC.  We met at a local grocery store in Ore City and began from there.  Our first stop was in a bottom were we successfully called in both Barred Owl and Eastern Screech Owl.  The weather was clear skies and cold-- temperature (31)—but there was no wind—making for great birding.  We then drove to a back road which we walked along for about a mile.  There we really began to add to our list finding some good birds—Golden-crowned Kinglet, Purple Finch, Red-headed, Piliated, Downy & Red-bellied Woodpecker.  Sparrows were difficult to come by.  We only had Chipping, Savannah, and White-throated among the more common ones but, and this is a big but, we found a HENSLOW’S SPARROW, which was our target bird for the area.  We were able to flush the bird from a small field and get pictures after it landed in a nearby tree.  This area is the only area in Texas where it is possible to find this bird and it was a great addition to our Big Year list.  Now we can move on to find some other east Texas specialties.  We ended the day with 70 species upping our Big Year list to 82 for both of us but 83 for me because I saw a Swainson’s Hawk on the highway day before yesterday.  Today we move on to Tyler SP and another try for the Fork-tailed Flycatcher being seen near Willis, Texas.