Tyler SP—D Day +5—January 5, 2015—I’m not a big fan of eating crow (Henlow’s crow that is) but I must in this case.  On further review and consultations with three individuals the bird was in fact, a Savannah Sparrow (SASP).  Now I know that seems like an easy id to make and it should be.  I have seen over 20,000 SASP in my life.  On one occasion while doing the King Ranch count we had 20,000 SASP’s.  In this case, Mark Edmund, our CBC host, and I flushed a bird in a field where Henslowe’s have been seen in the past.  I remarked at the time it seemed to be a large sparrow.  The bird flew high up in a tree and Mark first thought it was a Vespers Sparrow.  I notice it had ocra coloration on its head and so we immediately thought we had a Henlow’s.  That night, as I reviewed the photos I had taken I agonized over this bird.  I could not fit it with Henlow’s nor could I come up with what it might be, never thinking about SASP since I believed the bird to be large and SASP are small sparrows.  At any rate I now have concluded it is indeed a SASP and have removed it from the list.  In that my experience with Henlow’s is very limited to seeing one in breeding plumage in Wisconsin, I had no experienced with them in winter plumage.  And I still don’t.  End of story.  However, the day did not end in doom and gloom.  Before leaving Buckhorn we birded the campground turning up two new birds for our Big Year list—Fish Crow and Brown-headed Nuthatch, both east Texas specialties. 

Fish Crow

Brown-headed Nuthatch

Then we headed for Tyler, set up camp, had lunch and headed for another try at the rare Fork-tailed Flycatcher.  We joined about a dozen other hopefuls set up alongside the road where the bird has been seen.  We arrived around noon and were soon joined by Scott Rubio and his girl friend Alex Crutkaew.  I had met Scott several years ago at the Laredo Birding Festival.  He is from Austin but his family ranch is in Encinal.  We were soon joined by John Parkin, a retire veterinarian who had traveled to Alaska with in the past.  We all stood around visiting and hoping the bird would make an appearance.  By 4:30 it looked like the bird was a no show and John left.  Shortly after he departed, at 4:45, Scott spotted the bird on the power wire north of where we were standing.  We did get the bird so we replaced the Henlow’s with the flycatcher.  This was our second trip to find this bird and we were happy campers on our return trip to Tyler SP.

Fork-tailed Flycatcher

Scott & Alex looking at his picture

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