January 10, 2023

Hagerman National Wildlife Refuge – December 2022

January 10, 2023/ Gwen Morrison

Back in November, I stopped at Hagerman National Wildlife Refuge on my way down to Carrollton, TX. It is just outside Sherman, TX…a little over an hour away from my destination. The refuge was active in the early afternoon…with some migrants still around (link to November post).

In December, I opted to do a quick drive through on my way home so it was in the morning about an hour after sunrise; it was not a great time for seeing large numbers of birds. It was too late to see birds that had roosted in the ponds…and it was too cold and windy to linger very long with the windows open (I was using my car as a mobile blind).

I enjoyed seeing a flock of male red-winged blackbirds in stubble near the road….rise up as a group then coming back down like a wave crashing on beach to feed again…repeat. Their red and yellow markings were flashing every time they started up out of the dried vegetation and when they landed again.

A heron stood in the shallows with its feathers ruffled by the wind. The day was still new enough for the water to be morning blue.

I also saw a Harrier Hawk – hunting…circling over the stubble and water’s edge. I didn’t get a picture, unfortunately, but I spent a few minutes watching the awesome grace of the bird dealing with the wind and looking for breakfast.

The clouds began to cover the sun periodically and I took some refuge landscape shots – complete with oil pump jacks (it is Texas).

The pintails, mallards, and shovelers were around….enjoying the bounty of the refuge.

Gulls were mostly staying put in the shallows.

My plan is to stop at the refuge as I continue to make monthly treks to Carrollton…see the changes at the refuge as the winter progresses….and then the spring migration and flowers.

November 27, 2018

Festival of the Cranes – part 8

November 27, 2018/ Gwen Morrison

After the fly out, we headed to the Bosque del Apache National Wildlife Refuge visitor center to meet the bus for a Raptor ID tour.

The refuge is home to many red-tailed hawks…several different morphs. The basic ‘football’ shape is what we were looking for in the trees.

The bald eagle was in the snag in the middle of the flight deck pond. Nothing happened when the eagle opened its wings and moved all little (just as I snapped a picture…good enough to identify it as a bald eagle but not much else).

Later the bird suddenly flew away….and caused a cloud of snow geese to rise all at one time from the water’s surface.

There are a lot of northern harriers this year too. Every time we drove the wildlife loop, we saw a few. They fly low over the fields looking for their prey.

There were other birds that were not raptors that we saw too. The ravens seemed to pose of us.

My favorite birds to watch were the hooded mergansers. At first there was just one pair interacting…then another male came along and then another female. They were almost beyond the range of my camera without the monopod. The first pair was acting a lot like is was time to breed but New Mexico is far from their breeding grounds.

The tour was an enjoyable 3 hours around the refuge wildlife loop.

November 22, 2017

Laguna Atascosa National Wildlife Refuge

November 22, 2017/ Gwen Morrison

Our third day at the Rio Grande Valley Birding Festival did not start out well: our bus has a mechanical problem and our departure was delayed by about 3 hours. Fortunately, the replan included a lengthening of the trip by three hours and provisions (picnic lunch). On the plus side – we avoided some rain showers that moved through while we were waiting; on the negative side – we could have slept later (getting up at 4 AM is common at birding festivals!). Our destination was the Laguna Atascosa National Wildlife Refuge. We didn’t seen any ocelots that the refuge is trying to protect…but we did see plenty of birds. The days was very cloudy and misty – not good for photographing. I picked a few that were good enjoy enough for identification.

There were snow geese coming and going. I liked this line because of the different morphs visible.

There was a Little Blue Heron fishing in the shallows

And a Great Blue Heron standing on one leg surveying the shore.

A group of Forster’s terns, with the black feathers around and back from their eyes) were grouped along the shore (looks like the birds behind them were snoozing).

The Forster’s tern is in the middle of this image. The largest bird is a Caspian Tern and the one in front is a Royal Tern. The Royal Terns I’d seen in Maryland always looked like they were wearing a black cap but that is only during the breeding season…not this time of year in South Texas.

A brown pelican flew above – following the shoreline.

White Ibis wandered through the other shore birds.

The Crested Caracara were new to me. Since the ones I saw on the field trip were a little far away – I took a picture of a captive bird as the Expo.

I took a close up of a prickly pear tuna (fruit)…note the spines.

Side by side – a Lesser and Greater Yellowlegs.

We were all on the bus when a male Northern Harrier swooped down into the field beside the road and hovered over prey. I did pretty well taking this series through the bus window since there was no time to do anything better.

There is a platform where aplomado falcons are nesting. This is an exciting recovery story since this bird was gone from the area for years and has only recently been reintroduced and is breeding again in south Texas. I took a picture of the captive falcon at the Expo just as I had the Crested Caracara.

We stopped at the visitor’s center and walked around the cards there. Red-winged blackbirds are all over North America!

The white winged doves are summer birds in south Texas according to allaboutbirds but there were still a lot of them around in mid-November; I wonder if they are really year round in the Rio Grande Valley.

It was a longer day that we’d anticipated but better than we thought might happen in the hour or so after we initially learned of the bus problem. In the end we decided that the Laguna Atascosa trip was well worth it.