West Harris County and 100th Harris County Bird

This last Saturday I took a birding newbie out to western Harris County, to Paul Rushing Park in Katy and Bear Creek Park in western Houston.

We had three specific birds to go see: the Great Kiskadees and Lapland Longspurs seen at Paul Rushing Park, and the Red-breasted Nuthatches seen at Bear Creek Park. Unfortunately, we saw none of them!

It wasn't a complete wash of a day. Any day you introduce a new person to the world of birding is a good day :) On the drive in, we even got to see a Crested Caracara in the distance. While looking for the Great Kiskadees, we saw plenty of Blue Jays, Eastern Phoebes, and Brown-headed Cowbirds, and we also saw this Loggerhead Shrike on the wire.



As usual, I got so carried away in looking for birds that I forgot I had a camera with me! So this was the only photograph I took all day. We also got to watch a great exchange between a Great Blue Heron guarding his pond after a Great Egret landed nearby and started inching in. Also I saw my #100th Harris County Bird, a White-faced Ibis, fly overhead during this exchange.

After the Kiskadee failure, we went to the other side of the park to look for the Lapland Longspur, but all we saw were scores of Savannah Sparrows.

We drive down Logenbaugh Rd before we left and saw a Northern Harrier, American Kestrel, and a Red-tailed Hawk. Then at the end of the road the only notable bird was a House Wren.

On our way back, we stopped at Bear Creek Park to see if we could find those Red-Breasted Nuthatches, but we couldn't find any. There was another gruop there that drove in from college station to see what the park had to offer, and the group leader was very nice and gave me maps and everything, but the said they didn't see any Red-Breasted Nuthatches that day. We did see quite a few different species of Woodpeckers, however, including Downy Woodpecker, Red-bellied Woodpecker, Red-headed Woodpecker, and Northern Flicker.

Down by the creek, I saw what I thought was a female Western Tanager (which would been amazing this far east), but alas, when I got home and examined more photographs, I found it was just a female American Goldfinch. I didn't realized they looked so similar until now!

I'll try to get more pictures next time I go out :)