Galveston Featherfest Recap

This was the first time I had ever gone to a festival alone, and I wouldn't recommend it. A lot of the times I was lonely; I didn't have anyone my own age to share things with. It's different when you're just birding around your neighborhood as a sort of stress release, but spending a whole weekend doing it got to me.

Friday I went on two field trips: the Attwater's Prairie Chicken field trip to the Texas City Preserve, and the West Galveston Songbird trip. We got to see the Prairie Chicken, and were told very sad news that there were less than 60 less in the world, and that one of the two males we got to see was the last "wild" male left (not born in captivity). Obviously, it was a lifer for me! We had our scopes on it and it was still quite a ways away . I tried to take a photograph with my ultra-zoom point and shoot, but it didn't turn out so well:



On the way back from the Texas City Preserve, we stopped under a bridge that had both nesting Cave (lifer!) and Cliff Swallows, and we got a real good look at the difference between the two, not only in color, but in how their nests look. In this picture, you can see the white forehead of the Cliff Swallow. On the left side of the photo is a Cave Swallow nest, which has a much different look to it.



The West Galveston Songbird trip was pretty short on migrants; the winds were blowing to the north which aided birds in flying right over us to the lakes and streams inland. Some notable sightings were that we got to see both an Eastern and a Western Kingbird on the same tree, and also a stunning Indigo Bunting. Unfortunately, when we left the marsh and entered the wooded area, things slowed down to a halt. We ultimately got brief looks at two different Summer Tanagers. Later, I got a brief look of a Bronzed Cowbird, a lifer me, at our second stop of the field trip.




The banquet Friday night was great, and I got to meet one of my favorite birder-authors: Ken Kaufman. He wrote Kingbird Highway, which is an amazing travel narrative (my genre of choice). It's a memoir about himself at 16, where he set off to attempt a big year with no mode of transportation and no money. He hitchhiked to all four corners of the nation on his quest. It looks like the entire book is up on Google Books if anyone wants to read it while sitting at their computer. I bought the unreleased first-edition of his new book, Flights Against the Sunset, another memoir, and of course had it signed by him!

Friday night there was a big storm, so we were hoping for a fallout Saturday, but unfortunately it never came. Migrants were very sparse again, even where I was at High Island. I still managed to see over 70 birds for the day, including a lifer that has been eluding me for a very long time, a Merlin, which was atop a communications tower while we were waiting for the ferry. I did manage to meet up with another person my age who was also there alone, so while the birds were slim, at least I had some good company. She was a new birder from west Houston and I told her to call me if she ever wanted some experienced company to go bird with around the area. Here is the view from the new observation deck; you can see how flat the landscape is here on the coast:



At this point I was pretty sunburned, so I decided to skip the art & social and head home for the night. I was so wiped out the next day, and bird numbers didn't look like they were going to pick up, so I decided not to drive back and do the West Galveston Sampler trip on Sunday. I pretty much just vegged out all day.

In the end, I added 4 life birds, no new Texas birds other than those 4, and 15 new Galveston County birds (a county I already had 100+ in). I saw 92 species overall. It was probably the worst outcome of a festival weekend of birding I've had. But it was expected to be low, as I stated in my previous post, because I'm in my "home territory" and have seen most of the birds here. If you break it down to gas and festival costs, each species of bird I saw this weekend cost me about $3.

One realization I made this weekend is that I'm past the point of being able to see massive amounts of new birds. The novelty has worn off and I'm actually learning about the birds at this point. I was surprised at what I already knew when I was spouting my knowledge off to the new birder I met on Saturday. This weekend I also extensively learned about field markings of swallows and how to identify them, which was one of my problem areas before. I also had trouble distinguishing between Common and Great-Tailed Grackles before, but I saw enough of both now that I can easily distinguish between the two.

I'm not sure I'm going to go to any more pay-per-trip festivals in the future. While I have fun and learn a lot, it just doesn't seem worth the money. I'm going to stick with TOS meetings, in which one fee (between $35-$60, depending on venue) will get you into all the field trips all weekend. That's much cheaper than the Galveston or Harlingen bird festivals!