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!

Galveston Featherfest this Weekend

What's this... two posts in one day? Sounds like Carey's making a birding comeback!

This weekend I'm going to Galveston Featherfest. If you've read through my blog, you'll remember that I went last year and had a fairly miserable time. It rained hard Saturday and while the weather wasn't much better on Sunday, but at least on Sunday I had a 100+ species day.

This year I was half considering not going. But then I saw who the keynote speaker was, one of my favorite birder/authors Ken Kaufman! He wrote one of my favorite birding narratives, Kingbird Highway, which is a memoir of himself in the 70s, when he attempted a big year with basically no money, hitchhiking thousands of miles.

So now I'm all signed up. I'm not expecting to see too many life birds, with the exception of Prairie Chickens, because I'm in my "home territory," but I can always be surprised. Rather than go on limited field trips and spend my money on a weekend in a hotel, I decided to go all out on field trips and just drive the 1 1/4 hour trip home each day ($12 a day of gas versus $70 a night in a hotel, after taxes). Here's my itinerary:

Friday (all sold out now):
5:00-10:45am Prairie Chickens
12:45-4:45pm West Galveston Songbirds
5:30-9:00pm Keynote Dinner - K Kaufman

Saturday:
7:00-8:15am Bird ID Warmup
8:30-4:00pm High Island
6:00-8:00pm Art and Music Social

Sunday:
7:45-2:15pm Island Sampler

I'm not looking forward to getting up at around 3:00am in order to make it to the Friday trip, but what can I say... I'm a cheapskate.

Then the following weekend is my Bird Day Challenge, in which I will be spending all day riding my bicycle around Houston looking for birds. I haven't been training like I want to, so it may be an abbreviated ride, but I'll still have fun doing it.

Duluth Trip Remembered

I'm sorry I haven't been the good little bird blogger and kept up to date with my bird blog. Quite honestly, since Duluth, I've kind of been on hiatus from birdwatching altogether. But looking back, I realized I never wrote about Duluth. So I'm going to give a recap of the high points now.

I had a great time, but it was COOOOOLD. The highest temperature it got was 4 degrees Fahrenheit. The lowest temp I saw on my rental car thermometer was negative 18 degrees. I can say with a decent amount of certainty that was the coldest temperature I had ever experienced. What's more, is there were wind chills overnight well below negative 40. In Houston, we're lucky (unlucky?) if the temperature gets below positive 40!

The sunsets over Lake Superior were awesome

It didn't snow until the very end (my host said it was too cold to snow), when a few flakes started to fall. I didn't get to see any owls, but I saw a handful of life bird finches, including Hoary and Common Redpolls, Evening Grosbeaks, and Pine Siskins.

Common Redpoll digging around in the Snow

I also saw some northern specialties such Snow Bunting, American Three-Toed Woodpecker, Sharp-tailed Grouse (three separate occasions!), Black-billed Magpie, and Gray Jay.

This Gray Jay was letting me get a lot of great photos

It really was an amazing trip. I utilized CouchSurfing, so I got to stay with a stranger/host whom I met online, and we got along perfectly. I not only got to do a lot of birding, but I made new friends and got to see a lot of the non-bird areas of Duluth :)