Big Birding Saturday with Sue Oliver

Who is Sue Oliver you might ask.  She is a friend of ours and one of the best birders in this area.  We had been talking about doing this for the past several months.  I also promised that I would put her name in headlines.  (Hence the title of this post).  She works at her job all week and only has time to get out on Saturdays.  We set it up to leave about 8:15AM, and we should have decided on going after a “Big Day” number.  We ended up seeing 51 species, and it could have been more, had we done a better job of deciding the route that we would take.

Belted Kingfisher – female

In the birders jargon, a “Big Day” is one where you try to see as many birds as possible.  Ann and I have, or had a record of 44 in one day back in 2011.  That was just she and I, and we were not really trying for a big number.  It just happened that way.

Pyrrholoxia – female

The weather was pretty cold when we started.  It was around 40 degrees and very cloudy, but not really uncomfortable unless we rolled the car windows down at higher speeds.  But as you probably know, birders do not travel at high speeds.

Northern Cardinal

We decided to head for Mertzon, Texas, a little town only about 20 miles southwest of San Angelo.  We took a round-a-bout way, through ranch country on some dusty caliche roads, and after three hours,(yes that’s right, three hours) of not many birds, we arrived in Mertzon.  We promptly stopped at a convenience store to answer nature’s call.  At that time, we had only chalked up about a dozen birds.  They were mostly sparrow types, grackles, and a few doves.  We were disappointed the way our birding exploits were going because we had wasted our time on those backroads.  Of course, we had now way of knowing that there would be such a shortage of birds on that route.

Red-tailed Hawk in flight

There was a little county park there in Mertzon, with a dam and a low-water crossing.  We decided to check it out as we had heard that it would be a great place for birds.  We were really correct on that score.  There were Cardinals, Finches, Pied-billed Grebes, Pyrrholoxia and a Great Blue Heron.  But the star of the show was a Ringed Kingfisher, a rarity here in this area.  It was apparent that it had invaded the territory of two Belted Kingfishers.  Those two were not making the Ringed KF welcome.  All the time we watched they were constantly chasing one another.  Patiently waiting, I did get a couple of photos when it happened to perch for a few seconds.

Ringed Kingfisher

Ringed Kingfisher

We stayed around for a bit to see if there were any more surprises.  Nothing more exciting showed up, except some American Goldfinches, American Kestrels, and another Red-tailed Hawk.  I think that by then, we had seen 35 different species.

By then it was only about 2:00 PM.  We decided that we would head for Eldorado, a drive of about 35 miles.  We thought that we could add a bunch to our list at the Water Treatment Plant ponds.  And we did.  Plenty of birds there, however, some of them were duplicates of birds that we seen in Mertzon.  But we added a Wilson’s Snipe and a Northern Harrier, and several others including an American Widgeon.

American Wigeon

On the way home, entering San Angelo, we saw the first two Ring-billed Gulls of the season, and some European Starlings.  So all in all it was another fun day of birding here in the Concho Valley.  Click on any image to see an enlargement.

Here is a complete species list for you who may be interested.

1. Red-tailed Hawk
2. Mourning Dove
3. Common Raven
4. Western Meadowlark
5. Common Grackle
6. Savannah Sparrow
7. Vesper Sparrow
8. American Kestrel
9. Northern Mockingbird
10. Loggerhead Shrike
11. Red-winged Blackbird
12. Green-winged Teal
13. Turkey Vulture
14. Northern Cardinal
15. Pyrrholoxia
16. Golden-fronted Woodpecker
17. Black Vulture
18. House Sparrow
19. Ringed Kingfisher
20. Eurasian Collared Dove
21. Belted Kingfisher
22. Pied-billed Grebe
23. Great Blue Heron
24. Pine Sisken
25. American Goldfinch
26. Brown-headed Cowbird
27. Northern Shoveler
28. Eastern Phoebe
29. House Finch
30. Eastern Bluebird
31. Ladder-backed Woodpecker
32. Great-tailed Grackle
33. Lark Sparrow
34. Western Scrub Jay
35. Wild Turkey
36. Double-crested Cormorant
37. American Coot
38. Gadwall
39. Ruddy Duck
40. Northern Pintail
41. Northern Harrier
42. Ring-necked Duck
43. Redhead
44. Great Egret
45. Spotted Sandpiper
46. Lesser Scaup
47. Wilson Snipe
48. Blue-winged Teal
49. Ring-billed Gull
50. Rock Pigeon
51. European Starling