Our Birding Honey Hole

First, it should be explained that in Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia, honey hole is defined as slang for a location that yields large quantities of valued commodities.  Quite often it is applied to great personal fishing spots.  In our case, it is a hot spot for birds.  We discovered it several days ago near Twin Buttes Reservoir near a park area.  It is nothing more than a puddle of standing water, about 50 feet by 15 feet, surrounded by about five Mesquite trees.  Until it dries up, which will happen in a few days under this hot Texas sun unless we get more showers to fill it up again, it will be our little birding mecca.

Ann and I, after getting some yard chores done, decided to run over there this morning, which is only a couple of miles from our house.  We spent one hour and thirty-five minutes.  We just parked about twenty feet from the puddle/pond, turned the engine off and just watched from the car.  I had my Canon 7D with a 500mm lens and 1.4 teleconverter at the ready.  We weren’t disappointed.  In that short period we saw and ID’d nineteen species, saw another that we couldn’t identify, then also heard a Common Nighthawk and a Northern Bobwhite.  A total of 21 identifiable.  Here are a few photos from our little trip.

Vermilion Flycatcher

Painted Bunting – female

There were several Bullock’s Orioles and one female was foraging in the bark of a mesquite for grubs.  This sequence of photos shows her success.

Bullock’s Oriole – female, searching for grubs.

Gotcha!!!

Mmm Good!!!

Here is a list of all 21 species that we encountered this morning in and hour and thirty-five minutes.

1. Vermilion Flycatcher
2. Canyon Towhee
3. Bullock’s Oriole
4. House Sparrow
5. Ash-throated Flycatcher
6. Curve-billed Thrasher
7. Northern Mockingbird
8. Black-throated Sparrow
9. Painted Bunting
10. Scissor-tailed Flycatcher
11. Greater Roadrunner
12. Brown-headed Cowbird
13. Northern Cardinal
14. House Finch
15. Northern Bobwhite – heard
16. White-winged Dove
17. Pyrrhuloxia
18. Common Nighthawk – heard
19. Red-winged Blackbird
20. Lark Sparrow
21. Killdeer

We also saw an un-identified bird splashing in the water, that bore resemblance to a Yellow-rumped Warbler, but it was too wet and scrubby looking to make a definite ID.  Hope you enjoyed the photos.  Click on any of them to see enlargements.