26 | December | 2013 | Texas Tweeties by Bob Zeller

And my true love said to me…… “Hey, lets go birding.” Actually, we went birding Christmas Day, too, but didn’t spend much time. The nice thing that we discovered was, hey, the winter birds are showing up. Finally. We had begun to think that they had by-passed San Angelo and the Concho Valley.

Today, we only spent two hours and twenty minutes. But in that short period we saw 42 species. It started immediately when we left the house, spotting a Blue Jay in a tree in our own yard, then see a Wilson’s Snipe in a wet area just a block from home.

We kept on going, heading for Middle Concho Park, then after that heading over to Spring Creek Park. It seemed that there were birds everywhere. That 42 total could have been higher, because there were a few that we saw yesterday that we didn’t see today. Our personal record for birds seen in one day is 44, so we came close to breaking it.

Here are photographic highlights.

Bewick’s Wren

The above photo of the Bewick’s wren was captured yesterday.

Eastern Phoebe

I think this is the best photo of an Eastern Phoebe that I have ever gotten. I was able to get pretty close.

Great Horned Owl

This Great Horned Owl never did open his eyes, during the fifteen minutes trying to get his photo. I can’t blame him, it was a gorgeous day, sunny and no wind.

Red-tailed Hawk

The Red-tailed Hawk was about 250 yards away across the river. Almost out of range but I was able to get this image. I had to crop it extensively to get this much.

Redhead – female

We spotted this female Redhead duck, but didn’t see the male anywhere. Nice looking duck, but not as pretty as the male. But that is the case of most ducks.

Here is a complete list of the birds we saw this December 26, 2013.