GREENE CO., MO — Thanks for your well wishes in response to my Gulf Coast target list last weekend. Unfortunately, they weren’t enough to bring success in the venture.

It’s not really fair to complain about a trip that included Long-billed Curlews, Marbled Godwits, avocets, Snowy Plovers, and Roseate Spoonbills, but the fact is, Saturday just wasn’t one of those lucky days. I stared into cattails until I started hallucinating, but we couldn’t even find a Sora, let alone a Virginia Rail. And anis remain a jinx bird for another year.

Thousands of Snow Geese fed in the fields at Anahuac, and we picked out a few Greater White-fronteds too. The tide was way out at Bolivar Flats, so shorebirds were dispersed over vast expanses of sand. The saltmarsh, which should have been crawling with Seaside and sharp-tailed sparrows, was very quiet. Ah well.

The two most interesting sightings, for me, were the Neotropic Cormorants in breeding plumage and three Horned Grebes in flight over the Gulf.

I don’t recall ever seeing a grebe (of any sort) in flight before, but as I scanned the water from Bolivar Flats, I picked up three birds moving low over the water, flashing white secondaries. They didn’t seem right for loons or ducks. They finally landed, and I was able (barely) to get them in the scope. They bobbed in and out of sight on the waves, but as far as I could tell, they showed the black-and-white faces of Horned Grebes. Cool!

So, all of my target birds will have to wait for another day.

I have seen 386 bird species in Texas. Depending on your frame of reference, this may sound pretty good, until I tell you that the current Texas big year record is 522 species. Yeah, 522 species in one year.

Now, if you know me at all, you probably realize that accumulating a huge state list is not of particular interest to me. I am more interested in habitats, biomes, and ecoregions than in arbitrary political borders, but the fact remains that arbitrary political borders do sometimes slice up the world into convenient little chunks. So, it makes sense to look for gaps in my life list, identify species that I should be able to find in my current little chunk of the world, and concentrate on finding those species.

So I’ve made a list of birds I’d like to find in Texas between now and the time I leave the country again in late winter:

• Greater Scaup
• King Rail
• Virginia Rail
• Groove-billed Ani
• Sprague’s Pipit
• Smith’s Longspur
• Chestnut-collared Longspur

You’ve already seen most of those names. I didn’t include species that occur in distant corners of the state (for example, Steller’s Jay and Spotted Owl), because I doubt I’ll be able to travel that far in the next couple of months.

So that was my list as of last week, and of course, the very first new bird I got was one I’d chosen not to put on the list. Sunday, a Long-tailed Duck was reported from Village Creek in Fort Worth. Monday morning, I stopped by on my way up to Missouri, and I found a crowd of other birders already there.

Scanning hundreds of Buffleheads, pintails, and shovelers, I finally found the female Oldsquaw (Can I just say it, please? There, I said it. Oldsquaw.), who was diving frequently and staying under for long periods. Eventually she came up and stayed for awhile, preening and offering nice, if distant looks. Her stubby, “rubber ducky” shape and white face with a dark cap and cheek patch were very striking. Long-tailed Ducks are reported a few times a year across Texas, and I didn’t expect to be in the right place at the right time to see one. But this little gal was sitting pretty. Score!

I didn’t get any pictures because of the distance, but here’s one from another Metroplex birder: female Long-tailed Duck.

So, hurrah for Long-tailed Ducks! I’m a fan. Now, let’s get busy on those other species. Anybody want to join my team? A-pipiting we’ll go!

GREENE CO., MO — Last Saturday, Fjord and I found several Neotropic Cormorants in full breeding plumage at Anahuac NWR, east of Houston. They looked really spiffy (see photo below), and I started wondering what they’re doing with breeding plumes in mid-November. Are they winter breeders, like certain raptors? Or do they acquire their breeding plumage in autumn, like many dabbling ducks? David Sibley’s illustration of breeding plumage is labeled “Apr-May.”

I searched the Texbirds mailing list archive and found scattered references to breeding-plumaged neotrops in October and November, and I found a couple of posts emphasizing that the species breeds (and shows breeding plumage) during the autumn months in southern Texas (for example, this post by John Arvin). However, on the Upper Texas Coast, I have seen neotrops on the nest with nestlings in April and May.

So is the breeding season long and/or staggered on the UTC? Or are the birds we saw post-breeding wanderers from farther south?

Do any of my readers have any information about plumages and breeding cycles of Neotropic Cormorants?

Breeding-plumaged Neotropic Cormorants have white, waxy-looking plumes protruding from their heads and necks, and they show fine white dots over their eyes and across their foreheads.

CHANNELVIEW, TEXAS — Yes, I just finished blogging about California birds from a motel east of Houston. Fjord and I are birding the Upper Texas Coast tomorrow, and I have a list of target birds:

• Greater Scaup
• Virginia Rail
• King Rail
• Groove-billed Ani
• Sprague’s Pipit

Wish us luck!

CHANNELVIEW, TEXAS — I was in San Diego last week and the week before, and (in addition to birding the beach) I took several early-morning walks through residential San Diego and Florida Canyon on the northern edge of Balboa Park. I know very little about the avifauna of Southern California, unfortunately, so I was very interested to explore the common neighborhood birds, and the birds of remnant habitat in Florida Canyon.

I don’t normally organize posts in a list format, but I’m going to this time because I was curious about each species. I’ve made notes and observations about some species; life birds are in bold.

Red-tailed Hawk
American Kestrel
Killdeer
Western Gull — Seen in small numbers flying high overhead.
Rock Pigeon
Anna’s Hummingbird — These fiesty hummers were everywhere. Their sharp calls and buzzes were one of the common sounds. Males perched atop low shrubs, “singing” scratchy, insect-like songs while their gorgets and foreheads flashed deep iridescent pink. Spectacular!
Nuttall’s Woodpecker — For a bird I’d barely even heard of before this trip, I was impressed by the species’ classy looks. Nuttall’s Woodpeckers look similar to their desert kin, Ladder-backed Woodpeckers, but they show a black (i.e., unbanded) upper back, and the male has less red on his crown.
Northern Flicker — Of the red-shafted variety.
Black Phoebe — Black Phoebes were fairly common, even in residential areas.
Say’s Phoebe
Cassin’s Kingbird — I observed and listened to a small foraging flock one day but didn’t see them again.
Western Scrub-Jay — Beautiful, intense colors but not exactly easy on the ears.
American Crow — Common, which seemed odd to me for some reason.
Common Raven — Had only one.
Bushtit — Common in large, loose foraging flocks with a sort of collective, tinkling call. Individual birds very active and acrobatic.
Bewick’s Wren
House Wren
California Gnatcatcher — Saw two birds, one at a range of about six feet. It seemed impossibly minuscule as it foraged in the scrub, just out of arm’s reach. White in the tail was extremely limited, seeming to occur only on the outer portion of the outermost retrices. Call less harsh than the familiar (to me) Blue-gray call. I was very interested in the fact that the coastal scrub and chaparral hosts endemic species like California Gnatcatcher and Nuttall’s Woodpecker, which have similar counterparts in the desert (Black-tailed Gnatcatcher and Ladder-backed Woodpecker). Towhees, thrashers, and quail are other examples of this phenomenon. Species like the California Gnatcatcher are threatened by extensive habitat destruction.
Hermit Thrush — Another species that I didn’t expect to see here, for some reason.
American Robin — Flight call sounded higher and shriller than eastern birds, but I don’t know if the variation is real or imaginary.
Wrentit — Yes! I didn’t know if I’d be able to get the enigmatic Wrentit, and after watching dozens of Bushtits, I didn’t know if I’d be able to identify one! But it wasn’t so difficult in the end. The first bird I saw was alone, moving slowly low in the brush. Its long tail was cocked, and subtle bill shape and body coloration contributed to the overall impression. I later saw two birds foraging in the same location. One of them pecked open a stem to extract a grub. They were silent.
Northern Mockingbird — Yes, they really do live everywhere.
California Thrasher — Nice-looking birds, and not as secretive as the book suggests. Scroll on down for a picture.
Orange-crowned Warbler
“Audubon’s” Yellow-rumped Warbler — These yellow-chinned warblers were very abundant, noisy, and active. Their calls sounded on average less hard and dry than those of their eastern relatives.
Spotted Towhee
California Towhee — Common, slightly comical.
Fox Sparrow — One of the western races with a plain grayish head but rufous elsewhere.
White-crowned Sparrow — Present in small flocks.
Golden-crowned Sparrow — I kept scanning the white-crowns, hoping to find one of their western cousins. I finally did — it was feeding alone in a bush.
House Finch
Lesser Goldfinch — Males with black caps and olive backs, unlike the black-backed birds I see in Texas.
House Sparrow

California Thrashers have impressive curved bills, blackish faces, and (not visible in this shot) orangey undertail coverts.

The scrub was alive with birds every morning — lots of sound and activity. Yellow-rumped Warblers, bushtits, flycatchers, woodpeckers, jays, and spectacular Anna’s Hummingbirds. I could get used to this! There also homeless men who sleep under the bushes, which was startling at first.

House Finches were common, and Lesser Goldfinches were present in smaller numbers. I was hoping for Lawrence’s Goldfinches, but I wasn’t in the right place to find them.

Most of the vegetation was dry and brown, but the cacti were plump and green.

DALLAS, TEXAS — Yesterday, the wind changed. For days, the wind had been hot, coming from the south. By noon, all the flags were pointing east; by 4 p.m., the air felt different, cooler, and the wind rushed down from the north. Crunchy leaves skittered over asphalt. It felt almost like autumn.

This morning, I found several hundred winter-plumaged Franklin’s Gulls at Joe Pool Lake. Most floated in a tight raft on the water. When something sent them swirling into the air, it was like looking into a snow globe. According to eBird graphs, huge numbers of Franklin’s Gulls pass through between mid-October and mid-November in a spike that trails off sharply by Nov. 15.

Thousands of coots feed on the hydrilla in the coves, and slowly the numbers and diversity of other waterfowl are building. I had Canvasbacks, Lesser Scaup, and Ring-necked Ducks for the first time this season, plus wigeons and Blue-winged Teal. Cormorant and Ring-billed Gull numbers are picking up too.

I heard American Goldfinches for the first time this season, and pipits and Savannah Sparrows are around. Otherwise, though, wintering passerines are just not around. I have yet to encounter a White-throated Sparrow this year, and Yellow-rumps are very sparse. Where are the flocks of juncos? Or the flocks of kinglets? The brush is silent and still.

People in other parts of the state are also complaining about the lack of wintering birds, and some have theorized that the mild autumn hasn’t yet pushed them south this year.

This is our third or fourth cool front this fall, but we’re still nowhere close to a frost. So far, seven days this month have hit 80 degrees or higher. Before the cool front came through yesterday, we reached a high of 82. Wow.