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!

DUNCANVILLE, TEXAS — By the time I found my second Sora, I was feeling pretty good. I watched the bird as it walked gingerly along submerged cattail leaves, picking at the duckweed on the surface of the pool. Marsh Wrens and yellowthroats flitted higher in the cattails, offering brief views and snatches of song in the case of the wrens.

By the time I’d seen four Soras and heard a fifth, I was pretty amazed. But I still couldn’t imagine what was to come.

By the time I left Village Creek yesterday afternoon, I had seen 16 Soras and heard two others! Sixteen! They seemed to appear nearly everywhere I looked, sometimes in loose family (?) groups of three to four birds.

The juvenile Sora should be fairly obvious in this image, but can you spot the adult bird? You will probably need to click the image for a larger view.

I keep dreaming of cool, crisp fall weather, but Dallas is still hot, sticky, and stale. It’s a disappointment I feel every autumn that I spend in Texas. In college, my poem called “Protesto” began with the line, “It’s November, for crying out loud.”

But regardless of the weather, there are subtle signs that it’s autumn. The high number of Soras I observed is likely due to a push of migrants moving through. Coots are starting to return in good numbers — I saw at least a couple hundred yesterday. More Northern Shovelers have joined the flocks of Blue-winged Teal, and the males are starting to get their bright colors back. Yesterday, I had one drake pintail too.

Summer residents like Painted Buntings have either disappeared or become so inconspicuous as not to be noticeable. I haven’t seen one in several weeks. Other breeders — and post-breeding wanderers — are still around. Scissor-tailed Flycatchers and Barn Swallows are still here, of course.

Black-bellied Whistling-Ducks remain numerous and conspicuous at Village Creek. Yesterday, one juvenile White Ibis joined about 20 of its White-faced cousins in the grassy edges of the pools. (OK, yes, there could have been a Glossy tossed in there too, but if there was, I sure couldn’t tell. Fall is not the time to be trifling with the dark ibises.)

Black-bellied Whistling-Ducks (Dendrocygna autumnalis) tend to stick close together. It’s not difficult to spot one red-billed adult among the 10 or so juvies in this huddle. Juveniles lack most of the distinctive marks of the adult (black belly, red bill, white eye ring…), but they do have the bold white wing stripe, as you can see in this image. I wonder how often they get misidentified as Fulvous Whistling-Ducks?

Shorebirds are still moving through. Most of the water at Village Creek is too deep for shorebirds, but in small patches of habitat I found several species:

• Solitary Sandpiper - 1
• Least Sandpiper - 30-50
• Long-billed Dowitcher (I think. I guess. I’m confident! Err, yes.)
• Wilson’s Snipe - 1 (Gorgeous, orangey plumage. Wow.)
• Killdeer - ubiquitous
• Stilt Sandpiper - 1 (Much easier to identify than sometimes believed.)
• Lesser Yellowlegs - 2 (Killdeer-sized — a handy comparison if Killdeer are present.)
• American Avocet - 8 (Best shorebird ever! Gorgeous.)

I was so caught up with the avocets and other shorebirds that I didn’t even see the houses peeking through the trees across the street.

ARLINGTON, TEXAS — I walked into my room with a frustrated glance at piles of details on the floor. One of the boxes had to be emptied and repacked, and some of the bathroom still needed cleaning. The tomato soup on the stove wasn’t hot enough yet.

Bleah.

I’d put the screen back on my window and left the window ajar. A bird called — was that chickadee? I stopped singing and hurried to the window to listen.

Yes! It called once more, and after a moment of silence, I saw a tiny bird flutter over and disappear.

A new yard bird on my last day here.

Four hours later, I was gone for good, out into the gray and blustery afternoon. Highs didn’t even reach halfway to yesterday’s unbelievable 85, and ice is forecast for tonight. What that will do to travel plans I’m not entirely sure.

THE METROPLEX, TEXAS — For a moment I thought the garrulous House Sparrows sounded different, but then I realized it was just the way I felt. I’d just left the office for the last time, and I wasn’t going back to the apartment for the night. Another little phase of life is over now, and my stomach sort of churned.

By the time I reached I-20 and Matlock, the grackles had begun to swarm. I rolled down the window to listen to them, and the air outside was warm.

I love to hear their cacophony: slide whistles and rapid-fire exclamations that made me think of Wuvulu’s kingfishers. Everything about the birds is outlandish.

I’ve never shared a home with Great-tailed Grackles before, only with their less dramatic cousins. There’s hardly been a day on which they haven’t demanded I take notice, swooping over a parking lot with wings spread and tails unfurled or hollering from the tops of distant trees.

It’s a bit of a hazard on the road, if a shiny male catches my eye as he struts, glinting blue and exuding confidence with his tilted bill and little golden eye. I have to remember where I am and where I’m supposed to be looking.

And there’s something else about them too: They’re scrappy enough to play our games. Sure I love elusive birds who are barely hanging on today. Who doesn’t dream of a Golden-fronted Bowerbird?

But the grackles thrive in our most miserable places, warily edging around pedestrians to pick at grimy bits of starch that somebody ground into the pavement. They seem right at home on our power lines and highway signs, and they treat light poles as stages built just for them. At night, they gather in hundreds or thousands, blackening trees and creating a din.

And does anyone appreciate them for it? Hardly! Just look at the papers for a hint at the malice they incur. I wouldn’t like to be the shopkeeper whose sidewalk gets defiled, but I’m secretly rooting for the grackles.

They’re tough, they’re loud, and they’re gorgeous. Humans resort to absurdities in attempts to drive them off. But the grackles are thriving in the world that we’ve created.

Rock on, great-tails. Give ‘em … well ….

Anyway, I’m going to miss the grackles.

ARLINGTON, TEXAS — A Mourning Dove’s song was the first sound I heard today. It woke me gently, whooOOOwhowhowho. So I got up before the nasty alarm, and I was thinking of spring.

The afternoon was one like I have loved since I began to remember. To be immersed in the warm and provocative air, feeling it on my skin and in my nose, fills me with desires I can’t fulfill. Not with my car in the shop for days and I in the middle of 5 million people.

I heard a House Finch singing as I went to get my laundry, and later another melody slipped through my window. I silenced the powerful human voices I’d been playing and listened as a robin soloed, effortlessly bubbling with rich and varied phrases.

Now the sun has dropped behind the other buildings, and the robin has stopped its song. I still hear its calls, just occasionally. Are the buds just outside my window a little bigger today? Or is it just my state of mind?

I’ll be gone before the extravagant little cloudbursts erupt from furry, clasping scales. And where I’ll be, it won’t be spring. Sacred Kingfishers will be returning from the south, where they’ve bred and raised their families.