But not for long. We got home from Corpus Christi last Thursday. A little time to catch up and re-provision, and we’re headed off in the motorhome to Kissimmee, Florida for the gymnastics Junior Olympics. That’s why our house is divided. We were living in the motorhome, but now we’re living in our house, but only for four days. We didn’t want to move everything twice, so we’ve left as much in the motorhome as we can, but still living, sleeping, and cooking in the house. Of course, the result of that decision, is that about ten times a day we reach for something and it’s not in the house, it’s in the motorhome. I need to print something. Oops, carry the computer out to the motorhome because that’s where the printer is. How about a bite of almonds for a snack. Oops, they’re in the bus. Oh no, we’re out of bottled water in the fridge….
A highway mystery
On our drive home from Phoenix a few weeks ago, east of Fort Stockton, west of Ozona, on Interstate 10 , a white pickup truck passed us with LED amber lights flashing on every corner of the vehicle, front and back. We wondered why. There were no identifying marks on the truck. Was it a utility truck that was going to stop along the shoulder? Was it an unmarked pilot car? Or did the driver just want to be the most visible/safest thing on the road? That could be a really good idea. What could be safer than flashing amber lights on every corner saying “Hey everybody! Look at me!”? The more I thought about it, the better the idea sounded. I could cover my car with flashing amber lights and drive down the highway. Not only would everyone notice me and not run into me, they’d probably pull over and get out of the way. My plans to illuminate our next car were suddenly interrupted fifteen minutes later though, when the semi-tractor/flatbed trailer drove past us with a giant bulldozer hanging over each side. The flashing white pickup was a stealth pilot car!
This is ridiculous
Ebird is such a cool resource. If you want to know how you’re doing compared to other birders, you can call up a list of the top 100 birders, by number of species reported, in several different categories. Each list can be created by World, Country, State, or County. If you’re not in the top 100, your name doesn’t show up on the list, but it gives you a numerical ranking for where you stand. (On April 24th, I was number 1,324 in the world. I have a ranking, but my number has a comma in it.) Every year I jump up in the rankings after the Big Day, but this is crazy. Before the Big Day, I was number 112 in the U.S. After, I’m number 45. I jump that far up in the rankings not because I suddenly got to be a better birder, but because I went birding with a better birder. I wonder about the logic of that sometimes; is it fair to report all the birds I see when I go out with Jon, because I see and hear so many more when I’m out with him than when I’m out by myself? I rationalize it, and say I should count all these birds because “it’s just a matter of degree”. If a person goes out with any friend, they’ll see more birds. That’s just the way it works; if one person sees a bird the other doesn’t, he’ll call the other person’s attention to it. Is it my fault my friend happens to be a birding beast? I don’t think so. I’m counting everything!
2017 Big Day
Midnight out on the boardwalk at the Birding Center marsh in Port Aransas listening for rails. It’s calm and quiet, just like we need so we can hear; no wind. We got sora, common gallinule, and our target bird: Virginia rail. A good start. The Virginia rail is a new year-bird for me. On to Cove Harbor to listen for Clapper rail. I made a map of all the places we went. 2017 Big Day map. Heard the rail! River road for King Rail. (Different rails like different habitat.) Got it. Still really dark. Drove to Duke Bridge for barred owl. Heard it before we even got out of the car! Drove west to Choke Canyon State Park and surrounding area to listen for western birds at sunrise and see fulvous whistling ducks when it got light. This is going really well. We’ve already seen or heard 85 birds, and now I’ve got 4 new year-birds. Not only are we going to have a Big Day, my year-list is going to get a lot bigger too. Back east to Riverside Park in Victoria. That was good for Mississippi kites, red-shouldered hawks, red-bellied woodpecker, yellow-throated vireo, blue jay, and a pileated woodpecker landed right in front of us! We’re at 115 birds and it’s not even noon. Another 5 year-birds. 125 birds by noon and we’re picking up steam. It was good at Goose Island State Park. Now we’re seeing coastal birds. I’ve gotten another 9 year-birds. A stop at Sunset Lake Park, and we’re off to the middle of Corpus Christi for migrants by 2pm. Spirits are high, as they always are at this time of day. All we need is a good migrant year to have a really big day. This is also the point in the day where we usually have a flat spot and things slow way down, but not this day. This day the migrants were great. We arrived at Blucher at 2:30 and started racking up migrants. Worm-eating warblers. Hooded, swainson’s magnolia, black and white and Kentucky warblers. We’re at 170 birds. We moved on to Rose Hill Cemetery and kept on finding warblers, flycatchers, and tanagers. Cerulean warbler and blackburnian warbler. 180 birds. It’s all good. Time to head out to the island. More migrants. Almost all the shorebirds we needed. A whimbrel. Every place we stopped was good. Every stop added birds to the big-day list. We finished back at the Birding Center in Port Aransas with a marsh wren at 8pm. Nueces County was really good to the Big Day list and my year-list as well. I got 23 new year-birds, just from Nueces County, for a total of 41 new year-birds in just one day! I already had a pretty good year-list going, but this is fantastic. The results: This is an annual competition, consisting of teams of two birders each. It just happens that Jon and I are the only ones that know about the competition, and the only team to ever compete. Our old record was 207. (We did 220 once, but that was not really the same kind of big day. For that one we did 24 consecutive hours, but spread over two days so we could cover more habitat.) For this for-real Big Day, we did 550 miles of driving, with 26 stops, 20 consecutive hours of birding, and demolished our old record with 218 birds! Big Days are not about taking pictures, but how could we talk this much about birding without any pictures of birds? I’ll put up several pictures, then put the key at the end. You can see how many you got right.
Key:Female Summer TanagerSoraWorm-eating WarblerPectoral SandpiperBay-breasted WarblerLeast BitternWhimbrelRose-breasted GrosbeakGull-billed TernSooty Tern
Key:Female Summer TanagerSoraWorm-eating WarblerPectoral SandpiperBay-breasted WarblerLeast BitternWhimbrelRose-breasted GrosbeakGull-billed TernSooty Tern A barefoot run on the beach
The scrunchy scratchy seaweed feels good on the soles of my feet. (Running doesn’t feel as good as it used to though. I walk more than run now.) Drove to Mustang Island on Sunday. Got in a little sleep before the midnight start of the annual birding Big Day with Jon on Monday. We had an awesome time and finished exhausted and severely in need of sleep. Got in a solid ten last night with some catching–up and resting–up today. Took a walk out on the jetty.
Splashy parts on the jetty are as close as we get to tide pools here.
More tomorrow about the Big Day.