The Fort Davis Inn and RV Park.
At Davis Mountains State Park and L.E. Wood Picnic Area, 8 target birds. Saw the:
Elf Owl
Western Wood Pewee
Cassin’s Kingbird
Bushtit
Hepatic Tanager
…and added a bird that wasn’t even on the radar, a Broad-tailed Hummingbird!
Most of these birds were easy; they came to me at bird blinds. (It’s much too hot here in West Texas to walk in the sun for very long except in the early part of the day.) Even the bushtits came rummaging through the blind, traveling in a little marauding pack as bushtits do, without visiting the feeders at all but just making a spectacle of themselves.
The hummingbird is different. At the picnic area high in the mountains, it roared past on screaming wings as only a broad-tailed hummingbird can do. I didn’t need to see any identifying marks; that wing screeching is characteristic. The owl adventure did not go at all as planned. It was a stakeout. Sunset at 9pm, so I was there by 8:30; the little owl, according to local knowledge, scheduled to poke his head out the nest cavity in the utility pole at 9:15. By 9:30 it was pretty dark. By 9:50 it was too dark to see. I had my eyes fixed on that pole the entire time, and I can testify that no owls went in or out of that hole during that time. The owl had been reported feeding babies there a few days earlier. Perhaps the young owls fledged and the hole is now vacant. However, while I was still sitting there, knowing that the owl stakeout was a bust, I heard the distant calling of an elf owl. That counts! Elf owl!
Missed the:
Gray Flycatcher
Hutton’s Vireo
Scott’s Oriole
No problem. I can try again tomorrow morning before I head to Big Bend. New count: 390.
