A Few More Birds But No Lifers Today

This morning we were leaving Greenville, TX and drove over a good size river and saw some American White Pelicans and some Double-crested Cormorants. We found a spot to pull into and we proceeded to make our way over to the river. Our first road block is a fence, no big deal we've climbed over, through plenty of fences. Our next road block was water...you're probably thinking we made it to the river but no, not at all. There was a little stream along the fence line. We start walking down the fence line and find a place where a tree has fallen on the fence and hardly no water. Our first bird we come across is another Song Sparrow, which we first ID as a Lincoln's Sparrow. But thanks to the people at whatbird.com we got the correct ID. Of course after I look in my Stokes field guide again I can plainly see its a Song Sparrow. 

American Coot

Gadwall

We walk along the railroad tracks for a while only seeing American Coots, Northern Cardinals and then we see some Gadwalls flying away. We see some terns flying in the air I'm leaning towards Forster's Tern. That would be a new lifer for us as well! We were headed for the spot where we saw the pelicans and cormorants I fell and landed on my leg it hadn't bruised yet but it sure is swollen. Oh my that hurt. We went a little farther down and saw some more coots and sparrows but we decided to turn back since we saw the birds were still pretty far away and had also swam out farther. Then on our way back to the truck we took a different route that didn't involve climbing a fence. It was the way we should have taken but we didn't really scope out the landscape on our way in. That non fence route was much smoother and we encountered an Osprey soaring overhead and an Western Meadowlark hopping around on the ground. Then to end the day we were pulling into a truck stop and spotted some Great-tailed Grackles. 

Western Meadowlark

Osprey

It was a good birding day added 4 birds to our big year. We are in route to Henderson, Nevada and hoping to get some more birds on our list in Arizona and New Mexico. Until next time happy birding!!