Balmorhea birding

Not much to hold my interest around town, or at the oasis, recently, so this week I birded Lake Balmorhea... twice. The first time the wind raged and I didn't like that, but got a few nice birds anyway. Yesterday, I made sure to go on a windless day and it was a lot more fun. Highlights were my first photos of a Pacific Loon.

Also saw a lifer Red-throated Loon. Only because another birder there let me see it through his scope. Too far away for me to get a diagnostic look at otherwise. And no photo, alas!

Yesterday I took photos of as many of the gulls there as I could. I knew Ring-billed and Bonaparte's were the only gull species being reported there recently, so when I saw a different looking gull amid the hundreds of photos I had taken there yesterday while trying to sort out the loon pics, etc., I looked through my Sibley guide at every gull, as in g-u-l-l. Not finding it and eager to go through all my photos to make an ebird report, I decided it must be an aberrant Bonaparte's (without giving it any focused thought) and submitted it to ebird as such. Not long afterwards, I got an email from the reviewer that it was a Black-legged Kittiwake. I guess, technically that's a gull too, but it didn't occur to me to look in "Kittiwakes." I'm not too bright sometimes. Like the Pacific Loon, I had seen the Black-legged Kittiwake once before a couple of years ago. (To see my better photo from then you can do a blog search for that species). The one I got yesterday is terrible as I had to take it from way across the lake almost. At least it was IDable.

Also from yesterday is this pair of Common Loons.

Had a hybrid Northern Flicker (Red-shafted x Yellow-shafted) too. The sharp reviewer noticed the red patch on the back of the head, typical of a Yellow-shafted. While I didn't figure that out either, in my defense, I took a lot of photos of it because it didn't look quite right for a Red-shafted.

Now I see that it has the red malar of a Red-shafted, and the red nape patch of a Yellow-shafted. Balmorhea is always overwhelming to me. It had been two years since I'd been there. If I went more often it would get easier.  It seems so far to drive, yet it's about the same time and distance as from Alpine to the oasis.  Hoping to go again soon, like next Tuesday.