Birding TX

Thu, January 19, 2012, 10:00 am
Beeville, TX

Trip Report

This Snowy Owl was most cooperative.

On Thursday the 19th of January along with my wife Emry, and Elyse and Tom we took our birding show to Beeville, TX. Elyse and Tom lived in Beeville for the years of 2002 - 2004. During those years they were introduced to Mr. Jimmy Jackson. Mr. Jackson is an avid knowledgable birder, and he is a photogapher with a number of published bird photos. Mr. Jackson owns a 70 acre ranch near Beeville devoted to birding, and he invited us to visit his ranch.

As I mentioned in past reports the drought in Texas has had an impact on Jimmy's ranch. His land was a parched collection of dried grass and scrub trees. Creeks on the ranch that normaly have water were bone dry. Jimmy has installed drips on his property, and he dug a small pond that he supplies water. He also has cut a number of trails through out the ranch, and he created a blind near one of the drips. Now the drought has impacted the birding on his ranch. We only got 26 species. Some of the birds of note were Bewick's Wren, Olive Sparrow, Green Jay, Golden-fronted and Ladder-backed Woodpeckers, Great Kiskadee, Eastern Bluebird, and Ruby-crowned Kinglet.

Other notes on Jimmy's ranch, he has trouble with feral hogs digging up his property. In fact he works on traping the hogs. And feral hogs are a problem over parts of Texas. One other nice note, Jimmy allowed us to use his electric four wheeler. The four wheeler proved to be a quite way to bird. I will have to remember this for the future.

Tom Glover