If you go down to the woods this afternoon….
With a few hours to kill, we thought, just for a change, we’d go birding. Just north of Houston lies the W.G. Jones State Forest, owned and managed by the Texas Forest Services. Our target bird here was the range restricted Red-cockaded Woodpecker. At the Headquarters, we met Ray Uballe and he kindly gave us advice on the best area of the forest to search for these particular birds. We set off in great anticipation but the forest was silent, not a bird to be seen nor heard. Undaunted we continued further along the trail, and still nothing. We were beginning to lose hope of seeing anything, let alone a Red-cockaded Woodpecker when at last, a woodpecker! Quickly focusing the bins, we immediately realised this was no Red-cockaded but instead a very handsome Red-headed Woodpecker. This stunningly marked bird gave great views. This signalled a change in our luck and we quickly located our main target, the Red-cockaded Woodpecker. From then on, birds came readily and we also added Red-bellied Woodpecker, Brown-headed Nuthatch, Tufted Titmouse, Carolina Chickadee and Pine Warbler. We rewarded ourselves for our successful afternoon with a blow-out meal at Joe’s Crab Shack before knuckling down to catching up with emails! Total species 422.
11.1.08 Posted Houston 7.30pm local time