3 January 1998 -- Count Summary
(Count History: January
1978 - January 1998)
Species reported Count Day: 127 = New high
Total individual birds reported Count Day: 35,737
Participants: 89 (68 in the field [new High] + 21 at feeders/YARD)3 January 1998: Encompassing largely residential and commercial areas with scattered islands of good habitat such as Barker and Addicks Reservoirs and the Houston Arboretum & Nature Center, the 21st Buffalo Bayou CBC produced its usual array of wonderful birds right within the Houston city limits. Before sunup, our golf cart squad (Jeff and Katherine Mundy and Sara Bettencourt) found a Black-crowned Night-Heron rookery and an Osprey perched among the egrets at Braeburn Country Club. The Houston Arboretum & Nature Center (HANC) hosted our pre-count, pre-dawn organizational meeting and produced 6 Eastern Towhees and 2 Gray Catbirds. P.D. Hulce, Jose Hernandez, and Janet Rathjen got a lengthy look at a Henslow's Sparrow in Barker Reservoir. Sunset at HANC yielded American Woodcock and 2 nighthawks that we initially reported as Common Nighthawk; however, based on winter range, some folks raised questions initially about whether these in fact would more likely be Lesser Nighthawk -- there evidently are no verified winter records of Common Nighthawk anywhere near here (maybe no closer than northern South America ?) while Lesser Nighthawk is known occasionally from the Texas Gulf coast in winter. Subsequent observation , based on an excellent close up-view of a bird in flight, indicated that it in fact was Common,, not Lesser. At any rate, nighthawks seem to be showing up with increasing regularity in winter in southeast Texas (due to mild temperatures?).New to the count were Neotropic Cormorant and Bronzed Cowbird, plus the Audubons's subspecies of Yellow-rumped Warbler. Other noteworthy sightings included: American Bittern 1 (Barker Reservoir), Merlin 2, Sandhill Crane 4, White-winged Dove 102, Black-chinned Hummingbird 1, Red-headed Woodpecker 22 (most in Bear Creek Park), Red-breasted Nuthatch 2, Golden-crowned Kinglet 3, Black-and-white Warbler 1, Grasshopper Sparrow 7, Fox Sparrow 1, Harris' Sparrow 2, Dark-eyed (Slate-colored) Junco 13, House Finch 2, and Pine Siskin 1. Hermit Thrush was extremely difficult to find, with only 2 for the day -- it seems to be tough to find in a lot of places this season.
The final species total was a new count high of 127 surpassing the previous high of 121 species.
Note on Black-bellied and Fulvous Whistling-Ducks : These ducks were observed on a pond at the Dow facility on Beltway 8. Heidi McCall, the manager of the facility told us that they were all released at a very young age by a rehabber in fall of 1997. They are not pinioned and are fully capable of flying away -- they simply have chosen not to do so, likely because Dow puts out feed. These birds are definitely not exotics -- they are native species raised from wild stock. So the dilemma was whether to (a) consider them wild birds and include them in our total species number or (b) consider them domestic (not exotic) and not list them at all. We considered (hypothetically) what would happen if other species were released and subsequently remained in the vicinity of a feeder. We feel confident that songbirds, as well as representatives of many other taxa, would be counted. Therefore we have chosen to list the whistling-ducks, and we have included them in our species count, with these notes as clarification.
Thanks to the record number of field observers, the feeder watchers, and area leaders for making this another successful and fun CBC.
--Bob & Maggie Honig, Compilers
(Buffalo Bayou Christmas Bird Count web pages are hosted by the Houston Arboretum & Nature Center)