Back from the Texas coast!
I took a few days to visit Galveston and surrounding area for birding. I wasn’t expecting much as it’s after fall migration and before alot of the winter visitors show up. But I still saw thousands of birds. I have 1600 photos to work through and have many, many new birds for my checklist.
Categories: Birding
White Noise 
Hi nosajio,
It’s interesting to me to hear that there is a lull between the end of fall migration and the arrival of your winter birds. Our fall migration ends when the rivers and lakes freeze up and the last of the water birds leave; this usually happens around the end of November or early December. In the meantime, our winter residents such as American Tree Sparrows, Snow Buntings, Northern Shrikes and Great Black-backed Gulls have already arrived. I’m hoping we’ll get something good this winter – an American Three-toed Woodpecker or a Gyrfalcon would be nice! I guess our “winter birds” are quite different from yours, huh?!
That’s because I’m likely wrong. I need to look at what I saw and compare with winter ranges vs year-round range. I never really looked at winter birds before, so I was assuming they wouldn’t already be here, but I guess their version of winter is different than mine :) Since I saw hardly any ducks and I hadn’t see many here yet, I assumed it wasn’t winter yet. I’ll get the hang of this someday…
eBird is good for finding out that sort of thing, assuming there are enough people inputting checklists from your area!
1600 photos to work. Holy cow. Sounds like a great trip. Can’t wait to see them.