March 05, 2023

Hagerman National Wildlife Refuge – February 2023

March 05, 2023/ Gwen Morrison

I drove around the wildlife loop at Hagerman National Wildlife Refuge in late February on my way down to Carrollton TX. The snow geese were still there. It seemed like there were more than the usual numbers of the darker morphs.

I managed to catch one goose flying across the frame. Notice the way the wing tips/feathers move.

The pintails were there as well although there didn’t seem to be as many as on previous visits.

Canada Geese and at least one Great Blue Heron always seem to be around.

I took a picture of an active grasshopper pump – practicing with some foreground blur.

The Greater Yellowlegs seems to always be in the same bit of water when I am there!

As I stopped at the visitor center, I noticed a sumac near where I parked and opted to take some macro images of the seed pods. They look a little like grapes…until the fuzziness becomes visible in the higher magnification.

I am anticipating a lot of changes by the time I make the March road trip to Carrollton….

November 22, 2022

Hagerman National Wildlife Refuge

November 22, 2022/ Gwen Morrison

Hagerman National Wildlife Refuge is near Sherman, TX – just a little off the road trip route from my home in Missouri to my parents in Carrollton, TX. I stopped last time I drove down to Carrollton. I had been to Hagerman once before and was reasonably sure it would be worth it….and I wasn’t disappointed. My goal was see as much as possible in an hour or so. I drove the Auto Tour Route and stopped at the visitor center. I saw quite a few birds!

Great Blue Herons. They are probably a population that stays in the area most of the year.

Snow Geese. These are wintering birds. Only part of the expected number had shown up by last week. There are two morphs (white and blue) and potentially some hybrids…juveniles too. Ross’s Geese are mixed in with the flock. They are smaller and have smaller bill…no ‘grinning patch’ on the bill.

Canada Geese are mixed in with the snow geese as well

Northern Pintail were on the water…looking for food.

Northern Shovelers were skimming the surface of the water for food in the shallow water.

A lone Killdeer looked on from the edge of the water.

A Greater Yellowlegs was too intent on finding lunch in the shallows to notice the activity elsewhere.

There were two birds that were migrating through the area:

A White-faced Ibis --- almost hidden by the vegetation but the feathers were iridescent enough draw my attention.

Greater White-fronted Geese were there in large enough numbers to notice…and looked different than any of the other geese!

Overall – a worthwhile stop. I’ll do it again….and explore different parts of the refuge each time. I have a map I picked up at the visitor center than will allow me to plan my next visit!

April 25, 2018

Hagerman National Wildlife Refuge in Spring

April 25, 2018/ Gwen Morrison

2018 04 IMG_0095.jpg — I visited Hagerman National Wildlife Refuge earlier this week. The day was too cold and too windy….but was the only one that fit it the schedule. I remembered to take pictures of the metal work near the visitor center.

2018 04 IMG_0106.jpg — In the garden near the front of the visitor center, I didn’t see any butterflies…but there were dried blooms from last season left on the trumpet vine growing on the arbor and a clump of bluebonnets (we’d seen larger patches as we drove to the refuge along the highway).

We decided to use our car and a moving blind and protection from the wind….making our way slowly around the wildlife drive of the refuge. There were not many birds but enough to make some photography attempts. The most unusual was a Eared Grebe in breeding plumage. Someone in the visitor center had commented about seeing a pair but we only saw one.

There were some American avocets a little too far away for a good picture on a cloudy day. They can be identified with the picture I took….and there is a Great Egret in the foreground.

There were also Snowy Egrets (black bill and legs, yellow feet).

Very far out in the water on snags were American White Pelicans and Double Crested Cormorants.

The Greater Yellowlegs was closer and intent on finding some lunch.

The Great Blue Herons were numerous and seemed to all have the blue topknot of mature birds.

We saw one turtle positioned for maximum sun (warmth) but there were probably more.

There were still some Northern Shovelers on the water; most of them have left for their breeding grounds in the north. A pair of Blue Winged Teals were hiding in the plants beside the road as we were leaving; they are close to their breeding grounds based on the allaboutbirds map…so might have just been making a last stop over.

I took a few shots of wild flowers as we drove out of refuge….just rolled down the window and used the zoom!

Not bad for a cold, cloudy day!

Posts from my visit in November 2017: part 1, part 2.

November 22, 2017

Laguna Atascosa National Wildlife Refuge

November 22, 2017/ Gwen Morrison

Our third day at the Rio Grande Valley Birding Festival did not start out well: our bus has a mechanical problem and our departure was delayed by about 3 hours. Fortunately, the replan included a lengthening of the trip by three hours and provisions (picnic lunch). On the plus side – we avoided some rain showers that moved through while we were waiting; on the negative side – we could have slept later (getting up at 4 AM is common at birding festivals!). Our destination was the Laguna Atascosa National Wildlife Refuge. We didn’t seen any ocelots that the refuge is trying to protect…but we did see plenty of birds. The days was very cloudy and misty – not good for photographing. I picked a few that were good enjoy enough for identification.

There were snow geese coming and going. I liked this line because of the different morphs visible.

There was a Little Blue Heron fishing in the shallows

And a Great Blue Heron standing on one leg surveying the shore.

A group of Forster’s terns, with the black feathers around and back from their eyes) were grouped along the shore (looks like the birds behind them were snoozing).

The Forster’s tern is in the middle of this image. The largest bird is a Caspian Tern and the one in front is a Royal Tern. The Royal Terns I’d seen in Maryland always looked like they were wearing a black cap but that is only during the breeding season…not this time of year in South Texas.

A brown pelican flew above – following the shoreline.

White Ibis wandered through the other shore birds.

The Crested Caracara were new to me. Since the ones I saw on the field trip were a little far away – I took a picture of a captive bird as the Expo.

I took a close up of a prickly pear tuna (fruit)…note the spines.

Side by side – a Lesser and Greater Yellowlegs.

We were all on the bus when a male Northern Harrier swooped down into the field beside the road and hovered over prey. I did pretty well taking this series through the bus window since there was no time to do anything better.

There is a platform where aplomado falcons are nesting. This is an exciting recovery story since this bird was gone from the area for years and has only recently been reintroduced and is breeding again in south Texas. I took a picture of the captive falcon at the Expo just as I had the Crested Caracara.

We stopped at the visitor’s center and walked around the cards there. Red-winged blackbirds are all over North America!

The white winged doves are summer birds in south Texas according to allaboutbirds but there were still a lot of them around in mid-November; I wonder if they are really year round in the Rio Grande Valley.

It was a longer day that we’d anticipated but better than we thought might happen in the hour or so after we initially learned of the bus problem. In the end we decided that the Laguna Atascosa trip was well worth it.