The Bird Whisperer: Houston area for the holidays

From December 19th through January 1st we spent the holiday season with my Aunt Joan and Uncle Jerry in Spring, TX (near Houston). On the drive there we stayed a night in the Junction/Segovia area. While re-packing our vehicle in the morning we were stunned to see at least 300 Black Vultures roosting on a communications tower across the interstate from the motel. Gradually they flew off of it in large numbers as the sun rose. Here are a few pics of them and one of the moon over the county park along the Llano River in Junction:

While we were in the Spring, TX area we did some sight-seeing (including Galveston Island), walked around with the dog and birded at the Mercer Arboretum, and went up to W.G. Jones State Forest near Conroe. Mercer Arboretum consists of botanical gardens on one side of the road and trails through preserved bottomland hardwood and pine forest (and some swamps) on the other side. On December 30th my mom and I drove up to the small town of Shiro between Huntsville and College Station to participate in the Gibbons Creek Christmas Bird Count. We spent New Year's Eve at my cousin Brenda's place where we watched TV/fireworks, ate potluck dishes, and made several margaritas. During our stay the weather was mostly warm (60 degree F range), although from Christmas on the temperatures dropped quite a bit and we had some rainy weather. Below are various photos from our stay in the Spring area (Galveston photos in a separate post).

Mercer Arboretum gardens:

Cycads (sago palm) at Mercer Arboretum. These are "gymnosperms" (which means "naked seed" in Latin), cone-bearing/non-flowering plants that contain seeds resting on the scales of cones (not contained within a fruit like seeds of the flowering plants: the "angiosperms"). They are related to other gymnosperms like conifers and ginkgo. They have broad fern/palm like leaves and bear the cones in the center of the plant. The leaves are supposed to be poisonous.

Maidenhair tree or Ginkgo biloba, another gymnosperm. It is the only surviving species within its phylum and it is unique from other gymnosperms in that the seed is covered by a fleshy substance and not in a cone. There are separate male and female plants (females produce seeds, males produce pollen grains that carry sperm), and usually the male plant is the one that is grown in gardens because the seeds produced by the female plants are smelly. The species is only found in cultivation and is believed to be extinct in the wild.

winter cassia (Senna bicapsularis), of the pea family (Fabaceae):

sorrel sp. (Oxalis sp.):

unknown flower:

orchid tree (Bauhinia divaricata) of the pea family (Fabaceae); notice the oddly-shaped leaves:

Carolina Wren:

Winter Wren:

probable Porcupine resting in crook of loblolly pine:

Bald-cypress (Taxodium distichum), one of the few deciduous confers. They are also unique in that they have modified roots called pneumatophores or "knees" that allow gas exchange for the roots when the rest of the root system is submerged by seasonal flooding in swamps. The swamps at Mercer Arboretum were dry this time, as Texas is going through a drought period.

American beautyberry (Callicarpa americana), currently placed in the mint family (Lamiaceae):

A huge, beautifully-patterned grasshopper attached itself to my shoe one day while we were walking around Mercer. I didn't notice it until I went to tighten my shoelaces. I had to pry it off with a stick and leaf (took a few minutes to convince it to let go of my laces):

Basidiomycete fungi growing on a tree trunk:

Dad trying to be tarzan on one of the vines along the trail (he eventually fell on his ass when the vine broke, but I wasn't able to capture that on camera):

Eva resting after playing in one of the local parks:

One day we went over to W.G. Jones State Forest near Conroe (north of Houston), hoping to see the endangered Red-cockaded Woodpeckers that they manage for there. Unfortunately we didn't see any of the those birds, but we did see their nesting trees which managers have modified with artificial inserts. This woodpecker species is unique in that it constructs its nesting holes in the trunk of living trees rather than dead snags. I think the sap that flows down from the holes of living trees makes it more difficult for nest predators to access their offspring. It prefers widely-spaced, old-growth longleaf pines (Pinus palustris), which have undergone severe population declines in the southeastern U.S. At this forest it looked like the nesting holes were in the much more common loblolly pines (Pinus taeda). Although we didn't see the woodpeckers, I was stoked to finally see some Brown-headed Nuthatches which I had missed on every other trip to Texas (when my family had seen them). Here are some photos of the woodpecker nesting holes:

A woodpecker/sapsucker feather we found in the forest (not sure which species; there are 7 woodpecker species that inhabit the area):

dwarf palmetto (Sabal minor):

Here are some shots from the Gibbons Creek Christmas Bird Count we did in Shiro, TX, including shots of a Henslow's Sparrow which is rare for the count and a new species to the four of us on the count. Altogether we had around 60 species on the count. The habitat there was mostly wooded hedgerows bordering roads along agricultural fields, with one patch of loblolly pine forest, and a few small ponds. The sky was dynamic all day, with cool-looking fog and clouds in the morning as a storm system moved through. The cloud cover kept the temperatures warm, with high humidity.