I Like Mine "Rare"...

Again, it was a cold, miserable, windy, dreary day. No place to go, nothing to do. I laid down on the couch and read 'til I was more bored, and said to Bud: "There was a rare hawk spotted out on 'the ranch' this week. Do you wanna go for a drive and see if we can find it?" He got up from his warm spot on the other couch...he too was reading...as he cornered the arm of the settee, he replied: "It's probably gone to another section of the state by now, but it's something to do." I got up and changed into more layers of clothing in case we had to walk home or something [I'm always catastrophizing, remember? Bud is the compulsive one...we make a good pair of misfits], and by that time Bud and I were in the garage, he grabbing his binoculars hanging on the garage wall hook. You know, the ones he uses to spy on the neighbors watch birds in the pecan tree in the front yard?

We were off! After driving the expressway out of town and connecting to the highway to Chapman's Ranch, we veered off onto a cow pasture road only tractors could use...Google GPS had us take the cut-off also known as wagon rut lane?  We turned around where we pulled off, and got back on the paved highway and took a different direction. A few miles on that road and we found a paved county road to take! Now we were on the right track to where the hawk was last seen a few days prior. We drove and drove some more...seeing harriers, godwits, larks and others.

Aha!! Finally, County Road #6. "We're here!" This gravel road was in better shape than some in our town that are paved!! Smooth as a baby's bottom! We saw nothing out of the ordinary except for some trees in the far distance. That was our goal. Three vultures were scattered on the power lines. On down the road, a hawk perched at the top of another power pole! I got the camera on the zoom lens and checked it out through the windshield..."Nope, not the hawk we're hunting down!  It's only a dark morph Red Shouldered Hawk." We kept going...the trees getting closer. Another mile or so, another hawk. "This could be the one!" Neither of us have seen this species so, we weren't positive in IDing it, but I took photos.



Continuing, we traveled on to the dead end. More horned larks, and one meadowlark. Also lounging along the road at one spot, two Santa Gertrudis were content, chewing cud.  - behind the brush, out of the cold wind. We had to make another turn around and head back the way we came. The two hawks seen before were still where we left 'em. We ended up getting home, with a stop at Subway Sandwiches, and when Bud went into take an afternoon siesta, I pulled out the camera card and uploaded the photos of the morning trip.


We DID find the rare hawk!  A first sighting for us both.  Too bad it was so gray and dreary.  Doesn't do justice to that beautiful bird.  I wished at that time, the sky would've been clear blue and a bright, sunny day.  And of course, I will get them resized for blogging and hopefully have them up this next weekend since I have one post already pre-scheduled for Saturday the 22nd...next weekend then, for the linking party [Feb 29th].

With this hawk photo ID, my total birds seen in Texas alone, is now 280 different species charted in my record book. I also have records of those seen in Colorado, Arizona, Hawaii, and Jamaica.