At 7am on Monday May, 9^th a group of staff and friends of Houston Audubon gathered at Cullinan Park in Sugar Land and kicked of our Birdathon day!
Zineera chronicled the highlights on her FB and many others added social media as well, showing off all the fun we had and great birds we saw. Even with no team name selected we made a cohesive group; many bins make light work of spotting things like Wood Duck, Common Gallinule chicks, and the elusive and rare Plastic Decoy Owl.

From Cullinan Park we all made our way south, stopping by Elaine’s house to drop off cars and then heading in to Brazos Bend SP for Anhingas galore and some very cooperative Yellow-crowned Night Herons, Purple Gallinule, and some of our only warblers of the day – Prothonotary Warbler and Northern Parula. We scoured fence lines and wires for Scissortail Flycatcher, fields for sparrows, and mudflats for shorebirds but all were in short supply.

At lunch some of our group had to go back to the mundane life of not birding, but four die-hards headed to Brazoria NWR and were rewarded with Fulvous Whistling Ducks, several Common Nighthawks, a lovely Clapper Rail eating a freshwater mussel, and one very confounding shorebird alternately floating in shallow water and preening. This made IDing the bird very difficult until at last Kelsey exclaimed IT’S JUST A VERY WET WILLET, and our team name was finally born. A unexpected painted bunting and a hog with babies wrapped up Brazoria, and as we headed home we vowed to watch for any new species – including the still-absent Scissortail. We even got an update from our dispersed flock member Beth who got 30 species in Colorado County!

Minutes before arriving at ELMNS on the tollway, Ol’ Eagle Eyes Kelsey finally spotted the Texas Bird-of-paradise (Scissortail Flycatcher) -- a satisfying last tick on the eBird list.

Of course the day wasn’t only about the birds. As a group of true naturalists, we left no ant, turtle, bee swarm, or Sunshine Mimosa un-inspected. A great inaugural year for the Wet Willets, future team name TBD because we have too many good puns to stay with the same name every year.

Of course the real treasure is the friends we made along the way. 

Birdathon is Houston Audubon's annual spring fundraiser where participants compete to count as many bird species as possible in a 24-hour period while fundraising for bird conservation. Birdathon is a unique tradition that takes place at Audubon chapters across the country during spring migration, and Houston Audubon has participated every year since 1981! All contributions support Houston Audubon's mission to advance the conservation of birds and positively impact their supporting environments.

Learn more at www.houstonaudubon.org/birdathon!