Fearless Marsh Birds at Anahuac National Wildlife Refuge, Texas

Post image for Fearless Marsh Birds at Anahuac National Wildlife Refuge, Texas

by Rich Hoyer on May 10, 2011 · 0 comments

in Birding North America

This past weekend I led field trips for the second biennial Gay Birders of North America meeting.

Based in Beaumont, Texas, we had about 45 people divided among four vans for three days of all-out birding.

I helped lead the trips to Anahuac National Wildlife Refuge, where I’ve never seen Least Bitterns and other secretive marsh birds so well. The auto tour loop takes you past heavily managed marshes and ditches of open water, and it seems that the birds have become used to the slow traffic that stops to ogle at them. This is a Common Gallinule, a pending split from the Eurasian Common Moorhen.

Least Bitterns were everywhere. This shot was actually with my iPhone through my Zeiss DiaScope (all those I took with my camera turned out poorly, having focused on the background).

One of the favorite birds of the trip was seen by everyone looking down below this small bridge…

…a totally fearless Sora that fed both days we were there fully out in the open.

Here it is digiscoped.

Photo at top: King Rail, a very common bird at Anahuac NWR

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Tagged as: Anahuac National Wildlife Refuge, Common Gallinule, GBNA, King Rail, Least Bittern, Rich Hoyer, Sora

Article by Rich Hoyer

Rich Hoyer is first and foremost a birder whose subconscious registers and identifies every bird he hears, even when he isn't birding. But he actually started keying out wildflowers , catching reptiles, and raising butterflies before he discovered birding at age 14, and has since branched out to enjoy photographing and identifying dragonflies, grasshoppers, spiders and almost anything else alive. For the past 13 years he has been leading birding and natural history tours for WINGS. Among his regular destinations are Bolivia, Brazil, Peru, the Galapagos, Costa Rica, Mexico, and Jamaica. Originally from Oregon, he currently lives in Tucson, Arizona.

Rich has written 79 awesome articles for us.

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