Amistad and beyond

Another early start to bird Amistad National Wildlife Refuge. It's a large area where we stopped at a few different areas of scrub habitat to look for new birds. The sun had just come up and birds were singing all around. Rufous Crowned sparrows weren't shy and neither were the flocks of chipping sparrows and black-throated sparrows. I also found a clay-colored sparrow in with the many chipping. We finally heard and had great looks at black-tailed gnatcatcher to count it as new as well. 

We then started the long drive up to Baileyboro Lake to look for one bird. 

Common Crane. We arrived with about an hour of daylight and watched cranes come in by the hundreds to roost for the night but did not see the celebrity. A pair of great-horned Owls perched up on a telephone pole hooting away before we observed their quickie and the male flew

off. Typical. We would spend the night nearby and try again the next day.