Nighthawk Day

Tuesday, April 28

We decided this darkly cloudy and windy Tuesday to go to Anahuac National Wildlife Refuge. It is about 17 miles from our Gulfway Motel. On the way there, Deb photographed an Osprey, and at the refuge we saw and Deb photographed and osprey with a rat in its talons. We also saw a Northern Harrier at the refuge. 

Before we got to Anahuac proper we stopped at the Skillern Tract. Lou Skillern and her husband volunteered at Anahuac for years and the tract is named after them. Lou now lives in Ponca City, 40 miles north of Stillwater. Several years ago Lou was on the Payne County Audubon board during my first PCAS presidency. Deb and I walked the trails at the Skillern Tract seeing and photographing a Dickcissel, Eastern Kingbirds, Green Herons, a Yellow Warbler, Orchard Orioles, Cliff Swallows, Lesser Yellowlegs, Black-billed Cuckoo and many other of the “usual suspects.” Then it was on to Anahuac’s main entrance.

Male Yellow Warbler at Skillern Tract c Deb Hirt

Black-billed Cuckoo c Deb Hirt

Surprisingly, we saw many warblers at Anahuac’s Jackson Woodlot, a small island of deciduous trees amid the floodplains and coastal marshes of this refuge. Deb managed to get good shots of a Chestnut-sided Warbler, Magnolia Warbler, Black-throated Green Warbler (m & f) and an American Redstart. I saw a Philadelphia Vireo at the Woodlot. Yesterday we id’d a Clapper Rail and today we saw both King Rail, which Deb managed to photograph, and a Sora. The sora was in the middle of the dirt road. The marsh water levels have risen high enough to flush the rails to the road.

Magnolia Warbler c Deb Hirt

Male Bay-breasted Warbler c Deb Hirt

Anahuac’s double feature this day was nighthawks. Deb photographed a Lesser Nighthawk snoozing on a chainlink fence across from HQ; we were repeatedly buzzed by a Common Nighthawk in Jackson Woodlot, and then we watched the insect-catching antics of three Common Nighthawks at road’s end. After we turned around to head back to HQ, we found one of the aerial acrobats lying on the warm road. I got the photo of it below. Another of the trio was settling down atop a fencepost, and Deb got a photo of it.

There were several alligators in the canals at Anahuac, most of them quite small but we both photographed the mother gator below.

Susan's alligator pic