King Ranch

Growing up in Texas, the King Ranch was one of the legends of Texas. Probably the largest ranch in the world, it is still a working ranch today and still owned by the original family. I had heard about the great birding on the ranch, but I was not sure how one got access. When I saw the King Ranch as one of the field trips, I knew that one had to be on my list.

Arriving at the bus, it was obviously a popular trip, the bus was full. We headed out during the predawn. Turns out our field trip leaders were either former or current employees of the King Ranch as wildlife managers. We were given some of the history of this extraordinary place as we travelled from Harlingen to the Norias Unit.

I learned new uses for duct tape! They brought several colors (presumably so we could color coordinate with our clothes). You can wrap duct tape around the bottom of your trouser legs to keep chiggers and ticks from getting on your legs. You can cover your shoe laces with duct tape to keep stickers from collecting on them. There were lots of stickers! But I did not get too many on me, but a few did make it all the way back to the RV at the end of the day.

After we were all duct taped and sprayed with insect repellant, we trekked off into the woodlands in search of the pygmy owl. The King Ranch has probably the largest population of pygmy owls anywhere. Our guides had recorded calls to make contact with one of them. We finally heard the answering call in a wooded thicket.



The owl was well hidden behind twigs and branches, but we all (45 of us) got a chance to see him through several scopes that gaves us a pretty good view. The scope I chose gave me a good view of his eye and the back of his head.


The photo I'm posting here is of a pygmy owl sighting I made at Bentsen Rio Grande State park a couple of years ago. Even though it is not a great photo, I'm proud of it, because I found this owl all by myself!


The guides were patient while everyone had their chance to see the pygmy. At the end they even thanked us for our patience in waiting for everyone to get to view this special owl.

After we had all seen the pygmy owl. We headed deeper into the ranch and the search began for the Sprague's Pipit. The guides gave us all the information to identify which bird would be the pipit. Then one group went to the slight rise and began to walk through the tall grass. And they were successful in flushing not only a pipit, but a savannah sparrow as well. The pipit was cute with its stairstep assent and its flight pattern of beating its wings rapidly and then pulling them in tight to his body to glide for a second or so then beat beat beat . . . . We also went over to a marsh area and added the sedge wren. They were hoping for LeConte's sparrow but that one alluded us.

Our last stop was a wooded area. I was pleased to get a good view of a ruby crowned kinglet. But the real find at this site was Northern Beardless-Tyrannulet.

As a group we saw or heard 57 species. For me the highlights were the pygmy owl, the sprague pipit, the ruby crested kingbird, the white tailed hawk, the Wilson's snipe, and the green jay.