Panhandle Birding: Rita Blanca National Grasslands and Palo Duro Lake

Rita Blanca National Grasslands is a flat, empty landscape. It was created in the wake of the Dust Bowl when farmers started abandoning their farms. Now there is just open, empty land. But with the empty land comes many perks. One of them is interesting birds.

Rita Blanca is mix of private and public property and there isn't a ton of hiking to be done. The place to go is the Thompson Grave Picnic Area that doubles as a campground. Thompson Grove, true to its name, is a grove. But why is that noteworthy? Well, in a grassland a grove can bring in different habitat for unique species that may normally not be found. The rain was strong, but a massive glided into view. I slammed on the brakes. GOLDEN EAGLE! This was an amazing Texas lifer for me to get and it was one that I wanted to get on this trip.

Rita Blanca National Grasslands. Nothing in sight for miles.

I got to Thompson Grove and found the area empty. No surprise. The wind was howling and the rain was lashing. Thankfully I had cell service to keep me entertained. No birding was done as the sun set early. I settled in for the most terrifying sleep of my life. This place was empty. The weather was awful, and I was completely alone. I'm not really a fan of the early sunsets of winter, especially when the weather is bad. But this reminded me that I was out here by myself in February. I settled in around 9, but a blinding light woke me up around 10. Another car was driving in. They wheeled up real close to my car before turning around and driving off. What. Talk about scary. Wind at over 30 mph, roads in and out are muck, and this person rolls up at 10 PM? And they came back at 11. Looking back on it it was probably a cop, but in that moment I thought I was going to die.

Eventually the need for sleep overcame the need to stay awake. I woke up around 6:30 to a clear sky and numb toes. It was 24 degrees but there was no wind. Perfect for winter birding. The target bird here was American Tree Sparrow. This was on the far southern range for them in the winter and this is a hard to find bird in Texas. But here in Thompson Grove they're regularly seen.

I started my walk surrounded by Western Meadowlarks singing. Then an odd wren caught my eye. It looked like it had a black bib, but it looked way out of place to be a Cactus Wren. Then it gave the distinct Cactus Wren call. Maybe I wasn't going crazy. For about 90 minutes I wandered the grove, surprised I couldn't find my American Tree Sparrow. I did get a group of 8 Northern Bobwhites which was awesome, though. The day was getting too old for me to wait, so I made one last lap. This time I heard a new call and saw a small bird in a bush. You already know what it was. Gimme that Texas lifer American Tree Sparrow! Next stop: Palo Duro Lake!

American Tree Sparrow

3.5 hours later I made my next destination after a lot of trouble due to a ton of trouble finding the park entrance. Word to the wise: if your map doesn't take you through Spearman then you won't have a good time. I drove over ATV tracks, nearly got stuck, but I eventually found my way. Palo Duro Lake had great habitat for Northern Shrike, Rough-legged Hawk, and Common Merganser. On the drive in I had a flock of Mountain Bluebird, a bird I will never get sick of seeing in Texas, and American Kestrel. There was also another mystery hawk. It was a dark morph of something. In my stupidity I didn't even think dark morph Rough-legged existed. Turns out it does, so there's one potential lifer missed.

Anyways, Palo Duro Lake is another interesting stop on any birding trip around these parts. It's a small lake, but it's a lake and that's big. The Panhandle isn't known for its water. That means when there is some you can expect an abundance of waterfowl, especially waterfowl that may be from out of range. A recent rarity in the last few years was a Golden-crowned Sparrow, but Brant, Eurasian Wigeon, and other rare waterfowl were all remote possibilities.

Common Merganser, but this shot was taken in Alaska

Although  I was in the perfect habitat, no Northern Shrike. The lake itself was pretty productive. Lots of ducks with Northern Pintail and Mallard dominating. A large flock of Canada Geese was at the back of the lake (where I had been an hour ago with nothing in sight) and it looked like a Cackling Goose or 3 were mixed in. But it was right on the edge of my scope's range and although you can usually tell, I couldn't. I wanted to count it, but looking back at the field guide that night it looked way too close to a Canada subspecies to tell the difference. Oh well.

Some ducks were swimming in a clump of tree and I had my hopes up. From the naked eye a green head indicated Common Merganser. I got my scope on it and got...Hooded Merganser? Weird, but let's go! That's a pretty unexpected, but welcome bird. I wheeled the scope over a little and got Common Merganser, a Texas lifer! With the day getting old it was time to head to my final stop, Caprock Canyons State Park.