On February 23, 1983 a dead Mottled Owl was found along the road near Bentsen State Park. This was the first record of this tropical owl species for the United States though they are resident in Mexico less than a hundred miles from the US border. A second was reported from Frontera Audubon in Weslaco in July of 2006 though never photographed. I vaguely remember looking unsuccessfully for that bird.
Finally on Nov 18 last year Zach Johnson and Simon Kiazc recorded the voice of a Mottled Owl at the Santa Margarita Ranch in Starr County, Texas just north of Roma. The ranch had recently been opened to guided birding following the rediscovery of Brown Jays and the owners allowed Zach and Simon to take birders in to find this third ABA Area record. Since then this owl has been seen by hundreds of birders and photographed many times.
I got my lifer Mottled Owl at San Blas, Nayarit in Mexico sometime in the late 80's. A group of us took the train down from Nogales and had a blast. There we bumped into Wings guide Jeff Kingery who was happy to show us a Mottled Owl outside his hotel. Since then I've seen them a couple of times at Palenque in Chiapas and maybe elsewhere. As I'm not a serious ABA lister I figured I would take my time and eventually get out to see this third record bird. If I missed it, well I would probably survive.
Then a few days ago I was on South Padre Island enjoying the Mangrove Cuckoo when I ran into Zach Johnson. Zach, a TxDOT biologist in his daytime job, told me he had noticed that I had not been out to see the Mottled Owl and that he had a small group going out Saturday night. The time seem right so I jumped at the chance.
So last night we met at the Santa Margarita Ranch. I've been there a few times through the years so I was a little familiar with it. Most memorably Oscar Carmona and I found a male Blue Bunting there back sometime in the 90's. Anyway Zach led us nearly a mile and half through the breezy humid darkness to the spot he had last seen the Mottled Owl. He let out a few blasts of the recorded barking call of the owl and shortly we had great looks at this fantastic bird. Flash photography was not allowed so I had to bump up the ISO on my camera to 3200 and 6400 to capture this bird in Zach's spotlight. The photos came out surprisingly well.
High fives all around! On the walk out Zach found us Eastern Schreech Owls but we dipped on Elf and Great Howned Owls. Common Parauques called but we could not get a Poorwill to call. Tawny-collared Nightjar is another species that occurs not too far away in Mexico but has never been recorded in the US. Zach says he plays the call for that species every time he takes a group out on the Ranch. So far no luck.
Mottled Owl is Stryx virgata and is superfically similar to its larger congener Barred Owl which is common in much of the US and is my 603rd Texas species on eBird placing me in a three way tie for fifth place with David Bradford and Randy Pinkston. And I have a pretty easy ace in the hole for number 604. I've been putting it off but I may have to go to Houston and get the exotic but recently accepted by TBRC Speckled Munia and break that tie.
No comments:
Post a Comment