17 NOV 15
After seeing the wives safely off on
Sunday, the guys had agreed to let me take them down Old Port Isabel Road
(OPIR), as I convinced them that their low-slung rental was no match for that
rutted dirt road! I was pleased to hear
that in the meantime, they had nailed Clay-colored Thrush at Santa Ana, and had
even braved the three-hour drive to Choke Canyon SP where they bagged the
juvenile Jacana, and picked up their coveted Fulvous Whistling Ducks to
boot! Today’s targets included Aplomado
Falcon, American Oystercatcher, Black Skimmer, Least Bittern, and Red-crowned
Parrot.
Temps were pleasant, but the wind
was horrendous ahead of the advancing cold front (that had spawned massive
tornadoes in the Panhandle, I found out later), and when we arrived at OPIR, I
was aghast that we were being passed by numerous tractors, utility trucks, and
big rigs!! The most traffic I had ever had on that road was the occasional
pickup! At the railroad tracks what I
thought were distant White Pelicans at first were actually Wood Storks, and a
young Reddish Egret posed for pictures (a little more inland than normal, but
at least not as inland as the Anzalduas bird)!
Before long we discovered the reason for all the vehicular activity: apparently a big rig had been deployed to
work on one of the high electrical towers, and had gotten bogged down in the
muck!
Young Reddish Egret along Old Port Isabel Road
Once we got past the workers, we
picked up a few expected open country birds despite the wind, including Eastern
Meadowlark, Long-billed Curlews, and Caracara.
The seasonal wetland was stuffed with birds: mostly Coots but also Ruddy Ducks,
Blue-winged Teal, and both species of grebe.
But at the three-mile mark we hit the jackpot: in the distance we spotted a medium-sized
falcon flying up and down and all around, giving great views of his black belly
band – Aplomado!! He was shortly joined
by a second bird, and the guys were delighted with how they were interacting
with each other!
Rather than risk running into worse
conditions than we had (“Diggory,” my Subaru Outback, had already gone
“swimming” twice along the road), we turned around at that point, picking up a
very cooperative Scissor-tailed Flycatcher on the way out, and headed over to
the Highway 48 Boat Ramp to try for the oystercatcher. We dipped on that, but saw lots of another
target bird, the Black Skimmer, resting and flying around! Brody carefully scrutinized every bird and
added several shorebirds and larids to the day list, including a couple of
Gull-billed Terns.
Scissor-tailed Flycatcher
Next stop was South Padre Island,
and Ernest especially was struck with all the high-rises! We headed first over to the bayside access
just north of the Convention Centre, where the tide was out and the
shorebirding was fabulous! (The Germans
came on the wrong weekend; see the very first blog… J)
Right away we got killer looks at many Piping Plovers, including one
with several color bands and a flag! We
drove right up to Western Sandpipers, Dunlin, Sanderlings, Ruddy Turnstones,
and even a single Snowy Plover for comparison!
The “big flock” included both flavors of pelicans, five species of tern
(including Common, which is actually uncommon
this time of year), more skimmers, and all three expected gulls. But the highlight was a huge immature
Magnificent Frigatebird that came sailing over low; we all agreed that he
almost upstaged the Aplomado! J
Piping Plover - the combination of color bands and flags helps researchers track the individual birds
Western Sandpiper
Just a small portion of the "big flock"
Snowy Plover
Both Brown and White Pelicans
Immature Magnificent Frigatebird
Caspian Tern
Common Tern (rather uncommon this time of year)
A recreationer stirs things up...
Next we headed to the Birding Center (they
have the best restrooms J), as I often get
an oystercatcher in the back area. No go
this time, but Ernest did spot a
Northern Parula near the new water feature!
We decided to work the boardwalks for their Least Bittern, and on the
way to Blind #5 (where they had been spotted recently), we spotted the same
Alligator as the Germans enjoyed (hadn’t moved), and lots of Mottled Ducks,
Common Gallinules, and calling Clapper Rails.
The distant mudflats had two Marbled Godwits, and the guys enjoyed close
views of feeding Tricolored and Little Blue Herons; on the way out to one of
the bay overlooks a white morph Reddish Egret stood on the railing just inches
away! The pond that can be viewed from
both sets of boardwalks (the Convention Centre’s and the Birding Center’s) had
a big flock of Redheads, along with some American Wigeon, Pintail, and a couple
of Roseate Spoonbills! Ernest got a glimpse of a Least Bittern as it flew from
one patch of reeds to the other, but Brody was the one who really needed it for
his life list, so we spent some time hanging around that area. In the meantime we had both Peregrine and
Merlin zoom past, making it a four-falcon day (along with numerous Kestrels
along the way)! The guys got their
prepared lunches and went back to keep watch while I took care of some
business, and on the way back in to the center a strange teep drew my attention to a young Pyrrhuloxia in the little tree
next to the sidewalk! There were some
serious rain cells coming our way, so I wanted to warn the guys, but thankfully
Brody had finally seen his bittern! J So we headed back to the center, but not
before Ernest spotted mama Alligator and several babies on her back! That was amazing!
Mottled Duck
Looking for Least Bitterns
Look hard for the baby Alligator on momma's head!
Coots greeting each other
We made one last attempt for the “out
back” oystercatcher, adding a Catbird and some Indigo Buntings instead. A quick look at the mudflats near the KOA
campground yielded nothing, so we decided to give the Hwy 48 Boat Ramp one last
try before heading to Brownsville. Still
no oystercatcher, but just before we were ready to call it quits, a Franklin’s
Gull flew in and joined the Laughings, and with careful scrutiny we found
several in the flock! That was a nice
addition!
We felt the cold front hit with a
vengeance (and we could see the rain squalls all around us), so we piled in
Diggory and headed down to Oliviera Park with the idea that since it was
getting dark so early, the parrots might start staging early! We actually started getting a little
concerned, as when we arrived, there wasn’t a squawk to be heard for a long
time, until after about 15 minutes I spotted a large flock wheeling around at
the other end of the park! We were
undecided about whether to move or not because they’d first come close, then
head off again, then act like they were coming back! They finally sounded like they had landed, so
we headed over to where we saw them go down (along with several other birders
who wheeled in at about the same time J)
and enjoyed them chowing down on some anacua berries! The guys were ecstatic; despite the failing
light they got some passable pictures, and before long the smaller
White-fronted Parrots came flying in, their higher and faster chep-chep-chep calls very evident, while
the Redfronts gave their distinctive cleo-chop-chop
calls along with several other conversational sounds! We couldn’t find any of the Red-lored,
Lilac-crowned, or Yellow-headed Parrots that often hang around, but the guys
were happy with the Redcrowns, as those were the “countable” ones!
Red-crowned Parrots chowing down on Anacua berries
We padded the list with one of the feral
Muscovies you can always find in Brownsville (they were very close to making
200 for their Texas trip), then had a celebratory dinner that night; I
personally ended the day with 94 species, and we probably would have broken 100
had the wind not been so bad and we could have picked up a few more songbirds! My personal list for the three days of
guiding (theirs would be much bigger, of course) was 167!
No comments:
Post a Comment