The Girls from California

13 JAN 2016

The trip with fellow Californians “Betty and Kathy” (names changed to protect identity) was one of those situations where you strike up a conversation with a couple of guests, and the next thing you know, you’re taking them birding! J  They were also interested in trying for the Aplomado Falcons, and even after briefing them on our lack of success the day before, they still wanted to go for it (as indeed, we would see lots of other good stuff along the way).  So we headed down to the Boca Chica tract of the LRGV NWR, but on the way I decided to swing in the south end of Old Port Isabel Road, even though I knew we wouldn’t get any further than a mile up the road.  Turns out that was not a wasted detour at all, as we got crippling views of a very cooperative White-tailed Hawk on a pole, a Cassin’s Sparrow that hopped up on a fence wire, and both King Rail and Sedge Wrens calling at the turnaround point!  Once again we got Roseate Spoonbills and White Pelicans on Loma Alta Lake, and some uncooperative Gull-billed Terns were a life bird for Betty, so we were hoping for better views later.

 

 

White-tailed Hawk

 

As far as we got on Old Port Isabel Road

 

Scanning the flatlands for falcons

 

From there we headed down to Boca Chica as planned, and this time I stopped several times along the entirety of the main road, along with the dirt “back road” that can often have woodland species you might not nab along the main drag.  It was in this area that we had a somewhat cooperative White-eyed Vireo (another lifer for Betty), and back on the main road a Roadrunner made a brief appearance.  At another stop a flock of swallows proved to be Cave, another potential lifer “in the bank” if they ever decide to split off the Caribbean race (as Betty had that one in Cuba)!  Harris’ Hawks and Caracaras were masquerading as Chihuahuan Ravens the whole time, but we finally got a look at a real one! J 

 

 

Boca Chica back road

 

The girls had state-of-the-art scopes, so with every stop they were scanning hard for raptors; at one point a suspicious bird got our juices going, but when it flew it proved itself to be a Peregrine (still nothing to sniff at).  Still no Aplomado, but we had nice views of several Harris’ Hawks (Betty was finally able to get a decent picture), both male and female Harriers, a pair of perched White-tailed Kites, and in the various roadside wetlands had several waterbirds along with a calling Swamp Sparrow.  Down on the flats we had some nice shorebird studies (including a couple of ultra-cute Snowy Plovers), but the big show was over 250 Reddish Egrets of both morphs all packed together like sardines (in two different groups)!  Needless to say EBird “burped” on that one (as Kathy was faithfully inputting everything we saw as we went)!  Several Horned Larks bopped along the mud close to the road, and thankfully several Gull-billed Terns paced us close in the car and even landed, giving Betty knockout looks!  I showed the girls the “hidden” access to the Rio Grande where we had some Avocets and a head-on Black-crowned Night Heron coming at us, then headed down the beach, having nice studies of Royal and Forster’s Terns, a few Sanderlings and Willets, Laughing and Ring-billed Gulls here and there, and several stages of Herring Gull, including a nice-looking 2^nd-year bird!  We didn’t make it all the way to the mouth as the tide was coming in, but it was a nice way to see close birds from the car!

 

 

Betty stalks a Harris' Hawk

 

 

Gull-billed Tern

 

Betty and Kathy at the Rio Grande

 

Horned Lark

 

 

Mob of Reddish Egrets

 

White morph Reddish Egret doing its thing...

 

 

Group of Royal Terns

 

 

2nd-year Herring Gull

 

From there we headed up SR 48 to the famous boat ramp, where this time the Oystercatcher was right there in front of us!  There were also lots of skimmers along with a young Little Blue Heron.  After thoroughly scouring the area, we headed on up to SR 100 on the off chance an Aplomado might be perched on one of the poles; no such luck, so we headed on in to Weslaco, where the Birds-Eye app revealed a couple of parrot roosts.  Starting at the Valley Nature Center’s parking lot, we didn’t get far before we spotted a flock of parrots heading south, so in true storm-chasing fashion we blasted south on Border and screamed onto 10^th Street, where we actually found a big flock of Black-bellied Whistling Ducks in someone’s tree!  Continuing to cruise the neighborhood we finally heard the parrot cacophony just south of us and found their tree, enjoying yet another life bird for the girls (and a roost closer to home to boot)!

 

 

Red-crowned Parrot roost (take with my IPhone, but you hopefully can hear the racket!)

 

We ended the day with a whopping 96 species!  Bird List:

  Black-bellied Whistling-Duck          Dendrocygna autumnalis

  Snow Goose                            Chen caerulescens
  Gadwall                               Anas strepera
  Mottled Duck                          Anas fulvigula
  Blue-winged Teal                      Anas discors
  Northern Shoveler                     Anas clypeata
  Northern Bobwhite                     Colinus virginianus
  Pied-billed Grebe                     Podilymbus podiceps
  Neotropic Cormorant                   Phalacrocorax brasilianus
  Double-crested Cormorant              Phalacrocorax auritus
  American White Pelican                Pelecanus erythrorhynchos
  Brown Pelican                         Pelecanus occidentalis
  Great Blue Heron                      Ardea herodias
  Great Egret                           Ardea alba
  Snowy Egret                           Egretta thula
  Little Blue Heron                     Egretta caerulea
  Reddish Egret                         Egretta rufescens
  Black-crowned Night-Heron             Nycticorax nycticorax
  White Ibis                            Eudocimus albus
  White-faced Ibis                      Plegadis chihi
  Roseate Spoonbill                     Platalea ajaja
  Black Vulture                         Coragyps atratus
  Turkey Vulture                        Cathartes aura
  Osprey                                Pandion haliaetus
  White-tailed Kite                     Elanus leucurus
  Northern Harrier                      Circus cyaneus
  Cooper's Hawk                         Accipiter cooperii
  Harris's Hawk                         Parabuteo unicinctus
  White-tailed Hawk                     Geranoaetus albicaudatus
  Red-tailed Hawk                       Buteo jamaicensis
  King Rail                             Rallus elegans
  Sora                                  Porzana carolina
  American Coot                         Fulica americana
  Sandhill Crane                        Grus canadensis
  Black-necked Stilt                    Himantopus mexicanus
  American Avocet                       Recurvirostra americana
  American Oystercatcher                Haematopus palliatus
  Black-bellied Plover                  Pluvialis squatarola
  Snowy Plover                          Charadrius nivosus
  Killdeer                              Charadrius vociferus
  Spotted Sandpiper                     Actitis macularius
  Greater Yellowlegs                    Tringa melanoleuca
  Willet                                Tringa semipalmata
  Lesser Yellowlegs                     Tringa flavipes
  Long-billed Curlew                    Numenius americanus
  Ruddy Turnstone                       Arenaria interpres
  Sanderling                            Calidris alba
  Least Sandpiper                       Calidris minutilla
  Western Sandpiper                     Calidris mauri
  Laughing Gull                         Leucophaeus atricilla
  Ring-billed Gull                      Larus delawarensis
  Herring Gull                          Larus argentatus
  Gull-billed Tern                      Gelochelidon nilotica
  Caspian Tern                          Hydroprogne caspia
  Forster's Tern                        Sterna forsteri
  Royal Tern                            Thalasseus maximus
  Black Skimmer                         Rynchops niger
  Rock Pigeon                           Columba livia
  Eurasian Collared-Dove                Streptopelia decaocto
  Mourning Dove                         Zenaida macroura
  Greater Roadrunner                    Geococcyx californianus
  Belted Kingfisher                     Megaceryle alcyon
  Golden-fronted Woodpecker             Melanerpes aurifrons
  Ladder-backed Woodpecker              Picoides scalaris
  Crested Caracara                      Caracara cheriway
  American Kestrel                      Falco sparverius
  Peregrine Falcon                      Falco peregrinus
  Red-crowned Parrot                    Amazona viridigenalis
  Great Kiskadee                        Pitangus sulphuratus
  Loggerhead Shrike                     Lanius ludovicianus
  White-eyed Vireo                      Vireo griseus
  Green Jay                             Cyanocorax yncas
  Chihuahuan Raven                      Corvus cryptoleucus
  Horned Lark                           Eremophila alpestris
  Cave Swallow                          Petrochelidon fulva
  Verdin                                Auriparus flaviceps
  House Wren                            Troglodytes aedon
  Sedge Wren                            Cistothorus platensis
  Curve-billed Thrasher                 Toxostoma curvirostre
  Long-billed Thrasher                  Toxostoma longirostre
  Northern Mockingbird                  Mimus polyglottos
  European Starling                     Sturnus vulgaris
  Orange-crowned Warbler                Oreothlypis celata
  Common Yellowthroat                   Geothlypis trichas
  Yellow-rumped Warbler                 Setophaga coronata
  Olive Sparrow                         Arremonops rufivirgatus
  Cassin's Sparrow                      Peucaea cassinii
  Savannah Sparrow                      Passerculus sandwichensis
  Lincoln's Sparrow                     Melospiza lincolnii
  Swamp Sparrow                         Melospiza georgiana
  Northern Cardinal                     Cardinalis cardinalis
  Red-winged Blackbird                  Agelaius phoeniceus
  Eastern Meadowlark                    Sturnella magna
  Western Meadowlark                    Sturnella neglecta
  Great-tailed Grackle                  Quiscalus mexicanus
  House Sparrow                         Passer domesticus

96 SPECIES

 

Two Brothers Seek Flycatchers & Falcons

12 JAN 2016

            “Manny and Danny” (names changed to protect identity) were two brothers, both from Texas originally, who had been to the Valley many times, but Manny’s nemesis bird was the Northern Beardless Tyrannulet, and Danny wanted to get a “countable” view of an Aplomado Falcon, so those were our two main targets for the day.  Both of them were an absolute hoot – the bantering never seemed to stop, and we had just a great day!

            I was planning on taking them to Anzalduas, seeing as Greater Pewee had also been a target bird, but they had beaten me to it the day before, where they both got the pewee but Manny missed the tyrannulet, so Plan B was Santa Ana NWR, seeing as that was right down the street.  That was fine with them, as Danny commented that this was one of his very favorite places!  We beat the gatekeeper, and even before hitting the trail we saw Chachalacas darting across the picnic area and shooting over the fence to the feeding area!  An Inca Dove rattled its wings in takeoff as we walked by, and on the way to the “roundabout” several things chattered including Ruby-crowned Kinglet, Black-crested Titmouse, Hermit Thrush, and Olive Sparrow, the latter being characteristically elusive.  We happened to be talking about Estero’s cooperative Pauraques when one suddenly flushed and swooped across the trail in front of us!  We heard what I suspected was a Green Jay mimicking a Gray Hawk, and when we got to the overlook and started checking out the ducks, poor Manny had just sat down when I heard the dear-dear-dear of a tyrannulet!  We followed the call down the Willow Lake Trail connector, but it never called again; what did vocalize on the way back, however, was a Least Flycatcher doing his little whit call! 

 

 

Danny checks his photos along the Willow Trail connector

 

Checking out the birdies at Willow Lake

 

Back at the overlook, we checked out all the waterfowl and looked in vain for the Jacana, then made the rest of the loop around Chachalaca Trail where miraculously a couple of Olive Sparrows popped right out into the open, apparently having a bit of a territorial dispute as they both were facing off with beaks open and tails flipping!  We ran into David Wolf leading a VENT tour, and after exchanging reports we mentioned we were looking for the tyrannulet, whereupon he jokingly said, “Good luck!”  Well.  Upon entering the “roundabout” I heard a WheeeK! right over our heads, and there was the tyrannulet, just putting on a great show!  That was certainly the best look I’ve ever gotten!

 

 

Ultra-cooperative Northern Beardless Tyrannulet

 

 

We figured there wasn’t much that could beat that, but since the falcon was our next target, we headed straight out to Old Port Isabel Road, and the guys were very glad they didn’t try this excursion on their own, because (as I warned them) the directions to get there are very confusing, and the road can be dicey!  Once on the dirt portion of the south end, it was overcast enough to get a decent view of Loma Alta Lake, which had White Pelicans, Roseate Spoonbills, and distant cormorants, egrets, coots, and ducks.  The fields past the railroad tracks had Long-billed Curlews, but we could spot no falcons around the usual hangout places.  Not only that, but we had only gone about a mile when the road became absolutely impassable with a large lake in the middle (along with a bunch of glass bottles lined up that apparently someone had been shooting at; the guys rightly figured there would be broken glass at the bottom of the “lake”), so we turned around at that point.  The consolation prize (for me anyway), was the huge marsh there where Soras were calling up a storm, but also what sounded like several King Rails were sounding off!  It was at that point we were trying to convince Manny that he needed to start counting heard-only birds… J

            The next best spot was Boca Chica Boulevard, so we headed there next, but could find no falcons; we just gawked at all the Turkey Vultures and gulls swarming around the landfill, and joked about the fact that we were seeing practically every raptor but the Aplomado:  several Harris’ and White-tailed Hawks posed nicely, and we had both male and female Northern Harriers, and of course tons of Kestrels.  A White-tailed Kite even made an appearance.  After looking and scanning as far as the overlook, we decided to head up to Port Isabel and lunch, where we all had a terrific grilled snapper plate at Pirate’s Landing!

 

 

White-tailed Hawk

 

Manny and Danny at the overlook

 

            EBird had reported the falcons along SR 100 a couple of days ago, so we headed out that way, stopping at a few promising places (including the traditional stop across from the blue shack).  Not a thing (besides Ospreys and more of the regulars), so after trying out the north end of Old Port Isabel Road (which was even more of a disaster) and being mesmerized by the workers hanging from a helicopter line while working on the high tension wires, we headed back to Buena Vista Road for a last ditch effort.  Proud Caracaras and pretty White-tailed Kites were the highlights along here, and I can’t tell you how sorely tempted I was to head down General Brandt Road as there wasn’t a truck in sight (and hasn’t been for the last several months, according to several folks I spoke to), but I didn’t want to risk getting dinged by law enforcement, so we headed back to 100 and headed home from there.  We ended the day with 77 species!

 

Bird List:

 

  Snow Goose                            Chen caerulescens

  Gadwall                               Anas strepera

  Mottled Duck                          Anas fulvigula

  Blue-winged Teal                      Anas discors

  Northern Shoveler                     Anas clypeata

  Northern Pintail                      Anas acuta

  Green-winged Teal                     Anas crecca

  Ruddy Duck                            Oxyura jamaicensis

  Plain Chachalaca                      Ortalis vetula

  Least Grebe                           Tachybaptus dominicus

  Pied-billed Grebe                     Podilymbus podiceps

  Neotropic Cormorant                   Phalacrocorax brasilianus

  Double-crested Cormorant              Phalacrocorax auritus

  American White Pelican                Pelecanus erythrorhynchos

  Brown Pelican                         Pelecanus occidentalis

  Great Blue Heron                      Ardea herodias

  Great Egret                           Ardea alba

  Snowy Egret                           Egretta thula

  White Ibis                            Eudocimus albus

  Roseate Spoonbill                     Platalea ajaja

  Turkey Vulture                        Cathartes aura

  Osprey                                Pandion haliaetus

  White-tailed Kite                     Elanus leucurus

  Northern Harrier                      Circus cyaneus

  Harris's Hawk                         Parabuteo unicinctus

  White-tailed Hawk                     Geranoaetus albicaudatus

  King Rail                             Rallus elegans

  Sora                                  Porzana carolina

  Common Gallinule                      Gallinula galeata

  American Coot                         Fulica americana

  Black-necked Stilt                    Himantopus mexicanus

  Killdeer                              Charadrius vociferus

  Greater Yellowlegs                    Tringa melanoleuca

  Lesser Yellowlegs                     Tringa flavipes

  Long-billed Curlew                    Numenius americanus

  Wilson's Snipe                        Gallinago delicata

  Laughing Gull                         Leucophaeus atricilla

  Gull-billed Tern                      Gelochelidon nilotica

  Rock Pigeon                           Columba livia

  Mourning Dove                         Zenaida macroura

  Inca Dove                             Columbina inca

  White-tipped Dove                     Leptotila verreauxi

  Common Pauraque                       Nyctidromus albicollis

  Belted Kingfisher                     Megaceryle alcyon

  Golden-fronted Woodpecker             Melanerpes aurifrons

  Ladder-backed Woodpecker              Picoides scalaris

  Crested Caracara                      Caracara cheriway

  American Kestrel                      Falco sparverius

  Northern Beardless-Tyrannulet         Camptostoma imberbe

  Least Flycatcher                      Empidonax minimus

  Eastern Phoebe                        Sayornis phoebe

  Great Kiskadee                        Pitangus sulphuratus

  Loggerhead Shrike                     Lanius ludovicianus

  White-eyed Vireo                      Vireo griseus

  Green Jay                             Cyanocorax yncas

  Black-crested Titmouse                Baeolophus atricristatus

  Verdin                                Auriparus flaviceps

  House Wren                            Troglodytes aedon

  Marsh Wren                            Cistothorus palustris

  Carolina Wren                         Thryothorus ludovicianus

  Blue-gray Gnatcatcher                 Polioptila caerulea

  Ruby-crowned Kinglet                  Regulus calendula

  Hermit Thrush                         Catharus guttatus

  Long-billed Thrasher                  Toxostoma longirostre

  Northern Mockingbird                  Mimus polyglottos

  European Starling                     Sturnus vulgaris

  Black-and-white Warbler               Mniotilta varia

  Orange-crowned Warbler                Oreothlypis celata

  Common Yellowthroat                   Geothlypis trichas

  Yellow-rumped Warbler                 Setophaga coronata

  Olive Sparrow                         Arremonops rufivirgatus

  Savannah Sparrow                      Passerculus sandwichensis

  Swamp Sparrow                         Melospiza georgiana

  Northern Cardinal                     Cardinalis cardinalis

  Red-winged Blackbird                  Agelaius phoeniceus

  Eastern Meadowlark                    Sturnella magna

  Great-tailed Grackle                  Quiscalus mexicanus

77 SPECIES