Recording Birds on the Beach

I had mentioned to George that I had gotten good recordings of shorebirds right from the car on South Padre, so on Monday they called saying that's exactly what they wanted to do!  So I picked them up in Los Fresnos and we headed over to the Island, where you can drive right on the beach of the Laguna Madre.  I had checked the tide tables to make sure we were hitting it right, and the tide was indeed out, but there were a lot of big water puddles and the birds were waaaay out there!  Hoping I wasn't having another cocky "This-is-a-Subaru-he-can-do-anything" moment (the last one got me stuck in a swamp in Arizona), we slowly picked our way across the beach and swung around so that the birds were on George's side.  I shouldn't have been surprised that the birds weren't as talkative as they have been when I've been out here in the spring (at those times you could hardly hear anything for the Laughing Gulls), but the Dunlin were chirping and giving their keeek! calls occasionally, and we got great looks at several Piping Plovers.  The Larid Flock consisted mainly of Black Skimmers and Royal Terns, and every so often the skimmers would lift off and give George a sample of their funny nasal nyep sounds!  Out in the bay were Red-breasted Mergansers and Redheads, and at one point one of the Redheads actually gave his cool "mewing" sound!  We kept hearing this squeaking that I suspected was a young tern, and sure enough, we found a full-grown, adult-plumaged Royal Tern that was still begging from Mom/Dad!  Both flavors of pelicans were also out, but of course they weren't saying anything (although the Great Blue Heron gave a great sample as he squawked annoyedly).

 

 

Piping Plover with colorful "bling" that identifies where the bird came from!

 

Male Red-breasted Merganser plows the surface looking for fish.

 

 

George records the shorebirds from the shelter of the car!

 

Snoozing Black Skimmers

 

 

 

Begging Royal Tern (the hunkered one on the right)



From there we headed over to the Convention Centre, where I explained what a haven it was for migrating birds in the spring!  Right now it was rather quiet, but a few things chattered from the boardwalk; unfortunately George didn't have his recorder running when the best bird sounded off:  a Least Bittern!  The snoozing Roseate Spoonbills were a big hit, and a Black-necked Stilt feeding like an Avocet (swooshing its bill back and forth over the water) was a first!  George was entranced by all the cool noises the grackles were making; their Commons in Minnesota aren't nearly as creative in their vocalizations!  The Common Gallinules cackled once in awhile, and the resident showoff at the end of the boardwalk gave Wanda a great show for her IPhone!  A Belted Kingfisher that had the "birding shelter" staked out rattled for us as well.  At the end of the north boardwalk a Reddish Egret (with a few white primaries) did a little dancing while two Tricolored Herons faced off.  It was deja vu when another Reddish Egret near the Birding Center's boardwalk started grunting while he fed, as one did that very thing for me one time and gave me a recording!  This guy was a little further away, though...  Thankfully George had his recorder going when a pair of Clapper Rails did their "grunting duet"!  On the way back through the mangroves, I heard a sharp pink! that I thought was a Swamp Sparrow at first, but that little voice in the back of my head was saying, "Are you sure that's not a Northern Waterthrush??"  And while a Swampie would like the reeds, the waterthrush would definitely prefer the mucky areas under the mangroves, so after George and I analyzed both calls later (and admitted they were very similar), he concurred that what we had heard (and he recorded) was a waterthrush.  Meanwhile a couple of very friendly Collared Doves walked up to us and said hello!  On the way back to the car a Catbird shot across the sidewalk.

 

Wanda and George on the boardwalk

 

 

 

Roseate Spoonbills

 

Another birder scans the mudflats from an island

 

The resident photogenic Common Gallinule

 

 

Friendly Collared Dove

 

 

Since we still had a bit of time I decided to show them the Sheepshead Lots for future reference, but we felt something might be chirping there as well.  A Wilson's Warbler did come in and chep for us, then took a bath in the water feature!  A Hermit Thrush also made a brief appearance, and a Buff-bellied Hummingbird and Yellow-rumped Warblers were heard-only, so we decided to call it a day after that with 65 species for the morning.  Bird List:

 

  Black-bellied Whistling-Duck          Dendrocygna autumnalis

  American Wigeon                       Anas americana

  Blue-winged Teal                      Anas discors

  Northern Pintail                      Anas acuta

  Redhead                               Aythya americana

  Red-breasted Merganser                Mergus serrator

  Pied-billed Grebe                     Podilymbus podiceps

  Double-crested Cormorant              Phalacrocorax auritus

  American White Pelican                Pelecanus erythrorhynchos

  Brown Pelican                         Pelecanus occidentalis

  Least Bittern                         Ixobrychus exilis

  Great Blue Heron                      Ardea herodias

  Little Blue Heron                     Egretta caerulea

  Tricolored Heron                      Egretta tricolor

  Reddish Egret                         Egretta rufescens

  Black-crowned Night-Heron             Nycticorax nycticorax

  White Ibis                            Eudocimus albus

  Roseate Spoonbill                     Platalea ajaja

  Turkey Vulture                        Cathartes aura

  Osprey                                Pandion haliaetus

  Harris's Hawk                         Parabuteo unicinctus

  Clapper Rail                          Rallus longirostris

  Common Gallinule                      Gallinula galeata

  American Coot                         Fulica americana

  Black-necked Stilt                    Himantopus mexicanus

  Black-bellied Plover                  Pluvialis squatarola

  Piping Plover                         Charadrius melodus

  Greater Yellowlegs                    Tringa melanoleuca

  Willet                                Tringa semipalmata

  Ruddy Turnstone                       Arenaria interpres

  Sanderling                            Calidris alba

  Dunlin                                Calidris alpina

  Laughing Gull                         Leucophaeus atricilla

  Ring-billed Gull                      Larus delawarensis

  Herring Gull                          Larus argentatus

  Caspian Tern                          Hydroprogne caspia

  Royal Tern                            Thalasseus maximus

  Sandwich Tern                         Thalasseus sandvicensis

  Black Skimmer                         Rynchops niger

  Rock Pigeon                           Columba livia

  Eurasian Collared-Dove                Streptopelia decaocto

  Mourning Dove                         Zenaida macroura

  Buff-bellied Hummingbird              Amazilia yucatanensis

  Belted Kingfisher                     Megaceryle alcyon

  Crested Caracara                      Caracara cheriway

  American Kestrel                      Falco sparverius

  Eastern Phoebe                        Sayornis phoebe

  House Wren                            Troglodytes aedon

  Marsh Wren                            Cistothorus palustris

  Ruby-crowned Kinglet                  Regulus calendula

  Hermit Thrush                         Catharus guttatus

  Gray Catbird                          Dumetella carolinensis

  Northern Mockingbird                  Mimus polyglottos

  European Starling                     Sturnus vulgaris

  Northern Waterthrush                  Parkesia noveboracensis

  Orange-crowned Warbler                Oreothlypis celata

  Common Yellowthroat                   Geothlypis trichas

  Yellow-rumped Warbler                 Setophaga coronata

  Wilson's Warbler                      Cardellina pusilla

  Lincoln's Sparrow                     Melospiza lincolnii

  Northern Cardinal                     Cardinalis cardinalis

  Red-winged Blackbird                  Agelaius phoeniceus

  Eastern Meadowlark                    Sturnella magna

  Great-tailed Grackle                  Quiscalus mexicanus

  House Sparrow                         Passer domesticus