1/28/2016
Today was the hunt for the Aplomado
Falcon, and I was praying that the old adage, “Third time’s a charm,” would
hold true today, as my last two forays with visiting birders came up
empty! Since Chad also wanted Snowy
Plover, I opted to try Boca Chica first, so we headed straight there on this
beautifully sunny but chilly (37 degrees) morning, with the traditional coffee
pit stop at the Brownsville Dump Stripes!
Turning on to Boca Chica Boulevard,
we didn’t even make it to the checkpoint before a suspicious-looking hawk
stopped us, which was hidden in brush and right in the sun, of course! We parked and got out to get a better look,
and the culprit lifted off and came around in perfect light – a knock-down
gorgeous White-tailed Hawk! What a way
to get a life bird! A little ways past
the checkpoint there’s a dirt road on the right where you can pull off the road
(and there aren’t many places to pull
off the road safely here) where some scanning revealed nothing but thousands of
gulls and a few caracaras at the landfill, but a suspicious pink! got me over to some bushes, and
what I thought might have been a White-throated Sparrow actually turned out to
be a Northern Waterthrush! Unfortunately
Chad missed it, but thankfully it wasn’t a life bird, as it just refused to
come back up (several Yellowthroats were only too obliging, however)!
White-tailed Hawk
One last scan and I suddenly spotted a
falcon shooting eastbound! Thankfully it
landed on the hacking station, and right away I realized why I had probably
missed falcons here before: the spot
where you park is in a direct line with a stunted bush that totally blocks the
hacking station! But even though far
away and with his back to us (actually, Marge found a second bird, clearing up
the “He’s on the left!” “No, he’s on the
right!” argument J), with the zoom
on the scope we were able to see his white supercilium and rusty “pants”! Boy, was Chad a happy camper after that one
(and I was a relieved camper J)!
On we went to the mudflats, where we did
have several shorebirds: the first big
flock was almost entirely made up of Black-bellied Plovers, but we also found
several Least and Western Sandpipers, the latter which was another lifer for
Chad! We also found Willets and a
Sanderling, and Chad spotted a nice buffy Long-billed Curlew, but during one
scan I did hear a Snowy Plover, so I
pulled out the scope and started looking – no banana. We scoured every flat we could find after
that, and still no Snowy; I was very bummed!
(Chad was gratified with his life Gull-billed Tern that batted by… J)
But heading down to the beach to turn around, Marge was thrilled to see
the wild waves of the Gulf and test the waters – I was surprised that we were
the only ones down there (besides a couple of Ring-billed Gulls)!
"Marge" on Boca Chica Beach
From there we had to decide whether to try
for more plovers at South Padre, or try for Cassin’s Sparrow along Old Port
Isabel Road (OPIR), so seeing as time was getting short we opted for OPIR,
picking up a Red-shouldered Hawk along the road on the way. The canal not far past the railroad tracks
had several Neotropic Cormorants, a Snowy Egret, a Pied-billed Grebe, and
several Coots. The previously impassable
spot at the mile point was now dry, but the road was still horribly rutted, so
we poked along, enjoying the Savannah Sparrows and Yellow-rumped Warblers that popped
up, but no Cassin’s. An incongruous pair
of Vermilion Flycatchers was on the highest of the high wires, and Chad spotted
a flock of White Pelicans soaring ahead of us.
Several Harriers rocked over the fields, but additional Aplomados proved
evasive. We got as far as a point where
they basically had re-built an alternate road around the mud, but after that it
truly was impassable with mud and
deep ruts, so we turned around and called it a day after that, but not before
spotting a huge Indigo Snake that was
trying to warm up by the side of the road!
This Indigo Snake was passively sunning along the road!
With "Diggory the Subaru"
Detail of the front end
Bird List:
Black-bellied Whistling-Duck
Mottled Duck
Northern Pintail
Northern Bobwhite
Pied-billed Grebe
Neotropic Cormorant
Double-crested Cormorant
American White Pelican
Great Blue Heron
Great Egret
Snowy Egret
Tricolored Heron
White Ibis
Turkey Vulture
Osprey
Northern Harrier
Harris's Hawk
White-tailed Hawk
Red-shouldered Hawk
Sora
American Coot
Black-bellied Plover
Snowy Plover
Killdeer
Greater Yellowlegs
Willet
Long-billed Curlew
Ruddy Turnstone
Sanderling
Least Sandpiper
Western Sandpiper
Long-billed Dowitcher
Laughing Gull
Ring-billed Gull
Gull-billed Tern
Rock Pigeon
Belted Kingfisher
Golden-fronted Woodpecker
Ladder-backed Woodpecker
Crested Caracara
American Kestrel
Aplomado Falcon
Eastern Phoebe
Vermilion Flycatcher
Great Kiskadee
Loggerhead Shrike
White-eyed Vireo
Horned Lark
House Wren
Cactus Wren
Northern Mockingbird
American Pipit
Northern Waterthrush
Orange-crowned Warbler
Common Yellowthroat
Yellow-rumped Warbler
Savannah Sparrow
Lincoln's Sparrow
Pyrrhuloxia
Eastern Meadowlark
Great-tailed Grackle
61 SPECIES
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