Jury duty precluded me from taking Chuck and David out on Tuesday, so after a very successful day in Cameron County with Michael Marsden (they got the Aplomado Falcon right off the bat, so everything after that is always gravy J), we headed up to Starr County to try and bag some of those specialties. It was to be the start of the Big Bad Front that was to blanket the Valley for the next several days, and as we arrived at the Salineño boat ramp, it was indeed spitting, but that didn’t stop Chuck from donning his mauve umbrella and joining another couple at the ramp to look for Red-billed Pigeons and Muscovy Ducks! Unfortunately the pigeons had been seen earlier (and in fact Chuck thought he saw a couple fly over, but I didn’t get a good enough look), but an Osprey claimed a big stump mid-river in the rain, and the Spotted Sandpiper was still hanging around. A nice policeman who was guarding the area came over and offered to take our picture, and we all gave him a briefing on the importance of this little corner of the Rio Grande to Valley birding and tourism! We encouraged him to check out the feeders, and he sounded intrigued!
Chuck schmoozes with another birding couple already at the boat ramp
A friendly cop insists on taking our picture!
Altamira Oriole
"Baldy" the Audubon's Oriole
Ladder-backed Woodpecker
After that we took up river watch again,
wherein I parked so that we could scan from inside the car if it got too wet
outside. The Osprey hadn’t moved, but a
dark raptor over in Mexico (that had been initially ID’d as a Turkey Vulture
earlier) had shifted positions, so a look through David’s scope revealed it to
be an immature White-tailed Hawk! That
was a lifer, but on the wrong side of the river, unfortunately, so he’d have to
wait for that one.
After awhile we decided to cruise around
Falcon State Park as the rain kept coming.
(We were warned not to take the Dump Road, as someone had apparently dug
some pretty good ruts…) David spotted a
bird on the fence coming in that turned out to be an Ash-throated Flycatcher
making his little pit-pert call – an
unexpected lifer! (I thought it was
early, but EBird liked it…) A Cassin’s Sparrow was also singing on the way in,
so we stopped long enough for Chuck to hear it sing so he could add it to his
year list! J The
only real target bird we could pick up here for David was Scaled Quail, so
after making the loop and not seeing anything besides a Roadrunner, we decided
to check out Falcon County Park next door, where we ran into this other couple
who told us that they had just seen the pigeons! So we thanked them and made the rounds
ourselves, adding Vermilion Flycatcher and a singing House Finch to the list,
but we were just about to give up hope when David spotted one in one of the
coma trees! It flew to a dead tree, so
we headed up that road, where it then flew to another coma tree even closer to
us! What a look! He ate a couple of berries before taking off
(they’ve always been very skittish), and we left as happy campers!
Ash-throated Flycatcher
Lichen on the trees
Red-billed Pigeon lands on a dead tree...
...then over to a Coma Tree where he can get his berries!
We then discussed seedeater options: rather than drive all the way up to Zapata,
we decided to try the Salineño Trail (if it wasn’t raining), and then check out
Roma Bluffs, as they had been reported
there. Chuck opted to sit that one out
and river watch instead (the Osprey still hadn’t moved), so David and I headed
down. No seedeaters, but at the
cul-de-sac we did have a marvelous
look at a couple of Gray Hawks (one flying and one in the tree), and heard a
Red-shouldered Hawk to add to the list.
We kicked up another pair of Olive Sparrows, and back at the car, a nice
Scissor-tailed Flycatcher drifted by just before we left!
Immovable Osprey at the river
We headed to Roma Bluffs after that, where
there was a huge flock of Cliff Swallows wheeling overhead, but we couldn’t
pick out a Cave amongst them. A nice
Border Patrol guy pointed us to a “safer” access to the trail down below the
overlook where people had been seeing the seedeaters before: there was
a trail there up at the top, but it went down some stairs that he said could be
slippery, so he had us take the street past the VC, make a right, and then
another right on this gravel road that went right down to that trail (which is actually a Border Patrol access road, I
think). But it was okay to park there,
so we found a shady spot where Chuck could chill (yes, the sun had come out by
then) and schmooze with the BP guys who were on watch there. David and I checked out the trail in both
directions as far as we could go, and there is indeed a lot of cane, but we
neither heard nor saw any seedeaters (nor much of anything else, really), but
it was a beautiful trail with tall tepeguaje trees (and other species, I’m
sure).
View of the Rio Grande from the Roma Bluffs overlook
The River Trail, where White-collared Seedeaters had been reported
At the east end of the road, an actual trail goes through the vegetation (you can see the international bridge in the background)
The road going west of the bridge
Looking east towards the bridge
It was time to go home after that, with a
surprising 65 species for the day, considering the weather! Bird list:
Gadwall
Mottled Duck
Plain Chachalaca
Neotropic Cormorant
Double-crested Cormorant
Great Blue Heron
Great Egret
Cattle Egret
Turkey Vulture
Osprey
Harris's Hawk
White-tailed Hawk
Red-shouldered Hawk
Gray Hawk
American Coot
Killdeer
Spotted Sandpiper
Caspian Tern
Rock Pigeon
Red-billed Pigeon
Eurasian Collared-Dove
White-winged Dove
Mourning Dove
Inca Dove
White-tipped Dove
Greater Roadrunner
Golden-fronted Woodpecker
Ladder-backed Woodpecker
Crested Caracara
American Kestrel
Eastern Phoebe
Vermilion Flycatcher
Ash-throated Flycatcher
Great Kiskadee
Couch's Kingbird
Scissor-tailed Flycatcher
Loggerhead Shrike
White-eyed Vireo
Green Jay
Northern Rough-winged Swallow
Barn Swallow
Cliff Swallow
Black-crested Titmouse
Verdin
House Wren
Bewick's Wren
Blue-gray Gnatcatcher
Ruby-crowned Kinglet
Long-billed Thrasher
Northern Mockingbird
European Starling
Orange-crowned Warbler
Yellow-rumped Warbler
Olive Sparrow
Cassin's Sparrow
Lark Sparrow
Northern Cardinal
Pyrrhuloxia
Red-winged Blackbird
Western Meadowlark
Great-tailed Grackle
Altamira Oriole
Audubon's Oriole
House Finch
House Sparrow
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