Bud and Beverly were “700 Clubbers” who
were building up their year lists, and were on a magnificent road trip that
included the Valley (to which they had visited many times)! But Bud had heard about the infamous Old Port
Isabel Road (OPIR), and they had indeed tried it once but had to turn back, so
seeing the road and the Aplomado
Falcon for the year was a high priority!
In the meantime Beverly had gone over their trip list and had a handful
of things she really wanted for the year, and American Golden Plover was on the
top! White-tailed Kite was a close
second, so the first place we headed to was the Progresso Sod Farms seeing as I
had noticed that they had just watered it when we were there on Tuesday.
Heading up the dirt road (and you really
have to know where to turn on that thing), there surprisingly wasn’t much
except grackles on the west side, but the east side (and thankfully the angle
of the sun wasn’t too bad yet) did
indeed had a handful of the plovers; “Mission accomplished!” exclaimed Beverly! Having bagged that bird we cut over on Baker
to head to the Progresso Silos, as they said they could use Yellow-headed
Blackbird for the trip/year, but I couldn’t believe it: all the blackbirds were gone and replaced by a ton of pigeons! We did find a group of cowbirds (both kinds),
and picked up Collared Dove for the day, but the consolation prize was a
Peregrine Falcon on top of one of the silo towers!
They actually hadn’t seen Green Jay yet,
and since Bud was interested overall in some of these back roads I take, I
decided to do the Cannon Road Loop next.
Just before the woods were two immature White-tailed Hawks, and going
slowly through the woods, we didn’t pick up Green Jay, but we were able to bag
Verdin and Bewick’s Wren for the trip. The
best bird along here was a Common Ground Dove that flushed and then perched in
the open in perfect light! Cruising
around the ag fields (we didn’t go up on the reservoir) was pretty barren, but
we were still hoping for the elusive White-tailed Kite.
Weaver Road also turned out to be pretty lifeless, so since everyone was
ready for a break, we headed up Rangerville Road to the freeway and
stopped at a convenience store before heading to OPIR.
Common Ground Dove along Cannon Road
Even though we dipped on the Aplomado
here, the road was pretty productive:
right at the get-go we had a pair of Chihuahuan Ravens, and at the
hacking station stop we picked up three Whimbrel by the road! We had several singing Cassin’s Sparrows with
a few that actually sat up on the fence or cactus, and a Cactus Wren sat up on
a yucca and sang (Derek shoulda been with us…)!
Another immature White-tailed Hawk soared very low overhead for great
views, a handsome Caracara strutted through a field, and at one point in the
road a pair of Horned Larks hopped and ran and flew on ahead of us for quite a while! At the canal there was a congregation of both
Great and Snowy Egrets, Roseate Spoonbills, and a couple of Neotropic
Cormorants. The road was actually in
pretty good shape, and we made it to the north end unscathed (but with no
falcon), so we continued on to the “Blue Shack” and pulled over. I saw a falcon further on that was
inconclusive from where we were, so we got back on SR 100 and got up even with
it before pulling off, and it indeed turned out to be the Aplomado!
Whimbrel along OPIR (above and below)
Crested Caracara
Blooming cactus
Having that in the bank, we headed over to
South Padre with the main target being Least Bittern, but also anything coastal
for the trip (they weren’t too worried about the latter as they were heading to
Corpus the next week). I told them about
The Flats, and they were interested, so thankfully we could get in there (there
were whitecaps on Laguna Madre, so I wasn’t sure if the wind had blown the
water clear up to the kiosk or not), and there were tons of birds! Three
different gangs had lots of Black Skimmers (that outnumbered the Laughing
Gulls, interestingly), plus the three big terns represented. Shorebirds included the regular Dunlin,
Willets, Marbled Godwits, Sanderlings, and Ruddy Turnstones (I thought I had a
distant Piping Plover, but the thing vanished by the time we got over there).
Three Royal Terns plus a Caspian (with the black-tipped red bill) post in front of a group of Black Skimmers
Marbled Godwit
Snoozing Dunlin (you can see them starting to get their black bellies)
Next was the Convention Centre, where we
hit the boardwalk first, and right away a group of birders already had the
Least Bittern already in a scope! That
was very handy! J
I was distracted by a pair of Brown Anoles "making more anoles" right there on the railing, but another passerby broke up the orgy and I only got the male on film... The Belted Kingfisher eluded us (I thought I heard it but I think it
turned out to be a grackle making noises), but we picked up a lot of day birds
like Sora, Redhead, Mottled Duck, Blue-winged Teal, and Common Gallinule. Another birder had a Green Heron on the nest
in his scope, so that was cool to see! The
Clapper Rails were still silent (even another birder, who may have been leading
the group, mentioned that she hadn’t been hearing them), but from the end of
the boardwalk we managed to bag the white morph Reddish Egret for the day, and
the Osprey was on that same stump in the mudflats that everyone on Facebook
seems to be photographing! J The garden area was birdless (except for a
tame White Ibis), as were the Sheepshead Lots (although a Prothonotary Warbler
had just been seen before we walked up), so after perusing Beverly’s “need
list” (and seeing that there hadn’t been any recent reports of close-by kites
or Anhingas), we decided to head down to the SR 48 Boat Ramp to try for
American Oystercatcher for the trip.
Brown Anole (above and below)
Green Heron on the nest
I had heard it was better to visit this
place in the afternoon, and they were right:
the lighting was just perfect! I
was just setting up the scope when the oystercatcher flew right by at point
blank and landed, giving us great views!
Scanning the rest of the birds gathered there added Herring Gull,
Forster’s Tern, and both Semipalmated and Wilson’s Plovers to the day list, and
a high-pitched, harsh kidick kidick
announced the presence of my FOS Least Terns!
Beverly was very happy to get that! J
The resident American Oystercatcher pays us a visit!
About that time my friend Pat called and
announced that she had a Western Tanager in her yard back in Alamo, so when I
asked Beverly if they wanted to try for that, she had an “is the Pope
Catholic?” look on her face J so off we went
(still looking for White-tailed Kite on the way)! I called Pat back to let her know we were
coming, and by that time my boss Keith had made it down there and saw the bird
just before something spooked it! L We figured it might stick around (Pat said it
looked tired), so the time flew on the drive back as Beverly shared their
ancestral history (right back to Revolutionary times), and before long we were
back in Alamo and poking through Pat’s yard, but all we could scare up were her
“pet” Chachalacas. I offered to take
them down Alamo Road for a last-ditch effort at the kite, but they were “all
done in” as they say, so we called it quits with a nice round total of 90
species for the day! Bird List:
Black-bellied Whistling-Duck
Mottled Duck
Blue-winged Teal
Redhead
Plain Chachalaca
Neotropic Cormorant
Brown Pelican
Least Bittern
Great Blue Heron
Great Egret
Snowy Egret
Little Blue Heron
Tricolored Heron
Reddish Egret
Cattle Egret
Green Heron
White Ibis
Roseate Spoonbill
Turkey Vulture
Osprey
White-tailed Hawk
Sora
Common Gallinule
American Coot
Black-necked Stilt
American Oystercatcher
Black-bellied Plover
American Golden-Plover
Wilson's Plover
Semipalmated Plover
Killdeer
Greater Yellowlegs
Willet
Lesser Yellowlegs
Whimbrel
Marbled Godwit
Ruddy Turnstone
Sanderling
Dunlin
Short-billed Dowitcher
Laughing Gull
Herring Gull
Least Tern
Caspian Tern
Forster's Tern
Royal Tern
Sandwich Tern
Black Skimmer
Rock Pigeon
Eurasian Collared-Dove
White-winged Dove
Mourning Dove
Common Ground-Dove
White-tipped Dove
Golden-fronted Woodpecker
Ladder-backed Woodpecker
Crested Caracara
American Kestrel
Aplomado Falcon
Peregrine Falcon
Great Kiskadee
Tropical Kingbird
Couch's Kingbird
Scissor-tailed Flycatcher
White-eyed Vireo
Chihuahuan Raven
Horned Lark
Northern Rough-winged Swallow
Purple Martin
Barn Swallow
Cliff Swallow
Verdin
House Wren
Carolina Wren
Bewick's Wren
Cactus Wren
Curve-billed Thrasher
Northern Mockingbird
European Starling
Common Yellowthroat
Olive Sparrow
Cassin's Sparrow
Savannah Sparrow
Northern Cardinal
Red-winged Blackbird
Eastern Meadowlark
Great-tailed Grackle
Bronzed Cowbird
Brown-headed Cowbird
House Sparrow
