I initially was going to survey the Boca
Chica Route this morning, but after getting wind of a pair of Swallow-tailed
Kites that had apparently bedded down near the McAllen Parrot Roost Thursday
night, my friend Baceliza and I headed out there early Friday morning to see if
we could find them before they lifted off.
We got a good exercise walk instead J but did find the
giant oak woodland in a gated community that the birds had apparently gone to,
seeing tons of Clay-colored Thrushes and a few Orchard Orioles. The best bird was a young Gray Hawk that we
flushed.
Immature Gray Hawk in an urban neighborhood in McAllen
But in conversation it came out that she
had never seen a Ferruginous Pygmy Owl, and the one up along Brushline Road was
still being reported, so she and her husband Alan were game to go after that
Saturday, and by promising my friend Pat that we’d wrap up by 10:00 J we talked her
into coming as well! So after meeting at
the Flying J in Edinburg we all piled into Heppy and headed up. Just after turning north onto Brushline from
SR 186 I stopped and stepped out long enough to start the eBird list, and the
place was alive with birdsong: the first
thing to hit the air after I got out was a flyover Upland Sandpiper! A Long-billed Curlew came by shortly after
that, and besides the Common Nighthawk beenting
overhead, there were lots of Verdin, Olive Sparrows, a Curve-billed Thrasher
(amongst the abundant Mockingbirds), Kiskadees, Bewick’s Wrens, Yellow-billed
Cuckoos, and even a distant Roadrunner!
Pat, Alan, and Baceliza comb the mesquites for the elusive Ferruginous Pygmy Owl
The spot where the owl was hanging out was
only a mile up the road, so we headed up there and parked, scrutinizing the
mesquites carefully. Pat wandered down
the road until she heard some Mockingbirds mobbing something and waved us all
down, and after some diligent looking, Baceliza did find a blob that looked the right size and shape, and looked to
be turning its head, but being against the light it was hard to tell. Pat only saw a blob, and I couldn’t find it
at all before it was suddenly gone (and the cacophony suddenly ended as well),
so I would have been willing to bet an ice cream that was probably the
Ferruginous Pygmy, but for poor Baceliza that just wasn’t a countable
look. We comforted her with the fact
that the thing’s been reported almost daily for a couple of months, so she and
Alan would undoubtedly have more chances, now that they knew the area it had
been showing up (along with a second bird according to some reports), and to
follow the mobbing!
We continued north after that, getting
great looks at the cuckoo family:
Yellow-billed Cuckoos, Groove-billed Anis, and even a pair of
Roadrunners trotting down the road in front of us, wagging their tails as they
went! The ranch entrance at the end of
Chapa Road was hopping with three female/young flycatchers: Vermilion,
Scissor-tailed, and an unidentified kingbird!
An odd thick-billed thing popped up and left that after much mulling
over I finally decided was a young Blue Grosbeak, and while we heard Cactus
Wren we never did see one. One of the
oddest birds was a flyover Green Heron, which we saw later on a wire!
Yellow-billed Cuckoo (that was sitting right in the open until I got the camera out...)
Groove-billed Ani
Pat was interested in getting Botteri’s
Sparrow for the county, as this was an area I’d had them in the past, but not
recently, and not today, alas. We did hear a distant Cassin’s, and several
Lark Sparrows and even a couple of Black-throated made an appearance. Mourning Doves were out the yin yang, so we
had to scrutinize the flocks on the road before plowing through them to make
sure we weren’t ignoring Bobwhite, Pyrrhuloxias, or even Ground Doves! After Brushline turned east we spotted a
single Harris’s Hawk in a tree, and at the farm pond at the end of the road a
good number of water birds were concentrated as most of it was dry: lots of Black-necked Stilts and Snowy Egrets
(with a token Great flying around), a handful of both yellowlegs, and a few
Semipalmated Sandpipers in amongst all the Leasts. Coming back out, the road-killed Armadillo we
had passed had suddenly been discovered by a cadre of both Black and Turkey
Vultures and a whole gang of Caracaras!
That was quite the show, especially watching the caracaras throwing
their heads back and rattling at each other!
Crested Caracara pair on a pole (where they usually are)
...and on the ground, where they sometimes are when there's been a road kill! (Turkey Vulture on the right - even though they're bigger, I've noticed that they tend to defer to the Caracaras...)
These are all youngsters, as what will be white as an adult is now creamy, but the one with a blue face is even younger!
Many more wait their turn in a tree (note the guy on the upper right throwing his head back in a rattle)!
We took it slow going back by the owl spot, but didn’t hear any mobbing, so called it quits for that eBird report. But that wasn’t the end of the birding as we picked up tons of Cave Swallows nesting under the overpass at the freeway, and Pat spotted a Swainson’s Hawk at the Flying J parking lot! For a short morning, we didn’t do badly with 55 species. Bird List:
Northern Bobwhite
Great Egret
Snowy Egret
Cattle Egret
Green Heron
Black Vulture
Turkey Vulture
Harris's Hawk
Swainson's Hawk
Black-necked Stilt
Greater Yellowlegs
Lesser Yellowlegs
Upland Sandpiper
Long-billed Curlew
Least Sandpiper
Semipalmated Sandpiper
Laughing Gull
Eurasian Collared-Dove
Mourning Dove
Inca Dove
Common Ground-Dove
Yellow-billed Cuckoo
Greater Roadrunner
Groove-billed Ani
Common Nighthawk
Golden-fronted Woodpecker
Ladder-backed Woodpecker
Crested Caracara
Vermilion Flycatcher
Brown-crested Flycatcher
Great Kiskadee
Couch's Kingbird
Scissor-tailed Flycatcher
Green Jay
Purple Martin
Cave Swallow
Black-crested Titmouse
Verdin
Bewick's Wren
Cactus Wren
Curve-billed Thrasher
Northern Mockingbird
European Starling
Olive Sparrow
Cassin's Sparrow
Lark Sparrow
Northern Cardinal
Pyrrhuloxia
Blue Grosbeak
Painted Bunting
Red-winged Blackbird
Eastern Meadowlark
Great-tailed Grackle
Orchard Oriole
House Sparrow
55 SPECIES
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