Firmin and Marie had their Labor Day
Weekend plans all set up in San Antonio, but when Hurricane Harvey got in the
way, they decided to come to the Valley to bird! J They had visited the Valley many times
before, but always in the winter, so this would be a new experience. I try to convince birders that there’s always something to see in the Valley,
no matter what time of year – it’s just that this time of year you need to make sure you do your birding during
the coolest parts of the day! We kind of
threw that out the window, however, as our first destination was South Padre
Island, where the Gulf breeze usually keeps things tolerable! When Harvey made landfall the week before, he
totally missed the Valley (except for a couple of inches of rain in Cameron
County), but he ended up pushing dozens of Magnificent Frigatebirds inland all
along the coast; we even got one in inland Hidalgo County that Dan Jones found
(see previous blog for that adventure)!
So we were hoping there would be some interesting birds still hanging
around the Island.
Alas, we dipped on the frigatebird
(although fellow guide Justin LeClaire did
glimpse one that day), but the Flats were incredible: perfectly dry right up to the water’s edge
(which usually isn’t the case), and instead of most of the birds being hunkered
in one or two large groups, there were birds scattered all over – our initial
plan to skim the shoreline so that Firmin could get some pictures ended up
being kind of a zig zag, as we’d see a pretty Black-bellied Plover over there
and swing over, then some more Piping Plovers or Least Terns in another spot,
and circle around for those! We ended up
logging all the expected plovers,
with lots of Piping, Semipalmated, and Black-bellied (including a heard-only
Killdeer), and most of the expected tern species (I think the only one we
missed was Caspian, which we picked up at the Convention Centre)! Reddish Egrets of both morphs were performing
their dances, and we had a great selection of shorebirds; Justin and Stephanie
were doing Piping Plover surveys (I apparently photographed one he missed J) and told us of a
“special shorebird” around the corner!
He finally spilled the beans when I whined that, now that the pressure
was on J,
I’d probably overlook the thing! But I
needn’t have worried: it’s hard to
overlook a Red Knot that stands out like a giant amongst all the smaller
Sanderlings and Western Sandpipers!
(Actually, we had one hanging with some lazing dowitchers, and even with
them he looked huge!) Other “special” shorebirds included several
Marbled Godwits, a pair of American Oystercatchers, and a Ruddy Turnstone still
in brilliant breeding plumage! In some
of the isolated puddles we had a Black-necked Stilt and a couple of Greater Yellowlegs
looking for breakfast, and on the way out a regal Osprey posed on a wire!
Molting Sanderling
Molting Black-bellied Plover
Piping Plover #55A makes a run for it!
(This is the bird Justin and Stephanie apparently missed...)
The similar Semipalmated Plover
Here are the two together: Piping (above) is the color of dry sand, and the Semipalmated (below) is the color of wet sand!
This guy apparently never got his "bling"!
Marbled Godwits (above and below)
Short-billed Dowitchers (above and below)
Western Sandpiper
Greater Yellowlegs (above and below)
Dancing Reddish Egret (doing the Tango below...)
\
Black-necked Stilt
Snowy Plover
Black Tern
Two similar and potentially confusing terns: the non-breeding Forster's (behind) is easy with his black ear patch, but the Common Tern (in front) is more problematic, as both species are black-capped in breeding plumage. The pale bill tip, darker primaries, and short tail are all good clues for Common.
Another look at the Common Tern
Non-breeding Commons are also pretty straight-forward: the black encompasses the nape, and they have a dark carpal bar which the Forster's lacks.
A Red Knot seemingly dwarfs some lazing dowitchers!
You can see a few of his red belly feathers retained! (above and below)
One Black Skimmer plays the "Dead Skimmer Routine" to the hilt, while his friend shows how razor-thin those bills really are!
Ruddy Turnstone (above and below)
American Oystercatcher
Wilson's Plover shows how big his bill is compared to other small plovers (above and below)!
Osprey (above and below)
We had a hard time tearing ourselves away
from that spot, but the Centre beckoned, and although quiet, we did pick up a few migrants: several Yellow Warblers, a couple of Wilson’s,
and a brilliant male American Redstart were the highlights. Several flycatchers came in; the only ones I
could positively ID were a friendly Yellow-bellied Flycatcher (who peeped for
good measure) and an Eastern Wood Pewee, but what I thought was an Alder
Flycatcher at first (due to a sharp call note and the relative lack of an eye ring)
I reneged on later after scrutinizing the pictures and wrote it off as another
pewee, which can also utter a sharp pik
call. A rest at the gazebo at the base
of the water feature yielded a cooperative Northern Waterthrush, and a short
walk on the boardwalk (still hoping for that frigate) yielded Mottled Ducks,
Pied-billed Grebes, and heard-only Clapper Rails and Least Bitterns. The “east pond” had the usual Roseate
Spoonbills and over-summering Blue-winged Teal.
Yellow-bellied Flycatcher (above and below)
Here's that "Alder Flycatcher" I was having doubts about; thoughts?
Northern Waterthrush (above and below)
After chilling out under the blind at the
end of the boardwalk we had lunch at Daddy’s (which was fabulous; I had the
crawfish etouffee, and they even had frog legs!!), then headed over to
Sheepshead, which was a new spot for them.
But we were shocked: there were
dead trees lying all over, and the north side had been all but cleared
out!! After posting the pictures on
Facebook the mystery was solved post-haste:
they were clearing out the non-native plants with plans to plant native
plants and put in more water features.
But that didn’t stop the birds any:
another Northern Waterthrush
bobbed along the water on the south side (which was untouched as far as I could
tell), along with a Wilson’s Warbler, and a handful of Baltimore Orioles came
in to the water feature on the north side while we sat in the shade of the
kiosk! We were also visited by an Eastern
Kingbird, and upon reflection Firmin felt he had a female Painted Bunting while
Marie and I were focused on something else!
But the best bird was a young male Vermilion Flycatcher, very rare on
the Island any time of year
(definitely was a first for my “Island List”)!
The lot on the north side of Sheepshead
Young male Vermilion Flycatcher
Baltimore Oriole
Loggerhead Shrike (above and below)
Hot Eastern Kingbird
Talk of sod farms led me to consider
Weaver Road, but due to time constraints we decided to make a stop at Tiocano
Lake on the way home. No King Rails sounded off, but we
did pick up some nice birds for the day, including Avocets, Stilt Sandpipers, a
heard-only Pectoral Sandpiper, Common Gallinules, and a Wood Stork that
unfortunately only I saw before he took off… L A nice consolation prize was a family of
Groove-billed Anis along the road! A
huge thunderstorm was to the west, and even though it was heading southwest according to the radar, we figured it would be
best to be prudent and start back home!
That storm was indeed south of the freeway, but we ended up driving
through quite the gully-washer on the way to their hotel!
Firmin and Marie at Tiocano Lake
Wound up with a modest 83 species for the
day. Bird List:
Black-bellied Whistling-Duck
Mottled Duck
Blue-winged Teal
Pied-billed Grebe
Wood Stork
Neotropic Cormorant
Brown Pelican
Least Bittern
Great Blue Heron
Great Egret
Snowy Egret
Little Blue Heron
Tricolored Heron
Reddish Egret
Cattle Egret
Black-crowned Night-Heron
White Ibis
Roseate Spoonbill
Turkey Vulture
Osprey
Clapper Rail
Common Gallinule
American Coot
Black-necked Stilt
American Avocet
American Oystercatcher
Black-bellied Plover
Snowy Plover
Wilson's Plover
Semipalmated Plover
Piping Plover
Killdeer
Greater Yellowlegs
Willet
Marbled Godwit
Ruddy Turnstone
Red Knot
Stilt Sandpiper
Sanderling
Least Sandpiper
Pectoral Sandpiper
Western Sandpiper
Short-billed Dowitcher
Laughing Gull
Least Tern
Gull-billed Tern
Caspian Tern
Black Tern
Common Tern
Forster's Tern
Royal Tern
Sandwich Tern
Black Skimmer
Rock Pigeon
Eurasian Collared-Dove
Mourning Dove
Groove-billed Ani
Lesser Nighthawk
Chimney Swift
Ruby-throated Hummingbird
Golden-fronted Woodpecker
Eastern Wood-Pewee
Yellow-bellied Flycatcher
Vermilion Flycatcher
Great Kiskadee
Eastern Kingbird
Loggerhead Shrike
Barn Swallow
Cave Swallow
Blue-gray Gnatcatcher
Northern Mockingbird
European Starling
Northern Waterthrush
Common Yellowthroat
American Redstart
Yellow Warbler
Wilson's Warbler
Dickcissel
Red-winged Blackbird
Great-tailed Grackle
Orchard Oriole
Baltimore Oriole
House Sparrow
83 SPECIES
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