What an adventure! We started out by heading to Sabal Palm
Sanctuary in Brownsville, and after lauding to Mike what a success story the
place has been, we drove up only to discover the gates were shut – I had
totally forgotten they were closed on Wednesdays! L So we headed straight to Boca Chica Boulevard
from there, going the back way which pretty much parallels the Rio Grande and the Border
Wall. As we were headed north Mike
noticed a “bird-nado” in the distance, and as we got closer, we saw a
tremendous flock of Red-winged Blackbirds in, around, and over someone’s
yard! They literally carpeted the lawn
and filled the roadside trees! But try
as we might, we couldn’t pick out a Yellow-headed…
Mass of Red-winged Blackbirds in someone's yard
The birds settle across the street to give us good looks!
So once at SR 4 we headed east, and just
as we were getting ready to pass the checkpoint Mike announced that he had a
possible falcon on a post! So by the
time I could stop I was already past the checkpoint, so we turned around and
went through, explaining to the (probably) puzzled Border Patrol guys that we
thought we saw an Aplomado Falcon and wanted to check it out (and that we’d be
coming back)! The guys smiled and
shrugged and waved us through, and as we crawled up to the post, we discovered
that the Post Bird was actually an Osprey!
He was very cooperative for pictures, but as Mike snapped away I had a
suspiciously-shaped bird about two poles down the road on a wire, so after the
Osprey took off, we crawled some more to discover a very cooperative Aplomado Falcon who let us come right up to
him! What a beauty!
Osprey
An Aplomado Falcon checks us out as we crawl closer for pictures!
So we swung around and continued down the
road, stopping at one point where I heard a Verdin, and who did come out, but in terrible
light! A Harris’ Hawk was more
cooperative, and we could see that he had been banded, probably by Bill Clark,
our own “raptor man”! We shortly came to
the dirt access road to the refuge where we crawled along, first stopping at
the overlook where we interestingly had an adult and immature Altamira
Oriole! Other things like Yellowthroats
and sparrows were being stubborn, so we headed on, stopping at what looked like
good Cactus Wren habitat, but while we heard a couple, they just didn’t wanna “play
ball” as Mike liked to put it. A
Bewick’s Wren was a little more cooperative, and a White-eyed Vireo allowed
fleeting glimpses along with an Orange-crowned Warbler, but the Ruby-crowned
Kinglet was content to rattle at us. At
one point I heard some croaking overhead and four Chihuahuan Ravens drifted
over, shortly catching a thermal with four Black Vultures and a White-tailed
Hawk! A pair of Yellowthroats hopped up
on the wire, but birds on wires and autofocus cameras sometimes don’t mix… L
Color-banded Harris' Hawk
Mike gets his own photo!
Father and son Altamira Orioles
Close-up of Dad...
Young male Common Yellowthroat calling
Turning the corner we had more stubborn
Verdins, but the prize was a Beardless Tyrannulet that wheeK!ed at us and did allow brief views, but in the sun and not where
Mike could get a photo. While we were
trying to lure him out an apparently large covey of Bobwhite were making all
sorts of interesting noises on the other side of the bushes! We took it slow on the way out and still
didn’t manage the Cactus Wren, although something flew across the road and
promptly disappeared that looked suspicious…
From there Mike was more interested in
“scrubby birding” than shorebirds, so he indulged me long enough to stop at the
“Happy Face” and look for Xami Hairstreak, a rare and local butterfly that I
knew was somewhere along Boca Chica Boulevard but had never found, until
Kristy, another one of our guests, had found them a couple of days previously
and told me exactly where to
look! When we parked another carful of
butterfliers happened to be getting ready to leave, and they confirmed the road
to walk down, so while Mike trolled for more Bewick’s Wrens and Verdins, I
headed down the road and found one of the little buggers right away! For some reason the macro on my camera didn’t
want to work, so not wanting to leave Mike too long I headed back a little
disappointed, but about that point I noticed a Bewick’s Wren right on top of a
palmetto! I managed to get Mike and we
headed back down the road, and finally the bird cooperated and Mike was able to
get a cracking photograph of the wren!
By now he was curious about the butterfly (and I wanted to try for a
better picture J) so we scoured the succulent plants that
were their host plants and did manage to scare another one up, and this time was able to get a decent
photo! Mike commented that it looked
very similar to their Green Hairstreak in Britain.
First attempt at shooting the rare Xami Hairstreak...
Meanwhile, a Bewick's Wren sits up for a look!
The Xami Hairstreak poses as well!
From there we turned around and headed
back to SR 511, stopping to photograph a family group of Harris’ Hawks on the
way. This time when we went through the
checkpoint we had a different agent who was actually making a point of studying
the local birds (he even had one of those laminated ID cards that we sell at
the Inn)! I showed him a picture of the
Aplomado Falcon since he wasn’t aware of that one, and told him that birders
from all over the world come down this road to see that bird! I think he was duly impressed!
From there we headed up to Old Port Isabel
Road, which was fairly quiet except for a flock of about 40 Long-billed Curlews
that flew across the road ahead of us; thankfully a few individual flew
overhead after we stopped! Again, we
stopped several times to troll for Cactus Wrens, but never heard a one;
pipeline traffic was pretty heavy, and at one point a fellow from Beaumont who
was down here working on the project stopped to chat; he was quite a character! By the time we made it up to the work area,
it initially looked as though the road was blocked with vehicles, but they made
room (one well-dressed guy warned us about the shape of the road up ahead, but
I assuaged his concerns J).
Once past the work area the road wasn’t as
bad as it has been in the past; the
“wetland” spot where they actually rebuilt the road was a little dicey, but it
was at that spot that we heard a couple of Sedge Wrens! Neither wanted to come out, of course, and
truth be told that was probably the most exciting thing on the whole
route! Some Mottled Ducks were in the
canal, but other bird life was pretty sparse except for a pair of Caracaras (or
Mexican Eagles as the guy from Beaumont called them…).
Dicey Old Port Isabel Road
Crested Caracara
So from there we headed to South Padre
with what little time we had, as I had actually talked Mike into trying for the
Tamaulipas Crow that was hanging out there!
The last report had him hanging around a dumpster near the La Quinta, so
when I saw a large caliche parking area, that’s where we pulled in and just
crawled around the circle, and just as we were approaching the exit, there was
the crow, flying in front of us! He
landed on a lamppost in the construction area across the street, but the minute
I took my eyes off him to watch the traffic, he was gone! L So we decided to head on to the Convention
Centre as Mike wanted to try for more songbirds.
After parking, I left Mike to poke around
on his own while I visited the restroom, and upon exiting I made the rounds
around the “circular area” looking for him, and found the Centre’s “pet” White
Ibis pair probing the grass instead, with one of them trying to gag down a baby
turtle! When I finally found Mike he was
in the area where all the action had been the last time we were there, but
aside from a Phoebe, it was pretty dead (plus the guy with the blower was
making the rounds), so after a quick look at the South Pond to pad the list, we
started home with the plan to try for the crow one last time for a photograph.
Monarchs are still migrating through!
Well!
While passing the La Quinta there was a little band of birders with
cameras pointed skyward led by Gavi Gonzales (the naturalist at the Birding
Center), and there was the crow on a post!
We wheeled into the caliche parking area again, and while the crow
initially flew to a palm, he eventually flew back across the street and allowed
everyone to get cracking photos while he perched on a variety of places! That was a very fitting end to the day as,
during his whole trip Mike had been very reticent to chase a crow despite my
periodic nagging that he “needed this bird”, and after finally caving in he
admitted that, for a crow, it was very “smart” looking, and he seemed just as
excited as the other birders to secure a good photo! I teased him by saying this was a classic
“Green Eggs and Ham” moment (and if you don’t get the joke, you’ve missed a
classic Dr. Seuss book J)!
Happy birders enjoying the rare Tamaulipas Crow (circled)!
Here he is on the right with a pair of Great-tailed Grackles on the left for comparison.
He's quite small for a crow, and has a strange, frog-like croak. They seem to be making a comeback to the Valley after a ten-year hiatus!
Headed home with 63 species for the day
(those in italics were heard-only, and the parakeets were added after I got
home…)
Gadwall
Mottled Duck
Blue-winged Teal Northern Bobwhite
Double-crested Cormorant
Brown Pelican
Great Egret
Tricolored Heron
White Ibis
Roseate Spoonbill
Black Vulture
Turkey Vulture
Osprey
Northern Harrier
Harris's Hawk
White-tailed Hawk
Clapper Rail
Common Gallinule
American Coot
Greater Yellowlegs
Long-billed Curlew
Laughing Gull
Rock Pigeon
Eurasian Collared-Dove
White-winged Dove
Belted Kingfisher
Golden-fronted Woodpecker
Ladder-backed Woodpecker
Crested Caracara
American Kestrel
Aplomado Falcon
Green Parakeet (at the Inn)
Northern Beardless-Tyrannulet
Eastern Phoebe
Great Kiskadee
Loggerhead Shrike
White-eyed Vireo
Green Jay
Tamaulipas Crow
Chihuahuan Raven
Verdin
House Wren
Sedge Wren
Marsh Wren
Bewick's Wren
Cactus Wren
Ruby-crowned Kinglet
Curve-billed Thrasher
Long-billed Thrasher
Northern Mockingbird
European Starling
American Pipit
Orange-crowned Warbler
Common Yellowthroat
Olive Sparrow
Savannah Sparrow
Lincoln's Sparrow
Northern Cardinal
Red-winged Blackbird
Eastern Meadowlark
Great-tailed Grackle
Altamira Oriole
House Sparrow
63 SPECIES
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