For my last adventure with Mike, we headed
out to explore the back roads of Willacy County. Since he showed a liking for “bushy birding”
(and he still needed that perfect Verdin photo), I opted to do the Santa Monica
Wetlands route first thing. The route I
survey starts in Willamar on the corner of FM 490 and FM 1420 and heads south,
but for guiding purposes the only profitable stop is the canal, and we hit pay
dirt this time! Lines of White Pelicans
and cormorants of both flavors were constantly filing overhead, and we had a
nice mix of water-related birds including Great Blue Heron, Mottled Ducks,
Spotted Sandpiper, Common Yellowthroat, and even a pair of Green Kingfishers! The pelicans were flying low enough that you
could hear their wing whistle!
White Pelicans sailing overhead
Double-crested Cormorants
Once we got on dirt Flores Road we started
the crawling bit, although I did stop in the general area where I had had
Audubon’s Orioles in the past. We just
had a whistling Altamira this time, and as we crawled along we added the normal
thornscrub fare. When the road turned
south and became Citation, we saw a string of geese in the distance, and as we
got out to look, the more we looked, the more strings came into view, until we
figured we had at least 200 Snow Geese flying by! A couple of flocks came close enough that I
could discern a smaller Ross’.
Making the turn onto unmarked Wildlife
Drive (which accesses yet another tract of the Lower Rio Grande NWR), we
stopped at every Verdin chink until finally one came right out in the open
in perfect light, and Mike finally got his picture! I was so relieved! An Olive Sparrow made a brief appearance, and
I also heard the WheeK! of a
Beardless Tyrannulet; what surprised me was that eBird didn’t flag it (as it
does for Cameron County), but after consulting the TOS Handbook I saw that it’s
the coastal areas that it doesn’t
inhabit; they occur all the way up into the King Ranch! Harris’ Hawks were as cooperative as ever,
watching us from the power poles, and at one stop a pale belly gliding by
behind the trees turned out to be a Harrier scattering everything!
Harris' Hawk
Savannah Sparrow
Orange-crowned Warbler
Mike looking for that elusive Verdin along Wildlife Drive
He finally gets it!! (Photo ©2017 Mike Kempton)
After turning back onto Citation, there’s
an old open shed where we had found owls in the past, so as we slowly crawled
up, sure enough, a Great Horned flew up into the rafters enough to see his
“ears” going back and forth, but unfortunately Mike couldn’t get on him until
he flew out the back and into the thornscrub. L We continued on, enjoying a lovely White-tailed
Kite flying around and finally landing on a wire. We made the turn onto Old Alice, and as that road turned south we had a
beautiful White-tailed Hawk on a pole!
After a bit I was shocked to see a sign for the “Grace Heritage Ranch
Nature Trail” up ahead; that was totally
new since I had last done the route! So
I talked Mike into trying it out:
there’s a shorter half mile loop and a longer mile loop (we took the
former) and really didn’t see anything except a fussing flock that we were
hoping was mobbing an owl, but we couldn’t find the perp. Got some much-needed exercise in, anyway!
White-tailed Hawk...
...not to be confused with White-tailed Kite!
A brand new nature trail at Grace Heritage Ranch!
Mike tries to find out what the birds are fussing about...
Continuing up onto the levee we headed to
the eastern end where a gate forces a turnaround, and then retraced our steps
back past Old Alice Road, past the actual Santa Monica Wetlands (which were dry
as a bone) and eventually on to FM 1420.
Along the way we picked up Horned Larks, a couple of Eastern
Meadowlarks, a heard-only Sandhill Crane, and yet another Sprague’s Pipit! Heading north from there and west on FM 1018,
we checked out “Primrose Path” (CR 375 on Google Maps) where historically we’ve
had Prairie Falcons and Mountain Plovers, but no luck this time – even the pond
that can be very productive was bone dry!
So that road was a bust (and when you look at the satellite version of
the area in Google Maps and realize how many fields those plovers have to
choose from, you realize what kind of a miracle it would be to happen upon
some)!
We had just enough time to check out Port
Mansfield, so dumping out on FM 498 we returned to FM 1420 and headed north,
but suddenly I spotted an Armadillo feeding along the road right out in the
open! I slowed and pulled over, asking
Mike if he wanted to go back for it, and about the time he said, “yes,” we
noticed a blob in the grass ahead of us which turned out to be an adult
Cooper’s Hawk! Thank God there was no
traffic as I straddled the road so Mike could get a crippling photo of the
thing! And what was even more amazing was yet
another Armadillo routing around in the grass just beyond the hawk! After the hawk left the Armadillo scampered
into the bushes before we could get a shot…
Cooper's Hawk (Photo ©2017 Mike Kempton)
We headed up to SR 186 and blasted east (and
pointed out Sacahuistale Flats on the fly) to Port Mansfield and the Laguna
Madre Rec Area. Padded the list with a
few coastal birds, but nothing unusual (a white morph Reddish Egret was nice),
before heading over to Fred Stone County Park (and enjoying all the
White-tailed Deer; I warned Mike that he’d probably see more than he’d ever
want to see in his life J)!
I had never been to the area in the afternoon, and the light was
wonderful; we had quite a few nice things at the end of the road there, like
lots of Caspian and Forster’s Terns, a Caracara fighting with two vultures over
a meal, and some neon-legged Ruddy Turnstones.
But alas, it was shortly time to head back to Alamo, with the promise
that I’d stop for geese, cranes, or Prairie Falcons! (We didn’t see any…) But we ended up with a nice list of 77
species for the day.
The Port Mansfield deer herd is fearless!
Mom and "Bambi"
Close-up of the stag
Long-billed Curlew
Bird list (those in italics were
heard-only):
Snow Goose
Ross's Goose
Mottled Duck Neotropic Cormorant
Double-crested Cormorant
American White Pelican
Brown Pelican
Great Blue Heron
Great Egret
Tricolored Heron
Reddish Egret
Black Vulture
Turkey Vulture
White-tailed Kite
Northern Harrier
Cooper's Hawk
Harris's Hawk
White-tailed Hawk
Red-tailed Hawk
Sandhill Crane
Black-necked Stilt
American Avocet
Black-bellied Plover
Killdeer
Spotted Sandpiper
Willet
Long-billed Curlew
Ruddy Turnstone
Sanderling
Dunlin
Least Sandpiper
Short-billed Dowitcher
Laughing Gull
Ring-billed Gull
Herring Gull
Caspian Tern
Forster's Tern
Rock Pigeon
Eurasian Collared-Dove
Mourning Dove
Great Horned Owl
Green Kingfisher
Golden-fronted Woodpecker
Ladder-backed Woodpecker
Crested Caracara
American Kestrel
Northern Beardless-Tyrannulet
Eastern Phoebe
Vermilion Flycatcher
Great Kiskadee
Loggerhead Shrike
White-eyed Vireo
Green Jay
Horned Lark
Black-crested Titmouse
Verdin
House Wren
Bewick's Wren
Blue-gray Gnatcatcher
Ruby-crowned Kinglet
Long-billed Thrasher
Northern Mockingbird
European Starling
American Pipit
Sprague's 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
Lesser Goldfinch
House Sparrow
77 SPECIES
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