Everyone had been wondering when the
Mountain Plovers were going to show up this winter, so I was thrilled to see an
eBird report stating that Simon Kiacz had discovered some during the Laguna
Atascosa CBC! The planned itinerary for
my “guidees” Frank and Margaret targeted Cameron County, as they were big
county listers and needed to pad their lists, so the temptation of adding
Mountain Plover was too much to resist!
So we headed over to General Brandt Road, as that’s where the initial
eBird report said the birds were, stopping and listening occasionally (which
was difficult as it was cold and windy), so we managed to pick up a few
songbirds in the brush. But that “still
small voice” was telling me that I should probably text Simon to find out exactly
where he had these things! Glad I did,
as the spot was way north of General
Brandt, actually along East Fernando Road off FM 1847! His coordinates placed us right next to a
little cemetery, where we shortly started scanning the fields where a tractor
was plowing and birds were following, including a couple of Gull-billed
Terns! We easily found some Killdeer,
but after a little patience we finally zeroed in on some small, light brown
bodies doing that famous “start-n-stop” motion – Mountain Plovers! High fives all around!
Distant shot of one of the Mountain Plovers (right) next to a Killdeer
Happy campers Frank and Mragaret!
We decided to go back and do the whole of
General Brandt since we were up there, as the Aplomado Falcon is occasionally
seen along that road, and that bird was high on their list! On the way we spotted a group of Snow and
Blue Geese in a field, and along General Brandt itself we logged Red-tailed,
Harris’, and White-tailed Hawks, but didn’t stop very often because of the
weather. I did decide to stop at the bridge over that nice wetland, and we
managed a handful of hardy water birds (Blue-winged Teal was new for their
county list), but the real prize was several Swamp Sparrows that popped up and
gave us great views!
Snow Geese (adults on right, immature on left)
"Blue Goose" (dark morph of the Snow); adult on left, immature on right
Since we were near the visitor’s center,
we decided to go on in for a potty break.
By the time I found them at the open feeders, they had spotted a
Roadrunner coming in for a snack – that definitely was a first for me (although
we commonly get them along the entrance road)!
The normal Green Jays were around, and they had seen some White-tipped
Doves while I was preoccupied, but having done what we needed to do we headed
out and down Ted Hunt Road, where that nice resaca was bone dry, but we found
another one that had some egrets in it. At
FM 510 we headed down to SR 100 and headed west to the dirt road opposite the “Blue
Shack” where we pulled in to look for falcons.
Nada, so I pulled up to turn around, and that road was slick as snot;
getting out of there was an adventure (Heppy was definitely spraying mud once
we got on the pavement)! We made a U-ie
when we could and tried the north end of Old Port Isabel Road (OPIR), and we
made it past the skeet range and as far as a pull-in to a gas well before the
road again got slick, but we managed to enjoy Eastern Meadowlarks, Savannah
Sparrows, and some Long-billed Curlews at that
stop.
Backtracked, made another U-ie (the median
barrier prevents anyone from turning directly onto OPIR from the north side,
and conversely prevents you from turning left out of OPIR), and headed south to FM 511 by way of Los Fresnos to
try the south end of OPIR, which is usually pretty decent (up to a point). Alas, no falcons greeted us here, either, and
again, the weather prevented us from getting out much, but a Curve-billed
Thrasher popped up close to the car in response to pishing, so that was
great! We tried for Cassin’s Sparrow, as
I heard some seeping that was suspect, but the birds were smarter than us and
stayed hunkered down. We got as far as
the pipeline work area, where no one was working, but a very cold security
guard came out to meet us, and after a pleasant exchange we turned around, as
the road north of there was hopeless…
Next stop was the Brownsville Dump in
hopes of bagging the crow, but it wasn’t meant to be; it was so miserable that
none of us even wanted to step out but were content to watch the show from the
relative comfort of the car! We spotted
a suspected Franklin’s in the mix but I wasn’t convinced, and when the bird
flew it didn’t show the classic white band on the wing. However, a darker-mantled gull did make an appearance on one of the
mounds, but he took off before I could discern the leg color; I’m presuming
Lesser Black-backed at this point (as they do show up regularly), but he didn’t
show a lot of mottling on the head, either, as many LBB’s show. I was really disappointed that not even a
Chihuahuan Raven showed up, as that would have been a life bird for Margaret! A pretty Black-necked Stilt fed next to car
as a consolation prize…
The famous Brownsville Dump
Black-necked Stilt
Two views of the Laughing Gull mob
Our last ditch chance for the Aplomado was
along Boca Chica Boulevard, so we headed down there, with the biggest show
being about 20 Gull-billed Terns dancing across the road! But even normally solid Palmito Hill Road was
slimy, so we only went as far as the overlook (where we had a distant
Red-tailed Hawk), then headed on down to the flats for shorebirds. The wind was still brutal but Frank did spot
a huge group of Pintail and Scaup out
on the mud, so that was fun (it was a challenge trying to scope from inside the
car, as none of us wanted to go out in the “stuff”)!
We had to head back after that, logging
only 63 species for the day. Bird list:
Black-bellied Whistling-Duck
Snow Goose
Blue-winged Teal
Northern Pintail
Green-winged Teal
Lesser Scaup
Northern Bobwhite
Great Blue Heron
Great Egret
Snowy Egret
Cattle Egret
Black Vulture
Turkey Vulture
Osprey
Northern Harrier
Harris's Hawk
White-tailed Hawk
Red-tailed Hawk
Sandhill Crane
Black-necked Stilt
Black-bellied Plover
Killdeer
Mountain Plover
Greater Yellowlegs
Willet
Lesser Yellowlegs
Long-billed Curlew
Stilt Sandpiper
Least Sandpiper
Western Sandpiper
Long-billed Dowitcher
Laughing Gull
Ring-billed Gull
Lesser Black-backed Gull
Gull-billed Tern
Rock Pigeon
Eurasian Collared-Dove
White-winged Dove
Mourning Dove
White-tipped Dove
Greater Roadrunner
Golden-fronted Woodpecker
Ladder-backed Woodpecker
Crested Caracara
Great Kiskadee
Loggerhead Shrike
Green Jay
House Wren
Curve-billed Thrasher
Northern Mockingbird
European Starling
Orange-crowned Warbler
Common Yellowthroat
Yellow-rumped Warbler
Savannah Sparrow
Lincoln's Sparrow
Swamp Sparrow
Red-winged Blackbird
Eastern Meadowlark
Western Meadowlark
Great-tailed Grackle
Brown-headed Cowbird
House Sparrow
63 SPECIES
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