4/19/22
Becky and Michael from Connecticut finally made it down to South Texas after years of having to postpone the trip (and it didn’t include just south Texas, but almost all of Texas, plus southeast Arizona), and were so happy to get here and really indulge their photographic passions! They had already spent a week out at South Padre (I actually ran into her the day I went out there filming), and were booked to spend an entire month here at the Inn, so they wanted to focus on places they probably wouldn’t know to go to on their own. So today we headed up to Brushline Road to bag one of her dream birds – the Scissor-tailed Flycatcher (after logging one of our nesting Lesser Nighthawks at the Inn)!
Thankfully it was overcast the whole morning (and it even dripped a little) as that saved us from driving into the sun at one point, but the soft light still made for decent photography for the most part. The first subject we came across was a Couch’s Kingbird, but he was against the sky so ended up being “proof shot” material. But the next subject was more cooperative: a male Ladder-backed Woodpecker on a power pole! A pair of Golden-fronted Woodpeckers also plastered themselves on another pole, but I think they unplastered themselves before Michael could get off a shot (which wasn’t too disappointing as they apparently had gotten great shots at Sheepshead on the Island)! A little evidence of migration revealed itself in a handful of male Baltimore Orioles that we came across, and a singing Long-billed Thrasher made photography challenging in that he was behind a bunch of mesquite leaves, but we got ‘im! I heard a Painted Bunting singing, and a little green bird (undoubtedly a young male) did shoot in to the bush next to us, but unfortunately Becky didn’t even see him until he flew… L Kiskadees were all over, but since that was the first bird they had upon arrival, they already had plenty of shots!
Before long a pair of Scissortails went darting
over the car and landed on the wire behind us, so we all piled out, and Becky
dragged out her tripod to steady her own monster (read: heavy) camera, and got
some decent shots. We heard a lot of
stuff that was too far back to try and pull out (Verdin, Bewick’s Wrens, etc.),
but as we turned the corner onto Ken Baker, a Pyrrhuloxia was singing close by,
and we were able to spot him! (I think it
was here we heard a cooing Roadrunner in the distance…) In a more open area we were focused on
something out in the field when Becky spotted a little guy right on the fence
next to us – a knockout Lark Sparrow! He
sat for the longest time as we all fired off pictures, while something I couldn’t
quite place was singing behind us. As we
started up again, suddenly a Black-throated Sparrow darted in to the fence on
my side, only he didn’t stick around for pictures… L An Eastern Wood Pewee was tuning up during
all of this, but didn’t come out to play…
Somewhere in here while we were out of the car, Michael made mention of
the pretty purple flowers along the road, so I thought I’d use my “Seek” app to
find out what they were – it’s set up to automatically take the picture once the
program ID’s the object, and I had barely opened the thing up before it snapped
a picture – they were Silverleaf Nightshades!
It wasn’t too long after this (or maybe it was
before – I forget) that the show really started: we came upon a family of Scissortails that
was just performing and interacting like crazy!
I heard Becky’s camera go off during the height of the “air show” and
was hoping she was able to catch it, and she did! We also had better looks at Couch’s Kingbird,
plus a Brown-crested Flycatcher that snuck in and took his place on the fence,
and even a herd of Turkeys off the road!
One of the kingbirds went after a Caracara, and in the raptor department
we had a pair of uncooperative Harris’ Hawks (that spooked a covey of Bobwhite
when one of them took off), a couple of fly-by Swainson’s, and a reeely high White-tailed! But another highlight was a Pyrrhuloxia that
decided to land right over our heads on a wire, and gave us a little concert,
providing comedy relief with his “bad hair day”! J Our last
new bird before having to head back was a Bronzed Cowbird, a little more
exciting than the dozens of Brown-headeds we had seen along the wires… We had heard a Common Ground Dove earlier,
but then almost ran one down going down Rio Beef Road!
We wound up with 40 species for the morning, which
is modest, but not totally unexpected for a stroll along a back road in the
South Texas Brushlands (but added our only water bird, a flyby Black-necked Stilt,
on the way home)! Bird list:
Wild Turkey
Eurasian Collared-Dove
Common Ground Dove
Mourning Dove
Greater Roadrunner
Lesser Nighthawk
Black-necked Stilt
Turkey Vulture
Harris's Hawk
White-tailed Hawk
Swainson's Hawk
Golden-fronted Woodpecker
Ladder-backed Woodpecker
Crested Caracara
Eastern Wood-Pewee
Brown-crested Flycatcher
Great Kiskadee
Couch's Kingbird
Scissor-tailed Flycatcher
White-eyed Vireo
Green Jay
Black-crested Titmouse
Verdin
Barn Swallow
Bewick's Wren
Long-billed Thrasher
Northern Mockingbird
House Sparrow
Olive Sparrow
Black-throated Sparrow
Lark Sparrow
Baltimore Oriole
Bronzed Cowbird
Brown-headed Cowbird
Great-tailed Grackle
Northern Cardinal
Pyrrhuloxia
Painted Bunting
Dickcissel
