Despite
our “modern sophistication,” there’s still an instinctive pall about “Friday
the 13th”, so I like to believe that, contrarily, a special blessing
is in store! That certainly happened
this day, as since Griffin finally got his seedeater way back up Laredo (and
the anis finally showed themselves at Falcon State Park), he wanted to target
the famous Brownsville Dump as a Vega Gull (the Siberian race of Herring Gull
and a candidate for a split down the road) had been reported there. Trying to find one gull in a flock of a
gazillion gulls was gonna be a miracle, I knew, but there was always the chance
of finding some other odd gull in the mix as well.
I
don’t visit the Dump often, and when I do, the access is always different, and
since they actually built a visitor’s center at the entrance (and I noticed on
the way out that the old entrance office had a mural of bird paintings on its
walls), the new check-in office was actually down the road a bit; the nice man
brought out his book for us to sign, and we were on our way! We had also taken separate cars this time, as
Griffin wanted to stay out longer than I’d be able to, so they followed me in
and up the old back road, only I noticed to my chagrin that the old “wetlands”
to the north of the dump were no more!
(And there were no gulls visible on the hill, either; the garbage is
always moving…) So we headed back down
and up the hill where all the action seemed to be, only to find out that we
couldn’t go any further due to that being the “active area”, but that nice man directed us back down the
hill and to a road that would take us to the back side of the area where they
were working (out of harm’s way). On the
way over we stopped to scan some distant gulls in a wetland of sorts, picking
up a few large shorebirds for the day, but then decided our best bet was to get
up to where the mob was.
And
what a mob it was! If you’ve never been
to The Dump, you need to go at least once to experience the thing! Swarms and swarms of gulls floated around the
bulldozers as they moved around the “stuff”, and on the ground Black Vultures
and Caracaras were finding nice little morsels for breakfast (ugh) while
White-tailed Hawks waited in the wings (I noticed with some amusement that the
latter two species were all youngsters – no adults hanging out there)! A few Chihuahuan Ravens also hung out on the
fence, the wind showing their white neck feathers very nicely! But the gulls were the big show, so we set to
work studying those that actually sat down next to the rubbish. Mostly Laughing Gulls, with a handful of
Ring-billed and “regular” Herring Gulls, and I was wondering how in the world I
was gonna pick out this bird with a “shade darker” mantle and darker eye, when
suddenly Griffin found it! We all got on
it, and it was true: once you saw the
thing and saw how different it was from the other Herrings (he also had a lot of dark mottling on the head), he
really stood out! Superficially, he
reminded me of a California Gull with pink legs, as they often have the same
amount of mottling on the head, and the mantle shade is about the same, along
with the darker eye.
Mob scene at the famous Brownsville Dump
Fuzzy Chihuahuan Raven, showing why they used to be called "White-necked Raven"
Black Vultures join the gulls
(Shades of Alfred Hitchcock...)
The mob consists mostly of smaller Laughing Gulls, but also has several Herring Gulls of various ages mixed in.
A few Ring-billed Gulls are also present.
"Standard" Herring Gull showing pale gray mantle and pale yellow eyes
Here the darker-mantled Vega Gull (left) tries to sneak by unnoticed...
The darker eye also helps separate him from the other Herrings.
Here he tries to hide behind a young Crested Caracara...
More shots of Mr. Vega...
Here he is with another "standard" adult Herring Gull (at right)
Fuzzy in-flight shot
After
enjoying him, we bumped down the road (I was amazing that their little white
sedan didn’t bottom out) and headed up to South Padre. At the Convention Centre (where some kind of
market-like event was going on as the place was absolutely packed with people)
everyone piled into my car and we headed out onto the flats, which I warned
could look a little “scary” to people who weren’t familiar with the (in
reality) hard-packed beach with a lot of deep pools strewn all over! We drove close to a flock of resting larids,
but not too close as we noticed someone with a monster lens set up taking
pictures, so we got behind them and scanned the flock for Griffin’s only
remaining Valley target, the Sandwich Tern!
We initially couldn’t find one (although there were lots of Royals,
Forster’s, and Skimmers around), but other nice birds included both flavors of
Reddish Egret, Marbled Godwit, Ruddy Turnstone, and a Common Loon out in the
bay.
Bumping down the hill to the exit
Bayside Flats at South Padre
Brown and White Pelicans together
Beat-up Willet
Griffin studies the flock while others beach-comb and photo-shoot...
Mostly Laughing Gulls and Black Skimmers
Snoozing Skimmers
Revelers flying their kites
After
awhile they let me talk them into checking the back of the Convention Centre,
where a couple of Sedge Wrens calls and one of the flocks was in better light,
but no Sandwich Tern. So then we went
down to the Hwy 48 Boat Ramp, as the Sandwich had been seen there a day or two
previously, but didn’t get anything out of that
trip but a Yellow-crowned Night Heron for the day. L
So we decided to head back to the flats and just wait it out, and
patience finally paid off when one
lonely little Sandwich Tern showed up in the flock! That was all we needed!
Griffin
was curious about Sabal Palm Grove (and thought it’d be nice to see a
Yellow-throated Warbler, although that really wasn’t a target), so we headed
down there, and found out that three
Tropical Parulas were hanging around down there! We didn’t run into any of them, and the wind
was really starting to whip up, so we headed to the Big Blind willing a Masked
Duck to show up J, but the best we
could conjure up was a Mottled Duck that definitely had some Northern Mallard
blood in him as he had a curly tail! A
hike around the Vireo Loop added a shy Yellow-bellied Sapsucker to the list,
and a little feeding flock had a Nashville and Wilson’s Warbler in with them.
Scene along the Resaca Trail at Sabal Palm Sanctuary
I
had to head home about that time, so we kissed goodbye and went our separate
ways! With three additional species seen
by Griffin, our day total was 70 on the nose!
Bird List:
Gadwall
Mottled Duck Northern Shoveler
Redhead
Red-breasted Merganser
Common Loon
Least Grebe
Pied-billed Grebe
Double-crested Cormorant
American White Pelican
Brown Pelican
Great Blue Heron
Great Egret
Snowy Egret
[Little Blue Heron]
Reddish Egret
Cattle Egret
Yellow-crowned Night-Heron
Black Vulture
Turkey Vulture
Osprey
Cooper's Hawk
Harris's Hawk
White-tailed Hawk
American Coot
Black-necked Stilt
American Avocet
Black-bellied Plover
Greater Yellowlegs
[Spotted Sandpiper]
Willet
Marbled Godwit
Ruddy Turnstone
Sanderling
Laughing Gull
Ring-billed Gull
Herring Gull
Caspian Tern
Forster's Tern
Royal Tern
Sandwich Tern
Black Skimmer
Rock Pigeon
Golden-fronted Woodpecker
Yellow-bellied Sapsucker
Ladder-backed Woodpecker
Crested Caracara
American Kestrel
Eastern Phoebe
Great Kiskadee
Tropical Kingbird
Blue-headed Vireo
Green Jay
Chihuahuan Raven
Horned Lark
Black-crested Titmouse
House Wren
Sedge Wren
Blue-gray Gnatcatcher
Ruby-crowned Kinglet
Hermit Thrush
Northern Mockingbird
European Starling
Orange-crowned Warbler
Nashville Warbler
[Wilson’s Warbler]
Common Yellowthroat
Northern Cardinal
Eastern Meadowlark
Great-tailed Grackle
No comments:
Post a Comment