Keith very kindly took Mike to Bentsen
while I waited for the Subaru guys to test Heppy and ultimately give him a new
battery and update his computer (interesting how they theorized that that could have been causing a power
drain), then I met them over there. Once
at Bentsen, however, I hadn’t gotten far before a group of butterfly-watchers
announced that they had a Tropical Greenstreak!
After rushing back to the car for my camera (which I didn’t think I’d
need since I was just picking Mike up – ha) I joined the group and enjoyed the
little green guy as debates went on amongst the group as to whether it was
really a Tropical or Clench’s Greenstreak (and the difference is in the color
of the face - !!!)! They eventually did settle on Tropical (although that face looks brown to me, which would lean towards Clench's...)
Tropical or Clench's Greenstreak? I'm leaning towards Clench's because of the brown face...
After eventually tearing myself away from
that I checked in and met the guys as they were coming back from the primitive
camping area; they had walked the entire loop and had spent considerable time
on the Hawk Tower, getting lots of Turkey Vultures and a distant Gray Hawk, but
no Hook-billed Kites L.
Mike was able to get additional photos of Green Jays and an Altamira
Oriole at the feeders, but alas no Clay-colored Thrush joined the lunch
crowd. I think they said they had bagged
the Black Phoebe at the canal going in; I know I got ‘im, but I’m afraid I was tuning out the other birds where my
own day list was concerned…
Mike and Keith come to meet me half way!
So once they got something cold to drink,
we were off for Sparrow Road! Mike had
mentioned how much he enjoyed the road birding, so especially after that major
hike he just did, I figured this would be a welcome diversion. I opted to start at the north end, where
historically all the rarities had shown up (Mountain Plover, Ferruginous Hawk,
and Prairie Falcon to name a few), but try as we might, we couldn’t even kick
up a Horned Lark for the first time in my life doing that route! But Mike once again spotted the prize, as a
nice Sprague’s Pipit was bopping along outside the car! Later we had several singleton or doubleton
meadowlarks that I wasn’t comfortable calling Western, even though they were in
the barren fields (and they stayed stubbornly quiet), but later we did see one that had enough of a yellow
malar to confidently call a Western. The
only other Barren Field Bird was a strutting Caracara.
Crested Caracara
Silent meadowlarks in winter can be a tough call, as sometimes the amount of yellow on the malar isn't consistent. The paler malar on this bird would suggest Eastern, but plowed fields are the preferred habitat of Western.
Further south we got into the thornscrub
and grassy area on 14 Mile westbound where we had more action: several Pyrrhuloxias bounced around, and this
is where Sparrow Road lived up to its name:
Cassin’s, Lincoln’s, Savannah, Black-throated, and even a White-crowned
Sparrow gave great views! (We added Lark
Sparrow further south…) One of those
huge new power poles proved to be a great perch for a Red-tailed Hawk; he sure
looked tiny way up there! Mike managed
to get on an Orange-crowned Warbler and Blue-gray Gnatcatcher on his side of
the car, but the calling Verdin was as obstinate as ever… Nearing Jara Chinas a covey of Bobwhite ran
across the road, but unfortunately were too fast for Mike’s camera… One of the oddest sights was this elongated
thing attached to one of the fence wires that initially looked either like an
impaled shrike dinner or the aftermath, but upon closer inspection I think it
was a cocoon of some sort! It was pretty
big – about two inches long… [Update: several Facebook friends suggested bagworms!]
Cooperative Savannah Sparrows
Presumed Eastern Meadowlark
The end of 14 Mile with the giant power poles
Shy White-crowned Sparrow
Curious Black-throated Sparrow
Sack of bagworms
Red-tailed Hawk surveys his territory from on high...
We crawled slowly down Jara Chinas after
that, which took us right up to sunset (I was hoping for a Great Horned Owl to
materialize, but no banana). At one
point Mike spotted a Cooper’s Hawk sitting on the right ahead of us, and as I
watched (you had to have a video to appreciate it), the bird seemed to hop up,
suspended in mid-air for a brief moment, and then dove forward and across the
road! What a performance!
Things were very quiet except for shrikes
and Mockingbirds; I scanned the fields for possible plovers and falcons, but
the two false alarms that made me yank out the scope were both Kestrels (how
can such a tiny bird look so huge at a distance??). Somewhere along the line we had an adult and
immature White-tailed Hawk involved in a dogfight, which led to a discussion
about how Bill Clark (Mr. Hawk himself) enlightened me as to the difference in
the shape between immature and adult Whitetails (youngsters look much more
slender in the wings than the “fatter” looking adults)! We trolled for Cactus Wren at a couple of
hopeful-looking spots, but nothing responded.
We saw lots of Caracaras apparently heading to roost, and the last birds
of the day as the sun went below the horizon were a pair of Harris’ Hawks right
next to the road.
The bird list was meager (there would
probably be many more if I added what Keith and Mike saw at Bentsen), but the
close looks at sparrows and the Sprague’s made it worthwhile! Bird List:
Northern Bobwhite
Cooper's Hawk Harris's Hawk
White-tailed Hawk
Red-tailed Hawk
Rock Pigeon
Mourning Dove
Golden-fronted Woodpecker
Crested Caracara
American Kestrel
Black Phoebe
Loggerhead Shrike
Verdin
House Wren
Blue-gray Gnatcatcher
Northern Mockingbird
European Starling
Sprague's Pipit
Orange-crowned Warbler
Cassin's Sparrow
Lark Sparrow
Black-throated Sparrow
Savannah Sparrow
Lincoln's Sparrow
White-crowned Sparrow
Pyrrhuloxia
Western Meadowlark
Great-tailed Grackle
28 SPECIES
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