Anna's Hummingbird, a vagrant from the west, sings its scratchy
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2012 Big Year - January
January 8 - Sabal Palm Grove, Boca Chica Beach, Port Isabel, South Padre Island
Pat Heirs joined me for a wonderful day out on the coast, where in addition to chasing several rarities that had been reported over the week, I picked up a bundle of coastal year birds!
We started at Sabal Palm Grove in Brownsville, picking up White-tailed Kite on the way in, and as we walked up to the visitor's center, a birder from California pointed out the singing Anna's Hummingbird to us! The guy on duty told us the Crimson-collared Grosbeak and Dusky-capped Flycatcher often hung around the immediate area, but since I had been told by the last person who saw the grosbeak that they had seen it on the Forest Trail, we hit that first, with a side trip to the big overlook where we enjoyed point-blank looks at puffy little Least Grebes and Ruddy Ducks, with Pintail, Gadwall, and Black-crowned Night Herons further out. Back on the trail we added Carolina Wren and heard Snow Geese in the distance, but it was pretty quiet. We looped around the back side on the Vireo Trail and added a wintering Least Flycatcher who conveniently whitted for us, and witnessed a Golden-fronted/Ladder-backed Woodpecker scuffle. A Hermit Thrush thooked unseen, and a White-eyed Vireo gave us what for! We ran into the Californian back there who said he had the Duskycap along the Native Trail, so we hightailed it back there (picking up a pair of Solitary Sandpipers in the resaca on the way), and while Pat stood guard in the butterfly garden, I headed back along the trail where, lo and behold, at the intersection with the wide dirt road, there he was, giving his sad whistle and flopping around catching insects! I went tearing back to find Pat and he evidently followed me, because by the time I got back to the garden, you could still hear him whistling, so Pat was able to get it for the year, too!
Anna's Hummingbird, a vagrant from the west, sings its scratchy
song!
Female Ruddy Duck (left) and Least Grebe (right) from the Big Blind
Solitary Sandpiper at the resaca
Dusky-capped Flycatcher, a mega-rarity from
Mexico!
Its sad whistle is diagnostic.
From there we headed down to Boca Chica Beach via SR 4 (and Pat showed me the back way to get there, where we had a nice White-tailed Hawk in with some TVs) where we just cruised and stopped as necessary; dipped on the Aplomado Falcon, but we did get battling Peregrines closer to the coast! A nice family of Harris' Hawks posed along the way, and picked up an Eastern Meadowlark not far past the checkpoint. The big treat, though, was an apparent family group of Chihuahuan Ravens along the wires, showing off their white necks very nicely (and even handing off nesting material)! There was a mob of Reddish Egrets on the playas, but we were surprised by the lack of plovers there and on the beach!
Chihuahuan Ravens; the bird on the right shows why they used to be called White-necked Ravens!
Male trying to impress??
Young Harris' Hawk
Osprey giving us the looking-over...
...then decides to take off!
But the beach itself was fabulous, and for the first time since moving here I felt comfortable enough to drive all the way down to the river mouth, where a California and Lesser Black-backed Gull had been reported. Before we got there Pat spotted some sparrows on the dunes, and since I had mentioned that others had found Seaside Sparrows there, we stopped and scoped them, but they turned out to be mostly Savannahs with a token Lincoln's. At the river mouth we were delighted to find several Bonaparte's Gulls along with the usual larids and Sanderlings (plus a token turnstone), and a huge flock of Avocets was a nice treat! But as we drove back, we found a suspicious-looking first-year gull that looked good for California to me (we had no idea what age the reported gull was). Thankfully this bird was in with both Ringbills and Herrings, going after a dead fish, and it looked smaller than the Herrings, with that nice slender pink, black-tipped bill and black bedroom eyes! But looking at the pictures later, there are some field marks that also look good for a second-year Herring, so I'm putting out the feelers for feedback! In the surf we enjoyed a pod of Eared Grebes, and interestingly both White and Brown Pelicans, only one young Brown had a fishing line stuck in his pouch, and unfortunately we never ran into a ranger to whom we could report it (Pat had horror stories about untrained friends who had tried to rescue a pelican and regretted it...) We also drove north as far as we could, but it got rather dusty with no vehicles (and no birds that we could pick out), so we turned around and headed back to SR 511, then up SR 48.
Bonaparte's Gulls in the surf; the bird in flight is a first-year bird.
A group of American Avocets with a token Bonie...
Three ages of Herring Gull: adult (left), a very smudgy 3rd-year (center) and a 2nd-year (right). The two-year-old is just starting to get his yellow eye.
We found a gull that superficially looked good for California: sharply bicolored bill (Herring should be mostly black at this age), dark eye, and the lack of a strong "primary flash" lean towards California, but the overall bulkier shape, lack of a strong secondary bar, and shorter wing projection all made me wonder. Click here for more pictures of this bird.
What made me wonder even more about the veracity of our ID was this second very similar bird that, while not noticeable in this photo, definitely had a paler eye.
Pod of Eared Grebes in the surf.
We made a quick stop at the boat ramp along 48, but the light was too bad to see things clearly (except the Laughing Gulls that came in to something questionable next to the car), so we headed on up to Port Isabel, where a Red Knot had been reported near the swing bridge. Couldn't find that, but we did find two American Oystercatchers, a Black-bellied Plover, and a line of White Ibis, as well as an Osprey that had us fooled into thinking it was a black-backed gull at first... ☺ There were also some Red-breasted Mergansers there.
Young Laughing Gull bossing the older ones around...
Headed on over to South Padre and the beach access north of the Convention Center, where all the birds had been driven south by beach activity, so we headed back to the Convention Center where we dipped on all the reported rarities, but found some nice birds along the boardwalk (when don't you ever find nice birds along the boardwalk?! ☺): Black Skimmers, Redheads, a single Marbled Godwit, Little Blue Heron, and Black-necked Stilt, and a distant Dunlin were all new. Not new but still nice to see were Roseate Spoonbills and a complaining Tricolored Heron. A Reddish Egret did his dancing thing a point-blank range, his floppy neck feathers blowing every which way! Pat also ran into some friends of hers from Vermont, so that was a nice surprise while a pair of Mottled Ducks flew overhead!
Snoozing Black-necked Stilt
Reddish Egret demonstrating how it doesn't take much to go from "perfectly manicured" to a "bad hair day"!
Performing its famous dance...
Flyover Mottled Duck
We had to head home after that, but Pat knew where there was a Burrowing Owl in Heidelberg, so we stopped there on the way back, on a dirt road off FM 1425. We checked the fields and were ready to give up and turn around, when he flew up and landed in a furrow! Cute little guy! We made a big deal of picking up the Eurasian Collared Doves on the way back to the freeway... ☺
Burrowing Owl near Heidelberg
Dropped Pat off after that, ending the day with 95 species, and bringing the year total up to 150!
Bird List (new birds are in CAPS):
Snow Goose
Chen caerulescens
Gadwall
Anas strepera
American Wigeon
Anas americana
MOTTLED DUCK
Anas fulvigula
Northern Shoveler
Anas clypeata
Northern Pintail
Anas acuta
REDHEAD
Aythya americana
Lesser Scaup
Aythya affinis
RED-BREASTED MERGANSER
Mergus serrator
Ruddy Duck
Oxyura jamaicensis
Plain Chachalaca
Ortalis vetula
Least Grebe
Tachybaptus dominicus
Pied-billed Grebe
Podilymbus podiceps
EARED GREBE
Podiceps nigricollis
Double-crested Cormorant
Phalacrocorax auritus
American White Pelican
Pelecanus erythrorhynchos
BROWN PELICAN
Pelecanus occidentalis
Great Blue Heron
Ardea herodias
Great Egret
Ardea alba
LITTLE BLUE HERON
Egretta caerulea
Tricolored Heron
Egretta tricolor
REDDISH EGRET
Egretta rufescens
Black-crowned Night-Heron
Nycticorax nycticorax
WHITE IBIS
Eudocimus albus
Roseate Spoonbill
Platalea ajaja
Turkey Vulture
Cathartes aura
Osprey
Pandion haliaetus
WHITE-TAILED KITE
Elanus leucurus
Northern Harrier
Circus cyaneus
Harris's Hawk
Parabuteo unicinctus
Red-shouldered Hawk
Buteo lineatus
WHITE-TAILED HAWK
Buteo albicaudatus
Red-tailed Hawk
Buteo jamaicensis
Crested Caracara
Caracara cheriway
American Kestrel
Falco sparverius
PEREGRINE FALCON
Falco peregrinus
Common Gallinule
Gallinula galeata
American Coot
Fulica americana
BLACK-BELLIED PLOVER
Pluvialis squatarola
AMERICAN OYSTERCATCHER
Haematopus palliatus
BLACK-NECKED STILT
Himantopus mexicanus
AMERICAN AVOCET
Recurvirostra americana
SOLITARY SANDPIPER
Tringa solitaria
Greater Yellowlegs
Tringa melanoleuca
WILLET
Tringa semipalmata
MARBLED GODWIT
Limosa fedoa
RUDDY TURNSTONE
Arenaria interpres
SANDERLING
Calidris alba
DUNLIN
Calidris alpina
BONAPARTE’S GULL
Chroicocephalus philadelphia
LAUGHING GULL
Leucophaeus atricilla
Ring-billed Gull
Larus delawarensis
CALIFORNIA GULL
Larus californicus
HERRING GULL
Larus argentatus
Caspian Tern
Hydroprogne caspia
FORSTER’S TERN
Sterna forsteri
ROYAL TERN
Thalasseus maximus
BLACK SKIMMER
Rynchops niger
Rock Pigeon
Columba livia
Eurasian Collared-Dove
Streptopelia decaocto
Mourning Dove
Zenaida macroura
Inca Dove
Columbina inca
White-tipped Dove
Leptotila verreauxi
BURROWING OWL
Athene cunicularia
ANNA’S HUMMINGBIRD
Calypte anna
Belted Kingfisher
Megaceryle alcyon
Golden-fronted Woodpecker
Melanerpes aurifrons
Ladder-backed Woodpecker
Picoides scalaris
LEAST FLYCATCHER
Empidonax minimus
Eastern Phoebe
Sayornis phoebe
DUSKY-CAPPED FLYCATCHER
Myiarchus tuberculifer
Great Kiskadee
Pitangus sulphuratus
Loggerhead Shrike
Lanius ludovicianus
WHITE-EYED VIREO
Vireo griseus
Green Jay
Cyanocorax yncas
CHIHUAHUAN RAVEN
Corvus cryptoleucus
Black-crested Titmouse
Baeolophus atricristatus
CAROLINA WREN
Thryothorus ludovicianus
House Wren
Troglodytes aedon
MARSH WREN
Cistothorus palustris
Blue-gray Gnatcatcher
Polioptila caerulea
Ruby-crowned Kinglet
Regulus calendula
HERMIT THRUSH
Catharus guttatus
Northern Mockingbird
Mimus polyglottos
Orange-crowned Warbler
Oreothlypis celata
Common Yellowthroat
Geothlypis trichas
Yellow-rumped Warbler
Setophaga coronata
Wilson's Warbler
Cardellina pusilla
Olive Sparrow
Arremonops rufivirgatus
SAVANNAH SPARROW
Passerculus sandwichensis
Lincoln's Sparrow
Melospiza lincolnii
Northern Cardinal
Cardinalis cardinalis
Red-winged Blackbird
Agelaius phoeniceus
EASTERN MEADOWLARK
Sturnella magna
Great-tailed Grackle
Quiscalus mexicanus
95 SPECIES