Chestnut-collared Longspur at Laguna Atascosa NWR, 10/16/10

Two days ago Tom Langschied, the bird guide at the King Ranch, found a Chestnut-collared Longspur at Laguna Atascosa NWR. I wanted to go after it but stayed home and did some chores (like a good husband). This morning, with plans to go birding somewhere, I checked out Texbirds and saw that Erik Breden had found the bird yesterday and got some good photos. So I took off to look for the longspur. When I reached the area 1.1 miles past Plover point on the Bayside Tour road, I ran into Chuck Lorenz from Laguna Vista who, on his bike, and was also longspur hunting. We slowly poked along and kicked up a bird that flew up and circled like a longspur. It came back down at the pull off ahead where I could breifly see it was our bird before it flushed again and we lost it. We slowly drove up to Stover Point with no luck. So I parked and we retraced our steps and there was the Chestnut-collared Longspur right back at the pull off where we had earlier seen it. Cameron County bird #347! Finally a bit of luck after striking out on Bobolink, Black-vented Oriole and Scott's Orioles this year.



Another good find for me was my first Southern Spreadwing near the water feature north of the visitor's center.



This Silver-banded Hairstreak was near the visitor's center.



Overall, just a beautiful birdy and buggy day. Here's a view of the Laguna Madre looking towards South Padre Island.



Greater White-fronted Goose heard overhead
Blue-winged Teal X
Northern Pintail X
Pied-billed Grebe 1
American White Pelican X
Brown Pelican X
Neotropic Cormorant 1
Double-crested Cormorant 18
Great Blue Heron X
Great Egret X
Snowy Egret X
Little Blue Heron X
Tricolored Heron X
Reddish Egret 1
Green Heron 3
Black-crowned Night-Heron 1
White Ibis X
Black Vulture 1
Turkey Vulture 5
Osprey 8
White-tailed Kite 1
Northern Harrier 2
Sharp-shinned Hawk 1
Cooper's Hawk 1
White-tailed Hawk 2
Crested Caracara 1
American Kestrel 6
Merlin 3
Sandhill Crane 2
American Coot X
Black-bellied Plover 2
Killdeer 5
Black-necked Stilt X
Lesser Yellowlegs 2
Long-billed Curlew 10
Marbled Godwit 23
Least Sandpiper X
Laughing Gull X
Gull-billed Tern 2
Forster's Tern 1
Mourning Dove X
Common Ground-Dove 3
White-tipped Dove 5
Greater Roadrunner 2
Common Pauraque 1
Ruby-throated Hummingbird 2
Belted Kingfisher 1
Golden-fronted Woodpecker 4
Least Flycatcher 2
Eastern Phoebe 1
Great Kiskadee 2
Couch's Kingbird 2
Loggerhead Shrike 6
White-eyed Vireo 10
Green Jay 6
Barn Swallow 3
Cave Swallow 25
Bewick's Wren 2
House Wren 10
Marsh Wren 1
Ruby-crowned Kinglet 1
Northern Mockingbird X
Long-billed Thrasher 8
Curve-billed Thrasher 2
Orange-crowned Warbler 13
Nashville Warbler 9
Black-and-white Warbler 1
Common Yellowthroat 8
Wilson's Warbler 3
Olive Sparrow 1
Savannah Sparrow 10
Lincoln's Sparrow 5
Chestnut-collared Longspur 1
Northern Cardinal 3
Indigo Bunting 12
Red-winged Blackbird X
Eastern Meadowlark X
Great-tailed Grackle X