Santa Ana NWR, 5/17/15

After standing around all day yesterday photographing at Sheepshead and the Convention Center at South Padre Island, I decided I needed to get out and stretch my legs today and Santa Ana NWR seemed like a good choice.  As always I have birding targets and today was no exception.  But what was exceptional was today I hit all my targets.  As I walked the tour road I soon heard a Yellow-bellied Flycatcher which I had yet to see in Hidalgo County this year.

I was wanting a Purple Gallinule for the year and saw one fly up from the first cattails on the right was you enter the Pintail Lakes complex.  No photo but still OK.  Not a lot of birds on the water but migrants in the brush included Yellow and Mourning Warblers, American Redstart, Great-crested Flycatcher and Blue-headed Vireo.  And then on the east end of the Pintail Lakes I found this guy, my first MacGillivray's Warbler for the year.  I've never had one come so close.

I also found this one which I think is a Mourning Warbler based on the short tail extension which I just read about here.  I was just about ready to call it another MacGillivray's.

And I got a calling Alder Flycatcher which was my other target bird.  The "perp" call is very different from the other empid calls.

Pretty nice day!

Black-bellied Whistling-Duck (fulgens) 12
Mottled Duck (Gulf Coast) 4
Blue-winged Teal 1
Plain Chachalaca 12
Pied-billed Grebe 1
Neotropic Cormorant 2
Great Egret 2
Little Blue Heron 2
Yellow-crowned Night-Heron 2
White Ibis 7
Turkey Vulture 2
Osprey 1
Harris's Hawk 1
Gray Hawk 1
Purple Gallinule 1
Common Gallinule 2
American Coot 20
Black-necked Stilt (Black-necked) 3
Inca Dove 2
Common Ground-Dove 3
White-tipped Dove 2
White-winged Dove 15
Mourning Dove 2
Yellow-billed Cuckoo 4
Greater Roadrunner 1
Groove-billed Ani 8
Buff-bellied Hummingbird 1
Ringed Kingfisher 1
Green Kingfisher 3
Golden-fronted Woodpecker 5
Ladder-backed Woodpecker 1
Northern Beardless-Tyrannulet 1
Olive-sided Flycatcher 1
Yellow-bellied Flycatcher 3
Alder Flycatcher 3 All heard calling "perp"
Alder/Willow Flycatcher (Traill's Flycatcher) 1
Least Flycatcher 5
Empidonax sp. 1
Great Crested Flycatcher 2
Brown-crested Flycatcher 6
Great Kiskadee 2
Tropical Kingbird 2
Couch's Kingbird 10
Eastern Kingbird 1
White-eyed Vireo 4
Blue-headed Vireo 1
Barn Swallow 6
Black-crested Titmouse 2
Carolina Wren 1
Clay-colored Thrush 2
Long-billed Thrasher 3
Northern Mockingbird 1
MacGillivray's Warbler 2
Mourning Warbler 1
Common Yellowthroat 6
Yellow Warbler (Northern) 8
Olive Sparrow 5
Northern Cardinal 1
Blue Grosbeak 2
Painted Bunting 1
Red-winged Blackbird 10
Great-tailed Grackle 5
Bronzed Cowbird 6
Altamira Oriole 1
Lesser Goldfinch 2
House Sparrow 5