Shorebirdomania at the Sugar House Pond, 4/14/24

After seeing the Southern Lapwing yesterday, I decided to leave the gathering crowd and head up to the Sugar House pond to look for the Hudsonian Godwits found by Ryan Rodgriquez the day before.  Though world population estimates are over 70,000 (compared to 8,000,000,000 people), not rare by shorebird standards, their narrow migratory path up the center of the United States means most birders have to go to some effort to see one.  We are fortunate here in the Rio Grande Valley to have a few pass through easch spring.  They completely bypass us in the fall.  It did not take long to find the dozen or so that stopped to feed in the receding effluent water at the Sugar House.

The forty acre pond was loaded with birds yesterday and counting or estimating numbers for eBird took some effort.  Northern Shovellers and Fulvous Whistling Ducks numbered in the hunderds as did American Avocets, Black-necked Stilts and Stilt Sandpipers.

Pretty uncommon in spring, this Dunlin has vestiges of the black belly it will sport in breeding plumage.

American Golden Plover and Buff-breasted Sandpiper are among the species birders refer to as grasspipers.  The best places to look for them in migration are pastures with short grass and turf farms.  It's a little unusual to see them in the water.

The shorebirds were frequently spooked by either raptors or the birders who joined me.  The shorebird watchers on the berm above the pond numbered about a dozen at one point.  It's good to have mutliple eyes and scopes when so many birds are involved.  The real challenge was picking through the peeps.  There are five species in this photo.

Let's break them down.  The larger ones are Baird's Sandpiper and Pectoral Sandpiper.  Here the buffier one on the left is a Baird's while the other darker large one showing a faint orange bast to the bill is a Pectoral.  The smaller one below is a Least.

Western Sandpiperis slightly larger than Least and much more pale with a much longer, thick based bill.

Not as brown as Least with a short straight bill is Semipalmated Sandpiper.  Short-billed male Westerns and long-billed female Semipalms can be confusing.  The second bird from the left is a Semipalmated.  The others are Leasts.

Here we have Semipalmated, Western and Least (left from bottom to top) with a big Pectoral.  The others are Leasts except for that one right under the Pec.  It's either a Semipalm or a Western

Baird's, Semipalmated, Least and Pectoral, left to right.

Here's a buch of Stilt Sandpipers with three Wilson's Phalaropes.

Seventeen species of shorebirds was all I could ID.  The Sugar House is closing down and after this water evaporates it will be the end of a great Hidalgo shorebirding hot spot.  It may refill with heavy rain but it also could be turned into a cotton field.  As this is the only sugar refinery in south Texas, it also means the end of sugar cane farming in the Valley.  Probably not a bad thing as sugar cane requires a lot of water and the Valley doesn't have any.