Willacy County Stuff, 8/12/25

A couple of days ago I was playing with iNaturalist and discovered I was not first in the butterfly species rankings for Willacy County.  That combined with it being fall bird migration inspired me to run out there and do some poking around.  I was driving down FM 1018 when I saw this Swaison's Hawk in a recently plowed field.  I glassed the field and found a total of eight.  Seems a little early for migrant Swainson's Hawks so my guess are these are local birds responding to a new food source in the plowed corn field.  But I guess they could be migrants.

I should have studied the raptors more to look for White-tailed Hawks but I got distracted by distant shorebirds.  My guess was they were Buff-breasted Sandpipers.  So I drove a dirt track along the edge of the field and managed to get quite close to some of them.  Yup there were young migrant Buff-breasted Sandpipers based on the scaly backs and spotted breasts.

I heard a familiar call overhead but could't remember if it was American Golden Plover or Upland Sandpiper.  Turns out there were a few Upland Sandpipers in the field.  The long neck and big eyes are reminicent of the Bustards I saw in South Africa.

I crossed the canal on FM 1420 and noticed a good sandbar so I stopped and scrambled down the bank and found three species of tiger beetles; Coastal, S-banded and Ocellated.

And a few Least Sandpipers.

I drove on out to the coast passing wet spots with egrets, ibises and spoonbills but I was too jaded for photos.  At the Laguna Point Recreation Area I found this misplaced Greater Roadrunner on a fishing pier hanging out with the regulars.

I think this is a summering female Redhead with a serious mite infestation.

There were a few shorebirds but nothing exciting.  I didn't even go to to Fred Stone County Park.  My objective had been to find a few butterflies but there was little blooming in the dry conditions.  The summer monsoon has been going on but the clouds usually pop up a few miles inland so the coast doesn't get as much rain.  I did find a few flowers by the boat dock and got my target for the day, Obscure Skipper.

So I got a few Willacy County year birds and four Willacy County iNat lifer butterflies though I know I had seen three of them before.  It's been raining up in the Teniente Tract the past few afternoons so I need to make another Willacy County run soon.