A Few Migrants Up River, 9/24/26

Well the weather forecast for today had the temperature only making it up to 99 for a cool respite so I ran up river to check out Salineno and Falcon.  This August and September have been mostly dry and excuciatingly hot.  Maybe I can find some migrants looking for food and water.

I arrived at the Salineno boat launch on the Rio Grande.  Lots of water was flowing for some reason.  Maybe farmers are planting fall crops.  Such a beautiful place!

Three basic plumaged Painted Buntings were enjoying the guinea grass.

A White Ibis flew down river.  I don't know if this bird as come up from the Gulf or is a south bound migrant.  Do they nest on Falcon Lake?

Northern Yellow Warbler checking the possibilities of taking a bath but she didn't like it when I moved to take the ibis photo.

Just upstream I found a nice little flock but the early morning shade made photography tough.  I stretched the ISO to 3200.  I was lucky to get a decent shot of this hyper Black-and-white Warbler.

A Wilson's Warbler was close but not very friendly.

My first Nashville Warbler for the fall managed to always keep a twig in front of my to make photography difficult.  With a couple of Blue-gray Gnatcatchers and Yellow Warblers it was a pretty nice little fall flock.

Up the trail a bit I walked over to the river bank and caught this Common Yellowthroat.

A Great Kiskadee told me not to waste my time looking for Morelet's Seedeaters.  A couple of visiting birders gave the same report.  I don't know of any sightings since spring.

A Black Phoebe guarded the rocky arroyo that runs into the river.  I put off checking the grove of Montezuma Cypresses for another time.

Not a lot of odes out this early in the day.  This female Neotropical Bluet had me confused for a bit.

Time to go up to Falcon State Park.  I drove slowly past the butterfly garden but didn't see any water at the drip so I moved on down to the lake shore on the Zapata County side.  The gulls were at their usual spot and allowed me to watch as I ate lunch.  I was hoping for something rare to fly in after a morning of feeding but I got only Laughing Gulls, 160 total.

And one Forster's Tern.

And three Neotropic Cormorants.

The eBird filter has Reddish Egret as rare away from the coast but I probably see them over half the time I go to Falcon.  Juveniles wander widely after fledging.

I drove and walked along the track to the north between the inlet and the thick huisache and flushed this superb Scissor-tailed Flycatcher.

The huisaches were filled with migrants, mostly gnatcatchers and Yellow Warblers.  I did manage to pish out this Wilson's Warbler which turned out to be a first Zapata County record on iNaturalist.

This Nashville Warbler was just the second county record.  Birders and their affinity for keeping lists gravitate toward eBird and it's relaxed accountability.  You can report a list of a hundred species and not document a single bird as long as they are all on the expected list.  Naturalists who want to document a record prefer iNaturalist.  But the naturalists are out there documenting bugs and plants and anything that lives, often with just a cell phone.  Bird photography usually requires more sophisticated and expensive equipment which many naturalist don't have.  Hence birds are often under represented on iNat.  But more birders are using iNaturalist now so expect things to change.

 A couple of  White Ibises passed overhead.

I was getting hot.  Not many shorebirds, mostly Least Sandpipers.  I was happy to document this Western Sandpiper, only the second for Zapata County on iNat.  I also have the first.  There are many records on eBird but few are properly documanted for this uncommon migrant.

2 pm and the temperature was in the nineties.  Time to go home.

Red Knots at Delta Lake, 9/9/26

The nasty bad hot dry summer continues in the Rio Grande Valley of south Texas.  Here in Mission the daily high temperature has been about 105F.  The weather people have us cooling to under a hundred in a week.  Something to look forward to but they've been promising that for a month  Meanwhile area inland bodies of water are either dry or really low.

Local young hot shot birder Nolan Walker has been hitting the dessicating Delta Lake pretty hard lately and reported Ruff, Ruddy Turnstone and Red Knots among the thousands of migrating shorebirds.  All three are super rare in inland Hidalgo county.  I've seen them all but I needed better photos of Red Knot for iNaturalist for the county so I made a run up there.

I parked by the gazebo and walked in to the little butterfly garden.  A few pishes brought in this Geothlypis warbler.  Despite the eye arcs I think it's a MourningWarbler and not a MacGillivray's.  I could be wrong.

I followed the fishermen's trail though the dry cattails and reached the receeding water of Delta Lake.

Well now it was just a matter of picking through the mind bogling number of shorebirds.   I'm guessing there were thousands of Least and Western Sandpipers.

And hundreds of Stilt Sandpipers.  The angle of the sun made photography tough all morning.

Finding a Red Knot actually turned out a lot easier than I had hoped.  The large size and dumpy shape made it stand out among the many peeps.

Now it was just a matter of making my way closer and not getting too muddy.  The worst fear of a shorebirder is to get in too deep and not be able to get back out.  Luckily the mud was pretty firm and I got close enough for some fair shots.  Turned out there were four basic plumaged Red Knots.

I saw at least three Reddish Egrest and fifteen Willets.  These two species always trip the Hidalgo County filters on eBird requiring additional documentation.  They are not common but they are certainly not rare.  I expected to see both.

What I did not expect was a flock of Buff-breasted Sandpipers.  However they are a usual migrant in open fields the area and did not get flagged by eBird.

A big nosed Long-billed Curlew tried to sneak past me.

There were a few hundred Wilson's Phalaropes.  Could not find a Red-necked.

My ninety Roseate Spoonbills were also flagged by eBird for being a high number.

I missed the Ruddy Turnstone and Ruff but misson accomplished.  I need to make an afternoon trip out there when the light would be better though the heat would be excruciating.