Phalarope Trifecta at Sal del Rey, 10/31/10

Yesterday I went up to the Sal del Rey unit of the Lower Rio Grande NWR to see what the cold front had delivered. I was hoping for a Dunlin for my county yearlist and maybe some Wilson's Phalaropes. Sometimes they winter here and we get them on the Sal Vieja CBC. Well I hit the jackpot! When I got to the lake I scoped it over and could see lots of phalaropes off to the west. So I hoofed it through the mud along the south shore and periodically stopped and counted. I got 155 of them. Then I got a bit closer to them and scoped some more to see if I had missed anything. There with the Wilson's Phalaropes was a gray phalarope with a white forehead and short black eyeline. The bill was shorter than the Wilson's and thicker. Holy smokes! A Red Phalarope! My first for the county and only my second for the state.



Here it is next to some Wilson's Phalaropes. This was taken through my 300mm lens at more than 100 yards.



Scoping some more I picked out a smaller darker phalarope with gleaming white forehead and a black eyeline. It also had paler streaks runing down the dark grey back. Red-necked Phalarope! All three phalaropes in one day! Unfortunately it was too far away for a photo. Then I found a third non-Wilson's that was pale and looked like another Red but it was just too far away to do anything with and my eyes were hurting after a couple of hours of squinting through the scope at high power at small birds a couple of hundred yards away bobbing up and down in a stiffening wind. So I gave it up for the day.

This morning I gave it another go. This time the phalaropes were way out again but the wind had died down so I studied them a couple more hours. I refound the Red and three Red-necks. I was about ready to leave when Mary Gustafson showed up. As we watched them they swam to the west where the lake is a bit more narrow and we were able to get a bit closer. Through the scope we were able to note the differences and it was soon easy to distinguish the individual birds. One of them was a paler bird that was looked like a Red but was smaller. The Red-necks also have a smaller head. Here's a Red and a Red-necked.



Here's a pale and a darker Red-necked Phalarope.



In flight the Red-necked is much smaller than the Wilson's.



I'll try for better pics later this week sometime. As we were getting ready to leave Mary picked out a distant Dunlin. County year bird! Here's my list from yesterday.

Greater White-fronted Goose 50
Snow Goose 19
Ross's Goose 1
Gadwall 6
American Wigeon 1
Northern Shoveler 15
Green-winged Teal 3
Ruddy Duck 20
Wild Turkey 3
Eared Grebe 70
Turkey Vulture 3
Red-shouldered Hawk 1
Crested Caracara 1
American Coot 12
Killdeer 5
American Avocet 40
Greater Yellowlegs 1
Lesser Yellowlegs 20
Least Sandpiper 175
Stilt Sandpiper 1
Wilson's Phalarope 155
Red-necked Phalarope 1
Red Phalarope 2
Laughing Gull 20
Common Ground-Dove 12
Golden-fronted Woodpecker 4
Ladder-backed Woodpecker 2
Eastern Phoebe 5
Great Kiskadee 2
Scissor-tailed Flycatcher 1
White-eyed Vireo 1
Barn Swallow 100
Cactus Wren 1
Bewick's Wren 1
House Wren 10
Marsh Wren 1
Blue-gray Gnatcatcher 2
Ruby-crowned Kinglet 2
Northern Mockingbird 3
Long-billed Thrasher 1
American Pipit 6
Orange-crowned Warbler 7
Nashville Warbler 2
Yellow-rumped Warbler (Myrtle) 1
Common Yellowthroat 1
Lincoln's Sparrow 10
Northern Cardinal 1
Pyrrhuloxia 3
Red-winged Blackbird 250
Great-tailed Grackle 25

South Padre Island, 10/28/10

North of here some good winter birds have been trickling in, things like Red-breasted Nuthatch, Brown Creeper and Golden-crowned Kinglet. I was able to find the later of the three at the Convention Center on South Padre Island the other day. Golden-crowned Kinglet shows up in small numbers most falls but usually don't stay for the winter. I hope the other two show as they are quite rare down here.



I spent a couple of hours here as the front blew in. Every twenty or thirty minutes a new bird would show up. Here's a female Painted Bunting.



A Summer Tanager has been here a couple of weeks. Not sure it's been the same bird.



I also put in some time at the Valley Land Fund's Sheepshead lot. Good birds here included a Palm Warbler and late Western Kingbird and Scarlet Tanager.



I got ten species of warblers on the day including American Redstart and Black-throated Green.





Black-bellied Whistling-Duck 2
Blue-winged Teal 2
Pied-billed Grebe 1
Brown Pelican 20
Double-crested Cormorant 1
Great Blue Heron 1
Tricolored Heron 2
Reddish Egret 1
Cattle Egret 6
Clapper Rail 1
Common Moorhen 3
American Coot 1
Black-bellied Plover 10
Semipalmated Plover 60
Piping Plover 20
Killdeer 1
Greater Yellowlegs 2
Willet 25
Long-billed Curlew 1
Marbled Godwit 4
Ruddy Turnstone 3
Sanderling 30
Least Sandpiper 25
Dunlin 25
Short-billed Dowitcher 3
Laughing Gull 200
Franklin's Gull 20
Caspian Tern 2
Forster's Tern 1
Royal Tern 700
Sandwich Tern 10
Rock Pigeon 1
Eurasian Collared-Dove 2
Mourning Dove 1
Inca Dove 4
Buff-bellied Hummingbird 1
Ruby-throated Hummingbird 2
Ash-throated Flycatcher 1
Western Kingbird 1
Scissor-tailed Flycatcher 15
Golden-crowned Kinglet 1
Ruby-crowned Kinglet 2
Gray Catbird 3
Northern Mockingbird 3
Tennessee Warbler 1
Orange-crowned Warbler 2
Nashville Warbler 1
Northern Parula 4
Magnolia Warbler 3
Yellow-rumped Warbler (Myrtle) 3
Black-throated Green Warbler 1
Palm Warbler (Western) 1
American Redstart 1
Common Yellowthroat 3
Lincoln's Sparrow 3
Summer Tanager 1
Scarlet Tanager 1
Northern Cardinal 1
Indigo Bunting 10
Painted Bunting 1
Red-winged Blackbird 25
Great-tailed Grackle 50

Evening Skimmers at Santa Ana NWR, 10/27/10

With one last warm, humid morning before the cold front comes in, I decided to check out the Evening Skimmer party going on at Santa Ana NWR. A few years ago Evening Skimmer was considered a very rare bug north of Mexico. A couple of weeks ago Martin Reid discovered dozens of them in the brush north of the parking lot at Santa Ana. As I walked through the grass, three and four would flush at a time. It was neat to watch their erratic flight behavior. Often they would perch in the open but their coloration still made them hard to see.









I also kicked up a Bar-sided Darner. The anterior abdomen constriction and dark wing edging is diagnostic.





I also found a few Rainpool Spreadwings.

Caribbean Darner at Llano Grande, 10/25/10

A week ago Terry Fuller found a Caribbean Darner on the Green Jay trail at Estero Llano Grande State Park in Weslaco. This is a species that was fist seen in the USA just a couple of years ago and this individual was the first to be reported this year. After five tries and close to 20 hours of effort I finally found it this morning on the Green Jay trail in the shady south part of the loop near the #3 interpretive post. What a beautiful bug!





Yesterday I spent some time looking for the Caribbean Darner in the south part of the park where John Yochum had seen it earlier. I struck out but got lucky to get great views of the Blue-faced Darner near the gate to the trailer park.



While doing loops around the Green Jay trail I saw several Bar-sided Darners.



Common Green Darners are....well....common. But they're still sharp looking bugs.

South Padre Island, 10/22/10

A few days ago Huck Hutchens and John Yochum found a male Black-throated Blue Warbler at the Valley Land Fund's Sheepshead lot on South Padre Island. It had been about fifteen years since I had seen a male Black-throated Blue so I took off to look for it this morning. I found it with no trouble but was puzzled why I would see it on one side of the lot and then a couple of seconds later it was on the other side. Turns out there are two of them.



Other warblers at this site included Magnolia, Ovenbird, American Redstart and Northern Parula. I ran into the Stanfords and Pat Heirs at the Convention Center where we found a few more warblers including this Palm Warbler. We see very few of them in fall and winter. They're much more common up the coast. Finished up the day with eleven species of warblers.



A bonus was my first Cameron County Seaside Dragonlet. I'm sure they're pretty common out on SPI.



Brown Pelican 20
Great Blue Heron 2
Snowy Egret 1
American Kestrel 1
Black-bellied Plover 12
Piping Plover 2
Willet 1
Marbled Godwit 3
Ruddy Turnstone 4
Sanderling 50
Dunlin 15
Short-billed Dowitcher 3
Laughing Gull 200
Franklin's Gull 400
Forster's Tern 5
Royal Tern 20
Sandwich Tern 2
Rock Pigeon 2
Eurasian Collared-Dove 3
Ruby-throated Hummingbird 5
Scissor-tailed Flycatcher 12
Northern Rough-winged Swallow 5
Ruby-crowned Kinglet 1
Gray Catbird 3
Northern Mockingbird 4
Orange-crowned Warbler 1
Northern Parula 3
Yellow Warbler 1
Magnolia Warbler 2
Black-throated Blue Warbler 2
Palm Warbler (Western) 1
American Redstart 1
Ovenbird 1
Common Yellowthroat 2
Wilson's Warbler 1
Yellow-breasted Chat 1
Summer Tanager 1
Indigo Bunting 5
Dickcissel 1
Red-winged Blackbird 4
Great-tailed Grackle 5

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

Red-necked Phalarope at Sal del Rey, 10/14/10

This morning I went up to Sal del Rey with the hope of finding something good for my Hidalgo County year list. I was thinking that a Sanderling or a Red-necked Phalarope would be nice. I parked at the Brushline Rd. entrance and walked in on the newly improved road. After the Lower Rio Grande NWR graded this road I'm getting a lot fewer ticks and chiggers. A refuge employee told me in the future we would be able to drive the half mile down to the red gate making for a shorter walk. This Marsh Wren greeted me at the freshwater cienega.



Scoping over the lake I found a large raft of American Coots. Closer inspection turned up ten Redheads and a few Eared Grebes. Redheads are hard to find in Hidalgo County and the species was a new year bird for me. They were too far out for a pic. Scoping to the west I could see some very distant American Avocets and a few peeps so I made the long slog though the mud along the south shore. As I got closer I could see a phalarope with the avocets. A lone phalarope might be a Red or a Red-necked. As I got closer I could see it was a Red-necked Phalarope. It was out about 100 yards and too far for much or a pic, so I rolled up my pants legs and started wading. The mud can be soft but I got lucky and it was firm enough to get out about half way. I like it when I score one of my target birds.





Nothing else too exciting around. The cool front did bring in a lot of Variegated Meadowhaks.



Black-bellied Whistling-Duck 25
Blue-winged Teal 5
Northern Shoveler 30
Redhead 10
Northern Bobwhite 15
Eared Grebe 5
Snowy Egret 2
Turkey Vulture 2
Cooper's Hawk 2
American Coot 150
Killdeer 2
American Avocet 18
Long-billed Curlew 32
Western Sandpiper 1
Least Sandpiper 300
Red-necked Phalarope 1
Laughing Gull 3
White-winged Dove 40
Mourning Dove 3
Common Ground-Dove 4
Ladder-backed Woodpecker 2
Least Flycatcher 1
Eastern Phoebe 2
Couch's Kingbird 2
Scissor-tailed Flycatcher 10
Barn Swallow 50
Cliff Swallow 1
Verdin 2
Bewick's Wren 2
House Wren 10
Marsh Wren 1
Blue-gray Gnatcatcher 2
Northern Mockingbird 5
Long-billed Thrasher 1
Orange-crowned Warbler 1
Common Yellowthroat 1
Wilson's Warbler 1
Lincoln's Sparrow 4
Northern Cardinal 1
Pyrrhuloxia 1
Red-winged Blackbird 25

Big Bend Area Odes, 10/7/10

Well I was finally able to get away for a couple of days for my first ode trip to the Big Bend area. It was a spontaneous "wake up in the early morning and ask Honey if I could go to Big Bend" trip. Luckily I had been talking about it for a few weeks and she wasn't too surprised and said it was OK. So I packed and took off. I went with a want list of a half dozen species and was concerned that it might be too late in the fall to see much. As it turned out the weather was warm and odes were plentiful. A more experienced oder would have seen a lot more but I was happy with my results. Of course the star of the trip was the dazzling Mayan Setwing. I'll get to them in a bit.



I managed to get to Pena Colorado south of Marathon in the late afternoon and was relieved to see lots of dragonflies at the first stream crossing. Having been here several times before as a birder I had a good idea of the spots I wanted to check out. The first new bug for me was the very common Plateau Dragonlet.



Also new for me was an Autumn Meadowhawk. At least that's what I think it was.



Also saw Flame and Comanche Skimmers, Eastern Amberwing, Common Green Darner and a bunch of damselflies I need to work on. Here's a Desert Whitetail.



After spending the night in Alpine, I drove over to Marfa and then south to Presidio. Cibola Creek in the old mining town of Shafter povided my first and only Red Rock Skimmers.



I stopped at Fort Leaton State Park to get a permit for Big Bend State Park. A covey of Gambel's Quail were a nice surprise. Too bad I had the wrong lens.



The next target was Ojito Adentro in Big Bend State Park. "Ojito" literally means "little eye" in Spanish and in this case refers to a freshwater spring. The grove of cottonwoods stands out in comparison to the xeric landscape and holds a small spring fed creek which is the home to a population of Mayan Setwings. They are very hard to find elsewhere north of Mexico



Here I found at least a dozen of the brightly colored sprites. Their glowing red bodies contasted with the cool dark green vegetation in this marvellous little canyon.





Also present were lots of Great Spreadwings. This one is chowing down on one of his smaller cousins.



Another dragonfly I really wanted to see was the Giant Darner. This one hunted along the pool at the base of the pouroff. This is the best shot I could get.



One of my favorite denizens of southwestern canyons in the Canyon Treefrog. Spending all day sitting in the shade on a cool rock is my kind of lifestyle.



Several Flame Skimmers interacted with the Mayan Setwings but didn't seem to bother them too much.



I reluctanly left the canyon and headed back down to the river to look for Gomphids. My first stop turned up the female White-banded Ringtail.



A bit farther along the "Camino del Rio" I found this Russet-tipped Clubtail. They're quite different from our local ones.



I finally got a good pic of a Filigree Skimmer.



I was hungry and stopped for dinner at La Kiva in Terlingua for some of the best brisket I've ever eaten. What a weird funky place! With a full belly and lots of ode pics I dediced I needed to get back home.