Santa Ana Madness, 8/23/11

The flood waters from last summer are retreating, concentrating fish in the remaining pools, and creating a feeding frenzy at Santa Ana NWR. It looks just like a scene from the Okavango or the Venenzuelan Llanos. Here's a few shots of the madness.





I counted 800 Great Egrets and 310 Wood Storks with lesser numbers of Roseate Spoonbills, Snowy Egrets, White and White-faced Ibises and assorted shorebirds.





Add to the fun a few buckets of warblers and empids and it was a heck of a morning. This was only my second ever Prothonotary Warbler for Hidalgo County. It was also county year bird #276 tying my all time high.



Meanwhile Empidonax flycatchers semed to be every where giving me some great ID practice. Lots of Alder Flycatchers were calling.



Yellow-bellied Flycatcher is passing through also.



Here's the 90 species I've seen there over the past couple of days.

Black-bellied Whistling-Duck 1
Fulvous Whistling-Duck 18
Mottled Duck 1
Blue-winged Teal 14
Least Grebe 2
Plain Chachalaca 7
Wood Stork 310
Neotropic Cormorant 70
Great Blue Heron 2
Great Egret 800
Snowy Egret 100
Little Blue Heron 5
Tricolored Heron 2
Green Heron 2
Black-crowned Night-Heron 4
Yellow-crowned Night-heron 3
White Ibis 10
White-faced Ibis 30
Roseate Spoonbill 20
Black Vulture 1
Turkey Vulture 1
Gray Hawk 1
Crested Caracara 1
American Coot 20
Killdeer 1
Black-necked Stilt 60
American Avocet 3
Solitary Sandpiper 1
Spotted Sandpiper 1
Greater Yellowlegs 2
Lesser Yellowlegs 2
Upland Sandpiper 1
Least Sandpiper 30
Stilt Sandpiper 220
Long-billed Dowitcher 80
Wilson's Phalarope 1
Laughing Gull 6
Gull-billed Tern 12
Black Tern 1
White-winged Dove 120
Mourning Dove 10
Common Ground-Dove 6
White-tipped Dove 6
Yellow-billed Cuckoo 2
Groove-billed Ani 14
Chuck-will's-widow 2
Ruby-throated Hummingbird 2
Buff-bellied Hummingbird 3
Ringed Kingfisher 1
Golden-fronted Woodpecker 8
Ladder-backed Woodpecker 10
Northern Beardless-Tyrannulet 1
Eastern Wood-Pewee 1
Yellow-bellied Flycatcher 4
Alder Flycatcher 18
Least Flycatcher 4
Empidonax sp. 5
Great Crested Flycatcher 3
Brown-crested Flycatcher 4
Great Kiskadee 8
Couch's Kingbird 12
Tropical Kingbird 2
White-eyed Vireo 6
Green Jay 8
Purple Martin 110
Cave Swallow 50
Black-crested Titmouse 15
Carolina Wren 10
Blue-gray Gnatcatcher 2
Clay-colored Thrush 5
Northern Mockingbird 3
Long-billed Thrasher 1
Black-and-white Warbler 2
Prothonotary Warbler 1
Mourning Warbler 3
Tropical Parula 2
Yellow Warbler 23
Yellow-breasted Chat 2
Olive Sparrow 10
Summer Tanager 1
Northern Cardinal 5
Blue Grosbeak 1
Painted Bunting 5
Dickcissel 5
Red-winged Blackbird 30
Bronzed Cowbird 5
Orchard Oriole 3
Lesser Goldfinch 15
House Sparrow 100