South Padre Island, 8/21/13

I made a run out to South Padre Island to check out birds on the beach.  I was hoping for boobies or rare terns.  A stop at the Valley Land Fund's lot on Sheepshead turned up a nice Prothonotary Warbler and an uncooperative Western Tanager.

The requisite stop at the Convention Center produced a Kentucky Warbler along with a female Hooded.

Red-eyed Vireos are passing through now but you have to do some searching to see one.

I finally made it out to the beach where a combination of high tide and deep ruts in the sand made driving tough.  There was lots of common beach stuff like Sanderlings, Ruddy Turnstones and Willets.

There was plenty of the endangered Piping Plovers around.  This one is in a weird molt.

Terns of eight species lined the beach by the hundreds, mostly Black and Least.  This flock also has Royal and Sandwich. 

Lots of birds but nothing unusual.  I'll try again in a few weeks.

Black-bellied Whistling-Duck  4
Brown Pelican  25
Great Blue Heron  5
Great Egret  1
Snowy Egret  1
Little Blue Heron  1
Tricolored Heron  4
Reddish Egret  2
Yellow-crowned Night-Heron  1
Roseate Spoonbill  1
Osprey  1
Black-bellied Plover  15
Snowy Plover  5
Piping Plover  15
Spotted Sandpiper  1
Willet  75
Ruddy Turnstone  80
Sanderling  150
Least Sandpiper  1
Short-billed Dowitcher  5
Laughing Gull  200
Least Tern  200
Gull-billed Tern  5
Caspian Tern  2
Black Tern  1000
Common Tern  5
Forster's Tern  20
Royal Tern  100
Sandwich Tern  25
Eurasian Collared-Dove  30
Inca Dove  1
Yellow-billed Cuckoo  1
Common Nighthawk  5
Ruby-throated Hummingbird  1
Alder Flycatcher  2
Eastern Kingbird  1
Red-eyed Vireo  1
Blue-gray Gnatcatcher  1
Northern Mockingbird  5
Louisiana Waterthrush  1
Black-and-white Warbler  3
Prothonotary Warbler  1
Kentucky Warbler  1
Hooded Warbler  1
American Redstart  1
Yellow Warbler  13
Yellow-throated Warbler  1
Western Tanager  1
Great-tailed Grackle  X
Orchard Oriole  1
House Sparrow  5

Frontera Audubon Thicket, 8/19/13

Plenty of good migrant warblers were seen around the state yesterday so I thought a visit to Frontera would be in order.  Turned out there was only a Black-and-white Warbler and a few migrant flycatchers.  The neighbor's pond across the fence had quite a few things including three Wood Storks.

Along with a few egrets was a couple of White Ibises.

Black-bellied Whistling-Duck 10

Plain Chachalaca  12
Wood Stork  3
Neotropic Cormorant  1
Great Egret  1
Snowy Egret  3
Green Heron  1
Black-crowned Night-Heron  1
Yellow-crowned Night-Heron  3
White Ibis  2
Gray Hawk  1
Killdeer  2
Black-necked Stilt  3
Spotted Sandpiper  1
Solitary Sandpiper  1
Least Sandpiper  5
Rock Pigeon  3
White-winged Dove  3100
Mourning Dove  1
Inca Dove  10
White-tipped Dove  10
Chimney Swift  8
Buff-bellied Hummingbird  20
Green Kingfisher  1
Golden-fronted Woodpecker  10
Ladder-backed Woodpecker  2
Northern Beardless-Tyrannulet  1
Alder Flycatcher  1
Least Flycatcher  1
Great Crested Flycatcher  1
Great Kiskadee  3
Couch's Kingbird  5
Western Kingbird  2
White-eyed Vireo  5
Green Jay  1
Purple Martin  2
Black-crested Titmouse  5
Clay-colored Thrush  4
Northern Mockingbird  10
Long-billed Thrasher  2
Black-and-white Warbler  1
Olive Sparrow  1
Northern Cardinal  3
Dickcissel  2
Great-tailed Grackle  5
Lesser Goldfinch  2
House Sparrow  5

Santa Ana NWR, 8/15/13

OK, we're back by popular demand.  Well one person said he missed my blog so I'll try to wake it up again.  This morning I ran over to Santa ana NWR to check out the migrants.  Both Pintail and Willow Lakes are dry so I spent my time on the main tour road and on the Pintail Loop.  Turned out to be a great morning for studying Empidonax flycatchers.  Lots of calling birds but still a few went unidentified.  Here's a Yellow-bellied Flycatcher.  The emphatic "speet" call is not well described in the field guides.

I had five or six Alder Flycatchers making their softer "berk" call.  It's hard to describe.  They don't have much of an eyering.

Least Flycatchers were everywhere doing their "fwit" call.  I had fifteen of them.

Best warbler was this Yellow-throated Warbler which I see few of in the fall.

Five Black-and-white Warblers seemed like a lot for mid August.

Yellow Warblers will appear in mass pretty soon.  I only saw two of them today.

Here's my list for the morning.

Black-bellied Whistling-Duck  6
Plain Chachalaca  10
Great Blue Heron  3
Great Egret  1
White Ibis  2
Turkey Vulture  2
Harris's Hawk  2
Spotted Sandpiper  2
Upland Sandpiper  1
Least Sandpiper  5
White-winged Dove  80
Mourning Dove  5
Inca Dove  7
Common Ground-Dove  5
White-tipped Dove  5
Yellow-billed Cuckoo  1
Groove-billed Ani  7
Common Nighthawk  1
Common Pauraque  1
Ruby-throated Hummingbird  1
Ruby-throated/Black-chinned Hummingbird  1
Buff-bellied Hummingbird  1
Golden-fronted Woodpecker  12
Ladder-backed Woodpecker  6
Yellow-bellied Flycatcher  6
Alder Flycatcher  6
Least Flycatcher  15
Empidonax sp.  5
Brown-crested Flycatcher  4
Great Kiskadee  5
Tropical Kingbird  2
Couch's Kingbird  8
White-eyed Vireo  4
Green Jay  4
Northern Rough-winged Swallow  20
Cave Swallow  1
Black-crested Titmouse  22
Verdin  1
Bewick's Wren  7
Carolina Wren  18
Blue-gray Gnatcatcher  7
Clay-colored Thrush  2
Northern Mockingbird  6
Long-billed Thrasher  4
Black-and-white Warbler  5
Common Yellowthroat  2
Yellow Warbler  2
Yellow-throated Warbler  1
Yellow-breasted Chat  1
Olive Sparrow  15
Northern Cardinal  5
Painted Bunting  1
Red-winged Blackbird  15
Orchard Oriole  5
Altamira Oriole  2
Lesser Goldfinch  7