Saturday, August 24, 2013

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








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