Clark's Nutcracker in Alpine, 12/1/20

The good birds have been coming fast and furious lately so I'm behind on my posts.  On Nov 28 a visiting birder found a calling Pacific-slope Flycatcher at Quinta Mazatlan in McAllen.  Unfortunately I was busy with a my termite exterminator and could not run over there.  I saw a silent "Western" Flycatcher at Bentsen years ago and conventional logic was it was a Cordilleran Flycatcher.  We were assuming Cordillerans were occuring in Texas simply because they summer in the Rocky Mountains as opposed to the identical Pacific-slope Flycatchers which summer in the Pacific Northwest.  A few years ago a calling Pacific -slope was found at Sabal Palm in Brownsville and was documented sufficiently to become the first state record for the taxon.  So I needed to see this bird to get Pacific-slope on my Hidalgo County list and change the status of my past Cordilleran to Cordilleran/Pacific-slope.  The next day was Sunday and the park was closed so I had to wait till Monday.  

But on Sunday the 29th, Bob Shackleford (yes the one who helped us all see the Yellow Grosbeak) found a Clark's Nutcracker by the golf course in Alpine.  This was not totally unexpected as there has been an influx of Rocky Mountain birds into West Texas this fall.  But I had failed to go after the last ones that invaded back in 2000 so this was a potential state bird for me.  Consequently I was torn on the morning of the 30th.  I did not have a lot of faith that the nutcracker would be seen again so my plan was to go after the Pacific-slope Flycatcher.  But then I got word the Clark's Nutcracker had been refound so I packed my bag and hit the road.  As I was approaching McAllen on the start of my westward nearly 600 mile journey, I heard the WhatsApp ding.  The Pacific-slope Flycatcher had just been refound.  Well, a short side trip was in order.  

I arrived at Quinta Mazatlan at 11;30 am and ran to the Ebony Grove where the Pacific-slope Flycatcher had been seen.  Brad McKinney was there and told me where to look.  It didn't take long till I spied a really good flycatcher.  But it wasn't the Pacific-slope.  It was one of the half dozen Lawrence's Ducky-capped Flycatchers that have invaded the Valley from NE Mexico.

That was nice but I still needed the Pacific-slope.  And I waited and waited and looked and I couldn't find the darn bird.  At 1 pm I decided I needed to hit the road and forget the Pacific-slope.  And then a weird thing happend.  I got a phone call from an old student of mine that I had not seen in at least five years.  I talked to him while I was sitting in the car in the parking lot at Quinta.  He's rather talkative, so I decided to start my long drive while he discussed the diference between resacas and oxbows.  It was a slow start as I got tangled up in road construction and then the What'sApp dinged again.  They were looking at the Pacific-slope Flycatcher once more.  I had not gotten very far, so I said bye to my old student and turned around.  Peggy Rudman got me some poor views of the bird.  So I thought I would fight it some more for some photos.  Eventually I found the bird over my head in an Ebony where it was so close it was hard to photograph.  Dang that was harder than I expected.

At this time is was 2 pm and I didn't want to be barely reaching Laredo when it got dark so I went back home.  I'm not great at super early starts but I managed to be on the road by 7 am the next morning.  I kept abreast of the news of the Clark's Nutcracker on Facebook as I made the long painful drive through Laredo, Eagle Pass and Del Rio.  And the news wasn't good.  The bird had moved and was seen late the previous afternoon at the running track next to the football field at Sul Ross University.  But then I heard it had been refound in the same location in the morning.  By the time I came dragging into Alpine at 4:30 pm I thought my chances to find the bird were slim.  But I drove to the track and there it was, my 586th bird for Texas.

The next day I decided to drive around the Davis Mountains and look for Pinyon Jays.  But a cold front was arriving and it was windy and 28 degrees in the mountains.  I saw a few birds but nothing exciting so I gave up and made the long drive home.  I like warm weather.