National Butterfly Center stuff 12/15/24

It's been a good fall for unusual butterflies in the Rio Grande Valley so I have been spending quite a bit of time at the National Butterfly Center south of Mission, Texas.  A Winter Wren has been present there for a few weeks but not being cooperative for me... till today.  I was sitting at the bird feeding station hoping for its magical apparition as has been describe to me by other birders and sure enough today I finally got my turn to watch this little cutie.  It was a little shady and distant so my photos are not great but I bumped up the iso to 1600 and got some ok images.

For many years the Winter Wren of North American and the Wren of  Europe and Asia were considered to be the same species.  Now the Eurasian Wren has been split off as has the Pacific Wren of the Pacific Coast of North America.  The eastern North American species remains the Winter Wren.  We get a few every winter but they are secretive and hard to photograph.

Meanwhile last week a White-throated Sparrow hung around a few days.  I thought it would enjoy the free food and stay awhile but it appears to be gone.

An Eastern Bluebird has been hanging a round but I've yet to see it.  One great thing about living in the RGV is you can see eastern, western, Mexican and even northern species of birds.  You never know what you're going to get.

Sabine's Gull at Port Mansfield, 11/18/24

Saturday Evan Farese found an immature Sabine's Gull at the Fred Stone County Park in Port Mansfield.  I've seen a few through the years with my lifers being a flock of seven on the Western Field Ornithologist pelagic trip out of San Diego back in September of 1981.  What a fun trip from Las Cruces, NM with the then young Zimmer brothers, Kevin and Barry.  We also nabbed a fantastic South Polar Skua and a montrous Blue Whale.  Since then I've seen a Sabine's Gull in Arizona and a couple in Texas.  

I needed this one for a Willacy County bird, but I didn't want to do the 90 mile drive and deal with the usual weekend crowd at the fishing pier.  However it was seen again on Sunday afternoon so I got up early and made the drive Monday morning.  It took an hour and a half for the Sabine's Gull to show but clouds made for not so great photos.  I ran over to Laguna Point for a bit where not much was happening and then returned to the fishing pier where light conditions had improved.  What a striking gull!

At one point I was tracking the gull through the camera when it just disappeared.  Did it land?  I ran off the pier and sure enough there was the Sabine's Gull sitting on a rock preening.

I had the #1 life list for Willacy County for many years.  At that time it took little effort.  But since then Evan Farese and Ron Weeks have turned up the heat and surpassed 300.  This was my 296th species for Willacy County with some still not too hard ones to get.

Some Sweet Starr County Stuff, 11-11-24

I ran up river this morning with the plan being to check out bugs and birds at Salineno and then check the same at Falcon State Park.  Three Dunlins had been report along the lake shore.  When I arrived at Salineno a birder was posted by the boat launch area, camera in hand, and hoping for Muscovies.  We talked a bit.  He had scored the Morelet's Seeteaters earlier and had glimsped what he thought were Muscovies.  He was from Duluth and turns out we both knew butterfly and bird watcher Nate Popkin.  I suggested we walk up river for better views and maybe get lucky with a becard.  He said he was hoping to photograph a Zone-tailed Hawk.   A few minutes later one flew close overhead and proceeded to soar a while.

We hiked up to the sabino grove and spent quite a while hoping for something good.  We got a Black-and-white Warbler and glimpsed a Gray Hawk but nothing exciting happened.  He took off and I spent some time with the odes.  Just a few days ago Peta Hockey had found the first Starr County record for Caribbean Yellowface.  I saw several of this tropical damselfly.

Then I ran up to Falcon State Park and poked around the butterfly garden a bit.  Saw a few interesting butterflies and bees and as I wandered up by the bird drip, something orange caught my attention.  Female Cardinal?  No it was a freakin' Wood Thrush.  And a Starr County lifer.

I put it out on the WhatsApp and in a few minutes Simon and Zach showed up to get it on their Starr County list.  They had been birding over at the Santa Margarita Ranch where they do a lot of guiding.  Well they told me a Red-breasted Nuthatch was over at the Salineno feeding station.  I was there just a couple of hours earlier and no one had said anything about it.  So I raced over and after a few minutes of sitting at the bird feeding station, in pops the Red-breasted Nuthatch for a drink.  A second Starr County lifer!

It was getting late so I called it quits.  I never got to the lake to look for the Dunlins so it looks like another trip is in order.

Piping Plover Mob at South Padre Island, 10-30-24

After a so-so day of looking for migrant passerines at South Padre Island, I decided to run up to Beach Access #4 and look for interesting stuff for iNaturalist.  I wandered around the dunes a bit and photographed a few well camoflaged Keeled Earless Lizards and then walked along the beach.

There were a few feeding Piping Plovers and Sanderlings along the water's edge.

This Sanderling has found something good.  I thinks it's an isopod known as a sand flea.  Fishermen like to use them for bait.

A couple walking ahead of me scared up a flock of shorebirds.  At the time I thought they were probably Sanderlings.

I continued photographing the Piping Plovers and Sanderlings and then just in front of me I found the flock of "Sanderlings" hunkered down in the sand out of the wind.  Except they weren't Sanderlings.  It was a big flock of Piping Plovers.  I counted them twice and came up with a total of seventy.  Piping Plover is a threatened species with a world population estimated to be about 8000 as of 2020.  This flock would be of the midwestern subspecies.  Recent habitat protection programs have helped increase their numbers but it's tough when you're outnumbered by 8.2 billion jackass humans.

There were a few warblers at the Convention Center water feature.  Best was this Magnolia Warbler.

Here's a Nashville Warbler showing it's usally hidden rusty crown.

Winter birds are on the way with Yellow-rumped and Orange-crowned Warblers.

Lincon's Sparrows are showing up.

Still waiting fort a real cold front to push down the last of the migrants.

Black Skimmer at Falcon Lake, 10/18/24

Well after the major faux pas on my last post, I quit birding and switched to bugs.  Just kidding.  But lately I have been entering a lot of stuff into iNaturalist and trying to extend my expertise into the insect world.  I have found native bees and tiger beetles to be a fun challege.  So I've let my birding lapse a bit.  

But a few days a go I ran up to Salineno and Falcon Reservoir to check the bugs up there and while looking for tiger beetles along the lake shore my attention was drawn to a flock of Forster's Terns.  I was hoping to find a Common Tern but they were all Forster's.  There were also a few Laughing Gulls and what seemed to be a pale gull.  I figured it was probably a Ring-billed and fired a few shots with the camera.  What's up with the big beak?  Was it carrying a fish?  I looked through the binocs and realized it was an immature Black Skimmer.  That's a really good bird up there away from the coast.  I was on the Zapata County side past the boat launch and so it was a new bird for the county list.  It looped around a bit and may have crossed into Starr County but I'm not sure.  Anyway it landed a ways up the shoreling so I walked up and god photos.

Here are some of the Forster's Terns.

Wow, that was pretty cool.  I went back to looking at tigerbeetles and found several of the less common S-banded Tiger Beetles.  Though only a little more than a half inch long, these little predators are always running around and raising hell.

As I was leaving I saw a bird sitting on a stump that I though might be a phoebe but binoc views proved it to be an immature White-crowned Sparrow.  After I got poor shots through the windshield, it flew to a small huisache about a hundred feet away.  I slowly walked towards it and was surprised to see it not fly out.  I was pishing lightly and got within about twenty feet of the sparrow.  White-crowned Sparrows are always a good bird in the Valley and this one was another Zapata County lifer for me.

Well I was on a roll so Idecided to check out the big purple marsh fleabane patch just below me for butterflies.  It was cloudy so not a lot of butterflies were out but there were plenty of pollinating bees, wasps and beetles.  I got lucky and picked up two lifer bees.  I think this is a male Megachile sidalceae.  

I've become enamored with cuckoo bees.  Like the old world cuckoos that lay their eggs in the nests of other bird species, there are also kleptoparasitic bees.  This one, another lifer, is Coelioxys texanus, the Texas Cucko Leafcutter Bee.  This is a male.  The female would lay its egg in the underground nest of one of the Leafcutter Bee species, possible the one above.

You never know what you're going to find.

Western Flycatcher at South Padre Island, 8/8/24 (NOT!!!!!!!!)

(Edited 10/23/24.  Woops.  Not long after this post and my posts on eBird and Facebook, it was brought to my attention by young talented birders that this was not a Western Flycatcher but was just a Yellow-bellied.  The color of the under parts, orange mandible and tear shaped eye ring made me certain it was a Western Flycatcher.  But it was pointed out to me that that the strong contrast between the color of the upper parts and under parts were inconsistent with Western Flycatcher.  I was ready to argue but I went back and looked at photos on eBird and they were right.  Western Flycatchers are almost a uniform yellowish green.  So this is just a Yellow-bellied Flycatcher with a sloppy eye ring.😖)

 I ran out to South Padre Island this morning to see what early migrant passerines might be about.  A stop at the Sheepshead lot turned up a Least Flycatcher but not much else.  A couple of volunteers were cleaning up the guinea grass that had gone crazy afther the recent rain so anything else may have gotten flushed.

Then I ran up to the Convention Center and walked over to the water feature and an Empidonax immediately perched over the trickle of water.  It was in heavy shade but I saw what appeared to be a sloppy eye ring so I just assumed it was another Least Flycatcher.  But it  sat there and dared me to take photos.  Then I noticed it was greenish with yellowish underparts like a Yellow-bellied Flycatcher.  But It didn't have a bold even eye ring.  Instead the eye ring pointed toward the rear like a tear drop.  And the bill was too big.  Then it hit me.  Western Flycatcher!  I had seen several just a few weeks ago in SE Arizona.

According to eBird, this is the first Western Flycatcher for South Padre Island and I am guessing a first August record for the Rio Grande Valley.  Previously Western Flycatcher had been split into the West Coast's Pacific-slope Flycatcher and the Rocky Mountains' Cordilleran Flycatcher.  The only difference being a slight variation between their calls and songs.  Most winters one is found somewhere in the RGV.  All that have been identified were assigned to Pacific-Slope Flycatcher.  They normally winter at low elevations along the west coast of Mexico.  There was a major invasion into the Valley during the winter of 2020-21.  Fortunately the two species were relumped after it was decided there was little evidence for the initial split.

So which one is this?  On my recent trip to SE Arizona I spoke with a number of Cordillearan Flycatchers.  I imitate their call with a whistled "hoo-heet".  They often answer back when they are on territory.  I learned this while living nine years in SE Arizona.  So I whistled to this lost Western Flycatcher and it answered with a couple of single syllable "heet's.  Not sure what that means.  But if I had to bet money I am guessing this is a Cordilleran Flycathcer displaced by the one of the many fires raging across the Rocky Mountains.

My only other migrants for the morning were the expected Black-and-white Warbler and a surprise immature Dickcissel.

It may be hot 'n nasty out there but there are plenty of insects for brave migrant birds.  Yellow and Mourning Warblers and Yellow-breassted Chats should be showing up soon.