Driving the Beach at SPI, 5/15/24

Yesterday afternoon Justin LeClaire found an Arctic Tern on the beach at South Padre Island while doing shorebird surveys.  Arctic Terns pass through Texas in late May on their 10,000 plus mile migration route from their Antarctic wintering range to their Arctic breeding range.  They are rarely seen in Texas.  I was photographing odes at Bentsen so there was no way I could make it out there and put in much of a search.  

So I got up early and was at the beach at 9AM.  I surmised getting out there earlier might not help as the birds would all be out feeding.  I spent the next seven hours driving the 25 miles of beach up tp to the Port Mansfield channel and then 25 miles back.  Lots of migrant shorebirds were seen but no Arctic Tern.  Justin wanted people to keep an eye open for banded Red Knots and I found a couple with band numbers 8ME and 380.  I will do a little research and see what I can find.

The closest thing I could find to Arctic Terns were three Common Terns by the jetty.  I rarely see Common Terns in their gray breeding plumage.

I kept a running total of species seen for my eBird report and came up 1190 Sanderlings.  Most were in some form of their highly variable breeding plumage.

Plenty of Ruddy Turnstones too.

There were a handfull of Dunlins.  Usually they are out on the flats.

I think this is the western subspecies of Willet.

I find it very difficult to get good photos of breeding plumaged Black-bellied Plovers.  This is about the best I've ever done and it's not that great.

Lots of Sandwich Terns were feeding at the Port Mansfield jetty.

I don't know if the Snowy Plovers were migrants or local breeders.

So no Arctic Tern but it was a beautiful day at the beach.

PS:  I posted these photos on the Rio Grande Valley Birding Facebook group and Justin was pretty quick to reply.  "Need to look up 8ME to be sure but it is one of the earliest knots that David banded with the Coastal Bird Program, probably banded here in texas around 2010 as a third year bird. That bird is still on the beach today. 380 is probably from around 2017/2018."

Wow!  That first Red Knot is about 15 years old!