Kelp Gull at Brownsville Landfill, 4/20/22

Well after yesterday's Painted Redstart chase I really needed to stay home and get some stuff done.  Then the darn Whatsapp dinged again.  It's been dinging a lot lately with spring migration going on and lots of birders in the Rio Grande Valley finding some pretty good stuff.  But this ding was different.  This was a mega!  Alex Lamoreaux leading a tour had just found a Kelp Gull at the Brownsville landfill.  Kelp Gull is a common coastal species of the Southern Hemisphere.  I have seen them on the coast of Ecuador and I saw the first Texas record at Galveston in 1996.  There are five previosly accepted Texas records, thought to be of only two individuals, and the last was in 2008.  So I loaded up the car and headed out one more time.

When I arrived at the top of the garbage hill, there was Brad McKinney, Father Tom and the St. Pierres waiting at the spot where Alex had gotten killer photos of the Kelp Gull.  Thousands of Laughing Gulls swirled and screamed with lesser numbers of Franklin's, Herring and Ring-billed Gulls as an endless stream of noisy garbage trucks passed by to dump their morning haul.  Then Mary Beth Stowe and company arrived and we all watched common gulls for a while and hoped for a big one with a black mantle.

After a while Mary Beth and her group left but they stopped just a bit down the hill and darned if they didn't find the Kelp Gull far down below on a retention pond.  Some of us scrambled down to the botton of the big dirt and garbage hill where we got a little bit better views.  After congratulations everyone but me left and I was rewarded with the Kelp Gull flying back to the top of the hill where I got much better photos.  This Kelp Gull is my 424th species for Cameron County.

After I got home two male Painted Buntings popped up in our yard.  What a great day!

Well it's been a pretty weird spring.  There's not a lot of migrants but some really good birds have been found.  During the past few weeks I've added three new rare birds to my Cameron county list (Black-capped Vireo, Painted Redstart and Kelp Gull) and four new birds to our Progreso Lakes yard list (Louisiana Waterthrush, Tropical Parula, Kentucky Warbler and Hook-billed Kite).  And we still have another four weeks of migration ahead of us!

Painted Redstart at South Padre Island, 4/19/22

Yesterday I dropped Honey off at the gym in Brownsville and then I proceded to South Padre Island and saw some pretty good birds.  After I left the Island and took said wife out to eat, word came on Whatsapp that Javi Gonzalez had just found a Painted Redstart on South Padre Island.  Ugh!  That's one I need for Cameron County and it was too late to do anything about it.

Well this morning my plans had been to get the car inspected and then go grocery shopping.  To hell with the Painted Redstart.  And despite the Whatsapp broadcasting the the Painted Redstart was still present I decided to stick to my plans.  But I did have time to watch the bird bath a bit.  And my responsible nature was rewarded with this striking Rose-breasted Groasbeak, our first for the year.  It was a male just like this that piqued my interest in birds back in 1976.  Every spring we would get several on the pussy willows back behind our rural home near Fair Grove, Missouri where I grew up.

Then there was this lovely female Painted Bunting.

Yesterday there was an Indigo Bunting in our spiny snake eyes bush.

And while I was watching the Painted Bunting, a Gray Catbird popped in, our first of the year.

We have a pair of  Northern Cardinals hanging around.

Our brush patch has grown enough to frequently host White-tipped Doves.

After I got my chores done and had lunch, Whatsapp informed me the Painted Redsart was still on SPI.  So I dropped Honey at the gym in Harlingen (where despite weighing only 110 pounds, she tied here personal best with a 205 pound dead lift!) and I raced out to South Padre Island where I quickly found the Painted Redstart, my 423rd species for Cameron County.

Painted Redstarts nest in west Texas in the higher elevations of Big Bend and the Davis Mountains.  Most birders tick there's in southeastern Arizona.  But they are common in the mountains of Mexico less than a hundred miles southwest of the Rio Grande Valley.  I think that's probably where the few that visit the Valley originate.