Hi all,
Larry Raymond and I thoroughly enjoyed the meeting and birding with y'all!
Our final species total for both days was 118, with 107 for Saturday alone.
Best birds for us, unsurprisingly spotted by Steve Cardiff and Donna
Dittman at the east jetty overlook, were the first winter Great
Black-backed Gull and Magnificent Frigatebird. Among others, it was also
good to see Am Oystercatcher, Marbled Godwit, then Snowy and Piping Plover
and Seaside Sparrow. Crested Caracara, although a common sighting here now,
was good for us northerners. Unfortunately we missed most other notable
raptors. However, even Sanderling are always nice for us to see- as we have
extremely few nw La records. Black Skimmer was equally good for us
land-lubbers, too. The Gull-billed tern near Sabine pass, then
Golden-crowned Kinglet and Brown Creeper at Peveto (seeing the latter so
far south, that is) were cool, too. Interestingly, we missed Nelson's
Sparrow which were reported in numbers by several. Evidently we were merely
in the right place at the wrong time......
We stopped on our way in Friday afternoon to bird Cameron Prairie NWR,
which was the only location that we kept a full list of species with
individual numbers. We had an odd duck that was likely a male Gadwall- or
at the very least a hybrid, there, though it sure looked quite odd to us.
I've seen male Gadwall with a diffuse dark cap but this was quite solid.
The bill shape was also wrong, as seemed the notable pale/whitish under-eye
crescent. The back was grayish, somewhat dark although very close for
Gadwall. Unfortunately, the digi-scoped, then cropped photo does not show
much except for a little bit of head and breast (bill tucked). I will
forward this to anyone interested. Here's our Sat 10-23 list from Cameron
Prairie- Pintail loop only. We also had a single N Cardinal at headquarters
nearby. I was a little surprised at missing these in the loop, too-
http://ebird.org/ebird/view/checklist/email?subID=S25558653
Cheers and thanks to all for a great weekend of birding!
Terry
