[texbirds] Anahuac to Quintana yesterday, lingering shorebirds, ducks etc, 1 migrant

From: Joseph Kennedy <josephkennedy36@xxxxxxxxx>
To: 4 Texbirds Maillist <texbirds@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>
Date: Fri, 31 May 2013 15:56:09 -0500
I did the loop around the bay from Anahuac to Quintana yesterday. For a 99%
sunny day, there were sure a lot of clouds and even a shower at Neotropic
which did not drop any migrants but there was a migrant of sorts overhead.
Most of the blue-winged teal lingering from a week ago were gone but most
coastal sites still had a few birds. There was great habitat for
grasspipers in several rice fields but I had zero birds other than a few
fly past squeaking white-rumped sandpipers. Some spots had numbers of
lingering shorebirds but it does not appear to be a great year for them.
The field at the southeast corner of Fairview had perfect water/rice height
but nothing in there other than killdeer.

The strong southeast winds had lots of water heading into the bay and
marshes. Some areas were wet for the first time in several years. Others
like Frenchtown road needed another few inches of tide/wind to fill the
pond to the brim.

Shoveler pond had lots of stuff like purple gallinules. A flyby group of
great blue herons included a bird that looked like a Wurdemann's in the
books but was probably a partial albino but still a startling sight. The
group of non-breeding spoonbills are still pretending to nest in shoveler
pond. Very few black terns were anywhere on the day but a few were feeding
over the one wet area at the Skillern tract.

Shorebird puddles on Bolivar had 1 lingering stilt sandpiper along with
white-rumped sandpipers and western sandpipers. Yacht Basin road was
getting water and had a couple of real whimbrel and a long-billed curlew.
The only oystercatcher for the day was at the boat launch there. No sitting
spots around rollover with the high water.

Bob road had white-rumped, semipalmated and western sandpipers along with a
spotted sandpiper but the white chair had no occupants.

Parts of the beach through Crystal beach could not be driven as the water
was to the dunes but there were sanderlings and turnstones scattered along
using the gulfweed goodies. Retillon had singing and skylarking horned
larks and flyby white-rumped sandpipers but nothing else in the flooded
flats. There have been a few cliff swallows perching on the fences there
and today they were joined by some cave swallows for my first on the flats.

The ferry trip had several magnificent frigatebirds but only 2 brown
pelicans and zero terns. Very little on the way to Brazoria and I did not
find the tropical kingbirds on pelican island in the midday sun.

Olney pond at Brazoria still has water in a couple of puddles and one damp
area. 5 Wilson's phalaropes, 1 greater yellowlegs, 100 +/- white-rumped
sandpipers and 2 Caspian terns were using the area.

Crossroads pond had lots of spoonbills and American avocets, teal and 1
northern shoveler. 3 wood storks and 1 single stork flew over heading east.

Down at Quintana I had a single warbler that flew past heading from
Xeriscape to Neotropic but did not find it. Perhaps a bay-breast or
redstart. The woods had lots of grackles, a large flock of just fledged
starlings and fledged mourning doves. Frigatebirds flew over just above the
treetops and they are a migrant there.

When you go to Bryan Beach now, it is one way from the entrance at the
bridge down to the mandatory exit at the lagoons which puts much traffic on
that road and keeps the birds at a distance. There is great shorebird
habitat emerging there as the west section dries.

Along the beach there were lots of laughing gulls working the new weed and
sanderlings and turnstones joined in. Only a few western willets.

The bryan beach lagoons had the lingering 14 or 15 redheads along with a
fair number of teal. There were a couple of hundred peeps in the west
lagoon along with greater yellowlegs and Wilson's plovers. The eastern part
of the spoil pool is drying but there were birds in the northeast corner
near the drain but I did not walk in there. A brown-backed tree swallow was
a flyby with other swallows along the embankment.

The hurricane levee pond had 7 lingering ruddy ducks and the 1 breeding
plumage horned grebe which I reported as an eared grebe last week but the
wrong sort of ear. Still lots of coots.

Another week and summer doldrums will be here unless the weekend cold front
drops lots of migrants. There can still be yellow-bellied flycatchers and
the odd warbler such as chestnut-sided. But there will be young terns to
amuse and the return of shorebirds toward the end of June.

-- 
Joseph C. Kennedy
on Buffalo Bayou in West Houston
Josephkennedy36@xxxxxxxxx


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[texbirds] Anahuac to Quintana yesterday, lingering shorebirds, ducks etc, 1 migrant

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