[texbirds] Anahuac to Texas City today, shorebirds and High Island record

From: Joseph Kennedy <josephkennedy36@xxxxxxxxx>
To: 4 Texbirds Maillist <texbirds@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>
Date: Tue, 6 May 2014 18:32:14 -0500
Checked the Fairview wetland and heard nothing. The ricefield a mile down
is all smooth and ditched but no first water yet.
Went on to Anahuac and the entrance road has just been mowed and had
bobwhite's out feeding in the new cut hay.

Shoveler pond had a few of the usuals, lots of sora calls and 1 year old
yellow-crowned night herons. One bobolink was beside the road to the oyster
bayou boat launch but it flew somewhere and I could not find it in several
tries. Lots of sedge wrens still singing on the road to frozen point. The
large marsh that had hordes of dowitchers last week is bone dry going out
maybe a half mile as are many ditches and other spots.

I did not see the ruff but there were phalaropes, stilt sandpipers etc in
the area. The water level has gone down a lot. Had king rails in a puddle
feeding stranded minnows to 3 chicks which need to grow up in a couple of
days before the puddle goes away.

Lots of wooly bears were crossing the road and all of them forecast a long
and cold winter.

Rice fields on 1985 had been watered but were being drained and some were
already dry. One flock of peeps was about it other than yellowleg heads
sticking up in taller rice that had water.

Down by 124 the short grass field had cows, cowboys and golden plovers with
several in breeding plumage. I found 4 then 9 but they took off to be
joined by others when a swainson's hawk buzzed over too low. I could not
find where they lit. There were lots of bobolinks singing just a bit east
of 124 on white's ranch road (actually 1985 is white's ranch road until it
was decided that names are old fashioned). I went a good way down and you
can go much further than before Ike. Note that parts past the right turns
can be under water after good rain, the bottom can go out and there is
little cell coverage. Today the dust will kill you.

I did all my usual trails and corners of Smith Oaks and ended up with a
record for May of zero (0) migrants and a list of 7 species of seen or
heard land birds. I gave up on the other woods.

Rollover had water coming in and least and black terns plus mainly dunlins
on nearby for a change flats. Bob Road is full to the brim and no
shorebirds and Frenchtown road is bone dry.

Note that the Crab Festival is this weekend and they have equipment all
over the grasspiper property next to Cobb's real estate preparing for the
fest.

High tides had much of the beach and all the area near the Boliver jetty
under water with no birds. Pelican Island was overrun with just out of the
nest starlings eating mulberries with the parents. They all seem to come
out of the hole on the same day both here and at places like Quintana. One
singing female plumaged painted bunting added variety and I could not find
the tropical kingbirds.

Most of the birds on the dike have gone elsewhere. Still some terns and
begging laughing gulls. Even the pelicans could feed without gulls on their
heads much of the time.

If anybody likes to watch or photograph pelicans flying the base of the
dike is the place as there are long strings going to and from the nesting
islands and feeding areas all day. The flight lines stay generally the same
as long as they wind stays the same so it is easy to see birds all the time.

I did find that banded oystercatcher W-4 is living with band 3-1 and there
is an unbanded adult bird in the area too. Lots of sanderling and
turnstones were the dike shorebirds along with a single black-bellied
plover.

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


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[texbirds] Anahuac to Texas City today, shorebirds and High Island record

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