Started the day at east beach on Galveston. Only a small group of royal
terns with a few least and sandwich. And laughing gulls with chicks.
A good bit of old and new sargassum weed on the beach was being used by all
the plovers and willets.
A good day for small plovers, 38 Wilson's plovers with a mix of adults and
youngsters, 12 snowy plovers with 2 hatch year birds and 10 piping plovers.
Banded birds among all of them with maybe half of the piping plovers banded.
A few sanderlings and western willets and 1 ruddy turnstone were the other
shorebirds. Heard an upland sandpipers and a solitary sandpiper overhead.
One bright plumaged arriving sanderling.
Crossed the ferry and had 2 marbled godwits at Fort Travis. On to Bolivar
Flats.
Along the beach there was a scattering of returning piping plovers with
most banded with 3 colors of flags. Not a whole lot of birds around. The
walk down was basically unbirdy except for 2 families of horned larks
eating their favorite seeds from plants out in the sand.
Missed some of the lingering shorebirds. Only 1 long-billed curlew. A dozen
marbled godwits. 20 short-billed dowitchers with most bright plumaged new
arrivals. The new birds roosting were some 75 western sandpipers. Only 50
sanderlings with all lingering birds. A mix of singles like turnstones etc.
The tide was going out and the roosting birds moved down to the new mud.
All of the piping plovers from further east also moved down that way.
Had say 20 piping, 10 semipalmated and 8 Wilson's plovers.
Instead of lots of sargassum like on east beach there was lots of spaghetti
bryozoan for the plovers to feed in and around.
Lots fewer terns than last week but more brown pelicans. One least tern did
bring a fish to a friend who said thank you but the nesting area was
basically birdless.
The surprise on the beach besides a couple of large dead redfish was what I
think was a baby river otter. Very small and not colored like an adult and
rather bedraggled. Flipper like feet.
The beach going east did not have many birds but western willets were
scattered all along among the people. Did not have any easterns for the
first time since March. A couple of least terns had recently fledged from
somewhere not near where they were.
1985 and Anahuac were quiet but I did get the lingering northern shoveler
and ring-necked duck. Lots of the young cattle egrets are out of the nest
and perched up. Not sure if that gets them fed or they are on their way to
independence. Marsh wrens, seaside sparrows and orchard orioles still
singing. Did not see a purple gallinule but a least bittern flew by.
Great sudden growth of duckweed will feed lots of ducks when the teal start
arriving in a couple of weeks.
--
Joseph C. Kennedy
on Buffalo Bayou in West Houston
Josephkennedy36@xxxxxxxxx
