[texbirds] Cameron Co.: Old Port Isabel Rd. + TX-48 boat launch

From: "Rex Stanford" <calidris@xxxxxxxxxxxxxx>
To: "TEXBIRDS" <texbirds@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>
Date: Sat, 14 Jun 2014 11:49:04 -0500
Yesterday (Friday, 06/13/14) afternoon we birded Old Port Isabel Rd. (OPIR,
driving south from TX-100 to FM-511) and, afterward, the boat launch area on
the east side of TX-48. The sky was mostly sunny, but with some clouds, a
fast, quite steady, southeast wind helped neither photography nor the birds.
Here are the highlights of our visits to those to locales, not in particular
order.

OPIR: Our target bird for OPIR was BOTTERI'S SPARROW. We both saw and I
(Rex) photographed one of that species, and a bit further along Birgit saw a
bird that she deemed to be another but that I was unable to see and neither
of us photograph, thanks to its being flushed by a fast-moving pickup truck.
We also saw and I got one poor photo of a CASSIN'S SPARROW, but far too many
sparrows--usually looking like they could be either Cassin's or Botteri's,
were seen very briefly and/or a distance that obviated sensible efforts at
identification. The wind did not help matters, and at times birds seemed to
be having trouble even hanging onto the strands of the barbed-fence wire.
Possibly the strong wind played a role in our not seeing a single
skylarking/song display from Cassin's Sparrow. EASTERN MEADOWLARK was
virtually everywhere, but we heard no song from them, possibly due to the
fierce wind. We found one APLOMADO FALCON, but distance and heat convection
obviated photography. We also were delighted to find NORTHERN BOBWHITE,
initially by male voice ("Bob WHITE"), that penetrating sound accompanying
us for some distance along the road, but no sight of the singer. Then,
perhaps a quarter-mile later, we spotted a female of that species sitting on
the lower strand of fence wire, barely able to hang on and to keep her
balance, but very cooperative for photography, a lovely lady!

NON-AVIAN REFLECTIONS ON DRIVING OPIR YESTERDAY: OPIR, as it often does,
held a nice surprise for us, a non-avian one in the form of multitudes of
Bluebell Gentians (Eustoma exaltatum) blooming profusely adjacent to or just
behind a fence from the road. These lined the road for perhaps a couple of
miles, on both sides, but predominantly on the east side. These delicate,
and richly, but subtly, blue-hued flowers, whose stalks can grow up to ca.
30" tall, were a highlight of OPIR for us, and they apparently had recently
reached the apex of their flowering and growth, thanks some recent rain.
They were beginning, though, to look just a bit dried out thanks to recent
days of high temperatures and strong wind. Another, more surprising and even
more pleasant aspect of the drive on OPIR yesterday was the extraordinarily
fine condition of the road. We did not have to contend with a single rut,
and the road was wide and well graded! The segment that often can be flooded
had a rough texture, and we wondered if it might have been reinforced by
bringing in some harder, coarse material of some kind--but we do not know.
At any rate, the road itself was a very pleasant surprise. OPIR, though,
often holds an unpleasant and, for experienced visitors, unsurprising
feature, namely the trash both along and on the road. The place seems to
have become a repository for a wide range of things to be discarded. It also
is a place where one often finds items on the road itself that potentially
could damage one's tires, including puncturing them. Yesterday at one
stretch I spotted ahead of us several substantial pieces of (formerly)
structural wood, obviously split or broken. I got out and moved all of the
substantial pieces out of the road before proceeding, and I am glad I did.
Two of them had a lengthy nail extending from them, seemingly begging for a
tire on which to chomp, and some of them, if hit at a suitable angle and
with some speed might have flown up, potentially damaging vehicular
understructure (e.g., exhaust structures). The bottom line here is this
piece of advice: WHEN DRIVING OPIR, ALWAYS SCAN THE ROAD AHEAD FOR DEBRIS,
NOT JUST BE ON THE LOOKOUT FOR BIRDS! Even if the road is in fine condition,
as we found it yesterday, it at places can be littered with objects that one
would wish to avoid and that might damage one's tires or vehicle.

TX-48 BOAT LAUNCH AREA: The birding here was not nearly as rewarding, of
course, as it had been during migration, especially shorebird migration, but
we did have some nice finds. We found only four shorebird species,
BLACK-BELLIED PLOVER (1, no sign of breeding plumage), WILSON'S PLOVER (1),
WILLET (Eastern, numerous, some in strikingly marked, dark breeding
condition), and to our great delight AMERICAN OYSTERCATCHER (4, i.e., 2
adults and 2 young), an outstanding number of oystercatchers for this site,
in our experience, Our previous finds of this species at this site had, over
many months, ranged from 0 to 3. These 4 oystercatchers may merit some
description related to behavior. One of each adult seemed to forage in the
company of a particular one of the two young, sticking together across
various locations. Often these two adult-young pairs were a substantial
distance apart, but once they foraged more closely together. These birds
were very distant, immediately east of us, on a finger of sand on the north
side of the water, but we were able to study them via scope at up to 60X,
thus differentiating age by the dark distal portion of the bill on two of
them and the bright reddish-orange color on the entire bill of the adults.
That site also afforded us BLACK SKIMMER (dozens), ROYAL TERN (1), some
expected wader species.

Wishing everyone the best of summertime birding,

Rex and Birgit Stanford
McAllen, TX

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[texbirds] Cameron Co.: Old Port Isabel Rd. + TX-48 boat launch

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