Hi all -
I was finally able to get out birding a little bit, spurred by my getting a new
Yard Bird in the morning. As I was repairing the roof of my Martin House
(beaten up by winds from an overnight thunderstorm), I heard a wren calling in
the sunflowers on the other side of the fence. It took a moment to register -
"Holy Cow - that's a Marsh Wren!!!" I had to listen to it a few times more to
be sure it was not a goofy-sounding house Wren or Sedge Wren. Nope, it was
definitely Marsh Wren. It took a few minutes to find it, hunkered down and
kinda wet-looking, and obviously not very pleased about hanging out in a field
instead of in a marsh somewhere. Yard Bird # 233!
A little while later there were a few male Indigo Buntings feeding with the
sparrows and doves, so that meant that stuff was arriving. About 2:30, I
decided to drive down to Port Aransas to see what was happening. I arrived in
Port A about 3:15, and went to Paradise Pond. Hey - there is finally a pond
there!!! Played with a little flock of N. Parulas, chased a nice male Hooded
Warbler, plus saw / heard indigo Buntings, Orchard Orioles, a B&W Warbler, a
Tennessee Warbler, and heard a waterthrush sp. (sounded like Northern). Two
ladies told me that there were hundreds of "pink" Franklin's Gulls at the
beach, and there was a male Cape May warbler putting on a show at the
Leonabelle Trunbull Birding Center.
I hustled over to the Birding Center, where I met Mel Cooksey, Lyndon Holcomb,
and Nan Dietert along with a half dozen photographers that were burning up
electrons at a furious rate. The Cape May Warbler was feeding in the Sea Grape
tree at the left-turn in the sidewalk, totally oblivious to all the lenses and
eyes pointed at him. With my digiscoping setup, I had to back up to get my
10.5 foot minimum focus, and at that was having a hard time getting the entire
bird to fit into the camera frame! It would feed constantly for about 10
minutes, then go back up into the big trees for a while, giving the photogs
time to catch their breaths, change batteries and memory cards, etc., and then
it would come back again! Remarkable.
Totally ignored during the photo frenzy were more bird species - Black-throated
Green, Chestnut-sided, Tennessee, Northern Parula, Black & White, Northern
Waterthrush, and Common Yellowthroat for warblers, along with Warbling and
White-eyed Vireos, Baltimore Orioles, Summer Tanagers and miscellaneous Gray
Catbirds and Northern Mockingbirds feeding on the Mulberry flowers. A lady saw
a Kentucky Warbler but I missed it. That made 10 species of warblers between
the two locations. Very nice!
I finally tore myself away from the Birding Center and went to the beach, but
alas, the Franklin's Gulls had departed.
Good day, eh? A beauty,
Clay Taylor
TOS Life Member
Calallen (Corpus Christi), TX
Clay.taylor@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx<mailto:Clay.taylor@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>
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