[texbirds] GCBO Smith Point HW, 2 Nov

From: Tony Leukering <greatgrayowl@xxxxxxx>
To: texbirds@xxxxxxxxxxxxx, Sk8inginfo@xxxxxxx
Date: Fri, 2 Nov 2012 19:02:27 -0400 (EDT)
Hi all:

Another slowish day where quantity was not in evidence, however, the quality 
quotient was very high!  I was hurrying to the tower this morning and passed an 
interesting sparrow on a fence, but since I was nearly running late, I kept 
going.  Halfway up the road to the tower, I realized that Winnie was up there 
and that she was more than qualified enough to ID any early raptor that might 
come by, so returned to the site of the interesting sparrow.  No luck, no 
sparrow.  Ah, well.

Though there was little fog this morning, the flight again delayed initiation 
until nearly 11 am.  However, since that's when most of the visitors for the 
day showed up, it worked out quite well.  Two more Bald Eagles (a write-in 
species for the tally form) were added to the season's already-astounding 
tally, an adult and a juvenile way out front in the 11-noon hour.  
Interestingly, the next four hours each saw at least one write-in raptor, a run 
that I have not matched previously here.  The noon-1 pm hour brought us the 
first White-tailed Kite of the day (found by Winnie), the next hour brought 
another White-tailed Kite, and the last hour of the day produced juvenile and 
adult White-tailed Hawks together way off to the west.  But, in the second-last 
hour of the day (2-3 pm) when Winnie had left the tower but was still standing 
in the parking lot and when David Hanson and crew, who had just arrived, were 
on the lower level on their way up, appeared the ...

Bird of the Day:  A large, long-winged, very pale buteo became the second 
juvenile light Ferruginous Hawk of the season (one more for a share of the 
record)!  Like the first one, this one stayed well away from the tower, 
reducing the satisfaction quotient of the sighting, but I liked it, 
nonentheless!

The early-morning landbird flight was a bit better than recent days have had, 
with Winnie and I tallying a largish number of Myrtle Warblers, a couple of 
Vesper Sparrows (tower tick!), and some unknown number of disembodied Eastern 
Bluebird voices somewhere in the blue sky, though we did see two actual 
bluebirds.  Three American Pipits and two each of Scissor-tailed Flycatcher, 
Blue-gray Gnatcatcher, and Orange-crowned Warbler finished out the interesting 
beasts in this category.  The day did not produce many photo ops; the only good 
one was of a low-flying juvenile female Northern Harrier 
(http://www.flickr.com/photos/tony_leukering/8148914067/in/photostream).  
American White Pelicans put on a decent show, with 314 going by in 20 flocks.  
I detected a bit of pre-waterfowl-season-opening-day movement of ducks, but all 
of it was very distant and not permitting of specific ID, though all were 
dabblers.  Finally, two Common Loons flew by, one right behind the tower.

Raptors counted (count conducted by Gulf Coast Bird Observatory):

Osprey 1 (the first counted in a fair bit)
Bald Eagle 2
White-tailed Kite 2
Northern Harrier 22 (3 ad m, 14 brown, 5 juv)
Sharp-shinned Hawk 9
Cooper's Hawk 25
Broad-winged Hawk 5 juvs
White-tailed Hawk 2
Red-tailed Hawk 4 juvs
Ferruginous Hawk 1
American Kestrel 1f
Total 74

Enjoy,

Tony


Tony Leukering
Villas, NJ
http://copyeditinggonebad.blogspot.com/
http://capemaymoths.blogspot.com/
http://cfobirds.blogspot.com/
http://aba.org/photoquiz/

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[texbirds] GCBO Smith Point HW, 2 Nov

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