[texbirds] GCBO Smith Point hawk count, 7 November
- From: Tony leukering <greatgrayowl@xxxxxxx>
- To: "texbirds@xxxxxxxxxxxxx" <texbirds@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>
- Date: Thu, 7 Nov 2013 19:42:15 -0600
Hi all:
Well, you probably want to know how it went today, waiting on bated breath or
tenterhooks (whichever is your idiom of choice) for the answer to the
all-important question: Did they see the 'G' bird?
There is no joy in Mudville tonight.
So, 7 Nov falls to scoring Golden Eagle on 3 of the last 6 years. Eagles we
had, just none with golden napes. Or small heads. Or bulging secondaries.
"Just" three juvenile Balds. Waaaah.
We did have Broad-winged Hawks and Turkey Vultures in view for most of the day,
including dark ones seen at 11:13, 11:15, 11:50, 12:36, 13:28, and 13:44.
Unfortunately for the aficionados of large numbers, my pix show that one
individual with a couple of minor, but distinctive, issues in its left wing
accounted for all sightings. Two Ospreys were around, off and on, all day.
I was expecting a good buteo show today, but that -- other than Broad-wingeds
-- did not materialize, as I counted just four each of Swainson's and
Red-tailed and we did not even see a Red-shouldered. However, partially making
up for the low diversity in colors of Red-taileds was a sunhle adult Red-tailed
referable to Fuertes's Red-tailed Hawk, a bird that nearly lacked markings on
the underparts, but which had a dark red tail and medium brown upperparts.
Raptors counted:
Turkey Vulture - 87
Northern Harrier - 9
Sharp-shinned Hawk - 22
Cooper's Hawk - 26
Bald Eagle - 3 (juveniles)
Broad-winged Hawk - 151
Swainson's Hawk - 4 (juveniles, 1 intermediate)
Red-tailed Hawk - 4
American Kestrel - 17
Merlin - 1
Peregrine Falcon - 1 (juvenile)
Total - 320
Landbirds, while not spectacular, did provide at least a little bit if
diversion in the morning, with a smattering of American Pipits and Myrtle
Warblers, along with singles each of Western Kingbird (possibly the bird that
Sue saw here yesterday) and American Goldfinch. A single hummingbird put in
two exceedingly brief appearances, but did not permit ID, even to genus! In my
opinion, the best landbird of the day was found by Ron Weeks (who found nearly
all of the interesting landbirds), who kicked up a Le Conte's Sparrow in the
field just to the east of the tower. He even kicked it up once more so that I
could tally it from the tower! Yea, my 227th species of the fall from the
tower!
Waterbirds were reasonably in evidence, though not in the abundance for which
I'd hoped: a bit over half-a-thousand Snow Geese (with a smattering of
Ross's), less in White-fronteds, <100 Am. White Pelicans, and just three
Sandhill Cranes. There were singles each of Wood Duck and Northern Shoveler, a
few flocks of Northern Pintails (two of which had Lesser Scaup leading them),
and a single distant flock of Lesser Scaup. Of course, we might have found
more migrating ducks over East Bay had we not been looking so hard for Golden
Eagle.
My eBird checklist for today:
http://ebird.org/ebird/view/checklist?subID=S15603953
Maybe 8 November can start a 'G' bird tradition.
Enjoy,
Tony
Tony Leukering
Smith Point, TX
http://smithpointhawkwatch.wordpress.com/
http://www.flickr.com/photos/tony_leukering/
http://www.aba.org/photoquiz/
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