Started yesterday at East Beach at Galveston a little earlier than usual.
Again zero terns in any of the parking lots. The north winds along the
beach had the tide lower than any time way back in the spring. Flats at
bolivar had dry sand where there has been water all summer.
The Bolivar jetty had good birds out there for the first time in a long
time but you need an afternoon sun for good looks. The closer birds would
require a walk to the end of the pavement and then rockhopping like when
the red-necked stint was around. 3 pm would be good for light but not so
good at 97 degrees. The morning sun is right in you face when it is cooler
at 88.
The photographer from last week was back and may be from California which
would explain his nice doggy chasing endangered piping plovers, the least
tern flock and the jaeger twice. He did not have his camera this trip.
The jaeger was actively feeding on the jetty itself among the fishermen and
crabbers. It really liked the chicken left by crabbers and ate it to the
exclusion of fish parts. It did move and fly a bit when the fishermen
walked around but quickly came back and kept the laughing gulls which
normally eat the goodies at a distance. New feathers are growing but the
wings and tail are really raggedy still.
The commoner bird on the sand was least sandpipers as most had been chased
by the doggy. A group of piping plovers were displaying at each other. One
plover was a young of the year bird and a single sanderling kept sticking
its nose into the dispute. Lots of new least sandpipers still in breeding
plumage feeding in damp sand but the feeding resting western sandpipers
were absent from the beach and fenced in area. The flock of least terns
(100 plus) flew in from Bolivar until it was chased back and was resting on
the large damp areas later. One frigatebird overhead.
The summering osprey as on the loop in Port Bolivar.
The ferry ride has lots of cliff swallows crossing the bay and my first
no-tailed grackle of the season.
Bolivar flats had really good habitat but was warm and really humid. New
arrivals included many breeding plumaged black-bellied plovers and a few
short-billed dowitchers already molting. Good numbers of semipalmated
plovers partly replaced many of the piping and snowy plovers but the first
banded piping plover was there as well as other new banded birds. Lots
could have been around at the jetty so may not have moved on.
The summering dunlin from last week is still summering. A few more young
western willets of the summer.
Yacht basin road had its resident caracara and the late eastern willet
which has lost most of its fuzz and will soon go too.
There was some sand showing off rollover pass for the first time this
summer but not many birds could fit on it. One frigatebird headed out to
the gulf.
Anahuac and shoveler pond continue to have lots of good stuff and really
great production of baby birds. One corner had new young of both gallinules
and American coots. Lots of gallinule chicks.
Many new broods of black-bellied whistling ducks including 4 broods near
the last pull off on the last leg around the pond. Others everywhere. The
two large crèches of fulvous whistling ducks had combined. The young of the
two whistling ducks feed differently. The fulvous are quieter and pickier
while the young black-bellied eat and munch noisily and apparently almost
anything. Can be heard at a good distance.
The rookery in the middle is going great guns. Tricolored herons are
starting to fledge but have not gone far yet and are not really into
perching or landing. More dark ibis and cattle egrets out but only one
white ibis which was more inept than the young tricolors.
The beak colors of the young white-faced ibis are already turning black
after a week and much of the white feathering has been replaced.
A good group of wood storks has joined the rookery birds with most perched
on a berm next to the reeds. A good but distant look from the end of the
first leg of the loop and again from the pull off by the open water.
Some storks were perched up with the nesters and a couple were playing with
sticks. The nesting activity of the other birds triggered some sort of
response but they have already nested for the year.
Had fun trapped on I-10 on the way home after an accident and chemical
spill in Baytown and it took 5 hours to get through it.
--
Joseph C. Kennedy
on Buffalo Bayou in West Houston
Josephkennedy36@xxxxxxxxx
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