[texbirds] Galveston to Anahuac yesterday; loon herd gathering and eastern kingbirds arrive

From: Joseph Kennedy <josephkennedy36@xxxxxxxxx>
To: 4 Texbirds Maillist <texbirds@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>
Date: Wed, 20 Mar 2013 18:49:38 -0500
Did the loop around the east bay counter clockwise to miss any afternoon
ferry slowdown. The forecast was for light northerly winds but the winds
were actually more like a gale from the sse and then southeast. If you like
sand in you teeth, coffee, and optics it was a good day for the beach and
most birds were either right at the water edge or elsewhere.
Started on 61st street before sunrise and the loons are gathering with
maybe 50 all common loons. Most were down towards the Colonel anchorage and
hard to count in the chop. They were feeding like cormorants with birds
flying over the others to get to the head of the line. Eventually birds
started to move down to 61st street where they joined gulls and pelicans
feeding on fish being swept under the bridge. I was able to lure a couple
into the rocks, but they caught on real fast that it was a person in the
car.
Frenchtown Road has a little edge and a pair of gull-billed terns and some
of the common shorebirds. The dry sand flats along Retillon had many
black-bellied plovers with a few golden plovers mixed in for easy
comparison by call and appearance. Some of the posts had eastern willets
waving their wings but no aerial territory flights yet. Horned larks
zipping around. Out on the beach the sand was moving in a sheet and there
were very few birds.
Further up in Crystal beach a narrowing strip of wet sand gave respite from
the blowing sand and included a few bonaparte's gulls without black heads
and some sandwich terns in with a big flock of forster's terns. One of the
sandwich terns had a very pink belly.
All of the forster's terns were still eared with no black on the head in
contrast with the birds up on the texas city dike which are basically in
breeding plumage.
Bob Road is very full of water but has a nice group of redheads in the
first east side impoundment.
The grassland behind the Cobb realty office has shrunk as they are
developing a trailer park or somesuch but there were 31 golden plovers back
in the corner. Yacht Basin Road was almost birdless and several side roads
the usually have some water and birds are bone dry. Tuna road has been
underwater several times and is eroding but there was a pair of unbanded
oystercatchers at the end.
The birds at Rollover were really out there except for one group including
avocets despite a tide rushing in followed by no feeding birds.
High island had lots of red-breasted nuthatches and 2 each of northern
parula and orchard oriole.
The cliff swallows are back at the nests on the high bridge north of high
island but I did not see any swallows at other colonies along 1985. Eastern
kingbirds were at Skillern but no sign of vermilion flycatchers. Still some
mallards about.
The main anahuac area had a merlin and lots of black-bellied whistling
ducks. Still good numbers of puddle ducks but the oyster bayou tract is
going dry. As you go around shoveler pond, the ditch and wet area to the
north is basically dry. You can taste the dust going by the rice fields but
one area now has its dikes built. The large field at Peach Orchard that was
so good for shorebirds has been plowed but not smoothed.
Going north, one large field has lost most of its new grass crop to the
drought; not sure how much longer this will go on as this is the 4th crop
lost in the last 2 years. Hoped for a few birds in small wet areas around
double bayou but there is no water anywhere. The drought map shows 88% of
the state in drought but it is dryer out there as many of the rainshowers
this spring were very local. But then there is hope of isolated showers 1
day out of the next 10. Lots more plant matter in the soil is going to
oxidize like in the last couple of years making it even harder for it to
hold the little rain we are getting.
But it does look like there will be lots of rice in the area which will be
green in any event and provide water in ditches as well as the fields.
-- 
Joseph C. Kennedy
on Buffalo Bayou in West Houston
Josephkennedy36@xxxxxxxxx


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[texbirds] Galveston to Anahuac yesterday; loon herd gathering and eastern kingbirds arrive

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