[texbirds] Houston-Galveston area shorebirds yesterday, Friday July 26, 2013
- From: drbirdie@xxxxxxx
- To: texbirds@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
- Date: Sat, 27 Jul 2013 08:35:38 -0400 (EDT)
Hi Texbirders,
My friend Gil Custer and I came down to Galveston early for a meeting, and we
spent much of yesterday circumnavigating Galveston Bay seeking shorebirds and
other mid-summer goodies.
We had 21 species of shorebird, with oystercatchers at multiple locations,
including on Hawkins Camp Rd just above the Smith Point Hawk Watch site in
Chambers County. One interesting site of note was a shallow muddy pond on the
north side of Hwy 562 about 5 miles north of Smith Point. This pond had a nice
assortment of shorebirds including Stilt Sandpipers, Least and Western
Sandpipers, a Black-necked Stilt and both yellowlegs, including our only
Greater Yellowlegs of the day. The best aggregation of birds was at Rollover
Pass, where hundreds of terns and gulls were loafing or foraging and hundreds
of shorebirds of many species were foraging or roosting. We got there as the
tide was going out, and many of the birds were quite active. Least expected
shorebird of the day was a single Whimbrel on the gulf beach just northeast of
the bollards at Bolivar Flats. That location was also where we had our only
Long-billed Curlew of the day.
Our shorebird list for the day:
Black-bellied Plover
Wilson's Plover
Semipalmated Plover (Rollover Pass)
Piping Plover (one bird at Rollover Pass)
Killdeer
American Oystercatcher
Black-necked Stilt
Spotted Sandpiper
Solitary Sandpiper (one at San Jacinto Monument)
Greater Yellowlegs (one at pond on Smith Point Rd)
Willet
Lesser Yellowlegs
Marbled Godwit (Rollover Pass)
Ruddy Turnstone (none in Harris County)
Sanderling
Western Sandpiper
Least Sandpiper
Stilt Sandpiper
Dowitcher sp (one at Rollover Pass)
Long-billed Curlew (one bird at Bolivar Flats)
Whimbrel (one bird at Bolivar Flats)
We also had 3 Magnificent Frigatebirds on the ferry ride back to Galveston.
It was a good day to be chasing shorebirds.
Now back to work.
Byron Stone, Austin
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