Sounds like tomorrow morning at Smith Point could be very fine wish I could be
there.
Winnie Burkett
Friendswood & the Bolivar Peninsula
-----Original Message-----
From: Joseph Kennedy <josephkennedy36@xxxxxxxxx>
To: 4 Texbirds Maillist <texbirds@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>
Sent: Tue, Aug 25, 2015 5:17 pm
Subject: [texbirds] Smith Point hawk watch today, nice flight then thousands of
kites
Spent the day doing the count at Smith Point. Nice day with north winds
most of
the day and winds up in hawk country were north all day. The big
front was
pushing down and moving swallows and hawks out in front and
finally arrived
about 2 pm.
Had to leave the tower in a big hurry as the west and east ends of
the
front moved faster than the part just to the north leaving the towed in
a
pocket of clearer air but then it snuck in from the west and I had to
run
after lots of lightning started flashing.
Did a little exploring out
Hawkins Camp Road but the wind kept everybody
down. Came back and found the
pocket at the tower had shrunk more with huge
bird flocks pushed against the
shore with rain all around. At least 10,000
swallows were spectacular with most
cliff and barn swallows and purple
martins. Ibis on the road and parking lot.
200 anhingas really wanted to
set down.
But the highlight was 1,200
Mississippi kites along with 6 swallow-tailed
kites down at treetop and ground
level trying to find shelter or an escape
route. They wandered up toward town
and back to the tower with most sitting
down as the rain arrived.
Heading
out I found another kite flock of more than 1000 birds sitting down
in the
trees at the whitehead house along with more swallow-tailed kites.
It looked
like lots of kites were already down when I stopped to count.
Don't know if
they will go off later this pm or wait till morning. But the
best I have ever
had.
Officially, the hawk count was
Mississippi kite 150
swallow-tailed
kite 6
broad-winged hawk 80
swainson's hawk 2
cooper's hawk 8
American
kestrel 1
Other birds showed well too. Only had 9 upland sandpipers way up
high so
that they could barely be heard. A couple of solitary
sandpipers.
About 260 blue-winged teal, 200 plus dickcissels with some
singing in
flight, 60 eastern kingbirds, 121 blue-gray gnatcatchers, 24
yellow
warblers, 16 orchard orioles, and 143 white-winged doves.
Other birds
included eastern wood pewee, blue grosbeak, 3 olive-sided
flycatchers, 61
anhingas and a couple of empidonax with one maybe a
yellow-bellied and another
the expected alder.
Local hawks included red-tailed, red-shouldered,
swainson's caracara and
both vultures.
I have been commenting on the lack of
water birds out on the bay including
gulls, terns, pelicans etc. I did several
counts of all birds feeding,
sitting as far as I could see. Did not include
some high up pelicans going
places.
High count was 4 birds and the low count
0 birds. But there were tremendous
numbers of mullet jumping. A barge was out
there spraying oyster shells
onto a reef but attracted no birds. Really neat
operation.
And a really great day at Smith Point but driving home in
traffic
influenced by rain was less fun. Will need to do it again.
--
Joseph C. Kennedy
on Buffalo Bayou in West
Houston
Josephkennedy36@xxxxxxxxx
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