[texbirds] West Texas, May 4-13, Part One (long)

  • From: Chuck Sexton <gcwarbler@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>
  • To: TexBirds TexBirds Posting <texbirds@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>
  • Date: Tue, 14 May 2013 14:07:08 -0500

TexBirders,

I just returned from a ten-day, 1900-mile journey through West Texas,  
May 4-13.  Intense birding, long drives, and little/no internet  
connections (not to mention exhaustion) prevented me from uploading  
anything but a few tidbits in a timely manner.  After a four-day  
effort to help with bird surveys on a private ranch in the Davis  
Mts., I targetted several other counties for Texas Century Club  
purposes.  Those individual county results will be forwarded to the  
TCC editors later but below are some trip highlights...and  
lowlights.  Anyone interested in results for a specific county,  
please contact me off-list.  Part Two of this trip report will  
include some HotSpot and travel notes.  I made concerted birding  
efforts in the following counties:

Texas Hill Country:  Kinney, Medina, Menard, Sutton, Uvalde, Val Verde.
Trans-Pecos:  El Paso, Culberson, Hudspeth, Jeff Davis, Loving,  
Pecos, Reeves, Terrell, Ward, Winkler.

My overall trip list for 10 days was about 205 spp.  Conspicuously  
missing from that list is anything Flame-colored; Brewster and Big  
Bend were not on my agenda and I only heard about that tanager while  
I was far, far away.  My biggest efforts were in El Paso (89 spp over  
May 8-9), Loving (53 spp on May 10), Terrell (52 spp on May 11),  
Kinney (93 spp on May 12), and Medina (74 spp on May 13).  While  
there were still numbers of waterbirds moving through (or lingering),  
passerine migration was slow to absent almost everywhere.  Migrant  
warblers, vireos, flycatchers, etc., were tabulated by ones and twos,  
here and there.  I found:

-- 13 spp of waterfowl, thanks mainly to El Paso wetland sites  
(Rogers Wasterwater Treatment Facility and the canal adjacent to it  
and the nearby Rio Bosque Wetlands Park--although the park proper is  
bone dry) and Red Bluff Reservoir.  Nothing terribly unexpected  
except for perhaps a late CANVASBACK drake in El Paso May 8 and three  
late SNOW GEESE at Red Bluff on May 10.  The most out-of-place water  
bird was an ever-hopeful BELTED KINGFISHER, flying back and forth  
over shallow pools and a trickle of a stream in the Davis Mts.

-- 11 spp of raptors including a pair of adult GOLDEN EAGLES, a  
PEREGRINE, and nesting ZONE-TAILED HAWKS in the Davis Mts., and  
another Zone-tailed over Kickapoo Caverns SNA on the 12th.

-- 15 spp of shorebirds, again thanks to El Paso and Red Bluff  
Reservoir.  Highlights included a SEMIPALMATED SANDPIPER in El Paso  
on May 8, hundreds of WILSON'S PHALAROPES on blustery Red Bluff Res.  
on the 10th, and a SOLITARY SANDPIPER in the middle of rocky nowhere  
in Terrell County on the 11th.  Couldn't pull a Red-necked Phalarope  
out of the crowds at Red Bluff but there probably were some.  With  
its low water level and exposed shoreline, I suspect SNOWY PLOVERS  
are nesting at Red Bluff Res. this year.

-- Probably 3 "cuckoo" spp if I feel courageous enough to count  
Monday's (May 13) heard-only BLACK-BILLED CUCKOO at Castroville  
Regional Park.

-- 8 vireos with a heard-only CASSIN'S in the Davis Mts, but missing  
Gray Vireo everywhere.

-- 4 mimids including a nice study of a couple of CRISSAL THRASHERS  
on the Pecos River near Mentone (Loving/Reeves Cos.).

-- Tough sledding to amass just 14 spp of warblers, but that included  
a very lonely BLACK-AND-WHITE in an isolated blooming mesquite along  
US 62/180 in bone-dry Hudspeth Co. and a nice male BAY-BREASTED on  
the 12th at Fort Clark Springs (Kinney Co.).  There was a "Chat Fall"  
in Kinney Co. on the 12th with dozens filling the air with  
their...uh, melodies, at Fort Clark Springs and in rocky, parched  
Kickapoo Caverns SNA.

-- West Texas is sparrow country so tallying 21 spp is not unexpected  
for early May.  Most wintering species were down to a single bird  
here and there, although Chippies and Brewer's were still locally  
numerous.  GREEN-TAILED TOWHEES were still giving their single-note  
"Franklin's Gull" calls from brushy clumps in the Davis Mts, El Paso,  
and elsewhere.  (If 20 GTTOs all started calling at once, you'd look  
to the sky for the flock of gulls passing over.)  A few late sparrows  
included a SWAMP at the Rio Bosque Wetlands in El Paso and a couple  
of "GRAY-HEADED" JUNCOS in the Franklin Mts.

-- Curiously, after having tallied Lazuli Bunting in CenTex on May 3,  
I failed to find the species anywhere in West Texas over the next 10  
days.  Multiple singing INDIGO BUNTINGS in the Davis Mts--side by  
side with VARIED--were unexpected (to me).

-- At various moments, I was in the range of four oriole species; I  
saw all four on May 12 in Kinney Co. (HOODED, ORCHARD, and BULLOCK'S  
at Fort Clark Springs; adding SCOTT'S at Kickapoo Caverns).

-- This seems to be a year of late-lingering PINE SISKINS.  They were  
fairly conspicuous in El Paso May 8-9, in urban Monahans on May 11,  
and common at feeders at Fort Clark Springs (Kinney) on the 12th.

Chuck Sexton
Austin, Texas
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  • » [texbirds] West Texas, May 4-13, Part One (long) - Chuck Sexton