Late this afternoon (10/09/15), as the final segment of a much longer
birding trip (not detailed here), my wife and I visited the Hargill area to
see how the birding situation there, especially at the famous playa area,
had fared in the face of the dramatic rainstorm that had passed through
there earlier in the day. We were not there specifically to try to find
that playaâs long-abiding Collared Plover, but to see what the playa at
which it had been for many weeks looked like, physically and bird-wise,
after todayâs heavy rain. (We have no official report on the rain there
today, but a friend told us that over 3 inches of rain had fallen in the
Hargill area today, and what we saw there late today seemed easily
compatible with such an amount.)
We made no effort to ensure that we detected every species at the playa
this afternoon, for this visit was for us at the tail end of a trip that
already had ranged over 250 miles, and we were more than a bit road- and
rain-weary. Given the interest, though, in this playa and the Collared
Plover, I thought it might be useful to report some observations from our
visit this afternoon and some thoughts engendered by them.
First and foremost, the area had received a huge amount of rain for such a
short period of time, and many roads were either partially or entirely
covered with water at various points, sometimes enough to discourage our
travel on them. (I am referring to paved roads, not any unpaved ones, which
would today have invited only those potentially looking for a bad type of
adventure.) At quite a few of the residences the yards were partially to
almost entirely covered with water, sometimes quite deep. The playa where
the Collared Plover had been seen for some weeks was vastly expanded in
size, so much so that if that plover is present and should elect to be on
the south side of the playa, it probably could not be adequately studied
from the (dirt) road north of the playa, which is the accessible location
for viewing and photographing it. On the other hand, there still was a
substantial, partially vegetated, shoreline on the north side of the playa,
which presumably would be the best location for it to be seen from the
eastward dirt extension of 1st street. Today we did not attempt to walk up
that dirt road to make a serious try to find the plover. Much of it was
covered with standing water, and any effort to drive it would have been
unthinkable for us, and even had we come to try to see the plover, we would
not have had the suitable water-proof footwear to allow us to walk in for
such an effort. (Aside from that, we are not even sure that the road at
points would not have been sufficiently soft and wet as to make attempted
walking a hazardous enterprise.)
We confined our study of the playa to selected points along Lincoln street
(drive? avenue?) that provided decent viewing of the north shore of the
playa and its relatively nearby water. This was the shoreline that often
had proven very attractive to the Collared Plover and that, anyhow, was the
area most easily viewed from the accessible viewing points (i.e., along the
dirt eastward extension of 1st Street). We viewed only from our vehicle,
using 7X high-quality binoculars under the fairly good light provided by
clearing of the sky.
We both searched the visible portions of the north shore with binoculars,
hoping at least to be able to see a plover of some kind there, but we did
not spot such a bird. We do NOT presume that this means that the Collared
Plover is no longer present or will not return there. It only means that
using the limited means of study at hand from our selected viewpoints, we
spotted no bird that looked even remotely like a plover (or even like a
Calidris sandpiper). We tend to think that a substantial portion of the
north shore of the playa has sufficient land out of water potentially to
make the plover, if it is present, visible from the traditional
viewpoint(s) along the dirt road north of the playa. (This would be the
case unless the plover were sufficiently high on the remaining, unsubmerged
shoreline as to be obscured by grass or other vegetation along the fence
line.)
Despite the limited character of our study of this area today, we did find,
in the waters of the north side of the playa, the following birds of
possible interest: WOOD STORK (5, near north shore), ROSEATE SPOONBILL
(some distance south of north shore); and AMERICAN AVOCET (4, toward east
end of north shore).
I hope the above information might be useful for those contemplating a
visit to the playa. I have no idea when the Collared Plover last was seen,
but those visiting the site would be doing a favor to the birding community
if they would report both successes and failures in efforts to see this
bird.
Wishing everyone the best of late-fall-migration birding -- Rex Stanford
(Weslaco, TX).
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