Sabal Palm was the place I was anticipating visiting most eagerly on the trip. Not only does it attract great birds, but its relict Sabal Palm forest has a decidedly tropical character. As you walk the trail, you can gaze up at filtered sunlight streaming through the fronds above and illuminating the tall straight trunks wrapped in vines. It's pretty awesome, and right up there with Santa Ana NWR as the coolest forest we viewed on our trip.
This was our windiest morning of the trip, which definitely affected bird activity. Still, we saw some neat species. Many of the resident specialties came into the feeders, including one that's actually rare this far south in the Rio Grande Valley - an Audubon's Oriole. On the trails, we found our first Black-and-White Warbler and Blue-headed Vireo ever, while also enjoying a spattering of other common migrants.
As the morning wore on, we meandered back to the car to plan the rest of the day. At the time, we were mulling two options. First, we could take a road to Boca Chica beach and look for shorebirds and grassland specialties along the way. Option two was that we could drive out to South Padre Island where almost all of the same birds were possible, plus South Padre Island is known as a famous migrant trap.
The promise of eastern warblers being too hard to resist, we headed for the island. From the freeway, we were able to see our first ever (and, it turned out, only ever so far) White-tailed Hawk perched on a fence. Incidentally, we didn't see a single Red-tailed Hawk the whole trip! Quite a change from California freeways, where they are so common.
We couldn't make it to South Padre Island without a stop at the local lighthouse, however. Port Isabella's light is right off the freeway before you hit the causeway to the island, so it's a natural place to stop for lunch. We took our mid-day repast at its picnic tables and watched Tropical Kingbirds chase each other around on the neighboring telephone wires. And, of course, Libby took some nice lighthouse pictures!
Looking up at the lighthouse.Incidentally, Port Isabel seemed like a very nice town. I definitely preferred its seaside character to South Padre Island's Vegas-like tower hotels and cut-rate T-shirt shops.
After we finished eating and using "the facilities" (a need that birders constantly must consider) we drove across the biggest bridge in Texas and headed north to the Convention Center. When we pulled in, the parking attendant gruffly redirected us to a neighboring sandy beach for parking. It turns out there was a big motorcycle convention beginning that afternoon, and the parking was all reserved for its attendees. No matter, a little extra walking was a small price to pay for the possibility of eastern migrants. Still, as we walked through the crowd of leather-clad bikers, we kept our expectations low. A local toting an impressively long camera lens had told us in the parking lot that migration was really slow today. Just a few Nashville Warblers and Tennessee Warblers. Oh, and a Palm Warbler. The Palm Warbler would be a new bird for us, but the others we'd seen before quite a bit on the trip.
It turns out a slow day at South Padre Island is nothing to sneer at, leaving us only that much more in awe of a fast one. Just that afternoon, between the Convention Center and the similarly vegetated Sheepshead Lot further south, we had three new warblers: a Chestnut-sided male (Libby's favorite warbler for the trip!), Northern Waterthrush, and Louisiana Waterthrush. We somehow missed the Palm Warbler that day. Plus, the trees were thick with our first Baltimore and Orchard Orioles - in every possible spring plumage - and bringing us to three new Oriole species for the day! Not only that, but Rose-breasted Grosbeaks added their striking colors to the fray, and a subtley plumaged Veery hopped along next to our first Eastern Wood-Pewee. It was fantastic birding, with great views of every species.
Not only are the little woody lots nice, but there's also a great boardwalk that takes you out through some high tidal flats to a strip of mangroves. I was pretty excited to see mangroves for the first time in my life, and even better, there were awesome birds to be seen out there, too. Clapper Rails showed well, something they never seem to do locally for us. We also saw our first definite Mottled Ducks, a very cute group of Wilson's Plover scurrying about on the mud flats, and our first American Golden-plover. And to top it all off, as we were getting ready to leave, two Yellow-crowned Night Herons came swooping into the Mangroves.
By the time we'd gotten our fill of migration, we were pretty tired. If it hadn't been for the most satisfying root beer floats of our lives mid-afternoon at an A&W, we would have been out for the count. Given the root-beery refreshment, however, we were good for one more adventure before we called it a night.
After we finished eating and using "the facilities" (a need that birders constantly must consider) we drove across the biggest bridge in Texas and headed north to the Convention Center. When we pulled in, the parking attendant gruffly redirected us to a neighboring sandy beach for parking. It turns out there was a big motorcycle convention beginning that afternoon, and the parking was all reserved for its attendees. No matter, a little extra walking was a small price to pay for the possibility of eastern migrants. Still, as we walked through the crowd of leather-clad bikers, we kept our expectations low. A local toting an impressively long camera lens had told us in the parking lot that migration was really slow today. Just a few Nashville Warblers and Tennessee Warblers. Oh, and a Palm Warbler. The Palm Warbler would be a new bird for us, but the others we'd seen before quite a bit on the trip.
It turns out a slow day at South Padre Island is nothing to sneer at, leaving us only that much more in awe of a fast one. Just that afternoon, between the Convention Center and the similarly vegetated Sheepshead Lot further south, we had three new warblers: a Chestnut-sided male (Libby's favorite warbler for the trip!), Northern Waterthrush, and Louisiana Waterthrush. We somehow missed the Palm Warbler that day. Plus, the trees were thick with our first Baltimore and Orchard Orioles - in every possible spring plumage - and bringing us to three new Oriole species for the day! Not only that, but Rose-breasted Grosbeaks added their striking colors to the fray, and a subtley plumaged Veery hopped along next to our first Eastern Wood-Pewee. It was fantastic birding, with great views of every species.
Not only are the little woody lots nice, but there's also a great boardwalk that takes you out through some high tidal flats to a strip of mangroves. I was pretty excited to see mangroves for the first time in my life, and even better, there were awesome birds to be seen out there, too. Clapper Rails showed well, something they never seem to do locally for us. We also saw our first definite Mottled Ducks, a very cute group of Wilson's Plover scurrying about on the mud flats, and our first American Golden-plover. And to top it all off, as we were getting ready to leave, two Yellow-crowned Night Herons came swooping into the Mangroves.
By the time we'd gotten our fill of migration, we were pretty tired. If it hadn't been for the most satisfying root beer floats of our lives mid-afternoon at an A&W, we would have been out for the count. Given the root-beery refreshment, however, we were good for one more adventure before we called it a night.
Next stop: parrots! South Texas hosts two established exotic species in large numbers: Green Parakeets and Red-crowned Parrots. Both are native to Mexico only a hundred or so miles south of the border, and thrive in American border urban centers throughout the valley. We have Red-crowned Parrots here in L.A., so we focused on the Green Parakeets. Our destination was a well known roosting site at the University of Texas, Brownsville where the Parakeets proved ridiculously easy to find. Pull into the parking lot in the evening, get of your car, and enjoy the commotion! We were even able to see them coming in and out of their nest holes at a nearby resaca. Plus, we saw some Red-crowned Parrots mixed in with the flock, so we had another bird for the trip!
We finished the day off at Whataburger, and then went home to remove a bunch of ticks we picked up somehow. This was one of our best days! Pictures can be found here: Texas Day Five.
Lifers for the day:
1. Mottled Duck
2. Yellow-crowned Night Heron
3. White-tailed Hawk
4. American Golden-Plover
5. Wilson's Plover
6. Green Parakeet
7. Blue-headed Vireo
8. Veery
9. Chestnut-sided Warbler
10. Black-and-White Warbler
11. Northern Waterthrush
12. Louisiana Waterthrush
13. Rose-breasted Grosbeak
14. Orchard Oriole
15. Audubon's Oriole
16. Baltimore Oriole
1 comment:
Hey Jon, these are great photos, thanks for putting up these updates. (c:
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