Texas Birding: Turning South and Turning Tropical

The Butler's Birds Texas Adventure started out with a delectable appetizer of Painted Buntings outside San Antonio and then continued the next morning with endangered Black-capped Vireo and Golden-cheeked Warbler. After recording a clean sweep pretty early, I headed south to what is both harshly and accurately called the a**hole of Texas: Laredo. 

Of about three sites ID'd as good for White-collared Seedeater--the main reason to go to Laredo--Zacate Creek seemed like the most contained and easy to find (anyone else get overwhelmed when you're at a massive new site with 50 trails? So much nagging and doubt...). 

The place was totally trashy, with trails in disrepair and garbage all along the river banks, which served to accentuate the miasmic air blowing through the tall cane on the banks. Plus I was accosted several times by ICE agents, one of which ruined a perfectly good Green Kingfisher stakeout that was about to pay dividends for me, and one of which involved a fellow gun-in-hand (not pointed though). But damn, the birding here was phenomenal, and I caught a break from the cloud cover in the late afternoon (coincidentally, the hottest time of day). 

White-collared Seedeater was actually the third bird I had by the Zacate River, behind MODOs and GTGRs. Hearing and seeing these tiny birds would prove to be pretty easy. Photographing them was another beast entirely, a sweaty, smelly, swampy beast.

Since the Seedeaters were a relatively easy find, I spent more time exploring the trials and other habitats around Zacate Creek. Green Jays, Golden-fronted Woodpeckers, and a couple of Green Kingfishers made for exciting year birds and solidified the tropical feel of the area. Great Kiskadees were sounding off from the trees, their boisterous betraying how shy of birds they really can be, and a couple of Olive Sparrows further boosted the day's species list.

Exploring the thicker palm groves yielded fewer birds overall, relative to the thick riverside tamarisk and cane, but this unique vegetation provided the only Audubon's Orioles of the trip. Including the birds from Kerr WMA in the morning, this added to seven lifers, probably the most I've recorded in a single day in several years. Zacate was a dank and dirty place, but it was productive.

Although it was late in the season, a lingering Black-throated Green Warbler was feeding in the mesquite canopies at the end of the trail--the first Texas bird that would flag and require an eBird justification, given its tardiness. These are, I will somewhat ashamedly and somewhat unashamedly admit, my only photos of the species to date. To all haters out there I simply say...zee zee zee zoo zee!

The Seedeaters stayed high and far throughout the afternoon, offering poor photo ops and better binocular views. As the sun started to descend the number of ICE agents in the area increased, anticipating the push of immigrants that comes every evening.
At this point in the day I was pretty tan and had left my wallet (and ID) in the locked glove compartment of my car as a precaution. Not wanting to be profiled and rounded up, I decided to call it a night, after finding some public showers, because using the Zacate River would've exacerbated things.

The next morning saw the first big busts of the trip, which luckily had nothing to do with windows, tires, or other parts of the car, nor my face. I had hit all the Laredo targets--and then some--at Zacate the first afternoon, but figured I'd try a few more sites recommended form the Texas Birding Trails website. 

It turns out that site was a bit out of date. One of the areas has since been totally leveled and turned into a gated community with no surviving wetlands (except a duck pond) and another required advanced notice and a $40 entrance fee. 

Instead of doing that...I went to the beach. 

Driving across the Texas fin from Laredo to Corpus Christi, there were several dozen Crested Caracaras adorning various pedestals. While I didn't stop to photograph them (high, telephone poles, etc.), I must say this is probably the best highway roadside bird one can ask for in the U.S. 

When one arrives on the Texas/Gulf Coast in June, one is beset by Laughing Gulls. Hundreds and Thousands of Laughing Gulls. Try to pick out the occasional late Franklins, even a Ring-billed--I did a couple of times--but you will also go mad and begin laughing manically too, just like the Gulls that have hounded and driven you to this point wherever this sand and/or garbage. 

Still, they're pretty good looking Gulls.

There was some time to kill in Corpus before picking up The Iowa Voice in the evening for several days of joint birdventuring, so I used it to scan the Corpus Christi tidal flats and pick up some more diarrhea. I didn't know it at the time, but Corpus really is a great birding area with many more sites where at I could've better spent time. Relaxing around the easy-access beaches was nice though, no doubt, and still provided some nifty birds. Willets are an uncommon but reliable find in Arizona. Of course in Texas, they're among the most common shorebird in June.

The lifering continued via some Wilson's Well-Endowed Plovers. With their slightly but noticeably longer beaks, this species will eventually drive all other similarly sized Plovers to extinction.

Daylight was fading, as was the fast-food-fueled stamina. There was still some time to explore the area, but with no particular Corpus Christi specialties on my radar cruising around a new town--which wasn't as riddled with billboards as most other Texas towns--was a nice way to see off the sun. Driving over the Oceanfront bridge from Corpus to the naval base even yielded another lifer, one I wasn't expecting or really pursuing until later on in the trip, one that, I admit with mild embarrassment, I should have picked up earlier in life. Unfortunately I had already finished my dinner sandwich before crossing this frost-capped specimen of Tern. Of course, it would have been somewhat reckless, even inconsiderate, to simply pull onto the narrow highway/bridge shoulder and photograph the bird. Of course, a lifer is a lifer, and Butler's Birds sets high standards for such affair, so I did it anyway:

Gull-ible at Barnegat Bay

As a part of our Pennsylvania trip earlier this June, Maria and I made a rare visit to the east coast. The prospect of doing some birding along  the New Jersey shore was very exciting, even if we weren't heading to Cape May or some of those other famous sites. We set our sights on lovely Barnegat Bay, a strip of beach with beautiful scenery and, as it turned out, a few birding treasures of its own. Since I had only been to the Atlantic coast a few times, the prospects of seeing some new and cool birds were great. The Jersey shore did not disappoint, and in fact it exceeded my expectations. Even before Maria and I arrived at the beach, we started to see new birds, with sentinels such as this handsome Laughing Gull dotting utility poles along the road.

We saw Gulls high atop the famous old Barnegat Lighthouse and soaring along the coastal thermals. We also saw them along the lowest points of the Barnegat wharf and shoreline, sometimes in very compromising positions. Gulls can live high and they can live low. You don't become one of the most successful avian groups without making a few compromises.

The Seagull is often used as a symbol for freedom and versatility in literature. Most appropriately for birders, it can represent the unattainable ideal, something you want but can never possess. Keeping in mind the different plumages and vast ranges many Gulls have, as well as the propensity for many Gulls to turn up in unexpected places, I think Gulls embody the frustration and excitement of an unattainable ideal very well.  Especially for a non-coastal person like me, almost every Gull is a potential new bird, but they're so often ambiguous and identifying them is seldom a certain thing. Here, to make the point, are some mid-cycle Ring-billed Gulls. Or at least I think. Maybe Herring Gulls? Maybe not. They could also be space aliens.

Maria and I counted four different species of Gull along the Barnegat shore. The Laughing Gulls were by far the most visually striking and the most graceful of the bunch. Seagulls are pretty talented aviators, but the way that the Laughing Gulls rose and cut and dove almost put them in the Tern and Kite class of flyers. They had serious skills.

The Laughing Gulls were most comfortable in the air, and unlike the other Gulls, I never saw them on the ground. Conversely this third/fourth year Herring Gull seemed to abhor the very idea of flight. Even as I approached it, the bird started to walk out into the ocean instead of taking to its wings. I've seen some impressive flight displays from Herring Gulls and Ring-bills before, so this one must've just been pretty tuckered, or else it was just really wanted to soak its feet.

The Herring Gulls were the most numerous on our stretch of the Jersey beach, and they were visible in the air on the ground, floating atop the water, and popping into trash cans along the peer. Bulky, large, noisy, common, versatile, and semi-indestructible...surely this is the quintessential 'Seagull'.

It is often said that cockroaches and rodents would be the sole survivors of a nuclear holocaust. I'm putting my money on the Herring Gull. This is the cold calculating stare of a bird that can be caught at the epicenter of an atomic explosion and fly away wondering what's for dinner.

The most impressive Gull on the beach was, by far, the Great Black-backed. Their range in North America may be only a tiny fraction of the Herring or Ring-billed Gulls' range, but with a wingspan well over five feet, this bird more than compensates.

The Great Black-backed is the largest Gull in the world. The few that we saw at Barnegat Bay cruised low and slow along the beach, confident in their size and the proper awe they inspired in all whom they passed.

Folding in those wings must be a bit of a chore (I can sympathize too). This Gull held its pose for a little while, so maybe they were just telling me that they were tired of being spied on, and were pointing me in the direction of other cool stuff to see. 

"Go bother those Oystercatchers over there"

As I moved beyond the shoreline and out onto the rocky wharf around the bay, I realized that the awesome birding was just beginning. I already related the story of the Purple Sandpipers, and there are still many cool birds to come!