Antshrike's Bird Page

Starting the new year lists.

See what going on in my new blog.

http://antshrike.blogspot.com/

Llano Grande flood channel

Saw this cool American Bittern at the Llano Grande flood channel south of Estera Llano Grande State Park. Check out my new blog for a complete list.
http://antshrike.blogspot.com

Good day in Hidalgo County

Check out this Red-necked Phalarope I saw at Sal del Rey this morning.

Then there was this guy on the way home.

Check out my new bog for details. http://antshrike.blogspot.com/

Frontera Audubon Thicket, 3/17/07

With the recent troubles on Surfbirds (which I still love!) I've started a new birding blog.

http://antshrike.blogspot.com/

Check it out.

Rufous-backed Robin at Santa Ana NWR, 3/10/07

Here's a poor pic of the Rufous Backed Robin at Santa Ana NWR.

Check out my new blog at http://antshrike.blogspot.com/

Frontera Audubon Thicket, 3/3/07

With Surfbirds recent server problems I started a new blog. Check out
http://antshrike.blogspot.com/

Frontera Audubon Thicket

Location: Frontera Audubon Center
Observation date: 1/27/07
Number of species: 31

Plain Chachalaca 8
Cooper's Hawk 1
Solitary Sandpiper 1
Green Parakeet 10
Buff-bellied Hummingbird 1
Golden-fronted Woodpecker 5
Great Kiskadee 4
White-eyed Vireo 3
Blue-headed Vireo 2
Black-crested Titmouse 1
House Wren 2
Carolina Wren 2
Ruby-crowned Kinglet 8
Blue-gray Gnatcatcher 1
American Robin 15
Northern Mockingbird 5
Long-billed Thrasher 2
Curve-billed Thrasher 2
Orange-crowned Warbler 6
Yellow-rumped Warbler 3
Black-throated Green Warbler 2
Black-and-white Warbler 1
Ovenbird 1
Common Yellowthroat 2
Wilson's Warbler 3
Summer Tanager 1
Olive Sparrow 2
Northern Cardinal 3
Boat-tailed Grackle 1
Altamira Oriole 1
Lesser Goldfinch 1

This report was generated automatically by eBird v2 (http://www.ebird.org/tx)

Sal del Rey

After six days of cold wet weather, we finally got a nice day so I headed uo to Sal del Rey about 35 miles north west of Weslaco. Sal del Rey is a natural salt pan that drains the surrounding brush country. A source of salt to Native Americans and the Spanish during colonial times, it's now a part of the Lower Grande Valley National Wildlife Refuge. And when it has water it serves at a great place to look for coastal waterbirds here in Hidalgo County.

For at least the fourth consecutive winter Sal del Rey has been the home of the only wintering population of Wilsons Phalaropes in the USA. Also noteworthy on this trip were 20 Sanderlings and 35 Snowy Plovers. Pretty good for being about 50 miles from the coast.

95 Greater White-fronted Goose
160 Snow Goose
150 Northern Shoveler
15 Northern Bobwhite
350 Eared Grebe
2 Black Vulture
6 Turkey Vulture
3 Harris's Hawk
3 Red-tailed Hawk
35 Snowy Plover
4 Killdeer
50 Black-necked Stlt
5 American Avocet
12 Greater Yellowlegs
200 Lesser Yellowlegs
20 Sanderling
70 Western Sandpiper
100 Least Sandpiper
4 Stilt Sandpiper
97 Wilson's Phalarope
5 Laughing Gull
40 Ring-billed Gull
15 Mourning Dove
20 Inca Dove
1 Golden-fronted Woodpecker
2 Ladder-backed Woodpecker
8 Eastern Phoebe
1 Great Kiskadee
1 Couch's Kingbird
1 White-eyed Vireo
3 Verdin
4 Cactus Wren
4 Bewick's Wren
6 House Wren
12 Ruby-crowned Kinglet
1 Blue-gray Gnatcatcher
3 Northern Mockingbird
1 Curve-billed Thrasher
40 American Pipit
4 Orange-crowned Warbler
20 Yellow-rumped Warbler
1 Common Yellowthroat
2 Olive Sparrow
3 Cassin's Sparrow
1 Lark Sparrow
10 Savannah Sparrow
1 Grasshopper Sparrow
20 Lincoln's Sparrow
4 Northern Cardinal
5 Pyrrhuloxia
20 Red-winged Blackbird
30 Western Meadowlark
1 Great-tailed Grackle

Frontera Audubon Thicket

After a couple of years away from my blog I decided to get it going again. It was a cool, wet muddy morning at Frontera. Nothing of note . Eight species of warblers were nice but seems to be pretty normal this winter.

Location: Frontera Audubon Center
Observation date: 1/20/07
Number of species: 34

Plain Chachalaca 10
Cooper's Hawk 1
White-winged Dove 1
Inca Dove 18
White-tipped Dove 12
Buff-bellied Hummingbird 2
Golden-fronted Woodpecker 5
Ladder-backed Woodpecker 2
Great Kiskadee 4
Blue-headed Vireo 1
Green Jay 2
Black-crested Titmouse 2
Carolina Wren 2
House Wren 2
Ruby-crowned Kinglet 10
Blue-gray Gnatcatcher 2
American Robin 2
Northern Mockingbird 6
Curve-billed Thrasher 1
Cedar Waxwing 20
Orange-crowned Warbler 5
Yellow-rumped Warbler 5
Yellow-throated Warbler 3
Black-and-white Warbler 1
Ovenbird 2
Northern Waterthrush 1
Common Yellowthroat 3
Wilson's Warbler 2
Summer Tanager 1
Olive Sparrow 1
Lincoln's Sparrow 1
Northern Cardinal 2
Great-tailed Grackle 1
Altamira Oriole 2

This report was generated automatically by eBird v2 (http://www.ebird.org/tx)

Add an Elegant Trogon to the mix

The invasion of Mexican vagrant birds into the Rio Grande Valley continued this weekend with a young male Elegant Trogon joining the White-throated Robin and Crimson-collared Grosbeaks already at Frontera Audubon thicket. They make the Black-headed Grosbeak, a rare bird down here in it's own right seem rather mundane. My little birding patch is less fun these days with the hoards of visiting birders down here.

Meanwhile an Additional Crimson-collared Grosbeak joined the Blue Bunting in Laredo and an additional Blue Bunting was found at Santa Ana NWR. More Rose-throated Becards showed up at Chapeno and Santa Ana NRW. The Social Flycatcher at Bentson State Park has not been seen for a few days.

Saturday afternoon my wife and I made a run out to South Padre Island just to see something different. We checked out a mystery warbler that had been reported earlier and found a first winter Prairie Warbler which is one of the harder to find warblers down here.

Rio Grande Valley winter 2004-5 vagrants

This is a list of Mexican vagrants seen in the Rio Grande Valley of south Texas during the past two months. It's been a few months since the Blue Mockingbird and Black-headed Nightingale-Thrush have been seen.

Green-breasted Mango
Rose-throated Becard
Social Flycatcher (2nd US record)
Dusky-capped Flycatcher (3rd US record of lawrencei subspecies)
White-throated Robin (4th and 5th US records)
Golden-crowned Warbler
Gray-crowned Yelowthroat
Crimson-collared Grosbeak (9th - ? US records)
Blue Bunting

Second USA record of Social Flycatcher and other good stuff. 1/9

Lately I've been doing a lot of that kind of birding that I don't really enjoy. Standing around with a bunch of other birders waiting for some mega-rarity to show up. This weekend I had one long wait and one short. Saturday morning I made the third try for White-throated Robin and after two hours of scouring the underbrush by binoculars with twenty other birders finally got a brief but good look at this fifth USA record. I had already seen the second and third records but it makes for a nice year and patch bird. I hate it when I'm not the first to see the bird and have to endure the patience of other nice birders trying to help me find the bird.

Saturday afternoon I wanted to do some real birding so my wife Honey and I headed over to the Anacua Unit of Las Palomas Wildlife Area. This is a state owned piece of land set aside mostly for hunting purposed and is rarley birded. This is a shame because it has some really neat habitat along the Rio Grande. I think most birders are a bit intimidated by having to deal with Border Patrol and the possibility of running into illegal migrants and drug smugglers. Anyway we had a good afternoon with a great look at a beautiful female plumaged Rose-throated Becard. Finding a TBRC review species is always exciting. This is at least the fifth one found during this bizaar season of Mexican vagrants. We also scored with a wintering Least Flycatcher and seven species of warblers.

After we got home I found the Social Flycatcher discovered on Friday had been refound. Now I've seen lots of Social Flycatchers in Mexico but this is only the second US record. So Honey and I got up early on Sunday and drove over to Bentson State Park and the poorly named World Birding Center. As we walked in successful birders were already leaving and running to their cars to make the drive over to Weslaco for the robin and grosbeak. We got to spot where it had been seen a few minutes earlier. It started raining and looked like we might be in for a long day. John Arvin who discovered the bird arrived in a few minutes with other birders and played a short call on the tape. Nothing happened. The group walked a ways down the road. As I walked to catch up with them I passed where they had played the tape and heard the bird call. A few minutes later I found the bird for the rest of the group. I like it better when it happens that way. Not too much else exciting. We say a couple of nice Gray Hawks and heard Northern Beardless Tyrannulet.

White-throated Robin at Frontera

A White-throated Robin was found on Jan. 2 at the amazing Frontera Audubon Thicket in Weslaco. Staging its own mini-invasion, this is the third sighting of this Mexican Turdid species for the Rio Grande Valley in the past two weeks. Even though I saw all four of the 1998 birds, I'm still unhappy about dipping twice in my attemps to see this bird this week. The bird was seen yesterday with an unbelievable five Clay-colored Robins. I'll give it another go on Sat.

Two male Crimson-collared Grosbeaks continue as does the wintering Summer Tanagers, Ovenbird, Tropical Parula, and Wilson's, Black-throated Green, Black-and white and Yellow-throated Warblers. I haven't seen the Dusky-capped Flycatcher since Jan. 1. Yesterday I heard rumors of Veery, Wood Thrush and Western Tanager but I'll believe it when I see it.

Black-legged Kittywake at Boca Chica

Checked my email on the morning of Dec. 31 and found that an immature Black-legged Kittywake had been found at the Boca Chica jetty. My wife Honey was tired from our all day excursion to Salineno the day before so I was off on my own to seach for this Texas lifer. At Boca Chica I found the beach as smooth as a highway so I was at the jetty in no time at all. The bird wasn't sitting with a group of gulls like it was supposed to, so I put my scope up on the jetty and soon found my black-collared beauty feeding in the ship channel. It then flew to a nearby group of gulls and terns an allowed me to take a few pics.

I then turned my scope to the ocean and found a couple of Common Loons. Then an immature Northern Gannet flew by and then another dive-bombed into the sea. Bonaparte's Gulls played in the surf at the end of the jetty. Then I caught sight of a dark, long-winged gull racing across the surface of the water...... JAEGER! He eventually gave me some great views, light phased bird, dark cap, big barrel-chested barred breast but being a land lubber I just don't have the experience to make the call. I think it was a Pomarine Jaeger.

After some lunch, lovingly packed by my sweetie, I drove back down the beach to the mouth of the Rio Grande (Boca Chica), Sometimes good gulls like Lesser Black-backed and Glaucous can be seen on the other side of the Rio making for a good Mexican tick. No such luck this time, but I did find this sick Northern Gannet marooned on the beach. He probably wound up as coyote food but that's part of nature too.

Crimson-collared Grosbeaks still here after historic Rio Grande Valley snow

The Rio Grande Valley experienced it's first snow since 1895 and it's first white Christmas ever as one inch of the fluffy white stuff coated practically everything. Temperatures dipped as low as 28 F and spent at least 12 hours below the freezing mark. It looks like we've lost our papayas at our house but over all plants and animals seemed to have weathered the ordeal relatively well.

My wife, Honey, and I were able to find one male Crimson-collared Grosbeak and I was able to get a poor pic through my binocs. We aslo heard the Dusky-capped Flycatcher and saw Gray Hawk, Sharp-shinned Hawk, Clay-colored Robin, and Wilson's, Yellow-rumped, Black-and-white, Black-throated Green and Oranged-crowned Warblers. We didn't see a lot else and numbers seemed a bit down after the cold weather.