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.