Mokka mit Schlag » Birding

Friday I got up bright and early for the real highlight of the trip: a boat ride through the Aransas National Wildlife Refuge to to find Whopping Cranes. When I awoke Port A. was covered in fog, and driving to the dock was a little tricky. (I got lost twice.) By the time I found it, the fog was still pretty thick. I could see a raptor on top of a nearby telephone pole, but could at best guess it was some kind of Buteo, probably a Red-tailed Hawk but I’m not sure. Similarly I could only guess that the cormorant across the harbor was a Double-crested.

I noticed some of my fellow passengers had tripods and scopes. I’ve never brought a tripod on a boat before, but after checking with them, they seemed to think it would be possible to use, so I grabbed mine out of the rental car. Fortunately I hadn’t left it in my hotel room.

We traveled for quite while before the fog burned off, but once it did we started seeing birds, mostly gulls, a few terns, and not much else until we reached the refuge. Once we got there though there started to be some interesting birds on some small sandbars, and on about the third sandbar we passed there were cormorants of two sizes! That meant the smaller ones were Neotropic Cormorants, #523:

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Thursday morning we woke up in the bunkhouse and saw that weather was cloudy so we didn’t race too fast to get out to the blind. once we did get moving, the first stop was another set of buildings little ways down the road where we parked our cars before looking for a Barn Owl. However, as soon as we got out of the cars, I heard what I thought was a Red-bellied Woodpecker so I walked behind the buildings check it out. I didn’t initially find the putative Red-bellied woodpecker. Instead, the first woodpecker I saw was a Ladder-backed Woodpecker. Much better, since we have Red-bellied Woodpeckers back in New York, but I’ve never seen a Ladder-backed Woodpecker. Ladder-backed Woodpeckers are mostly mid-country birds that don’t reach either coast. One hung out for a while in Irvine Regional Park when I moved to California in 2008, but life was a little too hectic then to chase it. This one flew off very quickly before I could get a photo, but that still counts as life bird number 521. Update: Turns out it doesn’t. Checking my notes I see I did have a Ladder-backed Woodpecker at Covington Park in Morongo Valley in California in 2008.

But what about that Red-bellied Woodpecker? I heard it again, and then spotted it on the top of a nearby telephone pole. Only when I got a look at it it wasn’t a Red-bellied Woodpecker at all. Instead it was the closely related and very similar sounding Golden-fronted Woodpecker, and I did get a (bad) picture of this bird:

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A couple of weeks ago my human resources department sent me an e-mail warning me that I was about to max out on accrued vacation days so I had to use some fast. I looked around for the next available birding festival, and the most interesting one seemed to be the Whooping Crane Festival in Port Aransas. I also considered Winter Wings in Oregon, but it offered mostly the same birds I’d already found in California. Texas, by contrast, has dozens of species I’ve never seen and that can’t be found anywhere else in the United States. Thus Wednesday I flew into Corpus Christi Airport for five days of semi-intense South Texas birding.

First stop was the La Copita Ranch in Jim Wells County for a photography workshop. I got to the ranch about 3:00 PM. but the gate was locked so I drove into town and had a quick Mexican lunch. Then I visited Lake Findley while waiting for the gate to open. Likely I saw a Couch’s Kingbird there, but it was too far away to be sure of the ID, and I didn’t have the scope out yet. :-(

About 4:30 I got the call that the ranch was open, so I drove back, met the instructor, and drove out the blind. No sooner had I arrived than we heard a Green Jay, life bird #517:

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Last week, and then again today, I found a new banded Canada Goose hanging around Prospect Park. This one is H9Z4.

Not sure where this bird hails flew in from yet. I’ve not previously seen a white on orange neck band. The neck bands I’ve found on geese around New York before have all been black on yellow, and I think all came from Quebec. I’ve reported it and should know where this one is from in a few weeks.

Hopefully it can avoid being gassed by the Federal Government like the last flock that made its home here.

2010 was a pretty good year bird wise. Although at 266 total species, I ticked about 60 fewer species than 2009, 39 of those were life birds. These mostly came from my trips to Puerto Rico in the spring and Iceland in the fall, but also included three life birds within walking distance of my apartment in Brooklyn. (That’s unlikely to happen again. There are no more regular or even irregular visitors to Prospect Park I haven’t ticked.) Still, that’s more than I’ve added in a long time. My total now stands at a respectable 516 species.

Chaseable life birds are getting rarer though I did pick up Mourning Warbler, Kentucky Warbler, and Common Nighthawk in Prospect Park. Just a little further away but still in Brooklyn I saw my first Lapland Longspur at Floyd Bennett Field. And I managed Hudsonian Godwit at Cupsogue State Park further out on Long Island. I passed on assorted birds that were found at Montauk, but this year I may have to go for some of those if I want any life birds on Long Island.

In a different state but considerably closer, the cooperative Cove Island Forktailed Flycatcher was my last life bird for the year. However a couple of days later I once again whiffed on the banded Barnacle Goose at Pelham Bay Park, and I didn’t chase it when it showed up again two hours further north. I also whiffed on an expedition in Louisiana to find the much more common Scissor-tailed Flycatcher. I’ll try for that again this year. And speaking of finding the rarities, while missing the common cousins, Northern Shrike continues to elude me, though I did see the much rarer, for New York at least, Loggerhead Shrike at Jones Beach.

New Jersey added one life bird to my list last year when I finally got down to Barnegat in January and ticked Harlequin Duck. As often happens after seeing it the first time, I then found that species repeatedly much closer to home throughout the year. I also got two species sitting at my desk when the AOU split the Winter Wren into three species: European Wren, Pacific Wren, and Winter Wren, all of which I’d found previously in their respective locales.

For 2011 I’m planning trips to Florida, Texas, and Germany. If I can sneak in a trip to the Caribbean or Central America, I just may be able to break 600 in 2011. See you next year!

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I’m on call over New Year’s so no major plans for the holiday. Anticipating getting a lot of little things done around the apartment since I can’t get too far from a net connection. Otherwise I’d be tempted to drive out to Suffolk to chase Trumpeter Swan A60 which might well become the first accepted New York State record for this species. Maybe it will stick around till next weekend.