Mokka mit Schlag » Birding

Saturday’s Kings County Christmas Bird Count was great weather and spectacular birding. 132 species, only three short of our alltime record. Three of those were species never before seen on a Kings County Christmas Count: a Barrow’s Goldeneye at Jamaica Bay, a Red Phalarope of all things in Erie Basin (between the Ikea and the Fairway!), and a Black-and-white Warbler I spotted in Prospect Park (not unusual for Brooklyn but shocking for this time of year). Add in the continuing Northern Shrike at Floyd Bennett Field, and there were three life birds to chase on Sunday. With choices like that, where to start? I guess you have to go for the rarest of the rare: the Red Phalarope. This is an ocean going bird rarely seen from land, and it’s not that easy to find on a pelagic trip. I’m not sure whether it’s ever been spotted in King’s County before. So at 7:00 AM I hopped in a Mini Cooper and headed down into Red Hook to look for the Phalarope.

As I arrived at the tip of Van Brunt Street, Shane Blodgett was just leaving. He hadn’t found it there and was driving over to IKEA to scope from the other side of the basin. I walked up and down the promenade, but didn’t find it. I then drove over to the IKEA myself. Steve Walter also showed up at IKEA, but none of us could locate the bird, so one-by-one everyone gave up and decamped for Floyd Bennett Field to look for the Shrike.

At Floyd Bennett Field, An American Kestrel was incredibly cooperative. I found six Hooded Mergansers and a Common Loon in Dead Horse Bay. There were also some nice House Finches, a couple of Northern Flickers, and lots of Northern Mockingbirds that look vaguely shrike like if you aren’t careful. I also ran into Tom Preston, Rafael Guillermo-Campos, Rob Jett, and Heydi Lopes, all of whom were out looking for the Shrike; but none of us found it after a couple of hours of searching. Strike 2.

Around noon, I gave up on the Shrike and headed down the Belt Parkway to Jamaica Bay for the Barrow’s Goldeneye. There were over a thousand ducks on the far side of the West Pond, mostly Ruddy’s but with a few American Wigeons and Scaup mixed in. However if there were any Goldeneyes there, Common or Barrow’s, I couldn’t pick it out. Strike 3. I’m out. The wind was blowing, and it was cold, so after multiple scans across through the duck raft through my scope, I gave up and headed home around 1:00. Whiffed Again. I thought with three staked out birds I really had a shot, but you just never know.

Then, just as I was getting ready to turn onto Eastern Parkway (almost all the way home in other words) my cell phone goes off in my pocket. I pulled off to the side of the road, and miraculously managed to get the phone answered before it went to voicemail. It was Shane and the Shrike had reappeared right where it had been the previous day on the Christmas Bird Count. They had found it about midway between the two locations we’d previously been looking. Damn bird! I wasn’t sure exactly how to get back to Floyd Bennett form that location, but my GPS knew and soon I was speeding down Kings Highway to try one more time. 25 minutes later I arrived back at the runway from which the Shrike had been seen. Rob, Heydi, and Shane had left but several other birders were there; and they told me that the Shrike had been making regular appearances every few minutes for the last hour. I walked down the runway, and about kept scanning the southeast tree line looking for anything perched. And yes! There it was! No, damn it. That’s a Mockingbird. Back to the scanning the tree line. Hey! Something moved! And it’s grey! And it’s a…damn it another Mockingbird.

Then I turn around and notice the group behind me is looking at something on the Northwest side of the runway. I turn around and look right at a bird that’s so backlit it could be anything. But before it flies away, I get my scope on it for about three seconds and sure enough, it’s a Northern Shrike. And after last year’s miscall with the Loggerhead Shrike at Jones Beach, I’ve made sure I know what I’m looking for in advance. In my head I check off the field marks in about half a second. Narrow dark mask with white markings around eye? Check. Large bill with obvious hook? Check. Paler gray above? I don’t know. The bird was too backlit and without a direct side-by-side comparison, it’s hard to distinguish such subtle shading; but the hooked bill and white around the eye are good enough to make the ID. #799 Northern Shrike!
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I’m debating whether to make a trip to Florida next year. There are still a few life birds for me down there, most notably the endemic Florida Scrub-Jay. Near endemics in the ABA area include Limpkin, Bachman’s Sparrow, Swallow-tailed Kite, Short-tailed Hawk, Sooty Tern, and Snail Kite. Also possible are Brown-headed Nuthatch, Leconte’s Sparrow, Henslow’s Sparrow, Black-whiskered Vireo, Swainson’s Warbler, Shiny Cowbird, Black Rail, and Yellow Rail. Greater Flamingo is arguable but only if I get down to the Everglades. None of these are easy to find, but most should be doable if I plan for them specifically.
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Although I managed 14 life birds and 74 state birds at the Rio Grande Valley Birding Festival this past week, I still missed a lot and there’s more in other parts of the state I haven’t visited. Species I still need from Texas include:

• White-collared Seedeater (Upper Rio Grande Valley)
• Golden-cheeked Warbler
• Black-capped Vireo
• Hook-billed Kite
• Masked Duck (rare)
• Swallow-tailed Kite (rare; easier in Florida)
• Short-tailed Hawk
• Harlan’s Hawk
• Ferruginous Hawk
• Ferruginous Pygmy Owl (King Ranch)
• Prairie Falcon
• Lesser Prairie Chicken
• Scaled Quail
• Yellow Rail
• Black Rail
• Mountain Plover
• Red-billed Pigeon
• Elf Owl
• Cordilleran Flycacther
• Gray Vireo
• Black-whiskered Vireo (easier in Florida)
• Yellow-green Vireo (rare)
• Brown Jay
• Tamaulipas Crow
• Brown-headed Nuthatch (also in Louisiana and Florida)
• Rock Wren
• Canyon Wren
• Mountain Bluebird
• Sprague’s Pipit
• Swainson’s Warbler
• Golden-cheeked Warbler
• Crimson-collared Grosbeak (rare Mexican vagrant)
• Varied Bunting
• Canyon Towhee
• Green-tailed Towhee (missed repeatedly this past trip)
• White-collared Seedeater
• Lark Bunting
• Bachman’s Sparrow (easier in Florida)
• Cassin’s Sparrow
• Brewer’s Sparrow
• Baird’s Sparrow
• Pink-sided Junco
• Smith’s Longspur
• Mccown’s Longspur
• Chestnut-collared Longspur

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Sunday I was signed up for the Chase vans that were going to track down various rarities and hard-to-locate birds that had turned up throughout the week. There were three target birds–Rose-throated Becard, Hook-billed Kite, and Black-vented Oriole; each with a different van. Hook-billed Kite is local but tough to find. The Black-vented Oriole had not been seen since before the Festival started, and I’d already been to Bentsen where it was believed to be hanging out if it was still around at all. However the Rose-throated Becard is a Mexican rarity, and was at Estero Llano Grande State Park. Since I’d only been able to spend about 45 minutes here on the Big Day at the beginning of the festival, and since it also offered a shot at Common Pauraque and Green-tailed Towhee, I picked that van.

The Becard hadn’t been reported for a couple of days, so we were worried. We started in the “Tropical Area” where it had last been seen, following behind a bus group that was also visiting Estero Llano Grande. We found some good butterflies, Altamira Orioles, Golden-fronted Woodpeckers, and then next to a driveway of all places, two Common Pauraques, #797:

You can see how this bird might be a little hard to find. These nocturnal birds sit motionless and noiseless in the leaf litter all day, relying on their incredibly cryptic coloration to camouflage them.
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Saturday, I took another leisurely (only six hours) trip south to the border. The attraction this time was access to the Nature Conservancy’s Southmost Preserve, a site not normally open to the public. This is next door to Sabal Palms and shares a lot of the fauna with that site. However we did get several new species for the trip, mostly as flyovers including Snow Goose, Ross’s Goose, Greater White-fronted Goose (which I initially mistook as a life bird–I don’t know why I never remember that I’ve seen this one before. I’ve tallied it as a lifer multiple times in multiple states. Somehow it’s just really forgettable.) and #796 Chihuahuan Raven.

I wad the 50mm lens on my camera when the flock flew over (I was practicing digiscoping) so no pictures. Basically it looks like a crow, or a raven; but there are no other crows or ravens around here so a flock of 24 large black birds bigger than Grackles pretty much has to be Chihuahuan Raven, though if one were side-by-side with a Common Raven I’d be hard-pressed to tell them apart.
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Friday I signed up for a relatively leisurely (six hours, one location) trip to the Bentsen-Rio Grande Valley State Park, once again along the border. At the first feeders, we spent about 45 minutes watching Plain Chachalcas, Green Jays, Orange-crowned Warblers, Red-winged Blackbirds, a Long-billed Thrasher or two, and several Altamira Orioles, #793, a bird I had missed a few times on Wednesday:

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