Cameron Parish, 5/19/2013

Stops:  Holly Beach, Lighthouse, Peveto.

I took a very leisurely trip to Cameron yesterday.  I know migration is slowing to a trickle, but that trickle is still a huge volume of birds, and I think the chance to see one more Bay-breasted or Blackburnian Warbler before autumn by driving to Cameron instead of Canada is worth taking.

In the town of Holly Beach, the first birds that caught my eye were these Common Nighthawks:

I really like nighthawks.  There's a lot still to learn about these birds, even on the ID front, so I take pictures like these and veg out in front of the computer studying patterns and feathers: 

Someday I hope to crack that code.  However, even from that picture, I think you can accurately age, sex, and identify this bird to species.  

At Lighthouse, one of the first birds I saw was a Tropical-type Kingbird, and I realized shortly that there were two, so I spent most of the morning standing around watching them.  

I also saw these flowers that I'd love an ID on:

And an Eastern Wood Pewee that's on its way north.  

There was also this dragonfly that I can't remember the name of:

At Hackberry Ridge, there was still a bit of water left from last week's heavy rain, and this Least Tern was by the road in a shorebird pond.  

The prickly pear was in beautiful flower, and this migrant male Ruby-throated hummer must've wondered what he was going to do with the huge blooms.

But he figured it out.  

At Jetty Woods, there was a pair of Swainson's Hawks.  I had some there during the breeding season last year, so I'd imagine nesting is likely.  

On the way back home, I flushed another nighthawk from the roadside.  It fluttered for a couple of feet, then landed, so I took a look.  

I checked the spot where it had gotten up, and saw what I'd suspected:

From here on out, birding will be getting more predictable through the summer.  However, even the predictable finds are amazing in their own right.  Our native birds are worth sweating and swatting bugs to see.  And if you're looking for something different, well, as they say, you have to do something different to see something different.  

By the way, I didn't get a Blackburnian Warbler, but I did get a very dull female Bay-breasted.

"Tropical" Kingbirds, Cameron Parish, 5/18

At Lighthouse Woods in extreme SW Louisiana, there were two "Tropical" (Tropical/Couch's) Kingbirds today.  I don't know if they were paired.  The first two photos show Bird 1.  Following the photo of the birds together are photos of Bird 2, which wasn't as confiding.  I think the flight photo is Bird 2.  It will be interesting to see if they stay in the area.

Cameron Parish, 5/10-5/12/2013

I joined  David Muth, Mac Myers, Dave Patton, Dan Purrington, and Phillip Wallace for a weekend on the coast.  Although this time of May is sometimes considered too late for good migration, a little bit of bad weather can prove that a huge stream of birds is still passing through our state.

On the ride down Friday, following a day of rough weather, flooded fields and yards gave a good account of the heavy rainfall amounts.  Signs of migrant activity began to appear, as well.  Once I got to Creole, I began to see Eastern Wood Pewees--a lot of them.  On the barbed wire fence on Trosclair Road alone, I counted 43 pewees each spaced about 50 yards apart.  It was getting dark by that time, and I was sorry I didn't have enough light to see what else was around.

Heavy storms on Friday night and early Saturday morning left a lot more water on the ground and a lot of birds everywhere.  Especially numerous migrants in the woods were Swainson's Thrush, Gray Catbird, Eastern Wood Pewee,  and Red-eyed Vireo.  There were plenty of tanagers, grosbeaks, and orioles as well.

Rose-breasted Grosbeak male

Rose-breasted Grosbeak female

Red-eyed Vireo 

Scarlet Tanager

Summer Tanager

Summer Tanager

Around mid-afternoon Saturday at Peveto, a nighthawk flew out of the woods looking for a place to land.  David Muth and I figured it was a Lesser Nighthawk.  The flight shot indicates that we were right, with the buffy spotting on the primaries, and the position of the white wing band toward the wingtip.  

There were plenty of Common Nighthawks throughout the area as well, roosting in trees, on the ground, telephone wires, and even atop cow pies.  The one below used a fallen branch as a bed.  

While I was trying to relocate the Lesser Nighthawk, I stumbled onto a Western Tanager that almost everyone else had already had a chance to see.  

Another big presence was hummingbirds.  I've never seen so many so late in the spring.  Feeders at camps had swarms of hummingbirds that brought scenes from autumn migration to mind.  However, most hummers were feeding at any blooming flower they could find.  

Shorebirds were more widespread than I've ever seen them, using everything from flooded ditches to rain ponds in camp yards in Holly Beach.  Some yards had pretty fancy birds to add to their lists, if the residents keep yard lists.  

Hudsonian Godwits

Short-billed Dowitcher

Wilson's Phalarope

Among the abundant migrants were a few oddballs.  The Swamp Sparrow, Red-breasted Nuthatch, and American Kestrel, below, are birds that should have headed north by now.  

Bobolinks usually aren't as common as they have been this year.

May is when most Empidonax flycatchers pass through, and we had this Traill's-type:

Even though migrants are still passing through, by May many of the local resident birds are either nesting, raising young, or in full courtship fever.  

Killdeer juvenile

Eurasian Collared Dove, noisy ambassador of love

Painted Buntings breed along the coast, and blend in well

As we were leaving today, we ran into an arriving Dan O'Malley.  A few minutes later, he called to alert us to a "Tropical" Kingbird he had found.  We made U-turns and got nice looks at this rare stranger.  Merci beaucoup, Dan!  

It was a great weekend of migration.  There was constant motion, and some nice bursts of color.  A lot of the birds this pate in migration are generally young birds and females, and that was true this weekend.  Look carefully at some of the birds in these pictures, and you'll see dull old feathers mixed with bright new ones, usually a good sign that a bird is entering its first summer of adulthood.  

Blackburnian Warbler

A great weekend, and it might be the last of its kind this spring.  I'm glad I had a chance to enjoy it.  

I'm exhausted.  I hope this made sense.