Nov. 29-Dec. 1, SWLA

It was too bad that Thanksgiving week had to end, but it ended fairly well.  On Friday, I got some new tires and took a ride to see how they felt.  I did a little birding while I was out.  It was nice to see some winter birds, including some Horned Larks and Lapland Longspurs.

These birds can be hard to spot and even harder to get good photos of, so I was happy to get some that were even recognizable.  

Saturday Dave Patton took me along for a boat trip down the Calcasieu ship channel and out into the nearshore Gulf.  Birds were plentiful, with great numbers of shorebirds working rocks exposed by the low tide.  There were also good numbers of gulls, including my first Bonaparte's Gulls of the season.  We also had a Glaucous Gull on the rocks and then again out of the channel mouth, feeding on a big dead fish floating in the rip line where the dirty channel water met the green gulf water.  

On Sunday, I got up early and watched the birds wake up in the recently freeze-blasted yard.  A nice addition to the yard for the winter was an adult male Rufous Hummingbird feeding on the "ugly shrimp plant." Seeing such a vividly colored male reminded of the days when this species was so uncommon in the area that Lafayette birders would make special trips to see them when they appeared in town.  I hope this bird sticks around to brighten up the yard.    

A little while later, David Muth showed up to join me for a drive around the ag prairie between Lafayette and Lake Charles. We had a nice day list, starting with good numbers of Lapland Longspur, Horned Lark, and Sprague's Pipits in Acadia Parish.  In Calcasieu Parish we stopped to look at some grackles and noticed a group of hawks working in the distance.  We also noticed that one of the hawks had a white tail.  Luckily an angry caracara was harassing this bird, so it was easy to keep tabs on it until it drifted out of sight.  We stayed in the area until we had good enough (but really terrible) pictures to document the bird, a great-looking adult White-tailed Hawk.  This species has gone from drop-everything rare to more regular appearances in the past 20 years, but adult birds are a small part of the mix, and they're pretty stunning.

 There were plenty of Red-tailed Hawks in the area, as well.

A Green Heron that looks likely to stay for the winter also made itself visible.  

We also visited a Say's Phoebe that's been around near Holmwood, saw Bald Eagles and Crested Caracaras in a couple of locations, had a Swainson's Hawk, got nice looks at a Bobwhite, had a little flock of crisp-looking adult White-crowned Sparrows, watched rails and sparrows flushing ahead of a rice combine, and had great weather to boot.  

In butterfly news, we also had a flyby Mourning Cloak, which is pretty uncommon locally.  It was probably about my fifth for SWLA.  

So, a sad farewell to Thanksgiving week...but X-mas will be here soon.