Spring, Sprang, Sprung

April 6? How did that happen?

All winter long, walking through brown woods and fields full of kinglets and sparrows, it seemed hard for me to believe that spring would ever bring Hooded Warblers and Chimney Swifts again. This cold year, that was especially true. And yet, little by little we came news of the first migrants of spring arriving on the coast, and the next thing I knew, winter was a  memory.

This year, I didn't have many chances to get out in March. It wasn't until near the end of the month that I was able to break away and make a run to the coast.

For all the fuss we make about rare birds, for me, seeing the first migrant of the year is the real rice and gravy of birding. The earth has run another lap, the spotlight of the sun is sliding up the globe, and the birds follow in its glow. Nothing in birding is more exciting to me than seeing a brilliant yellow warbler flashing through the soft green of new hackberry leaves after a winter of birds that blend in with dead grass.

Mac Myers and I went down on March 23, and although there weren't a lot of migrants, it was a treat to see what was there. We saw Black-and-white, Hooded, Parula, and Yellow-throated warblers, and Great-crested Flycatchers in the woods, rosy Sandwich Terns on the beach, and a few other spring arrivals, such as this Baird's Sandpiper.

We also scoped out a rain pond on the roadside and found this female teal swimming with a mixed flock of ducks. Going by the long, spoon-shaped bill, the plain face, and size, our first thought was Cinnamon Teal. Although Cinnamon Teal hybrids are sometimes found in Louisiana, and telling a female hybrid might be a hard task, this looks like a typical Cinnamon female to me.

The next weekend, Mac and I headed down again. There were a few more migrants, including our first pewee and our first Tennessee Warbler of the year. A brilliant male Summer Tanager really lit up the place, as well.

Typical of this time of year, without much effort we tallied 135 species for the day. Spring is here.

Yesterday, I headed down alone. Dave Patton is off globe-trotting, and Mac was waiting to go on Monday, but I needed to get out.

I arrived pretty early in the morning, and eyeballed the first beach flock I saw on Holly Beach. One bird jumped out at me, and I grabbed my camera instead of binoculars. I didn't have time to fiddle with settings, and the lens was slow to focus in the dim light, but I had to hurry. The only other person on the beach had decided to take a slow stroll right through the flock of birds I was studying. I snapped a couple of photos, but felt I had missed the bird I was trying for as they all took flight. Unfortunately, they spread out, and the bird I was looking for was gone.

The images through the viewfinder were black, so I tried to relocate the bird. I knew it was a Little Gull, a fairly rare bird, but I doubted that I had good enough documentation. Getting good proof of any unusual sighting is a necessity, even if it can be a pain. I've studied enough old records to know that sometimes, no matter who the observer is, doubt can creep in. Documentation should be good enough to convince anyone in the future about the credibility of a sighting.

Long story short, I found the gull a couple of times, but I wasn't sure how good the images would be until I finally parked and let the flock coalesce around me. I managed to relocate the gull among hundreds of Forster's and a few Common Terns, as well as the many Bonaparte's Gulls the Little Gull was probably hanging out with, and managed to digiscope its frenetic bout of preening with my phone.