Cameron Parish, August 29, 2015

I went outside on Thursday morning just before I left for school. It was still dark out, but even so the air felt unexpectedly cool. I could only hope the unseasonal weather would last through the weekend.

I was on the road by 4:30 this morning, driving toward the moon and hoping to see the sun rise over the coast. My weather app said the moon was 99% full, or something crazy like that. I've been hearing about a "super moon," and I may have been a day early for that, but when the moon turned orange on its way down, it looked pretty super to me.

It was morning twilight when I hit Holly Beach, but there were already gull flocks behind the shrimp boats just offshore. Riding with the windows down felt great, almost chilly. There weren't many people on the beach, just a few zipped tents, but the birds were a bit jumpy in the half-light.

Beach birds were typical, lots of Laughing Gulls and assorted terns with a few young birds mixed in. The only exception I noticed was a confused Marbled Godwit that walked up to see what I was.

Peveto was still wet with dew, but a recent mowing made it easy to walk around without getting soaked. The temperature was perfect, and bugs were few.

Fall flowers are really putting on a show now, as are the creatures that use them for various purposes.

(Hey now, what's that's hiding on this Kosteletzkya?)  

Painted Lady*

The birdlife was pretty good for the somewhat early migration date. Yellow-throated, Canada, Wilson's, and Black-and-White warblers, Traill's, Yellow-bellied, and Least flycatchers, and a few other migrants.

I made sure to take photos of the butterflies and moths so someone else can ID them for me*.  I did see a Monarch today, always a welcome fall sight.

Fiery Skipper*

Question Mark*

Alanthus Webworm Moth*

From Peveto I went to Lighthouse Road.  There's a lot of heavy work going on there. The leveed ponds have been leveled off and some are being drained. The drainage ditch has a steady flow of water pouring into a canal, and whatever's in the water, the birds love it.

And apparently the alligators do, too.

There were hundreds of Black Terns, dozens of spoonbills, and hundreds of Snowy and Great Egrets. A stealth white Reddish Egret was present as well.

Inside of the levees there were hundreds of shorebirds. Peeps were in roadside puddles as well. It was interesting to see fresh juvenile peeps like the Semipalmated Sandpiper below rubbing shoulders with molting Boat-tailed Grackles. 

The Lighthouse Woods are in good shape. Unfortunately, so are the mosquitoes and ticks. I had a swarm of the former and one of the latter.

I had a couple of interesting arthropods there as well. As I was walking through the field around the woods, a small butterfly moved ahead of me. It landed on a morning glory and then suddenly appeared to flop on its side. I knew what that meant. Remember the spider on the Kosteletzkya flower above? It has cousins at Lighthouse.

I guess that's a Pygmy Blue** it has in its grip. Whatever it is, it looks larger on my monitor than it did in real life. I'd call it a pygmy.

Birdwise, Lighthouse Woods was slow but interesting. A White-tailed Kite was there when I arrived. I managed a long-distance snap through the spotting scope that's OK but fails to do this beautiful bird justice.

Also present in the woods were Hooded Warbler, Scissortails, and a Baltimore Oriole.

As mentioned, the bugs were bad, but at least the giant ragweed wasn't. The magnificent stand of ragweed will be manna for the birds if it doesn't get mowed before it blooms and sets seed. It will be an allergic nightmare for allergy sufferers like me, though, and it's this closing to blooming:

After Lighthouse I headed to Hackberry Ridge/Secret Place. It held a couple of Prairie Warblers, more empid flycatchers, and surprisingly only a few Blue-gray Gnatcatchers.

The wires on the way in held a nice group of swallows, including some formerly rare Cave Swallows mixed in with Bank and Barn swallows. 

The Cave Swallows were preening, and I managed to get snaps of their stretches that show their open wings.  Both show molt in progress in their primaries. The molt must be almost at a stopping point because the outer primaries are usually older and paler than the rest of the outer wing when we see them passing through in October. 

The best bird at Secret Place was the Bell's Vireo seen in several views below. It can be considered "formerly rare" as well, I guess, as it was recently removed from the state Review List.  This record seems early, but Matt Conn had a Bell's Vireo this week in Iberia Parish, so there must be a late August surge in progress.

I wrapped the day up after Secret Place, heading back early. What had started out as a temperate day had become bright, hot, and dry. Fall migration is just getting underway. There'll be other days.


*Thanks to Charlie Lyon for doing so; see all asterisked leps.
**Thanks to Charlie again for letting me know it's a Western Pygmy Blue. I know that Dave Patton has told me that many times, but...

Tide Turning

It's still hot, Lafayette still seems to have a force field that deflects rain, and ironweed and mistflower still haven't bloomed around the house, but there does seem to be change in the air.  School started this week in Lafayette Parish, preseason football is here, and a peek at the 10-day forecast shows a solid wall of cloud and lightning bolt icons after a 6 week run of a malevolent little cartoon sun. The first weekend of the school year is one of relaxation and rest.  After sleeping as late as I could, a glance out bedroom window showed a scene that could have passed for Indian summer, complete with a hummingbird whizzing around the urban backyard wondering why the feeders were dry.

After remedying that situation, I got back to work doing nothing. Spray from a new mister drifted like smoke in a slight north wind. The air felt slightly cool.

A young Mockingbird with spots on its breast opened its wings and almost tipped over. I could see a tumor on its bill, and one on the bend of each wing. That youngster may have a tough road ahead.

A Broad-winged Hawk glided low directly over the porch and a large freakishly plain orange wasp landed on a peppervine sprout and appeared to be scouting the stem. The young male rubythroat, with a few iridescent throat feathers growing in a crescent on its throat, sampled the fresh nectar of the feeders and perched in a toothache tree where White-winged Doves fed from the clusters of fruit.

White-winged Doves are the most hardcore addicts of toothache trees I've encountered. Even during the height of fig season when all the other backyard birds were in a fig frenzy, Whitewings ignored everything but toothache fruit.  Hopefully these far-ranging doves will eject plenty of the seeds in their rambles and start some renegade toothache tree forests around the town.

A young-looking Great-crested Flycatcher popped out of the toothache trees--flycatchers are also heavy addicts of the fruit of this tree.  I hoped for more birds to appear, maybe some migrant empids, but the morning rush was tapped out.

Whatever cool I had imagined is gone, the air feels dry now, and Mississippi Kites are up riding the heat waves. It's still summer, but pretty soon the kites and flycatchers will be gone, and they'll take summer with them.

Cameron Parish 08/05/2015

It was an interesting day on the coast today, if not for birds, then to see how the coast is shaping up with fall migration clearly underway.  On the way down, I saw a shut down shop called the STEP IN #1.  With the forecast for the mid 90s and considering the dead air of the recent drought, I was hoping that I wasn't going to the STEP IN #2.

My first stop was Holly Beach, which was in Back to School mode, with almost no human presence. Everything was typical of the season: Sanderlings and turnstones are setting up shop, juvenile terns are begging from parents that seem ready to cut the cord, and Snowy Plovers are arriving while Wilson's Plovers prepare to depart.

Juvenile and adult Least Tern.  Click for a closer look; the plumage of the juvenile is beautiful.

Wilson's Plover and Snowy Plover 

My next stop was at the Baton Rouge Audubon Society sanctuary at Peveto Woods. My visit was notable for several reasons, especially that there were very few deerflies, and the heat was bearably dry, with the slight wind making the shade feel very comfortable.  

I had a few fall migrants including 3 Black-and-white Warblers and a Least Flycatcher, as well as plenty of soon-to-depart species such as Orchard Oriole, Great Crested Flycatcher, and Yellow-billed Cuckoo.  

I was hoping to see the large vagrant moth known as the Black Witch today, and I was half-lucky in that regard.  I came upon one that had made its way here from who knows where only to end up in a "banana spider" web.  

Among other insect sightings, I watched a Queen butterfly wing through the sanctuary, stopping to lay an egg on a vine there.  I was unfortunately unable to focus the camera on her.  I was luckier with these two dragonflies which I have no idea about the ID of.

Later in the day I headed to Broussard and then Rutherford Beach. Both were showing larger scale reruns of what I'd seen on Holly Beach, but again, it was a beautiful day and a pleasure to enjoy it. One odd thing I did note was the near absence of Laughing Gulls.   

Driving north up the Rutherford Beach road, I began to see dead mullet in the roadside ditch, I suppose the result of low oxygen levels that summer heat can bring on.  As I neared the open marsh, I realized where all of the missing Laughing Gulls were. What looked like white water lilies blooming in the open expanses of water were actually thousands of belly-up mullet, and a horde of birds was on hand for the occasion.  I don't know if the gulls and herons were eating carcasses or fish that were being fitted for their carcasses, but there were hundreds of gulls, dozens of herons, and on the mud flat of a large drying pool, hundreds of shorebirds.  

I ended the day driving back on Chalkley and Fruge roads with the sun getting low and the edge of the heat dulled.  It was a beautiful day, rich with the promise of the coming months of migration. With school starting next week, I'll be a bit busy for the next nine months. Today was a great day out to say goodbye to summer.  

Checklist du jour @ http://ebird.org/ebird/view/checklist?subID=S24511510