Jeff Davis Parish, 11/23/2012

I took a drive to unwind and listen to the Tigers game today.  I headed west to the Lacassine exit off of I-10 in Jefferson Davis Parish.  

First I went north, but got turned around by rain.  Near the turf farm on Turf Grass Road, I had a couple of good sightings.  The cottonmouth may have been moving ahead of the cold weather.  The Long-billed Curlew is a good bird to find inland, and is just plain a cool bird.  

I headed south and then west, toward Lake Arthur.  East of Thornwell I found a couple of tractors busting up plowed soil, shooting huge sheets of dust into the air.  Apparently, this was pretty attractive to hawks, because the field was full of them.

There were 11 Swainson's Hawks there at least, which is pretty odd for this time of year.

There was also a Ferruginous Hawk in the field, as well as a couple of Red-tailed Hawks.  Quite a nice field full of hawks.  

A few recent photos

Dark Red-tailed Hawk, I assume a "Harlan's."  

Young "Harlan's" Red-tailed Hawk.  This bird was in a group of 31
Red-tailed  Hawks over a field that was being plowed
today in Jeff  Davis Parish.

Marsh Hawk, a.k.a. Northern Harrier

Swainson's Hawk, Cameron Parish, 11/11/12

Sprague's Pipit, Acadia Parish, 11/17/12

Western Accent

There was a bit of a western flavor to today's birding in Cameron Parish.  I was down with Dave Patton, Mac Myers, and David Muth.  Among the birds we saw were Calliope Hummingbird (found by Dave Patton), Spotted Towhee (below), Western Tanager (below), Say's Phoebe, possible Townsend's Warbler seen by Mac Myers, plus more regular westerners like Swainson's Hawk, and Franklin's Gull. 

Conditions started off as horrible but improved to pretty bad as the day went on.  Gusting south winds and morning rain gave way to steady but manageable winds, then steady rain late in the day.

Spotted Towhee, Peveto Sanctuary (found by David Muth)

Western Tanager, Peveto Sanctuary (found by David Muth)

Say's Phoebe, near Willow Island (stakeout)