Red-necked Phalarope, Kaplan area

A surprise yesterday tucked in among a few thousand ducks, coots, and other waterbirds was this Red-necked Phalarope.  These northern nesting shorebirds spend their winters at sea, but I guess they have to fly across land to get there.  I was lucky to cross this one's path.  

Cameron Parish, 10/8-10/9/2011

Mac Myers, Dave Patton, and I joined up with New Orleans maestros David Muth, Curt Sorrells, and Phillip Wallace for a weekend of birding in Cameron Parish.  Upon arriving on Friday night it certainly didn't seem like the weather would cooperate.  Strong easterly winds were getting stronger and the chance of seeing eastern migrants or western vagrants seemed pretty slim.

Upon stepping out on Saturday morning, the first birds we saw were swallows.  Down low there were Barns and a few Banks, and in the next level up, Cave Swallows.  We only watched for a few minutes, but we tallied a handful of Caves; the next morning we counted 75 Caves and then moved on.  No telling how many Caves we could have gotten if we'd watched all weekend.  The oddest thing about the swallow movement was that the birds were all moving east, into the full force of the wind.  The conventional wisdom is that Cave Swallows vagrants are blown up to the East Coast by strong southwesterly winds.  Recent observations such as ours challenge that idea.   

The western flavor continued as we added Scissor-tailed Flycatchers, Vermilion Flycatcher, and Clay-colored Sparrows to our list.  We also watched a Reddish Egret motoring steadily offshore from west to east, against the wind.  For all of the wind, everything seemed to be moving eastward.

The next day was more of the same.  At Peveto, an Ash-throated Flycatcher was almost tame (seen below with Phillip).  It hadn't been detected the day before, which isn't saying much, but given the ease with which it was detected on Sunday, it's possible that it had recently arrived against the wind.

     

Here's another shot of the Ash-throated.

The best western bird of the day was found on Saturday.  Tucked into the scrub was a Brewer's Sparrow, only the second record for the state, following the first state record by 59 years.  The photos below show all of the field marks that separate Brewer's from Clay-colored Sparrow including the streaked nape, complete eyering, streaked crown with no central dividing stripe, weak facial pattern, and overall pale and plain plumage.  Note also the tail with only two full-length feathers and the rest growing as a stub.  The latter point fits in nicely with the idea put forward by LSU ornithologists Van Remsen, Steve Cardiff, and Donna Dittmann that proposes that many of our vagrants are in fact migrants with defects of some kind.

Among the other good birds found over the weekend was this Bewick's Wren, below, found by David Muth at Willow Island.

On the way back home I ran into Steve Cardiff and Donna Dittmann near Sweet Lake, where they were watching a flock of over 50 Scissor-tails.  As we traveled on in the last light of the day, we tallied one more good western bird for the weekend, this one in Calcasieu Parish, a Say's Phoebe (below).

Cameron, 10/01/11

       Yesterday, Mac Myers and I met up with Dave Patton in Cameron Parish.  Birding was pretty good; it was one of those days where everybody afield was bound to find something that pleased them.  I spent a lot of my morning walking through knee-high brush kicking up sparrows, mostly Clay-coloreds and Savannahs.
       When I made it into the woods, I lucked onto a Blackpoll Warbler.  Blackpolls migrate through Louisiana in spring and at times can be common to abundant.  However, their fall migration path takes them from the East Coast over the Atlantic all the way to South America.  In fall, Blackpolls are rare birds here.  I was excited to find this bird. Even though I'd seen plenty in the spring, I considered it the best bird I saw all day.      

          Dave left the woods a little earlier than Mac and me, and soon called to let us know he'd found a Say's Phoebe on the way out.  Say's Phoebes are slender, brown and buff western flycatchers that stray east regularly in small numbers, small enough that finding one makes for a good birding day.  The bird had moved a bit from where Dave reported it, but we kept our eyes open and relocated it a bit farther along.

     
     











            Later on, in a different location, another common warbler made a rare appearance.  Orange-crowned warblers are common here in winter, but usually start showing up here in late October.  Many Orange-crowneds are reported earlier than this, but the reports I've followed up on have always proven to be cases of mistaken identity.  As a matter of fact, when I first saw this bird (only the rear half of the bird was visible), the gray color of the body and the yellow tones near the tail had me hoping this was something truly rare like a Virginia's Warbler.  That hope died when I saw this bird's face, but I was still pretty pleased with an early Orange-crowned.  Later, in the same woods, I got looks at a different Orange-crowned, a more typically greenish bird.

       

             On the ride in the morning, Mac and I had discussed the lack of Bell's Vireo reports this fall.  Bell's are fairly early migrants, and by the beginning of October there are often a few reports.  I was wondering if I'd already missed my chance to see one this year, which would have been a shame because I missed them last year, too.  Luckily (the key word in birding is luck), Mac and I stumbled onto a Bell's late in the day.  The light was horrible for photos, but I managed to coax the following image out of my shots.  Don't adjust your screen, I simply suck as a photographer.

       

Cameron Parish, 9/10/11

Yesterday, I took advantage of the cooler weather and took a trip to the coast.  It was a great day, capped off by the evening drive home listening to the LSU game.  Fall is definitely in the air now.


Also in the air were Swainson's Hawks. I saw this bird kiting near Johnsons Bayou (not Johnson's Bayou, or Johnson Bayou) in extreme SW LA.  I don't know of any Swainson's that nest in that area, so the bird can probably be called a wanderer or migrant.  Swainson's are among the growing list of western/south Texas birds that have been creeping into Louisiana over the past several years.  I remember how excited I was when I saw my first Louisiana Swainson's Hawk a couple of decades ago.  Now, they're recorded in relatively large numbers in the state, and they even nest here.

Don't adjust your dials.  It's right-side-up.

Another large soaring bird that gave me a much closer look was this Turkey Vulture.  It was keeping close tabs on a dead Coyote on the highwayside.

In the early afternoon I found myself at Peveto Woods, where I ran into Gary Broussard.  Gary was leaving as I was arriving, but he stayed to bird with me for a few minutes.  Soon after he left, I stepped under a tree to look at some bird movement and spotted a hanging brown object that I first thought might be a wasp nest.  It was actually a bat, the first perched bat I've ever found.

Because Gary was a half-hour ahead of me on the route, I started getting calls about nice things he was finding, so I set off to check his birds out.  Gary has a pretty nice résumé of rare birds to his credit, but he also has a knack for finding oddball birds.  In other words, he looks closely at birds--even common birds--and spots differences.  He got a brief look at this Red-tailed Hawk up near Sweet Lake, and I caught up to him and helped him relocate it.  Maybe this bird is a perfectly normal Red-tailed Hawk; I'm not saying it isn't.  However, the tail pattern sure seems funny (looks pale-based with a broad blackish tip to me), and something about the tail shape, feet, and overall appearance of the bird keep catching my attention.

Good weather, good birds, good company, good game.  Good time of year.

TS Lee's Seabird Sweepstakes

Aside from a good 3-day soaking, Tropical Storm Lee brought some fun birds to Louisiana last weekend.  The eastern half of Louisiana got a more concentrated dose of storm-driven seabirds than SWLA, but at least a few found themselves over our airspace.  These Sooty Terns, from a flock of 6, were possibly following Bayou Vermilion as they worked their way from near the airport into the Spring Hill area of Lafayette.

Apparently about 100 Sooties were reported in Louisiana over the storm weekend (see the eBird map above), with groups as large as 20, 15, and 12.  Seeing even one of these seabirds while standing on dry land is a thrill; I was pretty excited to luck onto this group.

The other major player in the seabird sweepstakes was Magnificent Frigatebird.  It's hard to tell how many were reported in Louisiana, but it may have been over a thousand.  Dave Patton and I had a group of 6 in our neighborhood, and Gary Broussard alerted us to some at Lake Martin.  I met Dave at Lake Martin on Sunday afternoon and saw 2 frigatebirds there (Dave also had a jaeger that I arrived too late for).

Again, more frigatebirds were seen on the eastern half of the state than in the west (eBird map below).

Although I can drive to the coast and see one just about any day, my favorite storm bird of the weekend was the single Black Skimmer that flew over my house on Sunday.  For some reason, Black Skimmers are hard to find away from the coast--maybe they hunker down in the wind better than other birds.  This Black Skimmer was a first for Lafayette Parish.

Cameron Parish, 8/27/2011

Birding yesterday in Cameron Parish was pretty nice, even with the temperature in the mid-90s.  A north wind was blowing, and there was a good showing of migrants.

I started the day at Holly Beach.  In the town itself, close-cropped lawns provided good habitat for Killdeer and a single Buff-breasted Sandpiper.  The Buff-breasted was fun to see.  Buff-breasted Sandpipers are one of those straw-colored birds that look plain from a distance but show a complex pattern when seen up close.

On the beach itself, 3 Lesser Black-backed Gulls were interesting.  They might represent incoming migrants, or a coincidence of summering birds.  Lesser Black-backeds are European birds that have gone from rare to regular in the past two decades.  Apparently the birds have managed to get a foothold in North America.

From the beach, I hit the scrub.  Acacia scrub is my favorite habitat at this time of year.  The short, thorny bushes offer great cover for migrants and I like winding through thickets of thorn trees and prickly pear cactus.  There was nothing unusual in the acacia yesterday, but some expected migrants were there in good numbers, including flycatchers, yellow warblers, and gnatcatchers.    

Next, I passed by Peveto Woods.  Peveto has some good tall oaks and a smattering of other tree species.  I worked the perimeter of the woods to see what was in the short stuff, but spent a little time in the taller woods.

While there, I got a brief unsatisfying look at a Warbling Vireo hidden deep in oak leaves just before it flew.  Just as well; a few minutes later I came across 2 Warbling Vireos in a locust tree and managed to get photos of one.

There were also fair numbers of warblers there.  Offhand, I think I had 7 warbler species, plus good numbers of flycatchers (including 6 Eastern Wood Pewees and 1 Olive-sided Flycatcher).

From Peveto, I took a ride through East Jetty Woods.  Best birds there were a couple of Lark Sparrows, but I had to leave quickly when a tractor came by spraying.

On the ride home, I passed down Chalkley Road, one of my favorite birding locations.  Near Sweet Lake Land Company headquarters, there were plenty of birds including big flocks of cowbirds, swallows, egrets.
Among the egrets in the canal by the road was a Wood Stork, not rare but always nice for a day in Cameron Parish.

Nearby was a young Red-tailed Hawk, probably the young of the nearby nesting pair.

The icing on the cake for the day was the swallow show on Chalkley.  All day long I had been watching swallows fly by.  Most seemed to be Cliff Swallows, followed by Barns, and distantly by Banks.  However, as I approached the area near the Cameron Prairie NWR headquarters on the ride back, I began to see dense flocks of mostly Bank Swallows.  By the time I reached Chalkley Road, swallows were starting to congregate on lines there.  Again, it was mostly Banks, now followed distantly by Cliffs, and even more distantly by Barns.  There were also a few Purple Martins, Tree Swallows, and Cave Swallows mixed in.

Generally, swallows don't spend much time sitting down.  You have to be lucky to find a place where they congregate in the evenings, and the Chalkley Road area is usually a good bet.  Yesterday was the biggest group I've ever seen there, several times over.  Unfortunately, the day and the light were fading away, and I didn't get to look as long as I would've liked.  If I had the chance, I would have spent hours there.  I may have just seen the same things several thousands of times, but there's always the chance...

Kingbird Calls, Cameron Parish, 8/14/2011

I didn't want to post a picture of any of the kingbirds from Cameron here because I don't know which one was doing the calling.  Instead, here's a picture of the Kingfish.  The clip of the call repeats 3 times so you won't have to keep hitting the play button. 

Burrowing Owl, Holly Beach, 8/20

Another neat bird from yesterday was this Burrowing Owl that was holding steady on the debris line of Holly Beach.  I'm not sure how early this bird is compared to other fall records, but I was surprised to see a Burrowing Owl on August 20.

Burrowing Owls are rare migrants and winter residents in Louisiana.  Our birds would seem to come from the Great Plains and western states, where they are common sights around prairie dog towns.

Not the Last for the Least

 
Yesterday, after crossing into Cameron on the ferry, I saw a lump in the road ahead of me.  As I rolled past it and looked back, I thought I saw the lump stand up.  I doubled back, only to see some 18-wheelers headed down the lane.  In a very decent move, both of the drivers saw the bird in the road and went slowly around it.  I pulled next to the lump and saw it was a dazed Least Bittern.  I picked it up; it was apparently knocked out standing up, so I set it down in a shady spot on my car floor and put a cover over it.

Least Bitterns have always been a favorite of mine.  I first got to know them in my uncle's ricefields when I was a kid.  It was always fun to watch them fly in close, and then pull up short and change directions with a look of shock when they saw me.  What always struck me about them (other than their beautiful colors, of course) was their size.

How cool is a heron that you can hold in your hand?

I went about my birding business, and quite honestly, forgot about the bird until I heard somebody moving around on the passenger side floor.  I lifted up the cover, and there, looking fierce and awake, was the bittern. It flew up to the window, then across the dashboard.  I got a hold of it, and luckily wasn't holding it too close to my face.  It was some kind of fache', and it started striking everything near it.  It may be little, but that bill is sharp.

I drove to the nearest marshy area and let it go.  It flew about a hundred yards, then veered sharply and ducked into the grass.

Later, when I was unpacking my car, I realized my guest had left a present for me on the floor:

What Willet Be?

The Willet, although incredibly abundant and widespread, is still in many ways a mysterious bird.  Although it's been known for over a century that there are two distinct populations of willets (one which breeds coastally in eastern North America, and another that breeds in the western interior), much remains to be sorted out about the two populations.  Certainly a lot of the popular information on the species and its two populations is streamlined to such a degree that it promotes misunderstanding and bad science.  In the case of this species, a little knowledge can be a dangerous thing.  Overzealous birders often confuse the material in soft identification articles with hard, reliable data, and take it into the field.  As a result, myth has been mixed with the canon of knowledge about this species.  Thus, some birders today believe that any and all willets can be identified as either the Eastern or Western subspecies based on morphology or seasonal distribution.

Most authoritative works on Willets, shorebird guides, and even the above-mentioned soft ID articles try to caution readers against being too hasty in attempting to identify all willets to subspecies.  However, reckless birders often fail to heed those caveats.  For instance, although most western and eastern willets show a difference in size, some birders ignore the hard, quantitative data showing that size overlap does indeed exist.  Many birds are simply in the middle.  As well, not every fieldmark is waterproof.  Judging between the two subspecies can boil down to subjective interpretation of characters.  Again, many birds are obvious; however, it's the middle of the spectrum that kills good science.

The timing of migration is also used by some as a means of separating the two subspecies, a fact which in itself is dangerous.  The popular mantra is that eastern adults are gone by the end of July, while juveniles sometimes stay until mid-August, rarely into September.  When this information was first published, it was acknowledged to be tentative.  However, with each subsequent retelling in popular birding literature, this suggested window of passage has assumed more of an aura of established fact.

Whatever the case, the juvenile above was photographed last Sunday (August 14) as it loafed in the open with several others like it on the muddy banks of the highway-side canal between the Cameron ferry and Holly Beach.  It seems pretty safely on the Eastern side of the spectrum.  It might have been interesting to see how many such Eastern Willets a stretch of this canal contained, but I was more interested in investigating the beach.  Luckily, this bird and its companions were impossible to miss from the road even at highway speed and I was able to back up to take its picture.  

Once on the beach, several other interesting Willets were seen.  One was a very large, "Western"-sized bird with very dense markings below that called the plumage of Eastern Willet to mind.  Another was the bird below, another Eastern which appeared to be well on the way to basic plumage.  I spent a good while examining this bird, as did a few other curious birders that seemed to be wondering what the big deal was.  I would have liked to have studied it more closely; however, traffic on the beach compelled me to move on.  Given the cooperative nature of this bird and the great looks available, I'm sure the other birders present were also able to identify this bird to subspecies by size and bill shape.                                                                                                                                                                      

    

Eastern Willet, Ruddy Turnstone, Black-bellied Plover, 2 presumed  Western Willets.   Note size difference between willet on left and willets on right.  

Some birders might debate the identification of the birds above as "Eastern" Willets.  I welcome the discussion and the chance to explore the question of Willet ID in greater detail.

Hopefully good science will replace the need for conjecture soon.  It will be nice when a reliable picture of the Willet's presence emerges.