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.  

Wood Stork

For the past few weeks, I've been seeing giant soaring birds flying over I-10 every time I drive through the Crowley area.  I don't know if other motorists notice them, but I can't imagine how they wouldn't: these birds dwarf the egrets we normally see flying around.  Their slow, deliberate wingbeats and their ability to soar effortlessly also set them apart from our common waders.  These giants are Wood Storks.  

Wood Storks can be found in big flocks in rice country in summer, but I don't remember seeing any when I was young.  It seems like they've invaded in a big way in the past couple of decades.  I had a flock of over 300 storks mixed in with hundreds of egrets and herons south of Crowley a few days ago.  

Wood Storks nest in south Florida and in Mexico.  I've heard rumors of breeding in Louisiana, but I've never seen any proof.  Flocks of storks seen heading south along the Texas coast during fall months probably mean that our summer visitors come from Mexico. We get a mix of old and young birds (these photos are of a young bird that hasn't acquired the naked gray head of adults).    

Welcome Back to Holly Beach

Welcome to Holly Beach

Crested Caracara

I can remember reading all about Caracaras in Lowery's Louisiana bird book when I was a kid.  According to Lowery, Caracaras nested in small numbers in the Gum Cove area of Calcasieu Parish.  I later learned that a ferry ran out to Gum Cove, and I hoped to get out there someday to see a Caracara.  These "Mexican Eagles" would have been easy enough to see in their expected range in southern Florida, or in southern Texas or Arizona, but the idea that this exotic looking bird actually had a toehold in Louisiana seemed pretty exciting.

Years passed, and I learned the ferry to Gum Cove had stopped operating.  I also heard things that made me believe the tiny Louisiana population had probably dwindled out.  Then, a little over a decade ago, Caracaras began to be reported regularly from the Fabacher Road area of Calcasieu Parish, and it seemed as if maybe the little group had managed to survive.  I went out and eventually got a look at one, and counted myself lucky.

Since then, Caracaras have staged something of a population explosion in our state.  It's not uncommon to see several in a day of birding now anywhere in SW LA.  Caracaras have  been reported as far east as Lafayette and Iberia Parishes.   There's no telling if the increased numbers come from the old Gum Cove stock, or from Texas birds spreading out.  Whatever the case, the Caracara is a great addition to our wildlife.

These pictures were taken today.  The perched bird was within sight of the Gulf in Cameron Parish.  The flying bird was part of a family of two adults and two young birds in Calcasieu Parish south of Holmwood.  Click to enlarge.

Bullbat

I spotted a lot of Common Nighthawks, a.k.a. Bullbats, along the coast today.  Judging from the numbers, it would seem that breeding success was pretty good this summer.

Nighthawks were flying around, perched in trees, on powerlines, on bare earth, and luckily for my camera, on fenceposts below eye level.  This bird let me get within about 10 feet of it several times.

Cameron Parish, 07/20/2011

I could sense fall in the 90 degree air today, so I took a ride down to Cameron Parish to see what was moving.  Once I got down there, the wide open view on the coastal prairie let me see huge but widely spaced thunderstorms rolling through all around.  I managed to miss any big storms, but the areas I drove through were either painfully dry or drenched and covered by pools of standing water.

I birded Peveto Woods for a few minutes, but approaching thunder seemed to quiet the birds.  The bugs weren't bad at all, just a few mosquitoes.  Most of the birds were breeders (Cardinals, Yellow-billed Cuckoos, etc.).  The only birds in the woods that may have been migrants were Orchard Orioles.

There were migrants in other spots.  Western Sandpipers, Sanderlings, and Marbled Godwits were present on the beaches.  Purple Martins (photo above) were present in good numbers on powerlines throughout my route--even though some on the coast were still hanging around their nest boxes.  Small groups of Eastern Kingbirds in places that didn't look very suitable for nesting territories suggested that they may be moving, at least locally.

 

Beach, Again

Today Mac Myers and I ran the last of a 12-month series of beach surveys.  It was hot and bright, and there were no big surprises, but there were plenty of birds to look at all day long.  June is a great month on the coast, with a lot of migrant birds still moving through or hanging out, while many local birds are busy raising young.  Among the former group, there are still plenty of Black Terns and Common Terns around.  Many birders who've done June pelagic trips in the Gulf have learned that Black Terns can be surprisingly abundant out there; usually the first few cries of "Storm Petrel" turn out to be Black Terns zipping by.  Common Terns also seem to stay an uncommonly long time, especially younger Commons that are probably not ready to breed.

Like last month, we had a good handful of left behind scoters and scaup today as well.  Some birds which seem to be present every month of the year out there, like Long-billed Curlew and Whimbrel, were recorded again.

Breeders included Least Terns, as seen in the family portrait below,

     











and Willets, who don't like to be ignored.

Last month, I mentioned the bleached out Herring Gulls that can be found on Gulf beaches in summer.  This month, quite a few Lesser Black-backed Gulls joined them.  Most were fairly ratty, but this second cycle bird seems to be in pretty good shape overall.

Overall, a good day to be out.