Beach Surveys, 2/26/2011

Yesterday, Mac Myers and I conducted a set of LSUMNS-BRC/ABA beach surveys in Cameron Parish. The most notable aspect of the day was the persistent sea fog that rolled in and was especially dense later in the day.  Also noteworthy was the huge number of scaup offshore with a few scoters mixed in; we had several Surf, 2 Black, and a sleeping scoter that I suspect was a White-winged.  Gull numbers were so-so, although there were good numbers of Ring-billeds, a fair number of Herring, 2 Lesser Black-backed and some Bonaparte's.  There was also a Glaucous Gull  (photo above; click 1 or 2 times to enlarge) on the rocks of Holly Beach.  Note also the color of the pouches of the pelicans in the photo.  There's been some talk lately about the brown pouch color of Atlantic versus red of Pacific Brown Pelicans, and the fact that red pouches have been seen in Louisiana.  In this photo, one pouch is red, the other brown.

Winter Bird Atlas Birds

Painted Buntings and Yellow-headed Blackbird, Lacassine Quad

Wilson's Phalarope, Kaplan North Quad

Dickcissel, Duson Quad

White-winged Scoter, Grand Bayou Quad

I didn't have as much time to put into the Louisiana Winter Bird Atlas (see http://ebird.org/content/la/about) this year as I would've liked.  If I'm calculating right, I birded in 25 quads, and logged 174 species.  I've had a strategy over the past few years of putting a few hours per year into a quad so I could get a rich picture of the diversity an area; every year the picture shifts a little, and different birds enter or exit the picture to some degree.  This year, I managed to reach the 20-hour threshold for a few of these pay-as-I-go quads.  I also added a few oddball species that are blips on the radar in terms of frequency but add interest to the overall picture.  Above are a few photos of uncommon birds, including Wilson's Phalarope, a new species to the winter project.

Ash-throated Flycatcher

This afternoon, I was driving around to test out a new camera.  Basically, I'd park next to treelines, play a screech owl tape, and photograph the birds that came in to the tape.  One of the birds that responded near beautiful Leroy, Louisiana was an Ash-throated Flycatcher.   

 

Ash-throated Flycatchers are interesting birds.  Their breeding range is out west, from about the Texas Hill Country west to the Pacific Coast, north to Washington state, and south through much of Mexico.  In fall, most migrate south into Mexico and Central America, but a few--for whatever reason--wander in different directions.  There are fall and winter records of this species all along the Gulf Coast and the East Coast, and from scattered points throughout the interior of the eastern half of the continent.

It's important to be careful identifying this species, as a number of other flycatcher look very similar to Ash-throateds.  The Great-crested Flycatcher nests throughout the east in summer  (http://www.manybirds.com/atlas/pages/55.htm) but is unknown in winter in Louisiana, while the western Brown-crested Flycatcher is found in very small numbers in Louisiana in winter.  One good clue for identifying Ash-throateds is the overall paleness of the browns, grays, and yellows of their plumage; many birds of the arid areas of the west have pale, dusty coloration.  However, color can sometimes be hard to judge.  The best proof of the identity of this species is its tail.  The outer tail feathers of this and closely related species are reddish brown with darker brown outer webs.  On Ash-throateds, the dark brown makes a dark hook shape on the tip of the tail.  This is obvious on the picture above, taken today.  Click on the picture for a closer look.        

Luck

Louisiana's a pretty big chunk of land and sea. Even if you confine yourself to a corner of it, as I do, you're still looking at an endless grid of roads, woodlands, and open land.  On one hand, that's great: Interesting birds might be anywhere out there.  On the other hand, that's a problem: Interesting birds might be anywhere out there. 

Some birders feel that their skills are so sharp that they can detect any birds they come near.  I'm not sure where those birders stand on UFOs and the Great Pumpkin.  I have a more logical outlook; I feel that birds have managed to survive because they can stay undetected when they want to.  Finding something rare among the swarms of birds that fill every available patch of habitat must boil down to something else.  I think it's mostly luck.

Luck isn't all of it, of course.  A birder can study trends, target habitats, and play the odds by searching out areas where rare birds have been found with higher frequency.  However, all the foresight in the world can't help if a great bird happens to fly behind a building when the wise birder is driving by. 

There's a famous expression, "Luck is where preparation meets opportunity."  I'd say the majority of great bird sightings can be filed under that piece of wisdom.      

Ferruginous Hawk x 2

Today (12/27/2010), Mac Myers and I were conducting beach surveys in Cameron Parish.  As we were traveling from Holly Beach to the Johnsons Bayou area, we saw a group of hawks soaring and kiting over the fields and marsh south of the highway.  One obviously didn't look like a Red-tailed, so we stopped and made sure.  It was indeed a Ferruginous Hawk, as we suspected: this was right across the highway from where James Beck had found a cooperative Ferruginous last October.  That bird had allowed a lot of happy birders to add this species to their state lists, but as far as I can recall, it hadn't been reported since late October or so.  Mac and I were pleased to have relocated it.  

We continued on our way, and a few minutes later we were at the end of Erbelding Road, about a mile west of where we'd seen the Ferruginous.  There was another nice group of hawks there, at least seven visible at once.  As we watched, another hawk materialized from the west, flying in fairly low.  It was a Ferruginous Hawk.

We felt it was a different bird, as we'd left the other bird soaring a mile to the east.  However, the wind was strong out of the southeast, so there was a chance it was the same bird, but had ridden downwind quickly and beaten us to the spot. 

On the way back out from the beach a few hours later, we relocated the  Ferruginous Hawk at the end of Erbelding Road.  We kept an eye on it as we got back on the highway, and we headed back east a mile, making sure this bird didn't drift back to the original hawk spot.  When we got back to the first site, we picked out a Ferruginous mixed with the redtails soaring well south of the highway, and convinced ourselves there really were two Ferruginous Hawks.  But just to make sure, we headed back to Erbelding Road, looked up, and relocated Ferruginous Hawk #2.

This is the first time that I'm aware of that two Ferruginous Hawks have been reported in a day in Louisiana.  With all of the food the hawk swarm along the coast must be finding to eat, I wouldn't be surprised if more good hawks find their way there.    

Lapland Longspurs

Last weekend, I took a ride out to a spot that's been pretty reliable for Lapland Longspurs for the past couple of winters.  These arctic nesters aren't easy to find in SW Louisiana, so it's always fun when I get a chance to look at them.  Luckily, I found two large flocks that added up to almost 500 birds.  That might make it sound like I got good looks at them, but it wasn't quite like that at first.  Often, what you see of Lapland Longspurs looks something like this:

Longspur flocks can be kind of jumpy.  They have a funny habit of getting up in a swarm, flying in huge circles, coming in low to land, and then, flying back up and making the big circles all over again.  However, the flocks I was watching finally landed pretty close, and I was able to study variations in plumage for as long as I wanted from about twenty or thirty yards. 

Oh, by the way, when they get close, they look like this:

Sprague's Pipit

Sprague's Pipit in short grass habitat.  Click once or twice to see larger image. 

When I was a kid, I used to like to walk around my uncle's farm in Kaplan.  In the winter there were muddy plowed fields, flooded fields with levees, and pastures with straw-colored grass chewed down about as short as my ankles by cattle.  The short grass pastures were my favorite.  That was partly because they were dry and easy to walk across, but mostly it was because there was a bird hiding in the grass that I could barely even find, much less identify.  

In the muddy fields, I could kick up Savannah Sparrow after Savannah Sparrow, and big flocks of Water Pipits.  On the flooded fields, there were usually dowitchers and yellowlegs.  But as I'd walk across the pastures, every now and then I'd luck across a little blonde bird that would launch itself high into the sky with a short call and fly around in circles  for minutes at a time.  Then, it would plummet back to earth and disappear into the grass again.  I might walk across tens of acres and only kick up a few of these birds.  I became an expert on how they acted, but I wasn't even really sure what I was looking at.  

I was finally pretty sure I was seeing Sprague's Pipits, and later, when I got binoculars, I was able to confirm it.  It's been one of my favorite birds ever since.  Like meadowlarks and Grasshopper Sparrow, Sprague's Pipit is a beautiful mix of brown grass colors that allow it to disappear when it holds still.  

Sprague's Pipits nest in the northern prairies and winter on short grass prairies and pastures in the south central part of the United States, and on into Mexico--basically, buffalo country.  Louisiana is on the edge of their main winter range, which means it's hit-or-miss finding one here.  The short grass on roadsides and cropduster landing strips can be good places to look for them.  Because they're so good at hiding, not a lot is known about this species.  One thing that everyone seems to agree on is that they seem to be decreasing in numbers.  Although 99.99% of the world has no idea that this bird even exists, it would be a sad thing if this bird were to disappear forever.           

Franklin's and Laughing Gulls

Here we have a nice flock of loafing gulls, soaking up sun on a winter day. Most of these are Laughing Gulls, but in the blue frame, which is detailed below, we have a good comparison.

Here we have two interesting birds.  One, the one in back, is interesting because it's a Franklin's Gull.  Franklin's are always fun to look for in Laughing Gull flocks, and I always feel I'll find one if I search hard enough.  For about half the year, that seems to work.  Sometimes I start to think I've got a Franklin's only to admit defeat when the bird turns its head.  At this time of year a lot of Laughers have a pseudo-Franklin's look to them, with sort of dark-capped head patterns.  The bird in front is a good representative of that look, though not as extreme as some.  I even saw a Laugher with a full but patchy hood the other day.  With a good enough look, the darker hood and smaller head of the Franklin's is obvious.  When you really see one, you know it.

Broad-winged Hawk
























This Broad-winged Hawk was at Peveto Woods in Cameron Parish today.  Broadwings are rare in winter in Louisiana, but have been pretty reliable for the past few winters in a few coastal spots.

Three Terns

Crossing the Calcasieu Ship Channel on the ferry in Cameron today, I had a good chance to compare the winter plumages of three small tern species.  The Common Tern, above, is usually hard to find at this time of year, but there were at least a couple there today.  Winter Common Terns generally look like this bird, with a darker patch on the front edge of the upperwing, and a cap that leaves the forehead white but meets around the back.

Seen from beneath, the wingtips of the Common Tern have a distinct black trailing edge.  The tail has black edges on the outside.

The real "common tern" in winter is the Forster's Tern, above. It has a black eyepatch, not a cap. Its wings can also have a thin black edge in the back, but the black cuts up as a line into the wing.

The third small tern today was a Black Tern in winter plumage, seen in the last two photos.  In summer, Black Terns really are black.  In winter, the upperparts, the cap, and a little mark that juts down onto the side near the front edge of the wing are all that are dark.  Black Terns shouldn't be here at this time of year, but they are sometimes recorded in Louisiana in late fall.