About 10 students joined Lance and I on a trip to Corpus for shorebirds and other migrants. (Eric had to sit it out this year due to schedule conflict).
The Ebird trip report prepared by Lance Felber can be found here. My checklist of shorebird species seen is below.
We started at Indian Point where there weren’t that many shorebirds, but we did get good looks at a few, like this American Oystercatcher and Piping plover.
We saw Willets at most stops. Below are the western subspecies of Willet. They are larger, longer-bodied, longer-necked and slightly longer-billed and have more white on their undersides, neck and face. Additional discussion of Willets can be found here.
We saw 3 of the 4 small plovers (Semipalmated, Wilson’s & Piping) at Indian Point and saw the Black-bellied Plover in many locations. Identification of small, ringed plovers are explained here and differences between the Black-bellied and the American Golden Plovers are discussed here. Although we kept looking the whole weekend I believe we only got good looks at Caspian Tern at Indian Point. Terns are discussed here.
We started Saturday morning at Oso Bay at Texas A&M Corpus Christi. Here we got distant looks at Black-bellied Plovers, Black-necked Stilts, Whimbrel (I need to get used to calling it Hudsonian Whimbrel), Gull-billed Tern, Lesser Yellowlegs, Long-billed Dowitcher, and others. We also had views of Long-billed Thrasher, Gray Catbird, Indigo Bunting, Orchard and Hooded Oriole, Eastern Kingbird and other passerines. I caught a mid-air photo of Long-billed Dowitcher which shows a diagnostic field mark. The area circled in the photo below is patterned in Short-billed Dowitchers, but white in Long-billed.
We spent the rest of that day at Packery Channel, Leonabelle Turnbull Birding Center (new parking lot), Charlie’s Pasture, Paradise Pond, the Port Aransas Jetties, Han Suter Refuge and the North side of the Oso along Ocean Drive. Then ate at Snoopy’s Pier per usual.
Sunday morning we had some nice migrants at Blucher Park including Worm-eating Warbler, Hooded Warbler and Northern Waterthrush, fleeting glimpses of Chuck-wills-widow and Clay-colored Thrush, and a Bronzed Cowbird (which I always enjoy seeing, despite their cowbirdy reputation) and a few locals like Great Kiskadee, Clay-colored Thrush and an Inca Dove (on a nest). Along Dunn-Meany Road near Tule Lake we had a nice singing Cassin’s Sparrow, 5 Pyrrhuloxia in 1 binocular view!!, Blue Grosbeak, Painted and Indigo Buntings, . The lake itself had more shorebirds present than we’ve seen there in a number of years. We got nice looks at Long-billed Dowitcher, Stilt Sandpiper, Western Sandpiper, Least Sandpiper and the ubiquitous (for this trip) Dunlin.
Our final stop was the Calallen Sod Farms (Turfco) where we had pretty close views of up to 12 Upland Sandpipers.
Oh and I almost forgot: after I had called “time” and we were walking back to our cars, Lance spotted the famous Corpus Christi Cattle Tyrant and served him up right in front of us.
And I can’t forget gulls!! We had 4 species of gulls on a shorebird field trip!! As we discussed the Franklin’s Gull is smaller and stockier than the Laughing Gull and often has a pink sheen on its belly this time of year. The eye-arcs are also thicker and almost meet in back. This Herring Gull is quite bleached (by the sun). The Ring-billed Gull was the other gull we saw.
