Saw some rain coming yesterday so headed to Hornsby for another shorebird and migrant fix!! Lots of White-rumped Sand, a flyby of 3 Black-bellied Plovers, Semipalm plovers, beautiful breeding plumage phalaropes, Dowitchers, and Stilt sands and the first time to ever see all 5 peeps on the same day!! Also lots of wet swallows, migrating…
17 species of shorebird this morning at Hornsby. Ties my personal best at Hornsby and I just missed the BB Plover that was reported. Migrating Franklin’s Gulls and White-faced Ibis also cool.
14 species of shorebird at Hornsby this morning. I’m surprised I haven’t seen Western or WHite-rumped Sandpipers yet. The fun part today was 20 Hudsonian Godwits flying over the ponds and then 4 landed and stuck around for 15 minutes.
15 species of shorebird yesterday at Hornsby. But this Chestnut-collared longspur was a treat. Seems to be a young male with a hint of black on belly and a hint of chestnut on collar. Good looks at Baird’s Sandpiper, American Golden Plover and both yellowlegs were also a pleasure!
Continuing with Gulls FT last weekend: These 3 made about 5 passes in a very interesting display just for us!!!
Had a great trip with the 2024 Gulls Class to Galveston etc. Highlight was the California Gull initially found by Sarah “blue legs” Womack!! Palm Warbler found by Doug was also a great bird!! We had 6 gull species and numerous shorebirds.
We recently read a very good book called “Orison for a Curlew”(Orison = prayer). It’s about the Slender-billed Curlew of Europe. Some of the narrative took us to places we had birded in Bulgaria. I highly recommend!! https://www.goodreads.com/…/27278141-orison-for-a-curlew Regretfully, on a Bulgaria birding site, I just saw this article on the end of the story….
Can ya’ll ID these 3 Texas winter shorebirds: 1/5/25, Galveston East Beach. Started the shorebird scoresheet for 2025 with 12 species.
Went to Corpus yesterday. Here’s some winter shorebirds.
I spent the last week in Davis Mountains. Here’s a few locals. Having heard of 88 mountain plovers near San Angelo, I detoured that direction on the way home and found about a dozen on a cold and rainy morning. Nice turf farm there on Susan Peak road. See map below if you want to…
