Celebrating Global Big Day On Mustang Island

Winnie was going on a birding trip and had me all signed up when I arrived to visit her. Another friend arrived at her house at 6:00A.M. and we took off to Packer Channel Park to meet up with Gene Blacklock, the local bird guru, and several other people. The promised storm petered out before it reached Corpus Christi, but we still had some winds that we thought might bring down migrating birds.

But only a few passerines bothered to stop over, although we did get to see several flocks of Franklin's gulls flying north along the channel. We took out time to roust out the few passerines, including eastern kingbirds, several epidimax  flycatchers, a female Baltimore oriole, and a summer tanager.

Gene, left, and some of the group

We walked the short way to the little Audubon park, where we found one mocking bird, one sora, and one lesser yellowlegs.

Greater Yellowlegs

Sora

Then we started off towards Paradise Pond, stopping at a little willow-lined pond. There we found a great crested flycatcher, a veery, a magnolia warbler, a hooded warbler,  a chestnut sided warbler, a few American redstarts, and a couple of other birds. Of course, great-tailed grackles were ever present and we also saw great numbers of barn swallows that were in their peak migration.

Great crested flycatcher

We stopped again for a mass of roseate spoonbills, mixed in with ibis, various herons, and shorebirds.

Roseates and friends

We then toured the standard birding hot spots in Port Aransas, where I was appalled at the damage from Hurricane Harvey. Paradise Pond had also lost a lot of habitat to development and all the invasive Brazilian pepper trees had been taken down, leaving it both desolate and bare. A lot of the willows were down and dead, but some had a few live shoots starting to grow. And the Leona Turnbull BirdingCenter had lost at least half of its trees and most of its boardwalk. Birds at both places were scarce but we spent a lot of time trying to get good looks at several species of warblers.

View at Paradise Pond over dead and missing trees

The only pair of blue-wing teal at Paradise Pond

Yellow-throated vireo - life bird

Chestnut-sided warbler - these guys were the friendliest and came within two feet of me 

Destroyed boardwalks are still trashing up the birding center

A tri-colored heron hunts at the Birding Center

Nutria at the Birding Center

This picture of a blackburnian warbler shows how the warblers caused our trials in trying
 to capture the little guys with a camera. Both Winnie and I threw out most of our pictures . Many times we only documented the site because the birds could fly faster than we could focus on them. 

We also went to the beach and got to see lots of terns, including: royal, black, common, Foresters, and sandwich, long with gulls and a few shorebirds.

Black terns with a couple of other species

Royal and other terns

After lunch, we went to look at a great collection of shorebirds, including dunlins in breeding dress, Wilson's phalaropes, semipalmated plovers and semipalmated sandpipers, avocets, and other birds. We also saw roseate spoonbills and various herons and egrets. My battery died and I had forgotten to bring a second one.

Dunlin (by Winnie)

White phase reddish egret and dowitchers (by Winnie)

The best bird for me here was an eared grebe in breeding plumage. We were all worn out and elected to stop our tour and go home, even though Gene still wanted to go to the marsh area in the Botanical Garden. We helped get the list ready and Gene will put it up on e-bird for us.  We are joining birders from around the world who are turning in their data.

I checked eBird as I finished writing this on May 5 and found that over 25,000 checklists have been turned in from all over the world. I'm so glad that I could help inventory our local birds and give scientists data.

Did you take part?  If you did, I'd love for you to  share your experience in the comments section. Feel free to link to your blog or your eBird list(s) for Big Day.

This was also Cinco de Mayo.  We celebrated that by eating at the Restaurant San Juan, where we usually sate our hunger and thirst.  It has a wide menu, with good food at reasonable prices. And they have big tables for groups. Also, it is just in front of Paradise Pond, so we don't even have to move our cars.