We met up at 4am in Corpus. We worked our way north to Victoria in the dark, making sure any feeding stations we were going to visit later in the day had birdseed and oranges, then scouted birds in Riverside Park until it was time to start the big event at 8:30am, about two hours after daylight. The start time defined how much daylight we would have the following morning at the finish.
Years before, we set our Big Day record of 207 birds. The last couple years we haven’t done that well, finishing in the low 190s, thus the change-up in strategy this time. Start the day later, after dawn, and bird for 24 hours over parts of two different days. It’s not any easier, it actually requires more focus over a longer period of time, but it gives us access to more birds in a 24 hour period.
We started off strong with downy and pileated woodpeckers, bluebirds, Mississippi kites, and more before driving out toward the coast. 46 birds. A few stops in Calhoun County and we picked up 12 more species. 3 birds in Refugio County. We spent enough time in Aransas County to score another 28, including a couple of really good sparrows, Nelson’s and LeConte’s. Not going to find those just anywhere.
Spirits were high when we arrived in Nueces County at 11:45am to spend the bulk of our time and get the bulk of our birds. It takes a lot of preparation for a Big Day, but it takes a lot of luck as well. Some birds are where they’re supposed to be no matter what. Conditions have to be just right for migrants though. Basically, if the weather is terrible, there are probably going to be lots of migrants. The weather will knock them down and they’ll be standing around in trees and on the ground resting, waiting for us to count them. We had such a strong morning, but when it came time for migrants along the coast, our luck ran out. The winds were calm out of the south. The weather was wonderful. The migrants were sparse.
Not only were the migrants sparse, but we got a double-whammy. There was an exceptionally high tide as well. All the places we were supposed to get shorebirds; there was no shore. The water was too deep for the little wading birds and they had gone somewhere else; who knows where. We kept grinding and came up with what we could. By the time we left the coast at 4pm and headed inland, we had logged 150 species but we were 15 migrants and 5 shorebirds behind. It was looking grim to even get to 200 birds.
We stopped for gas and some pre-packaged food at 3:30. The mud flats were flooded at Texas A&M. It wasn’t that good at Blucher Park either, but at Rose Hill Cemetery it got a little better. We found a mixed flock of birds. We followed them and picked off blue-winged, chestnut-sided, and black-throated green warblers. We found yellow-billed cuckoo, lesser goldfinch and franklin’s gull. Pollywog Ponds produced eastern kingbird, white-tipped dove, green kingfisher, and dickcissel. Good. Nothing much at Hazel Bazemore, but at the sod farm we got a couple more sandpipers and kept on. We got an anhinga at Wright Ranch Pond and monk parakeet in Orange Grove. Sandia was productive, yielding another dozen birds including barred owl, great horned owl, and barn owl at dusk. A three-owl evening. That was good and the count was encouraging again. We went back to the coast and struck out on the clapper rail in the dark, but got the Virginia rail. At 10:45pm, it was time to blow south. 188 birds. We had planned to be at 195, but that was a lot better than before. We had done some serious catching-up and our prospects were looking good to at least break 200.
Jon got a burger at Whataburger at midnight. At 12:30am we stopped at the Sarita Rest Area and picked out a roosting brewer’s blackbird in the trees. After a long drive, we heard a King Rail in the Tio Cano marsh outside Harlingen at 2:20am. At 3:00am, Bentsen State Park along the Rio Grande was loaded with Border Patrol and sheriffs patrolling the dark. We walked on through and got the elf owl, eastern screech-owl and lesser nighthawk, all by sound. Apparently two guys walking through the middle of border patrol nighttime operations didn’t trigger any alarms and none of them even said hi. 194 birds; a five owl night.
Another long drive in the dark got us to Falcon County Park by 5:00am. Only a couple more hours until daylight; time enough to go listen for a common poorwill by the border crossing bridge. We missed on the poorwill, but not on the border agents. It didn’t take but a few minutes before we saw them headed our way. Two guys stopped in the dark within sight of the border did set off alarms this time. We stood outside the car, looking as harmless and innocent as possible while they pulled up. A short conversation later they headed back to their post, wishing us luck.
We still had time to go scout the house finch at Salineno City Park and see if we could find him in the dark; we couldn’t. We checked the dirt cut-off road outside Salineno to see if it was still passable after the thunderstorm earlier in the night and it was. We went back to the county park to wait for dawn. It didn’t come. Morning fog had settled in and we couldn’t see a thing. Neither could the birds and they were barely making a sound. Finally, about 20 minutes late, it got light and the fog burned off. The ash-throated flycatchers woke up and started singing, joined by clay-colored sparrow, black-throated sparrow, bewick’s wren, olive sparrow, and cactus wren. 200 birds! We saw bullock’s oriole, heard a verdin and northern bobwhite, and continued racking up birds. Vermilion flycatcher, curve-billed thrasher. 205. We’re doing great. We headed for the Salineno cut-off road to get the scaled quail. We didn’t, but we did get the cassin’s sparrow and hooded oriole. 207. Western kingbird, 208, a new record, and another border patrol agent.
Two guys out in the early morning light, driving erratically, stopping and starting, down an empty dirt road along the border that hardly anyone even knows about. He lit us up and we had to pull over and wait for him to walk up so we could have that chat and hold up our binoculars. He took his time. He was waiting until backup was on the way. Once we got to talk, it didn’t take long to extricate ourselves and for him to call off the next car that was racing our way to help.
On to the river at Salineno. Oh no, there is a tour bus of fifteen birders already there. They might have already spooked some difficult birds, but it turns out they were all right in one place. They must have been standing around their scopes staking out red-billed pigeons and Muscovy ducks. We had the rest of the river to ourselves and quickly got off on a trail to the side to pick up brown-crested flycatcher and white-collared seedeater (singing). 210. Ringed kingfisher, northern rough-winged swallow, plain chachalaca, green jay. 214. Audubon’s oriole, and a surprise groove-billed ani out on the island chuckling. 216. Chipping sparrow, and we figured out that unidentified oriole call we had been hearing was actually a clay-colored thrush. 218. We were out of birds at the river and still had about 20 minutes left, so Jon called an audible and we left early to get the house finch at the city park, and did. 219. One more trip the other direction through the mud on the cut-off road to miss on the scaled quail and roadrunner got us back to the county park for another try on the red-billed pigeon. Last bird of the day, right there in the tree, red-billed pigeon. 220 birds. Time’s up.
We started the day with a couple really good woodpeckers for South Texas, finished with a red-billed pigeon, and set a personal-best 220 birds. 24 hours of birding (and driving); we covered 620 miles over 24 hours spanning parts of two different days. 27 new year-birds for me.
In the planning stage, for several alternative routes, Jon lists every bird possible for us to see and assigns a probability to each one; 100% for a laughing gull, 5% for a wood duck. We extend the probability for every bird and add them all up to come up with a projected total for each route and fine tune each to come up with the final plan. The projected total for this exact route, 220 birds. His projection of the likelihood of seeing each individual bird came out right on the money! Not only is he as good as he is in locating and identifying birds, he can accurately estimate the total number of birds we’ll actually see. I continue to be amazed.
A 90 mile drive home for a six hour nap and a return to the real world. I’m not quite normal yet, but I will be soon.
