More Groundhog Day today. I asked my driver point blank if he knew where the convention center was. Yes, he certainly did, he assured me. After two minutes he turned left instead of right and I barked out: “Wrong convention center!” We then found our way.
On our first stop along Aplomado Alley we found an Aplomado Falcon but it flew before I could get a good look. We made a few more stops and I got a distant but diagnostic photograph (544) (ABA 649):
I was assured by Michael Retter, one of our guides, who works for the ABA, that these birds are ABA-countable. One of the day’s best stops was at Zapata boat ramp on Rt 48. Among the many resting Laughing Gulls we found a few Franklin’s Gulls (545), along with a few Wilson’s Plovers (546) and some Dunlin (547). I now had 8 new species in Texas, needing just two more. After the field trip, Joy and I went over to South Padre Island. We searched hard for Clapper Rail at the birding center but last night the cold snap from up north hit, dropping 80 degree temperatures down to 50 with howling winds. No Clapper Rails were budging. Among the passerines near the building we looked for Yellow-throated Warbler without luck. At another place on the island we found this exhausted migrant hopping at my feet, a phenomenon I had never experienced before:
So I’ve added 8 new species here so far. I need 10. Like any good sporting event, it all come down to the final minute. Tomorrow is the grand finale of the field trips for me – the Big Day van. We go all day and try to see how many species we can find. There is a prize for those in the van with the most species, creating an incentive to find everything, so I am hopeful that during the course of the day we will come across just two new species for the Big Year. In the meantime, I’m missing a Blue-footed Booby in Arizona ….
robsbigyear2019.com 