Great Egret on nest, preening.

HIGH ISLAND, TEXAS, PART II – 22-24 APRIL 2023

    Colorful beach houses on tall stilts, at Crystal Beach, TX. Do you think these are hurricane proof?

Early in the morning of 22 April I drove down to Fort Travis County Park for another dose of shorebirds. I was not disappointed. The expanse of wet lawns was dotted with clots of shorebirds, and one particular flock was being examined by a bird-tour group from the weekend-long FeatherFest being held in nearby Galveston, led by expert birder Jon Dunn (senior author of the National Geographic guide). That group was zeroing in on the two species of godwits there, mixed among the many dowitchers, turnstones, and other lesser species.

    Breeding male Hudsonian Godwit in front of foraging Marbled Godwit, Fort Travis Park.

I waited for the tour group to move to another bird flock and then I feasted my eyes on the seven Hudsonian Godwits and two dozen Marbled Godwits that were foraging in the wet grass. I spent about an hour with my prized godwits at very close range. They foraged greedily as I watched and photographed them.

 

    Pair of Hudsonian Godwits, adult male above, young male below.

    

The seven Hudsonian Godwits had dropped in the preceding day and had been reported by the VENT tour group. This particular species is quite uncommon on the grass of Fort Travis Park, so I was indeed fortunate to have these to enjoy. I had only seen a single Hudsonian here the preceding day, but had spoken with Victor Emanuel at Smith Oaks that afternoon and he confirmed their notable presence in the AM.

 

    Sweet close-up of a fine-plumage breeding male Hudsonian Godwit at rest. Fort Travis Park.

Fort Travis is a regular spot for the larger and more common Marbled Godwit. This day there were more than twenty, perhaps nearly forty of the species. This is an all-time high-count for me, so I was fortunate indeed.

 

    Marbled Godwit (upper left), juvenile Hudsonian Godwit (center), dowitchers (lower and right)

It was also unusual to watch Marbled and Hudsonian foraging should-to-shoulder. I had wrapped up my godwit fieldwork in June of 2022, and yet this was providing “bonus footage” of these two species, to be featured in my upcoming book entitled Flight of the Godwit, long delayed by the covid lock-down of Canada. Smithsonian Books plans to publish that popular work in April 2024.

 

    Breeding male Hugsonian Godwit, surrounded by foraging dowitchers.

In the late morning I headed back up to High Island and the Smith Oaks sanctuary, where I linked up with Cliff and Julie Shackelford, who immediately alerted me to the all-import mid-day Methodist Church BBQ feast and fund-raiser. Arriving early, we chowed down on pork BBQ sandwiches, potato salad, cole slaw, and sweet pies, with sweetened iced tea to wash it all down. The church was bursting with hungry birders at mid-day. This is a fun spring event for High Island.

    sumptuous breakfast, High Island RV Park, High Island, TX.

After an early afternoon nap in my tent at the High Island RV Park (a birding senior’s must) I zipped over to Smith Oaks to join the birding crowd awaiting the afternoon arrival of colorful migrant songbirds—birds crossing the Gulf as well as birds following the eastern shoreline of Mexico to this spot (some species mix it up and different individuals follow one route or the other). On this afternoon it was a mix of cross-Gulf and the round-the-Gulf birds dominating—Indigo Buntings, Baltimore Orioles, Rose-breasted Grosbeaks, Scarlet Tanagers, and Summer Tanagers. Warblers were relatively few for some reason. The larger birds dominated the canopy woods.

    Adult male Scarlet Tanager, fresh from the Yucatan.

The Shackelfords located a termite swarm exiting from the cracks in the base of a dead oak, down in the shaded understory below the metal skywalk where most birders gathered.

    Adult male Rose-breasted Grosbeak, beak stuffed with termites.

We stood down on the forest floor, watching the grosbeaks, tanagers, orioles, and vireos chasing and gobbling up the millions of dispersing termites. What a strange sight to see a male Rose-breasted Grosbeak with his beak filled with small termites! Typically we see this species feasting in the fruiting mulberries scattered around the marking lot. This was a switch.

    Summer Tanager, adult male.

Where were the wood warblers? Julie managed to pick out a lovely adult male Cerulean Warbler in a canopy hackberry, but warbler numbers were a disappointment. Why had they not arrived? After grilling Cliff about the mechanics of spring migration arrival here at High Island, I came to see that science has not quite figured out how to predict a substantial arrival flight. Cliff said there were just too many variables at play to make this discernable. So we just had to show up and wait and see how the afternoon would develop. That’s not so bad! It’s fun when things are uncertain… 

    Adult male Cerulean Warbler in canopy at Smith Oaks.

To new readers learning about High Island in spring, here are two notable things: (1) most of the arriving birds do not sing upon arrival; and (2) most of the songbirds arrive in the afternoon, not the morning. For newcomers from the Northeast and Midwest, this takes some getting used to.  

    Breeding Tricolored Heron in the rookery at Smith Oaks.

The morning of the 23^rd April I worked the interior fields and flats, looking for grasspipers and sandpipers, driving and looking along Fairview and White’s Ranch Roads north of High Island and east of Anahuac. Wet ricefields are a great attraction, as are short-grass fields (for the grasspipers). Today I tallied about 50 Whimbrels, 8 Upland Sandpipers, and an assortment of yellowlegs and Solitary and Pectoral Sandpipers. Decent, but not overwhelming.

    Buff-breasted Sandpiper on the mowed lawn at Fort Travis County Park. 

In the late AM I headed back down the Bolivar Peninsula to Fort Travis County Park. It was gloomy and rainy, but the shorebirds were there in numbers. A highlight was a pair of Buff-breasted Sandpipers (these are prime grasspipers that love short-grass habitats). They are regular but rare at this venue. 

I had plans to lunch in Galveston with famed bird photographer Brian Small (we had just completed a book project together and I wanted to celebrate with Brian), but after 95 minutes waiting in line at the ferry to Galveston, I pulled the plug (the weather was awful at this point). I headed back up to High Island and got to Smith Oaks Sanctuary by 4:30PM for an excellent arrival of warblers, tanagers, and grosbeaks. I ran into Jane Tillman and her husband Mark, who would, in a few days, be hosting me in Austin for an Audubon talk I was to give. Finding eleven species of warblers in a bit over an hour was a nice pay-off after the misery of the ferry delays and gloomy rain of morning… 

    Adult male Baltimore Oriole hunting for termites at the dead tree below the skywalk.

On the early morning of the 24^th I broke camp and headed northwest to the Page Unit of the Trinity River National Wildlife Sanctuary in the rich interior forested lowlands of East Texas. I had the bottomland forest tract to myself this morning, and I reveled in the morning birdsong (Northern Parula, Hooded Warbler, Acadian Flycatcher, American Redstart, etc). This is a world apart from the migratory phenomenon of High Island. Here is prime breeding habitat for a bunch of wood warblers, including the ever-desirable Swainson’s Warbler, which I heard in song within a minute of exiting my parked car. 

    Singing male Swainson's Warbler

The male Swainson’s is plain-looking but noted as a shy songster of southern forests, from West Virginia to East Texas. This was a great spot to see this elusive songbird. 

     Confiding male Swainson's Warbler on territory on the Trinity River, northwest of Winnie, TX.

I found the male singing beside a side-road through the magnificent bottomland forest and communed with him for about five minutes. This was my dollop of birding for the day, as I was headed northwest to Plano, north of Dallas, where I was scheduled to give another Audubon talk the next evening.

     Killdeer foraging in grass at High Island RV Park, next to my tent.

My next blog will feature Plano, Austin, San Antonio, and the Edwards Plateau.