Port Aransas Christmas Bird Count 2017-12-18

Continuing a long tradition, on Monday, 12/18/2017 I, Warren Pulich, and Beau Hardegree participated in the Port Aransas Christmas Bird Count, covering the city's nature preserve at Charlie's Pasture. I arrived in Port Aransas about a week before the count and was able to scout Charlie's Pasture a few times. These were the first times I had been on the preserve since Hurricane Harvey devastated the town on August 25. There used to be over a mile of boardwalk out over the mud flats on this preserve. It was all gone. Here are some of the few pilings that were left:

Boardwalk pilings

The wall separating the preserve from the ship channel was breeched in three places, so now salt water from the channel flows in and out of the mud flats with every passing large ship. Here's the break nearest to the nature preserve's pavilion and main trail head:

First Cut

The lack of a boardwalk and the new cuts in the ship channel wall made accessing the mud flats to count birds much more difficult. I spent two mornings slogging through the mud looking for birds and for the best paths to get close enough to count them. The first time I went out shorebirds were nearly absent on the mud flats. But the second time, after a significant rain, there were thousands of sandpipers out there. So on the morning of the Christmas Bird Count I went out to count them.

Starting at about 7:30 AM, it was a little after 9:00 AM that I arrived at a spot just west of Salt Island where I started counting shorebirds. It was lightly raining and I had left my big camera behind since it's not waterproof. The numbers of shorebirds to the west and south was overwhelming, and I struggled to create a plan to count them. Shortly after starting, looking to the south I saw two birds I assumed were Black-bellied Plovers. But one was smaller and darker than the other. Looking more closely at the smaller one through my spotting scope I could see that the bill was also slimmer. I started to think this was an American Golden Plover, a species usually only seen during spring or fall migration. I took several photos of the bird with my iPhone held up to my spotting scope. They were all bad, but here's the best one:

American Golden Plover

After taking the photos and writing a few notes in my notepad, I went back to counting shorebirds. Here's what I came up with:

Black-bellied Plover 7
Semipalmated Plover 7
Piping Plover 40
Ruddy Turnstone 70
Sanderling 100
Dunlin 725
Least Sandpiper 540
Western Sandpiper 110
Short-billed/Long-billed Dowitcher 125

The numbers for Piping Plover, Ruddy Turnstone, and Sanderling were higher than I've seen before out on these mud flats. These birds are normally more numerous on the beach, but the teams counting birds on the beach saw fewer of these species than expected.

When I started heading back I found a dead sea turtle in the shallows and realized it must have come in through on of the new cuts in the ship channel wall and gotten trapped as the water level fell. I reported it to the ARK and hope they find the observation useful.

I made it back to the Charlie's Pasture pavilion around 11:30 and met up with Warren and Beau who had been birding the grassland and thicket habitats all morning. They had found some good birds too, including Indio Buntings. Before we stopped for lunch Warren and his son Mark also found a Short-eared Owl, a species not seen here in years.

After lunch we returned and walked out into the salt marsh south of the mud flats in search of Nelson's Sparrow. After checking a few spots we have seen them in years past, we finally had a single bird respond to our recorded song:

Nelson's Sparrow

The unofficial species total for the count is 145, which is great considering the post-hurricane condition of many birding sites, and the loss of some of our participants from past years. Additional rarities included Brown Booby and Greater Black-backed Gull observed by Clay Taylor at the south jetty. And for the first time ever on the Port Aransas CBC, Joan and Scott Holt observed two Whooping Cranes on San Jose Island!

Here's my eBird list for the morning.

Here are are a few more photos on Flickr.

Posted on December 20, 2017 02:47 AM by mikaelb mikaelb

Observations

Photos / Sounds

What

Golden Plovers and Grey Plover (Genus Pluvialis)

Observer

mikaelb

Date

December 18, 2017 09:20 AM CST

Description

Taken during the 2017 Port Aransas Christmas Bird Count in the Port Aransas Nature Preserve at Charlie's Pasture North on the mud flats and salt marsh. This was the first CBC here since Hurricane Harvey which destroyed all the boardwalks in the preserve. This made the mud flats much harder to access.

While observing shorebirds south of Salt Island through my spotting scope, I saw two plovers, one a Black-bellied Plover, and one that was noticably smaller and a little bit darker. On closer inspection, the smaller bird had a thinner bill and darker crown and tail.

Observation was made through a Swarovski spotting scope at about 100 meters in light rain. Bird was photographed with an iPhone 6s through the scope. In photos that show two plovers, the American Golden Plover is on the left.

Photos / Sounds

What

Green Sea Turtle (Chelonia mydas)

Observer

mikaelb

Date

December 2017

Place

Texas, US (Google, OSM)

Description

Taken during the 2017 Port Aransas Christmas Bird Count in the Port Aransas Nature Preserve at Charlie's Pasture North on the mud flats and salt marsh. This was the first CBC here since Hurricane Harvey which destroyed all the boardwalks in the preserve. This made the mud flats much harder to access.

This poor sea turtle must've gotten onto the mud flats through one of the new cuts that the hurricane made through the ship channel wall when water levels were much higher. It was about 1.5 feet long.

Photos / Sounds

What

Nelson's Sparrow (Ammospiza nelsoni)

Observer

mikaelb

Date

December 2017

Place

Texas, US (Google, OSM)

Description

Taken during the 2017 Port Aransas Christmas Bird Count in the Port Aransas Nature Preserve at Charlie's Pasture North on the mud flats and salt marsh. This was the first CBC here since Hurricane Harvey which destroyed all the boardwalks in the preserve. This made the mud flats much harder to access.

Every year we check a particular spot in the salt marsh to try and find Nelson's Sparrow. This year we found a single bird that came in to investigate the recorded song we played.

Comments

Good report, and some great birds

Posted by gpstewart over 6 years ago

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