Wednesday, December 30, 2009

The wet and wearing December 09 Gulf Coast CBC trip

Overview

One of the best ways to fill out a state list in the off seasons is to participate in Christmas Bird Counts. This is mostly cause you can team up with very strong local birders and visit obscure or inaccessible places. A killer combination for finding uncommon or very localized species. I was close to the ABA threshold in both Mississippi and Louisiana, and not too far out in Florida. Along the Gulf coast these are tightly packed and one can visit all four in a single day if necessary. I figured if I got down there before the focal CBC season, it would be possible to cover some other areas, and would give the lists a real boost.

It pretty much worked out that way. I was able to list MS on this trip, and LA in a couple of days on a trip later in the new year. Pushed Florida into a very enticing 44% also, so that one more good trip there in prime time would do the trick. Alabama just goes along for the ride on each Gulf trip, but it's starting to add up. The problem there is I tend to bird the same small area along the coast over and over which doesn't build a list as fast as poking into places all over the state. There was a problem with rain. Dec 09 was the wettest month in Louisiana history including months that had hurricanes. In New Orleans it was something over 25 inches, and it was wet all along there, on over to the Florida Panhandle.

Most of this is written almost a year later, so it's weak on details, and doesn't have the "shine" of a fresh report.

First week, Dec 1-6, 2009

Tuesday - Went by friend Barbara's and loaded doors and plants with help from Ouizel, wrapping it all in tarps, to transport to house in Mississippi. Packed full but stable. Then drove non-stop to Memphis and hang at Outlands Internet Cafe until friend Shiloh got home. Good visiting starts.
Wednesday - Rained all day, but the load seemed to stay dry. Had a grease-ball breakfast with Nancy Feraldi, Shiloh's mom, former neighbor in the old hippie days in Tick Holler. S had a problem with low water pressure in the tub, and I wanted a hot bath for the pleasure of it. Took the faucets apart, but finally discovered a whole house filter that hadn't been serviced. That was a quick fix with instant gratification in a hot soak. Shiloh even gave me a haircut, and later we all went for BBQ around the corner. Bad news was a trojan infection on the Gateway laptop, my main unit, the antivirus picked it up after a bunch of (it turns out) less used and non-essential programs got some malicious code added. Still had another laptop so not screwed completely.
Thursday - Rain stopped, drove on down to Pass Christian, where Sean was also staying upstairs in the house that survived Katrina. I stayed downstairs, got the computer repaired somewhat, pulled out all the infected programs to quarantine, and transferred the most important data to the Netbook. Birding records were OK. We unloaded the plants and whatnot, I grabbed some Popeye's and bought pillows from Wally. Pretty chilly.
Friday - Very successful day birding in MS, 16 new species for the state. Birded the Gulfport piers, Seaman Road landfill, where they let me in, then chased me down and told me to leave, and MS Sandhill Crane NWR. Actually found some of the special cranes way up on the north edge. I made contact with my friend Angela as well, but she's encumbered by a visitor for now. 46% MS.
Saturday - Up early, the days are short, and there was a bitter cold wind, the gulf coast can be bone chilling with the humidity driven through any number of layers. Found Loons and Horned Grebes. Then I went over to Waveland and circled around southern Hancock County. The road along the pass was still bad from Katrina, but I found some good places by poking around, and added 8 more MS tics. Kept on west into Louisiana, stopped at Bayou Sauvage NWR, which was really hammered by Katrina, the whole woods that surrounded the boardwalk was gone, no more owl tree. really sad. On into the city where I contacted friends, and ended up staying on a couch at Angela's where I would make my base camp for the month. She's a fine exemplar of southern hospitality at it's best. Really enjoyed seeing all the beautiful work she's done on her house, including raising it above the next flood. The waters had reached the top entry step.
Sunday - A little warmer, and some better weather predicted. Around noon I got away to Grand Isle for scouting. Found some shorebirds in one spot where runoff from construction had created a shallow flowing wetland, and a Palm Warbler, but it really didn't seem worth staying since the state park was expensive. I had another state park lined up, but the reality of the roads finally stopped me on the side by a farm with fishermen rattling by in the night. I was about 15 miles north of Franklin.

Tuesday, December 29, 2009

Exploring east to Florida

Week 2, December 7-13, 2009

Monday - There hadn't been any rain predicted, but it started in the night and got pretty intense before dawn, but it stopped as the day lit up. It actually got fairly warm, and I got down to a tee shirt before noon, the only time that happened on this trip. I was headed for the Cameron area, one of the best in Louisiana, and took the most southerly paved road along the coast, a "scenic and natural by-way". It passed the Rockefeller WMA, which is huge and mostly inaccessible except by water, and then only during certain seasons. But the large lakes right along the highway were great, and one short side-road yielded all three Merganser species see-able from one spot.

From there I drove to Cameron Prairie NWR and Sabine NWR, drove the tour loop in the former and walked the Marshland trail in the latter, both highly recommended. The fun was cut short by more un-predicted rain that ran into the evening. I took advantage of the forced car time to find Peveto Woods, a small sanctuary that regularly produces a variety of rarities, owned by the Baton Rouge Audubon Society (BRAS). It's the most prominent copse of trees along a coastline that's mostly salt-marsh, and truly a refuge for some lost and exhausted woodland critters. I headed on west to the bridge over the Sabine River hoping for a glimpse of Cave Swallows but they seemed to have been driven away, hopefully temporarily, by the construction of a new high-rise version of the old water level wooden structure with its endless small enclosed spaces. Their fate will depend a lot on how much of the old structure is allowed to remain.

Somehow, I'd crossed the bridge and was in Texas, and it didn't look too hard to loop around back into LA, but it ended up being a black hole of refineries and roads that made little sense to my tired senses, even with the GPS. And it was raining to drain gumption and when I found a truck-stop near Lafayette, I crashed there.

Tuesday - Intense rain in the night, enough to find a couple of pinhole leaks, lots of noise on the thin camper-shell roof, but it drowned and smoothed the truck idling roar of the 18 wheelers. I was up before dawn and drove back into New Orleans, checking out some site in and near the Bonnet Carre spillway. I found some new LA tics even in the rain lulls, but mostly was grooving on the great flocks of Ibises, both Whites and probably mostly Glossies (the transistion zone between Glossy and White-faced is actually not far west), that were in all the shallow rain puddled yards and any other flat areas. It had been a lot of rain.



I got into NOLA about ten, went to Angela's house, hung with her brother and my friend Gates the great musician, took a nap to compensate for the poor sleep the night before. She came home along with her boyfriend Tedd, both on the faculty at ???? He's an artist and together they have made the house a work of art. It has lots of careful but inexpensive detailing filled in with very neat doors and cabinets, interesting ceiling lines, and comfortable porches ideal for the New Orleans evenings. We stayed up late talking and starting a major jigsaw puzzle of Shakespearian characters. Angela had played Hamlet in a production a few years earlier, but I haven't seen the tape of it yet. It had some very good reviews.

Wednesday - I slept fairly well since I'd been promoted from the couch to the guest room, actually her son's who was away at college. Start was a little late, but then headed east back into MS where I checked out a couple more sites, but the real goal was Dauphin Island in Alabama, a famous birding place, but unfortunately wrecked by Katrina which had taken down the majority of the larger trees in the Audubon Sanctuary. I didn't stay there too long as I wanted to get the ferry across Mobile Bay to Ft Morgan. But did manage to find two very good birds, one a Bonaparte's Gull, and an even more surprising Western Kingbird from the parking lot on the south side of the Dauphin Is fort. I had good luck with the ferry timing, and so didn't linger on the western shore. I was the only paying vehicle on the ferry. The crew was the Captain, his mate, and a young woman deckhand who operated all the gates and such, the other car was hers, used to drive up the approach roads to open them on the eastern end.

I had some good luck in Bon Secour NWR, getting farther back into it than I'd been on previous stops, into an area of scrubby small dunes with occasional pools, but surprisingly birdy. And a pleasant mellow unwinding kind of place. I ended up staying at Gulf State Park, $23 and a senior discount, and a Great Horned Owl calling. Ended getting ten new AL tics without any great effort, probably could have found more if I'd been able to access more shoreline, or had known of some freshwater wetland site nearby. I learned later that the CBC there, Gulf Shores, is consistently one of the highest counts in the country, but couldn't wait it out since it's after the first of the year, making it one of the latest in the area.

Thursday - It turned cold in the night with a stiff north wind. I birded around the park, back to Bon Secour, tried some sites around Gulf Shores, and then drifted into Florida. Once I got there it was mostly driving, and I ended up finding a large empty parking lot in a sanctuary zone on the St Joseph Peninsula. There was a State Park I wanted to be in position for in the morning. The stars were crystalline that night.

Friday - But dawn was cloudy and cold, and the park didn't open for another two hours. I tried to access the shore and the bay, but most of the land was private. I did find one Gulf side access, and one Bay-side behind a gas station. The good spot turned out to be a county park along the short east-west road that led back to the mainland. Spent most of two hours in there walking an intricate system of trails, with some higher viewpoints. Found good birds that had piled up when the land ran out going south. In Apalachicola the NERR office was open. Great place and very friendly and helpful folks. They gave me info, posters, booklets, lists and whatnot. Also lots of advice on local spots and current birds-of-interest. Met Alan Knothe, the CBC coordinator who made me yearn to try that one some year, but as it turned out it was too distant to work in with the others I had book-marked.

I drove on up to St Mark's NWR, and ended up sleeping under the fire-tower across the highway from Outses Two, the little roadhouse where I've had several good meals and a couple of floods. I had picked up ten new tics, and was well over 40%, making FL a focus for some near-future efforts.

Saturday - I woke up around 1am, couldn't get back to sleep, and finally decided to try to catch dawn at Wakulla Point beach. Sat in the dark working on the official checklist, catching up the written record. It started raining, and by dawn it was a steady rain and cold wind, but still a few shorebirds emerged out of the gray fog. Headed back to St Mark's HQ after grabbing some food (Subway breakfast units are quite good) and lucked into a tour group that was gonna ride around in an open wagon affair behind a pick-up. I guess quite a few folks had failed to show, it was raining like hell, and I had little trouble cadging an abandoned spot on the ride.

What a ride, possibly one of the most uncomfortable birding experiences of a lifetime. To start with the wagon was open sided, which wasn't true of the pick-up pulling it, at 35 mph, in driving rain that just came through horizontally mixed with the road spray. By the time he stopped and we could mention the need for slow, we and the optics were already seriously wet. I had on a good Gore-tex jacket, but not pants, and managed to cover the eye piece of the scope with a plastic bag. Our route took us back into closed areas of the refuge, and the birding was great. The roof of the wagon was flat, or maybe even slightly concave. At each stop and start and each turn a sheet of water would pour off some random edge of the roof to be driven half the time through the inside by the wind. Sitting was hopeless, standing was treacherous and the birding was great. Bitterns, all kinds of ducks and waders, some shorebirds, a Long-tailed Duck, and after unloading at the Visitor's Center and restoring some dry to person and gear, I drove back down to the beach at the lighthouse, and with some other fanatics was able to find a Neotropic Cormorant on the offshore pilings. Even more tics, but I'd had enough and headed back toward New Orleans.

I stopped at St George Island State Park to check out camping, $26, too much, maybe one night some day at the peak of spring migration. But there were some places before the park gate that were productive. I ended up driving into Tate's Hell, a weird gnarly woodland and State Forest, and ended up sleeping literally on the side of the road. Not much traffic out there.

Sunday - Intermittent rain in the night. And most of the day as well. I was by a great prairie that the bird-finder said was great for winter sparrows, but it would have been another drenching slog and I hadn't the heart for it. Instead I went to the Tall Timbers Research Station which was excellent, it even had an enclosed viewing room over looking a wetland, and I found three tics there as well as another driving through Tallahassee. Then I just drove west for five hours and ended at the boat landing at Grand Bay NERR on the eastern edge of Mississippi. There were supposedly a few Brewer's Blackbirds there, mixed with the gazillion Red-wings, and I'd also been told that Yellow Rail was possible by walking the power-line that ran by the lab building, but it turned out to be a definite high boots or waders situation. The mosquitoes at the landing drove me back to a parking space in front of the lab where I spent the night,

Monday, December 28, 2009

Beginnings of CBCs

Week 3, December 14-20, 2009

Monday - In the morning at the NERR, I went back to the boat landing, pretty foggy conditions, but as the sun broke through I was able to find one yellow-eyed Blackbird, a Brewer's, amongst the Red-wings. Then a short drive north to the Pascagoula River Audubon Center was worth the trouble since the guy there was able to direct me to some likely spots, and in particular, the nest of a Bald Eagle. I tried several others hoping for White Ibis, but they have eluded me in MS. I did finally find a flock of dark Ibis while crossing a bridge in that area. I headed back to Pass Christian for some library geeking in the trailer that served for a library while the new replacement for the Katrina wreck was finished. Also laundry and a bath, thorough immersion in civilization. Hung out in the evening with Sean and Justin, and slept in the truck for another long night of rain

Tuesday - I hit some MS sites with my wish list and eventually found three more species. My timing was bad for Seaman Rd, and I missed the Hancock County CBC since I never heard back from the coordinator. Probably my fault as I'd waited until the last minute to contact them having been away from wifi for a few days. I headed back into New Orleans in the rain, and stayed at Angela's again, where I got caught up in the ongoing jigsaw puzzle. It kept me up late, but that didn't seem to matter as more big rain was predicted.

Wednesday - The rain didn't materialize, so it was a social day started by a visit with my friend Christine, then a Chinese lunch with my friend Teona who filled me with tales of marriage, children, house buying, traffic tickets and so on. Back to Angela's. She was an angel to put up with me during this quest, and I regret that we didn't get to actually spend more time talking. She was caught up in the end-of-term business, and the rapidly accelerating Christmas social whirl.


Christine at her house in Marigny

Thursday - There's a day missing here.

Friday - Woke up in a truck stop in Louisiana, then headed down to Cameron Parish area with a scouting stop at Lacassine NWR. Also made stops at Cameron Prairie, Holly Beach, Peveto Woods, and Sabine. Slept at the inter-coastal Canal Park north of Sabine, a nice little free place.


Bare honeycombs near Lacassine town

Saturday - Sabine CBC - I was up very early to meet Theresa Cross, the birder I shared our assigned count area with. We mostly did Sabine Refuge, including the headquarters, marsh trails, roadsides, and then along the highway into Holly Beach, where we walked something like three miles of beaches. We birded, she kept the paperwork organized, I carried the scope a lot, and were generally successful through a tiring day. lots of walking, a lot on sand. Big deal was the Burrowing Owl that had been found previously in Holly, but it wasn't in the culvert where it had been, probably driven out by flooding. We looked around and another pair of birders found it, I made run for it, Christine chose to finish some notes, and when she arrived it had disappeared again. But we got it for the count on count day. We also had a Caracara, and a great look at a Virginia Rail, right in front of the scopes, bigger than full field. Ended the day with another Marsh Loop walk and my legs were killing me. Christine invited me to dinner, but I was way too whooped to deal with anything but sleeping again at the park.

Sunday - Lacassine CBC - I was up well before dawn to drive to Jennings and the Lacassine CBC organization meet-up, but it had taken way longer than I'd planned, so I missed getting assigned to a group. Still, they let me do the Lacassine Pool. Since I was alone I made a stop at the office area, which had some good birds, but not the hoped for Eagle. At the pool I never did catch up with the official group, but did find 5 more LA tics, and found a Caracara there too, which I been especially warned to note carefully as far as flight direction and such. I emailed my stuff the next day. On the way back to Grand Isle I tried to stop and sleep at Indian Creek. A deputy roused me, he said it was alright with him for me to crash, but it was against the real rules. Since his shift ended at midnight, and I'd have to talk to another guy, I decided to keep going. It's a fair drive from the Interstate on a lousy road, and wasn't fun to drive back in the dark. Still. Ended up driving to another truck stop in Plaquemines south of Baton Rouge.

Sunday, December 27, 2009

Two more CBCs

Week 4, Dec 21-27, 2009

Monday - I must have been tired since I slept well, or at least soundly, in spite of lots of floodlights and a bunch of trains going by. Once again up early and drive to Houma in the fog. Found Mandalay NWR, a really nice small refuge, with some very good birds including Wilson's Warbler and a Sora heard. Then I drove a side trip exploration down the peninsula to Cocodrie. No particular birds, but I wasn't taking full advantage of opportunities since I still needed to get to Grande Isle and in place for the count the next day. Found three more shorebird tics, including Ruddy Turnstone, a late in the season good find. The manager Leo at the grocery where the group was to meet in the morning said it would be OK to sleep in his lot. That was a real convenience since I'd found the State Park too expensive to use just to sleep. Didn't even mind the guy with the whining blower cleaning the lot before dawn.

Tuesday - Grande Isle CBC - Great good luck got me assigned to a group birding Elmer's Island, a place that had been out of circulation for awhile until the state bought it and opened it up for a Management Area. We were the first CBC team in several years to get to go in there. More luck was that the golden opportunity meant that several of the best birders in the state were on the team including David Muth, Martin Guidry, and Dan Purrington. There was another whose name I didn't get down, but of the same caliber. I was way outclassed. We worked hard in the salt marshes on the way out to get Nelson's Sparrows, which were abundant, also many Clapper Rails [***LINK***]. Further out on the beaches, which were quite drivable to the very end of the bar, we found great waders, including Reddish Egret, lots of mixed sandpipers and plovers including Wilson's, but my incessant scanning of the shrubbery never got an Ani. We were there all morning. Wonderful birding. Later back on the main drag I birded the TNC plot of woods, partly with Chris Brantly, who found a very unusual Western Tanager, but I never got to see the Painted Bunting that eluded me, but not him, in a tree. I ended up adding eight LA tics without staying to the very end, and was back at Angela's in NOLA at sundown. We visited for a little and went to a small soiree at a neighbor's house where one couple told a story of parental responsibility that I found inspiring for it's sense and tactics. But I fell out really tired, no wonder.

Wednesday - Up about five and out to Bayou Sauvage where the birding must have been good, I've noted 2 new tics in the journal, but don't recall what they were. Met a guy named Mike who was just getting started at birding, and we went around together some. I drove around the City Park Lakeshore, and then into the park around the museum to take up some time before heading down to Frenchman St to meet my friend Kerry Leigh where she tended bar in a very hip little joint called the Spotted Cat. I hung out there and watched the Charleston dance lessons, and for some music after that, then back to Angela's.

Thursday - After some small morning talk and holiday hugs I headed off for the North Shore to bird around Big Branch Marsh NWR, but I was being frustrated by Christmas Eve traffic, closed roads and offices, and more rain. So I went over to Pass Christian after shopping for a nice bird feeder set-up for Angela, and getting some stuff for the truck and the kit. I wanted it to be a sincere thank-you present for having a civilized place to recuperate in from time to time. In the Pass, I stayed at the Scott's and slept a long time in more rain.

Friday - Christmas - Rainy and windy all night, but clearing at dawn. Lots of troubling dreams, maybe just the unsettled weather. Got a load of laundry done in the little hurricane battered laundromat, and then birded my way back into New Orleans. Stopped at the New Orleans East IHOP where the folks were to meet the next day, treated myself to a greaseball breakfast for dinner, and slept in back of the restaurant in an abandoned hurricane battered parking lot. Convenient location, gas and food nearby, not much lighting and quiet.

Saturday - New Orleans CBC, mostly NOLA East - My team was Dan Purrington as leader and driver, and a couple named Dan and Lisa. We had pretty good luck, lots of birds and a fair variety. Really good count of Common Loons Dan told me later. Mostly we drove around on muddy levees inside Bayou Sauvage, closed areas that I'd never see but for the count, with some other stops for good places that he knew. One was an abandoned Interstate interchange which had a lot of grown up scrubby habitat, and some good birds including my best find, an immature Indigo Bunting. I didn't realize it was significant until David Muth asked for a sighting card at the compilation dinner. A year later almost and he had even made a note of it in the national CBC summary publication. We were at Mona's just down the street from The Spotted Cat, and I hung out with Kerry Leigh until her shift started at nine. Some folks from Arkansas came by and we visited, then I headed back to the IHOP since Angela's was filled with friends and family.

Sunday - Dan had told me where I might find a Screech-Owl in City Park, so I was over there before first light playing a tape. It was pretty light and I'd walked around for more than an hour before I finally got a really nice response. I was back at a place on a path I'd tried earlier in the dark, and the bird came out of the trees flying by me and landed about twenty feet away on a low branch about twelve feet off the ground. It was making the quiet whinny call and staring at me, the source of the suspect stranger in its territory. So I tried my imitation of a whinny, but it wasn't very good, and it stood up straight, shook it's head as if to say, "hey, you're a fake", and flew off. This is a much better story when I imitate the bird. Still, a really good look. Drove out to Bayou Sauvage again, Recovery Road, to find an Ash-throated Flycatcher with a Least Bittern thrown in for lagniappe. Then I drove over to the North Shore to explore some sites around Mandeville, ended up taking a long nap sitting in the truck in view of a neat little Light House. Also checked out the Ramsey Preserve, walked a ways in the tall grass hoping to scare up a Henslow's Sparrow, but no luck. Ended up in the evening at my friend Lindy's house in Mandeville. She's a professional cook and made a great simple meat and potatoes dinner that was perfect for a wandering Taurus birder. Her house has this incredible secret pond behind it, nestled down in a small hollow, and simply alive with critters. I slept really well in the sun-room that overlooks it.

Saturday, December 26, 2009

Last CBC, and home

Dec 28, '09 - Jan 1, '10

Monday - Pretty laid back day. Birded the Northshore Nature Center right outside Mandeville across from Fountainbleau State Park. I've birded the park before too, and it's really good. When I was there it was right after Katrina, there were big piles of downed trees, but the thing that sticks in my memory was the man at the gatehouse who said that the thing he lost in the storm that he regretted more than anything was his life list of bird sightings. A lesson there, and why I multiply back up my records on three kinds of media. I did some shopping, and got a nice feeder setup for Angela, with a big good quality feeder, a metal hanging hook, some feed, and a water dish to set up a dripper. Back at Lindy's we watched TV, which of course I don't remember, and told each other stories.
Tuesday - Northshore/Slidell CBC - Great good luck got me assigned to Bill Wayman, a fine birder and someone intimate with the area we had to cover. Basically it was both sides of the Rigolets, the inlet between the Gulf and Lake Pontchartrain, one of the main routes of the storm surge into the lake where it broke out into the city. The rest is history, sadly. We had pretty good luck, and in fact had the highest species count for any team, 88, including one new for the count, Black-bellied Whistling-Duck. Bill knew tiny little spots that paid off, a little almost hidden mud patch for shorebirds, abandoned subdivisions, little views through the vegetation onto duck filled ponds, the spot on the old fort wall that was reliable for Spotted Sandpiper. He was a great person to spend a day with, and gave me the combination to his gated community house the next day to find a Rufous Hummer. We attended the compilation somewhere out there, I could never find it again since he was driving. Back to Lindy's.
Wednesday - Went by for the hummer, worked on getting Lindy's cable and wifi working, don't know that I actually accomplished anything, Then drove into New Orleans to deliver the feeder to Angela. Strangely enough, it was raining. I had pretty much done what I came for, and looking at the rain, just decided to go home. Drove all the way to Memphis in the rain, and arrived at Shiloh's around 8:30.
Thursday - New Year's Eve - Spent the day getting email set up on my backup Netbook computer, helped with prep for a small party, bought a couple of Pizzas, played games, talked to friends and strangers, and said goodbye to 2009.

Morning helping with some cleanup and talk with Shiloh, then home where everything was fine even though I'd run out the whole tank of gas that I left turned on for bare-bones heat. It must have been cooler than usual, but no frozen pipes or plants.

Even though it was the rainiest month in history in Louisiana, including months with hurricanes, every CBC day was dry and even nice, no terribly windy days either. Five CBCs in LA had put me in great shape for making the 50% threshold for the ABA list, but I was still short a few tics.