Went on a quick weekend trip to see the Hawk watch at Smith Pt in South East Texas, as well as other fall migrants. We started the first morning off by going to TOS Woods in Sabine to check out fall warblers. Despite the gunshot noise from hunters we had a decent morning seeing 9 species of warbler including - Canada (the most common warbler there), Prairie, Hooded, Yellow, Black & White, Blue-winged, Northern Parula, Common Yellowthroat and Ovenbird. Flycatchers included Willow / Alder, Least, Yellow-bellied, Eastern Wood Pewee & Great-crested Flycatcher. Other birds included Baltimore and Orchard Orioles, Yellow-billed Cuckoo, Carolina Wrens, Blue-gray Gnatcatchers & tons of Ruby Throated Hummingbirds in the top of the trees chasing each other around & squeaking noisily.
Boy Scout & Smith Oak woods were also visited but had far too many mosquitoes so we did not stay there for more than 15 minutes! Bolivar Flats and other places along the coast there at least gave us some relief. Bolivar was good, as it usually is, with nice looks at Horned Larks, Black Skimmers, Oystercatchers, Snowy, Piping, Wilson's & Semi-palmated Plovers, Red Knots, Dowitchers, Long-billed Curlews and Marbled Godwits, Spoonbills, egrets and herons, just to name a few.
On the second morning we made our first stop at JJMayes Wildlife Trace, (an addition to Wallisville Reservoir, UTC 043 on the Great Texas Coastal Birding Trail), to look for King Rails which was a lifer for a couple of us. It wasn't long before we located a group singing and with a stroke of luck one flew out of its cover to where another was moving the grass! I had my lifer! We then moved to another spot to try again and found one singing very close, moving the grass as it went and came practically up to our feet but we could not see it even though it was SO close! All you could see were reed's moving and water splashing as it made its way through. Very cool!
We spent the afternoons at the Hawk Watch which was good on both days although the first day they were very high up making it harder to see them. The second day had much better weather conditions with more cloud cover allowing us to see them more clearly, plus they were flying much lower. Broad-wings being the most popular, others that we saw included Swainsons Hawk, Coopers, Red-shouldered & Red-tailed Hawks, Ospreys, Anhingas, Frigate Birds, Swallows, a lone Purple Martin calling, as well as Ruby Throated Hummingbirds at a feeder, Gnatcatchers, Gulls & Terns.
Other than the first day of rain and drizzle the weather turned out nice with sunny skies and highs around 85... Talking of weather... so what does the Moth photo have to do with this? Well, the previous Hurricane to hit the coast of Texas, Hurricane Claudette, also brought with it lots of "Black Witch Moths" and throughout the weekend we saw several. These moths are common to the Caribbean & Mexico and migrate to the South shores of the US, however their large numbers have excited many Lepidopterists over the past few weeks! So, although I do not have any bird photos, I thought I'd include it here! For more on the moth visit this article by Texas Parks & Wildlife.
It was a good weekend of birding with a few nice lifers thrown in too!