14 December 2010
The 18th running of the Mad Island CBC started with cool, clear skies and made for special viewing of meteor showers of that night. There were rumors of Whooping Cranes and other interesting species in the area and our teams of birders were raring to go. The CBC started at mid-night on the TNC preserve with me searching for rails/owls and an ATV team driving through impoundments for Yellow Rails. The Yellow Rails were one of the first birds of the day. All expected owls (- screech) and rails were found by sunrise.
Night conditions provided for good calling conditions for forested owls and our teams recorded 55 Great Horned and 54 Barred. 31 Barn Owls were located along with 9 Short-eared and 1 Burrowing.
Photo by David Shackelford
HI-LIGHTS
A total of 112 birders reported 236 species which should make us Number One in the Nation again for species. Guadalupe River Delta – McFaddin Family Ranches reported 222 species, San Diego, CA, 218, Santa Barbara, CA, 210, and Freeport 204. Mad Island also typically leads the Nation for the most species with the highest tallies. It looks favorable this season.
The Wildlife Management Area led all sections with 158 species reported, followed by The Nature Conservancy with 141, STP with 140, Matagorda – East with 129 and the River Ranches with 124. The WMA was also the best section for finding unique species with 6. Matagorda-
West, Lyondell, W. Roads and TNC all had 4 each. A total of 34 species were only found by one section. Makes you wonder how many species we missed during the day.
BEST BIRD
Photo by Chet Burrier
It is pretty special to be able to get the Best Bird on this CBC. There were 112 birders participating in 43 different teams on 14 sections competing for the honor. There were 8 species found that were rare enough to require documentation, and 3 species were new to the CBC. Section Leaders voted on the Best Bird and results were over whelming in favor of the MacGillivray’s Warbler photographed by Chet Burrier on a private ranch north of Matagorda. The Broad-winged Hawk located on Selkirk Island placed 2nd and the Com. Poorwill found on The Nature Conservancy 3rd. The 3 new species brings the total species for this CBC as 338.
We had a nice collection of rare bird sightings as well as species missed and they will be discussed below:
SCOTERS are typically found in deeper waters of the Gulf and in small numbers in the bays feeding on various mollusks. We were only able to find one Black Scoter out of the 3 species expected in the area.
DIVERS were scarce. We located only one individual of Pacific Loon, Least Grebe and Horned Grebe. N. Gannets were fortunately common along the Gulf Beach. One unique problem of locating divers this year was that a large portion of E. Matagorda Bay was covered by an estimated flock of 80,000 Lesser Scaup that covered square miles of water. It was difficult to see anything but scaup in this prime diver habitat.
BROAD-WINGED HAWK is not a species in which we anticipate to linger in the area. One immature bird was satisfactorily studied by 2 birders at Selkirk Island.
APLOMADO FALCON has become one of our trademark species, but we missed it this year.
WHOOPING CRANES were observed for a few days before the CBC, but extremely low tides allowed the birds to forage at different sites during the count.
AMERICAN WOODCOCK can be very difficult to find, but drought conditions in East Texas are thought to have forced many birds to the Coast this winter and we reported a record 68.
CAPRIMULGIDS in general do not linger in the area and we are rarely able to detect one during the CBC. This year, all of our “meteors” were in proper alignment and we located 3 species. Rich Kosteche observed a COMMON POORWILL on the TNC Preserve for our 1st record. This bird was studied at close range. The Selkirk Island team flushed a cooperative WHIP-POOR-WILL several times for our 3rd record. Cathy Porter observed a “nighthawk” during daylight on the TNC Preserve for our 8th record.
Photo by Brigid Berger
HUMMINGBIRDS are a group of frustrating species for this CBC. The region is relatively rich in wintering hummers, but we have not found many residents that have consistently been successful at attracting these species during winter. We were able to locate only one of each Buff-bellied, Black-chinned and Ruby-throated.
GREAT KISKADEE is inching its way up the Coast with almost regular visits during winter. The STP team located one for our 4th record.
SCISSOR-TAILED FLYCATCHER migrates through the area in sizeable numbers and is known to be a late migrant. It is a beautiful bird that occupies open country settings, but it is difficult to predict when you will locate one. This year TNC reported a record number of 7.
CLIFF SWALLOW is a common breeder in the area, but is not expected to linger in the winter. I have examined hundreds of swallow nests under bridges before daybreak in hopes of finding this species during the count. Michael Kennedy beat me to it and located a Cliff roosting under one of the bridges in an inactive mud nest.
Photo by Mark Scheuerman
WARBLERS – The Mad Island CBC is one of the Best CBCs for warblers in Texas. We typically have from 12-15 species. We reported 14 this season. The Best Bird was the MacGillivray’s as reported earlier. Other species that were only found in one section were Nashville (W. Roads), Yellow-throated (5th record; Matagorda-West), Prairie (5th record; Lyondell), and Ovenbird (6th record; Lyondell). We also reported 8 Yellow-breasted Chats which is normally a difficult species to locate elsewhere, but hard work from our birding teams have made it a Mad Island Regular.
SPARROWS are typically abundant and diverse on the CBC. This season we had 3 species which were only found in one section. It is understandable to only find Clay-colored and Lark at one site because of their winter scarcity. These 2 species were not found last year. However, only finding Nelson’s Sharp-tailed at one site is puzzling. It is a common winter resident in all of our tidal marshes.
LAPLAND LONGSPUR is a species which sneak through the count circle and go undetected. They tend to forage in large plowed fields like the one where it was found in the W. Roads section by Clay Taylor.
MISC – Yellow-headed Blackbird at W. Roads, Dark-eyed Junco at Lyondell and Pine Siskin were all good finds by dedicated and hard working birders. They are species that are easy to over look.
RESULTS
We reported 236 species which is above average for this CBC. We added 3 new species bring our total to 338 species. Observers reported 47 species in above average numbers and 27 species in below average while missing 15 species in the area we might reasonably expect to see. Many of the low tallies might be associated with the extremely dry fall resulting in much less waterfowl impoundments and reduced native food crops.
Mad Island has let the Nation for the most highest counts of individual species for 11 years. The 85,438 Lesser Scaup, 725 Great Blue Heron, 1169 Great Egret, 1705 Snowy Egret, 274 Roseate Spoonbill, 1375 Turkey Vulture, 278 N. Harrier, 25 White-tailed Hawk, 166 Crested Caracara, 161 Am. Kestrel, 2184 Killdeer, 5 Solitary Sandpiper, 68 Am. Woodcock, 143 Caspian Tern, 31 Barn Owl, 54 Barred Owl, 1172 E. Phoebe, 151 Loggerhead Shrike, 226 Cave Swallow, 1 Cliff Swallow, 284 Carolina Wren, 452 House Wren, 522 N. Mockingbird, 440 Orange-crowned Warbler, 1 MacGillivray’s Warbler, 8 Yellow-breasted Chat, 3626 Savannah Sparrow, 4340 Boat-tailed Grackle reported this year will be competitive for national honors.
TRENDS
After a couple of years of bad weather we are close to normal as far as total species with high and low tallies. High tallies are those in the top 3 records for this species on this CBC and lows the bottom 3.
HIGH COUNTS: Black-bellied Whistling-Duck, Greater White-fronted Goose, Snow Goose, Canvasback, Greater Scaup, Lesser Scaup, Hooded Merganser, Double-crested Cormorant, Least Bittern, Great Blue Heron, Reddish Egret, Black Vulture, Osprey, Bald Eagle, Broad-winged Hawk, Red-tailed Hawk, Ferruginous Hawk, Crested Caracara, Virginia Rail, Killdeer, Solitary Sandpiper, Whimbrel, Stilt Sandpiper, Short-billed Dowitcher, Am. Woodcock, Sandwich Tern, Great Horned Owl, Barred Owl, Com. Poorwill, Whip-poor-will, Scissor-tailed Flycatcher, White-eyed Vireo, N. Rough-winged Swallow, Cave Swallow, Cliff Swallow, Brown Creeper, Winter Wren, Golden-crowned Kinglet, Orange-crowned Warbler, Yellow-throated Warbler, Pine Warbler, Prairie Warbler, Palm Warbler, MacGillivray’s Warbler, Spotted & Eastern Towhee, Vesper Sparrow, Swamp Sparrow, and W. Meadowlark.
LOW COUNTS: Cackling Goose, Canada Goose, Am. Wigeon, Least Grebe, Horned Grebe, Am. Bittern, Little Blue Heron, Cattle Egret, White-tailed Kite, White-tailed Hawk, King Rail, Ruddy Turnstone, Bonaparte’s Gull, Gull-billed Tern, Caspian Tern, Black Skimmer, Eur. Collared-Dove, Barn Swallow, Eur. Starling, Nelson’s Sharp-tailed Sparrow, Seaside Sparrow, Song Sparrow, Red-winged Blackbird, Com. Grackle, and Great-tailed Grackle.
Waterfowl = 7 species high and 3species low out of 27 species. Dry fall reduced availability of water in waterfowl impoundments on farmland.
Divers = 2 out of 6 species low.
Pelicans thru Ibises = 4 highs and 3 lows out of 22 species. Dry agfields and low tides had negative impacts on their numbers.
Raptors = 7 high and 2 low out of 19 species. Bald Eagles continue to increase in area.
Rails = 1 high and 1 low out of 10 species. The drought had a major negative impact on King Rail along with landowners taking opportunity to reduce tall dense marsh vegetation during the dry conditions.
Shorebirds = 6 highs and 1 low out of 27 species. Large numbers of shorebirds were scattered across exposed bay bottoms.
Gulls & Terns = 1 high and 4 lows from 12 species.
Doves thru Woodpeckers = 2 highs and 1 low. Fairly stable populations across the species.
Flycatchers thru waxwing = 8 highs and 2 lows out of 40 species. Swallows appeared lower than normal due to dry conditions.
Photo by Mark Scheuerman
Warblers = 6 highs and no lows out of 14 species. Nice season as a whole for group.
Towhees thru buntings = 4 highs and 3 lows out of 23 species. Saltmarsh birds had low tallies. Might be an artifact of coverage.
The rest = 1 high and 5 lows out of 12 species. Dry conditions forced blackbirds to forage elsewhere.
TEAM WORK
Much of the results from this CBC are the direct results of the planning, leadership, coordination, and skills of our Section Leaders: Jim Hargrove, Sumita Prasad, Charlie Brower, Ron Weeks, Michael Kennedy, Bill Baker, Breck Sacra, Clay Taylor, Rich Kosteche, Julie Sullivan, Jim Renfro, Marc Ealy, James Arnold and Karen McBride.
This Christmas Bird Count is The Number One in the Nation from our Team’s perspective. It has shown national leadership in cooperative efforts between the birders, the landowners, the boat operators and the people of Matagorda County. It takes every bodies efforts focused on the end result to achieve our goals. Yes, we have a very diverse avifauna that is the product of a narrow forested corridor extending all of the way down the Colorado River to the Gulf that is bordered by an abundance of native prairies, brushlands and wetlands. An added factor is geography creates diverse ecosystems being in close proximity. This diversity would not be possible unless the landowners managed their land to maintain the productivity of the habitats, and it would not be possible to survey them unless they liked our project and permitted us access. All the birds in the world would not mean anything unless the interest, skills and cooperation of the Texas birders would not show up to conduct the count. We would count very few water birds unless our boat operators would not donate a day from their busy schedule as well as the use of their boats. We get great support from Texas Parks and Wildlife Department, The Nature Conservancy, the South Texas Nuclear Project, Lower Colorado River Authority and Lyondell-Basel for use of equipment, land and staff. Lastly, we could not afford to pay for the Great Supper at the Wadsworth Community Center, provide counters with t-shirts and pay their CBC activity fees without the generosity of the sponsors. We also thank Greg Lavaty for the great photo for our T-shirt.
LEADERS: David and Marilyn Sitz. David has developed a great relationship with the landowners of Matagorda County and he is the person who obtains permission for the birders to access the private property. Marilyn does the fund raising, arranges for the production of T-shirts and the catering at the banquet. She recruits volunteers to work at the banquet. This count would not be near as special without the leadership of Marilyn and her volunteers.
SPONSORS: Betty Clark, Bay City Convention Bureau, Matagorda County Birding & Nature Center, Bay City Nature Club, Texas Parks & Wildlife Dept., Lower Colorado River Authority, The Nature Conservancy, South Texas Nuclear Project Operating Co., Lyondell-Basel, Celanese, Wells Fargo Bank, All Star Realty, City of Bay City, Bay City Abstract & Title.
Photo by Cullen Hanks
LANDOWNERS: Lower Colorado River Authority, George Harrison, PCS Phosphate, Inc., Jack Miller, Carl Anderson family, Charlie Brower’s family, Roy Poinsett, Eugene Welfel, Lyondell-Basel, South Texas Project Nuclear Operating Company, Julius Ledwig, Linda Joy Stovall, Bill Von Gonten, Smith Marsh, The Nature Conservancy of Texas, Texas Parks and Wildlife Department, Grover Ryman, Bill Doss, Ray Culver, Becca Sitz, Al Denham, and Old Gulf.
BOAT OPERATORS: We appreciate the services and the boats provided by James Arnold, Jerry West and the Texas Parks & Wildlife Department.
NEXT YEAR
This was another amazing CBC at Mad Island. We thank all of you who helped. Next year will likely be better. Come join us to check it out and bring a friend on Monday, 19 December 2011.
Photo by Jimmy Jackson
Brent Ortego
Texas Parks & Wildlife Department
2805 N. Navarro, Suite 600B
Victoria, TX 77901
brent.ortego@tpwd.state.tx.us
Excel spreadsheet of data available upon request.
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