The Best Birding of The Year: April in Sabine Woods

I'm not sure if anyone has noticed, but I am pretty awful at finishing trip reports in a timely manner. However, I love trip reports (though they seem to be dying) and I love fantastic birding, so I would be crazy to not make one last installment from this year's trip to Texas. Our second trip to Sabine Woods not only warranted a blog post, it was the best birding I experienced the entire year. So hop on in to the BB&B time machine one last time, as we make the quick leap back to April of 2018...

The day started out innocently enough. After Great Success earlier in the week at Sabine Woods, Dipper Dan and I headed back, hoping for a repeat. The southerly winds that prevailed over much of the previous day had switched to winds out of the north, so conditions were right for a good morning, if not a facemelting one.

At dawn we started the birding the trees at Texas Point National Wildlife Refuge, which is right on the way to Sabine Woods. It's not an impressive looking patch (some pieces of private property in the area appeared better suited as migrant traps), but since this is the UTC it should be checked! It was really slow at first, but after a while we began to see sweet sweet migrants coming in off the coast. Not many were stopping, but it was encouraging. The Northern Parula above was very accommodating, and ended up being the only one we would see that day.

After exhausting the relatively small Texas Point patch, we returned to Sabine Woods. Birding was on the slow side at first...acceptable, but not anything crazy. The forest floor was not crawling with Ovenbirds and thrushes, like it was when we visited earlier in the week though. This Canada Warbler that Dipper Dan found was an early highlight.

After talking to BB&B reader Steve from Kansas City for a while and learning about how terrible fans of the Kansas City Royals are...and looking at the Cerulean Warbler he pointed out to us...I found this Blue Jay getting high on sunbeams in the forest floor. Things were getting interesting.

Incrementally, the birding got better and better as the morning progressed. What began as dull birding became mediocre birding, which turned into decent birding which turned into good birding. A few hours after we arrived, the number of birds in the patch had seemed to double, then triple. By about 2PM there were simply birds all over the place. Woods totally empty of Ovenbirds earlier now were filled with them. The birding had gone from good to great; migrants just seemed to be piling in to the patch.

Eventually, we came to that rare and special realization that it was happening, much like it was at High Island the first day of the trip. This was the birding I had come here for, the birding I had hoped to experience but dared not expect. There were simply too many birds, too many birds to look at, mainly thrushes, vireos and warblers. Migrants galore. At one point, Dan and I split up for a while, and he encountered this Swainson's Warbler (left). It was only a few feet from him, falling asleep inside a bush, so the only photo he could get of it was with his phone. Obviously, the bird had just dropped in from who-knows-where and needed a nice nap before turning up the skulk meter to normal Swainson's Warbler parameters.

Well, when it's happening, it's happening. This is the sort of thing that happens when it's happening.

I missed Dan's sleepy Swainson's by a few minutes but managed to find my own in a different part of the patch. It was slightly more cooperative than I expected, which I was happy about. The brown wonder was a lifer only a few days before.

We birded vigorously through the afternoon. It was great. Not a fallout...lots of very approachable but otherwise normal-acting birds...but I had difficulty thinking that the birding could be much better than it was.

Eventually, we were fully saturated by migrants and the day was drawing to an end. We made our way back to the entrance, where a confiding Worm-eating Warbler greeted me...

...and promptly flopped down to the pavement. I love seeing warblers flopping around on the ground...it is a sign of excellent birding. Sure, some warblers are inherent ground floppers, and some may flop at any height...but it can be a sign. Worm-eating Warblers aren't exactly ground-phobic though, so I merely appreciated the bird's gesture and went on my way.

But I didn't get far. The day's final act was about to unfold, and the few tattered remains of what was once my face were about to melt off completely.

Right next to the entrance, some birders were looking at some Blackburnian Warblers...certainly not an unusual event but I felt these Blackburnians needed some special attention.

It turns out these Blackburnians were especially tired. They were in full just-crossed-the-Gulf mode and treated us with the same amount of caution they would give to an oak tree...in other words, we might as well have been invisible. I've met some confiding Blackburnians before, but these really took it to another level. When one of them started passing out on an open branch about 15 feet away, I knew that not only was it happening, it was happening really hard.

In short order they flopped to the ground and did their best Brewer's Blackbird-in-a-parking-lot impressions. I've been lucky enough to be really close to Blackburnians before, but this was a different level of close.

Incredible.

Here is an uncropped photo - the dark blob on the right is my shadow.

I looked up into the trees and saw a Bay-breasted Warbler, then two. They had been fairly common the past few days, but it was strange to see them perched just a few inches from one another; I got the clear impression that they had just fallen out of the sky together, their long Gulf crossing just completed. The Worm-eating Warbler on the ground had foreshadowed what was unfolding before my very eyes...

Warblers were now flopping around on the ground in front of us. This adult Tennessee Warbler, a known ground hater, flopped about without apologies.

Another Tennessee jumped into the ground frenzy. The growing terrestrial congregation of fearless warblers wasn't completely surrounding us, but were very focused or concentrating on an area in front of us about the size of a small lawn.

A Hooded Warbler, known to groundabout, was especially floppy.

The pair of Bay-breasted Warblers descended from the trees to join the growing flock of warblers in the grass for soul-satisfying looks.

Considering all the warblers on the ground, gravity must have been especially strong. This Blue-winged Warbler felt the pull but mostly managed to stay a few feet above it.

Gravity's pull was so forceful here that it was holding on to a leaf with one foot for dear life. Clearly, this was some sort of Bermuda Triangle for warblers.

This crippling Chestnut-sided Warbler materialized a few feet above the ground-fray.

The Bay-breasted Warblers in particular had little interest in going back up into the trees.

We should probably make sure a combo gets in here...Blackburnian/Bay-breasted ground combo is a sweet one. There were other warblers here in groundtown as well, but this post has to end eventually!

I'm still not sure how to describe this event. This was not normal. Kansas City Steve, who had logged a great many years of springtime birding at Sabine Woods, admitted he had never seen anything like it. It was like what I expect a full-blown fallout to be like, except happening on a weirdly small scale. I have always maintained that there is no such thing as a small fallout, but it appears time to reexamine that position. Keep in mind, of course, that there were huge numbers of birds in the patch that were not acting like this, but I'm thinking a small wave of extremely exhausted migrants had arrived at the edge of the patch just as we were leaving, giving us....well...a micro fallout? It makes me wince to read that but I can't think of a better label for the event. No matter what it was, it was unlike anything I've experienced before, things will never be the same, and I really hope a springtime return to the Gulf Coast happens sooner than later. We ended up getting new high counts in eBird for Acadian Flycatcher, Swainson's Thrush and Ovenbird at this heavily birded site.

I did have one more day to bird in Texas with Dipper Dan and Officer Shaw at High Island, which was ok but nothing like what happened at Sabine Woods the previous day. We then went to Shaw's, where we drank incredibly good beer, I had an incredibly bad allergy attack (how embarrassing), and a freaking Chuck-will's-widow flew over his suburban yard in broad daylight!

This will conclude BB&B's coverage of 2018's fantastic foray to Texas. Thanks to This Machine Nate for coming all the way out to the coast, shortly before being banished to the depths of an uncharted corner of Ohio. Thanks to Dipper Dan for being my ride or die and coming out from SoCal. Thanks to Officer Shaw for meeting up with us (twice!) and letting us crash in the Land of Sugar. You all battled Geri, you all won, and you are all birding heroes.

Grasspipering, Winnie Pro Tips, Sea Rim State Park, Sabine Woods

Being true to my nature, I am really dragging out reporting from Texas this spring, but we are getting close to the end. Also, this post somehow seems more relevant now than a couple of months ago, as we are all again experiencing the passage of shorebirds and passerines that are such a big part of what makes us do what we do.

Before BB&B leaves the High Island area entirely, a few more quick notes...grasspipers and Hudsonian Godwits were target species for the trip, and we did quite a bit of driving around in Chambers County (where Anahuac NWR is) before sweet victory. American Golden-Plovers (front bird in the above photo) were fairly common and not difficult to find, but it took a while before we finally connected with Buff-breasted (above) and Upland Sandpipers, which are both marvelous species that I am perpetually starved for here on the west coast. I dig the white wing linings glowing on one of the Buff-breasteds above.

There are a plethora of roads on the coastal plain that could potentially lead you to good shorebirding or grasspipering; we barely scratched the surface. Our Field of Dreams for grasspipers was a very large field with very short grass on farm road 1941, west of TX-124. Flooded fields in a few places had additional Buff-breasted Sandpipers, Ruddy Turnstones (which I don't consider to be ag field birds, but they know better), White-rumped and Baird's Sandpipers, etc.

A few logistical tips for anyone planning on making the trip next spring:

*We stayed at Motel 6 in Winnie. It was relatively cheap and totally fine, aside from the clogged sink that the staff took days to fix. I would stay there again though.

*In Winnie, we ate at Al-T's steakhouse a lot, which you should do as well. We also ate at the Crawfish Box, which was awesome. That was my lifer crawfish meal, and I can't wait to do it again. I also made Dan and Nate eat at Waffle House, because I love Waffle House.

*I looked into Airbnbs before the trip, but the only options in the immediate area were out on the Bolivar Peninsula and they were not cheap, though if you were travelling in a group renting out a beach house would definitely make sense. Any resident of Winnie or High Island who lists their place on Airbnb could potentially rake it in March-May, provided their listing consisted of something nicer than a decaying trailer (which are locally common). 

*As far as we could figure, the best coffee in Winnie (which is not the same as good coffee) is at Brewed Awakening.

*The Market Basket in Winnie has all the groceries you need, aside from liquor.

With the Galveston and Chambers sites wrapped up, let's move on to Jefferson County! Jefferson is the easternmost county on the UTC and is right on the Louisiana border. Sea Rim State Park is one of the hotspots in the area. According to Steve from Kansas City (Hi Steve!), Sea Rim once hosted a willow patch that was an absolute gem of a migrant trap, but was inundated with brackish water from a hurricane several years ago and is no more. The park is still good for a variety of water birds though, including this confiding Solitary Sandpiper.

I'm not saying this is a skulky or wary species, but I have had a hell of a time getting to close to them most places. This bird had no qualms about lingering in crush range.

I think the bird is just expelling some salt out of its nostrils, but this appears to be the equivalent of a Solitary Sandpiper sneeze.

Lesser Yellowlegs are one of the most abundant shorebird migrants on the UTC. This one was still mostly in basic plumage.

Oddly, Greater Yellowlegs were an uncommon bird everywhere we went, which just doesn't compute to me considering the abundance and diversity of shorebirds in the region. Compare the bicolored, recurved and longer bill on this bird with the Lesser Yellowlegs above.

Long-billed Dowitcher. It's not a field mark I use, but supposedly the kink in the bill visible in the first photo is supposed to be a helpful field mark for Short-billed Dowitcher. These days everyone seems to have their own suite of field marks they like to use to ID dowitchers that they apply very liberally...what happened to caution? Has it been thrown to the wind, no longer warranted? At least Short-billed X Long-billed Dowitcher doesn't seem to be a popular identification yet. The increasing (yes, still) tendency of birders to identify birds as bizarre hybrids continues to be disappointing.

Least Bitterns, on the other hand, are never disappointing, even if they prefer to stay hidden in the reeds.

Even Boat-tailed Grackles aren't disappointing if you go long enough without seeing them. This one was doing its best to strike a pose that would eliminate all iridescence and recall a Melodious Blackbird (perhaps the most overdue Mexican bird yet to be found in the states), but with such a boaty tail and unmelodious voice it had no chance.

When Roseate Spoonbills are flying overhead at sunset, all is very briefly right with the world.

Common Nighthawk was a common migrant during our week on the UTC. This one chose to roost on the boardwalk out over the marsh. Like all nightjars, they are extremely novel to see up close.

Sea Rim was nice but not exactly thrilling, though I'm sure it can get really birdy at times. And we didn't even get out to the beach, so who knows what was lounging on the sandy sand? We gave a valiant effort to try and hear a Black Rail, donating blood to mosquitoes at dusk, but none vocalized. We really let Nate down, which haunts me to this day.

The last hotspot BB&B is going to cover from Texas is Sabine Woods. The first afternoon we visited yielded tons of birders (gross), which brought Boy Scout Woods to mind, but more importantly lots and lots of birds, mostly ground-loving and low-in-the-canopy species like this Worm-eating Warbler. Not a fallout, but there were a shitload of migrants. It was an impressive showing - migrants seemed to be everywhere at times - and yet another reminder that migration in the region really is a spectacle. The patch itself was really nice to bird - large, canopy openings, drips, ponds, edge habitat, relatively low numbers of mosquitos, lots of room to spread out and get away from other birders when necessary.

Who doesn't love Black-billed Cuckoo? Everyone was stoked to see Black-billed Cuckoo, especially considering their status as a MEGA (and a BLOCKER) in California. Nate and I had seen one earlier back at Hooks Woods but this is the only one of the trip that was chill enough to be photographed. I'm glad I don't see them very often because I suspect I could get strongly emotionally attached to them if I lived within their range.

There will be one more Texas post, featuring nothing but Sabine Woods, and the best day of birding the entire trip.

Steady Birding at South Padre Island and Suffering Through Years of Failure

Worm-eating Warblers absolutely live for dead leaf clusters. I am tempted to say something like "you show me dead leaf clusters and I will show you Worm-eating Warblers" but that's taking it a bit too far. We are getting deep into April but they are still coming through.

I'm starting to fall into a pattern you guys. When I first got here, I would go birding all over the place. This is no longer the case. Now I only really want to go birding at one place; South Padre Island. South Padre is the local migrant trap for birds coming across the gulf, and as I am a big proponent of spring migration, this is the place to go. You have probably figured this out, as every BB&B post for weeks has featured SPI. Hell, yesterday at the convention center I was confronted by three BB&B readers I've never met from Napa/Fairfield (I hope you guys slayed in Corpus), which probably speaks to how predictable I am. The birding is really picking up out there, although nothing truly epic yet.

What can I say? Sure I could go west, up the Rio Grande, and try to hunt down some ABA birds (White-collared seedeater, Red-billed Pigeon, Muscovy Duck), but I've never prided myself on my ABA list and you just never know what you might find on the coast. And since I've never seen Swainson's or Cerulean Warblers, I have no choice but go to the coast.

It is relevant, at this point, to point that out that I would be willing to do horrific, despicable things to get my eyes on a Cerulean Warbler. The bird haunts me. I have heard one many years ago (Quabbin Reservoir, MA), but that's it. I dipped on one at Sheepshead last week, which was subsequently seen the day after. The weekend before, I went up to Corpus Christi and Port Aransas in a pathetic (but otherwise enjoyable) attempt to find this bird. In my signed copy of Dunn and Garrett's Warblers, Jon writes "find a Cerulean for your county"...talk about suffering through years of failure. I have even seen one in a dream. Maybe they are the whole reason I am here...but that is too heavy to think about on a Monday.

I suspect this may be the last Louisiana Waterthrush I will see this spring. Note the blazing supercilium, lightly-marked breast and long bill.

And here are the other desirable field marks; buffy flanks and obviously pink legs. I've found that Northern Waterthrushes are disturbingly variable in appearance, but LOWA are pretty consistent in the field marks they offer.

Having no previous experience birding the Gulf during spring migration, I knew it was going to be a learning experience in terms of how abundant (or rare) different species are. Blue-winged Warbler is pleasantly reliable to find on any given day.

The Blue-winged Warblers here have a special knack for being really easy to see but a total pain in the ass to get acceptable photos of. This is pretty typical. As you can see, some of them wield mighty facemelt, but take their privacy rights very seriously.

Yellow-throated Warbler is another early migrant (and uncommon winter resident) that are tapering off now, unfortunately. Here is a typically fantastic yellow-lored bird, which I'm told is unusual here. However, members of the white-lored group (albilora) can have yellow lores. Don't know why this isn't dominica though. Do you?

This bird is interesting. The forecrown is not solidly black, which points toward being a female or immature. There is a dull yellowish wash in the supraloral area, but when zoomed in (you'll have to trust me) it is confined to the upper half of the otherwise white stripe...I am inclined to think this is a white-lored (albilora) bird with either pollen on its face (many Tennessee Warblers here get this) or a mild yellowish wash (not unusual either), or perhaps a young yellow-lored (dominica) bird, which as I mentioned is unexpected here.

A couple other things are indicative of the bird being albilora...for one, if that is not pollen they often do have yellowish lores (per Dunn and Garrett) and the very top of the bird's chin is actually white (you'll have to trust me again). I also know how horribly dry this all is, but these are the exercises #7 must run through. 

There are many confiding migrants on South Padre on any given day. For example, yesterday I pulled up next to a male Scarlet Tanager that was lying in the middle of a street. I thought it had gotten hit by a car, because I was way too close to it for the bird to be sane. Nope, I was wrong. It had just decided to kill and dismantle a huge insect right there in the median. Anyways, most Black-throated Green Warblers I run into are similarly trusting. 

Do you see? Trust. This is the face of Trust.

I thought fruit was popular with birds in the tropics...well, put some up in a migrant trap around here and see what happens. The orioles, Orchard and Baltimore (above), devour these things with reckless abandon...not to mention Rose-breasted Grosbeaks, Tennessee Warblers, Summer and Scarlet Tanagers, and other good 'uns.

Baltimore Oriole is one of the most abundant migrants right now. About two weeks ago, they would get flagged in eBird. Things change quickly when migration is in full spring.

There is no shortage of horrible-looking young male Orchard Orioles that do their best to trick unwitting birders. Their impression of immature male Hooded Oriole is spot on. In Sibley (original version), a 1st summer male is illustrated (useful) but no identifying features are mentioned whatsoever (humorous).

People are a little more familiar and comfortable with identifying female Orchard Orioles (myself included), despite a similarly strong resemblance to their Hooded counterpart. 

Fully Warblered

This Worm-eating Warbler was working on an insect on the other side of the leaf. It appears that the warbler removed the leaf and wedged it in the bark of the branch, which is pretty wild and crazy. Key West Botanical Gardens, Stock Island, FL.

I didn't see any mythical fallout events in South Florida, but I did pretty good with migrants on my trip. 24 warbler species were more than I hoped for, with a lot of those being year birds. I ran into good flocks at Zachary Taylor State Park, Indigenous Park, the botanical gardens, and of course on the Dry Tortugas, where birding reached a crescendo. Dipped on Cape May and Kentucky, but I am in no position to complain. Again, for any birders who have not had the fortune of birding the east coast during migration...you are really missing out. Landbird migration is significantly more pronounced than it is in the west, and an average-sized (for an easterner) accumulation of migrants can seem staggering to a westerner.

For northeastern birders, good luck with "storm waifs" this week, but of course staying safe and making good decisions takes precedence. A birder I knew lost his life while seawatching on a jetty, and that wasn't even in a hurricane...don't do anything stupid!

Worm-eating Warbler. Looking inside dead leaves is more of their thing...I kind of like this weird perspective. Key West Botanical Gardens.

Palm Warblers were literally everywhere. The amount of tail-wagging I witnessed was mesmerizing. Little Hamaca City Park, Key West, FL.

Ah, the Ovenbird. I would say that this is one of the best warblers, given their stylish strut, thrussish markings and unmistakable attempts to summon the attention of nearby teachers. Indigenous Park, Key West, FL.

My best herp siting of the trip was this Florida Box Turtle that was scuffling through the leaf litter, which is what they spend most of their lives doing. I dig the carapace markings. Thanks to JK of Camera Trapping Campus for providing the correct identification. Key West Botanical Gardens.

I don't know what this is, but I like it. Key West Botanical Gardens.

Northern Parulas were plentiful. Looking at too many may cause the pupils to dilate...so I recommend welder's goggles to shield yourself from harmful parula-watching effects. Key West Botanical Gardens.

I only saw a handful of Red-eyed Vireos, I reckon most of them probably move through a little earlier in the fall. Key West Botanical Gardens.

You don't have to be the Number 7 birder in the nation to know that Prairie Warblers are not hard to come by in South Florida. They are very sharp birds, and one of the few year round resident warblers. Key West Botanical Gardens.

Brown Anole. It's no doubt bummed that it's replacement tail growing in makes it look like it is perpetually pooping. Key West Cemetery, Key West, FL.

Yet another sunset picture, which is further evidence that this was not a birding vacation. I enjoyed this birdless sunset very much. I swear.