Risking everything

I spent all day Monday, October 30, 2023, at Tres Rios Overbank, an impressive riparian preserve in Maricopa County, on the outskirts of Phoenix, Arizona. Equally impressive was the cloud of mosquitoes that chased me away from the site at the end of the day. The Northern Jacana had moved on from its favorite patch of water cress. Consolation for missing another staked-out target vagrant was a Brown Pelican (rare in eBird) loafing on a sand bar with  cormorants on the principal water retention pond near the entrance to the facility. 

I left Tres Rios about 6 PM and began my long 2000-mile journey. My next destination was Big Bend National Park in Texas. Nolan Walker, a young birding guide from Arizona, had stumbled upon a Nutting’s Flycatcher at the Santa Elena Canyon Overlook along the Rio Grande River a couple weeks earlier and it was being reported almost daily. Most of the observations were from the morning when it would vocalize. I would have liked to get there early the following day, Tuesday, October 31, 2023, but driving during the night with rest breaks only got me as far as Las Cruces, New Mexico, when the sun began to rise. I arrived at the canyon late in the afternoon hoping to detect the Mexican vagrant by its vocalizations during the dusk pulse of bird activity. Not hearing any song from the overlook, I drove a mile further to the canyon trailhead. Here the thousand-foot cliffs on the Mexico side of the Rio Grande served effectively as a border wall. At the trailhead I was able to photograph Canyon Wren for the first time this year, aiding my effort to document every species on my Biggest Year list of birds for the USA and Territories. But alas, the Nutting’s Flycatcher was missing in action. Yet another staked-out vagrant failed to cooperate for my quest. 

The next vagrant on my list of targets was Golden-crowned Warbler in the lower Rio Grande Valley. To take advantage of daylight, I opted to take the most direct route along US 90 which follows the Rio Grande River from Del Rio to Laredo, Texas. I figured that if I could reach Laredo around dawn I could snag a photo of Red-billed Pigeon on my way south. Traffic was light during the night, mostly truck traffic. The speed limit was 75 MPH on the two -lane highway.  I found myself drifting off on several occasions. Once I even crossed the center yellow line and found myself face to face with a semi before careening back into my lane just in time to avoid a head on collision. I wondered if driving during the night two nights in a row was worth risking my life for. At 4 AM I pulled off the road to sleep at Laredo. I resumed driving at 6 AM. I decided I did not have time to wait for dawn in Laredo. I stopped for birding at Salineño just after sunrise at 7:30 AM hoping to find a Red-billed Pigeon there that I could photograph. It was Wednesday, November 1, 2023.  No luck. I had heard one sing in July at Santa Margarita Ranch but had not yet documented one. I arrived in the lower Rio Grande Valley about mid-day. In McAllen, I chased a new report of a female Blue Bunting, another Mexican vagrant, at Estero Llano Grande State Park. This is a big area. Not knowing where to look for the bird within the park, I was surprised to hear several loud chip notes that resembled the call notes of this species as I approached the Visitor Center. Unfortunately, I could not ever find it during several hours of searching.  I spent the rest of the afternoon at Hugh Ramsey Nature Park near Harlingen where a Golden-crowned Warbler, yet another Mexican vagrant, had established a winter territory. The spot was very birdy, but I didn’t find the warbler. I joined forces with a group of Colorado birders (Kathy Kay, Adrian Lakin, Graham Rae, Kenna Sue Trickey and Kelly Ormesher). Kathy spotted the bird in a tangle and all got decent views except me. 

The next day, Thursday November 2, 2023, I returned to Estero Llano Grande near McAllen.  I heard another loud chip note near the entrance but it turned out to be a Swamp Sparrow (rare in eBird).  Several hours later, I eventually glimpsed the female Blue Bunting (USA and Territories Biggest Year-bird number 818). Unfortunately, the sighting was not witnessed and I failed to get any type of documentary photo or audio. 

I finally caught up to the Golden-crowned Warbler (819) and photographed it (barely identifiable) on the morning of Thursday November 3. It was time to turn my sights northward and look for Yellow Rail. This minuscule nocturnal marsh bird avoided all of my efforts to find it earlier in the year along the Texas coast in April, and then at potential breeding locations in Wisconsin, Minnesota and Colorado in June and July. It breeds in moist meadows in the boreal forest zone mostly in Canada but winters in the extensive marsh system along the gulf coast in Texas and Louisiana. During the breeding season it vocalizes frequently, and I had hoped to track one down by its unique call. During fall and winter they go silent and become very difficult to detect. However, before arriving to the winter territories in December, they tend to congregate in flooded rice fields. The best way to see one is to attend the yellow rail festival in late October in Louisiana. There birders stand by during rice harvesting operations and watch the rails as they are flushed from the pastures by the giant combines that are used to collect the rice grains. However while many of my Big Year competitors, including the McQuades, visited the festival, I was still in Hawaii.  

I did not expect to still be looking for Yellow Rail in November, but the creature was competing with a handful of other species for the dubious honor of being my worst nemesis species of my Biggest Year. It’s contenders were La Sagra’s Flycatcher, Yellow-green Vireo, Connecticut Warbler and LeConte’s Sparrow. 

The rice harvest season near Houston was wrapping up and reports of Yellow Rail sightings on eBird gave me hope in finding one before they disappear into the extensive marshes along the coast. I based myself at my son’s house in Austin for three nights while visiting several promising locations. Unfortunately I never found the right situation, a rice field being actively cultivated. I did add one new species: LeConte’s Sparrow (820) at Attwater Prairie-Chicken National Wildlife Refuge. There I also found numerous Sprague’s Pipit and a Lark Bunting, which was flagged rare in eBird. 

My original ambitious plan involved searching for Smith’s Longspur near Dallas and a stop for Black Rosy-Finch near Albuquerque, New Mexico, before closing my driving loop in Phoenix.  However, these two species had not been reported this far south yet this winter. The prospect of driving another thousand plus miles by myself was daunting, so I plotted a new plan. I would return the rental in Austin for a $500 fee and find a willing co-conspirator to drive back to West Texas to search again for Nutting’s Flycatcher, before I flew to Florida for the pelagic boat trip scheduled for November 11.

However the new plan changed abruptly when I received news of a vagrant Roadside Hawk in Brownsville. I was finishing my birding day near Corpus Christie. Instead of returning to Austin, I headed south to Brownsville. I arrived at Resaca de La Palma State Park shortly after the gate opened. Word spread quickly that the hawk had been re-spotted in the same area at daybreak. I encountered a group of birders watching for it. David Chartier (from Colorado Springs) spotted it and pointed out the Roadside Hawk (821). Soon thereafter, a veritable horde of birders arrived from the Rio Grande Valley Birding Festival, just in time to see it perched before it flew and disappeared until dusk. 

Within 24 hours, Resaca de la Palma State Park went from being underbirded to being overrun with birders. This was a perfect scenario for the Patagonia Picnic Table effect. After just one day birders had already discovered more rarities there including Tropical Parula and Blue Bunting. Later Rose-throated Becard and Gray-collared Becard would be found there as well. These are all ABA Code 3+ species. 

I spent the whole day there and saw the hawk again at the end of the day with another batch of birders including luminaries from the festival such as Nathan Pieplow and Jon Dunn. Kathy Kay had joined me and I convinced her to become my co-conspirator for the Nutting’s Flycatcher chase.  

The first step involved a four-hour race to San Antonio airport to drop off my rental by 11 PM. Then it was a seven-hour race to get to the Santa Elena Canyon Overlook by sunrise. We had two hours to detect our target before having to race to Midland-Odessa Airport three hours away to return Kathy’s car on time and make our respective flights. When a race is involved, Kathy always rises to the occasion. 

The plan was a bit extreme but it was executed perfectly. The group of 8 assembled birders all heard one unique “wheek”, a call attributed to Nutting’s Flycatcher (822). Adding a new species to my list based on a single call note was not very satisfying. Consolation was detection of two additional vagrants, a distant singing Crescent-chested Warbler and a chirping Yellow-eyed Junco which was only seen by Kathy. In both cases, the identity was corroborated by the Merlin sound identification app. Both observations represent probable second state records for Texas. The first record of Crescent-chested Warbler in Texas occurred this spring when one singing bird was seen and photographed for several days along the hiking trail where Colima Warbler nests. This was more than 10 miles from Santa Elena Canyon, and several thousand feet higher in elevation. Could this be the same individual? It seemed odd for a warbler to be singing in November yet there are several examples available in eBird of this species singing during the winter months. Unfortunately, these birds have not been reported by anyone else at this location. 

From Midland, I flew on Southwest Airlines to Fort Lauderdale via Dallas-Fort Worth in order to join my friend Beto Matheus the following day on an ocean voyage in search of seabirds.  

During this week of sprinting to chase ABA Code 3+ birds, I added 5 new species for my Biggest Year, including 4 ABA Code 3+ species, all in Texas near its border with Mexico. I was 78 species from my lofty goal of 900 species in the USA and Territories without having yet visited the South Pacific territories of American Samoa, Guam and the Commonwealth of the Northern Mariana Islands. I was looking forward to my visit to Floridian waters as I still had 4-5 species to pick up in the Atlantic Ocean.