Cabo Rojo Combate Access 12/11: Brown Booby, Wilson's Plover, Red-necked Phalarope

Greater Yellowleg
Photos: Shari Zirlin

White-cheeked Pintails

At lunch I mentioned to Sergio that I'd been seeing road signs to Combate, and asked if that was the same place that eBird had listed as Cambate Access. He said, yes, probably it was misspelled on eBird. Not being really familiar with the area I wasn't sure if we'd ever been there, but Sergio said it was a good place to go, so that was our next stop.  It turned out we hadn't every visited this spot, another salt pond close to the bay. Shari & I were struck by how similar it was to East Pond of Jamaica Bay, in that you could get close to the birds without disturbing them.

Again, thanks to Sergio, we started to find rare birds for Puerto Rico as well as some year birds. In the bay, far out, roosting on a buoy were 6 or 7 Brown Boobies, the first ones we've seen since the one last year in Cape May.

There were many plovers and sandpipers picking at the water edge. Sergio found a small flock of Wilson's Plovers loafing on some driftwood in the middle of the pond. The heavier bill and the lighter breast band were distinctive. There were also more Lesser Scaup on the flats.

But the big news, for Sergio, was when he found first one then 3 Red-necked Phalaropes which Shari & I both got on right away, their white faces standing out from the many yellowlegs and Stilt Sandpipers around them. Then Sergio really got excited when in with the 3 red-necks he found a phalarope with a white face but no dark mask: Wilson's Phalarope. All 4 were acting like phalaropes, that is, like crazy birds.

There were some Cave Swallows overhead, as there had been at the lagoon. Sergio pointed to one and just as it flew over my head I saw the brown breast band and knew it was a Bank Swallow, yet another rare bird for the island.

The path took us through a small grove of trees. Suddenly a troupial zipped by our heads, a flash of yellow and black. It was as close as Shari got to seeing one on this trip. She did have better luck with the Antillean Mangoes we saw.

Antillean Mango (male)

We walked the edge of the pond for over 2 hours. Walking back to the car I spotted a plover that didn't look "right." I scoped it, call Sergio over, and was amazed to have found an American Golden Plover, yet another island rarity.  That was the last bird found on a very successful day. For the 2 spots we totaled 66 species.

West Indian Whistling-Duck     30

American Wigeon     3

Blue-winged Teal     175

Northern Shoveler     16

White-cheeked Pintail     35

Ring-necked Duck *    1

TUFTED DUCK*    1

Lesser Scaup*     10

Masked Duck*     1

Ruddy Duck     20

HELMETED GUINEAFOWL     10

Pied-billed Grebe     1

Magnificent Frigatebird     2

Brown Booby     6

Great Egret     15

Cattle Egret     40

Glossy Ibis     1

Turkey Vulture     21

Osprey     2

Red-tailed Hawk     1

Sora     2

Purple Gallinule     3

Common Gallinule     30

American Coot     1

Caribbean Coot     15

Black-bellied Plover     1

American Golden-Plover*     1

Wilson's Plover     6

Semipalmated Plover     25

Killdeer     12

Black-necked Stilt     3

Spotted Sandpiper     3

Greater Yellowlegs     25

Lesser Yellowlegs     300

Sanderling     3

Semipalmated Sandpiper     20

Western Sandpiper     1

Least Sandpiper     5

Stilt Sandpiper     50

Wilson's Phalarope*     1

Red-necked Phalarope *    3

Royal Tern     1

Rock Pigeon     4

Mourning Dove     1

Common Ground-Dove     12

Smooth-billed Ani     2

Antillean Mango     3

Belted Kingfisher     2

American Kestrel     2

Caribbean Elaenia     1

Gray Kingbird     15

Bank Swallow*     1

Barn Swallow     4

Cave Swallow     16

Northern Mockingbird     2

Northern Parula     2

Yellow Warbler     1

Adelaide's Warbler     1

Bananaquit     1

Yellow-faced Grassquit     2

Black-faced Grassquit     1

Greater Antillean Grackle     30

Venezuelan Troupial     1

House Sparrow     3

Orange-cheeked Waxbill     15

Bronze Mannikin     10

* Rare for Puerto Rico

La Parguera 12/12: SHINY COWBIRD, Yellow-shouldered Blackbird

Driving  back to the hotel with Sergio as I was adding up the birds, Shari and he called out birds to make sure I had them on the list. When Sergio said, "Shiny Cowbird," Shari & I groaned. He'd seen one in with a flock of grackles at Cabo Rojo and hadn't thought to mention it, figuring it was a common bird we'd seen. Not only had we not seen it, it would have been a life bird for us.  However, Sergio told us it was easy to find; all we had to do was go back to La Parguera and look for a lumber yard where they put down seed for the birds. Not only the cowbird frequented the yard, but so did Yellow-shouldered Blackbird.

I called up the area on the iPad and Sergio gave showed me where to go in La Parguera. Next morning we set out again to little town. We drove up and down the road Sergio pointed out and found nothing remotely resembling a lumber yard. We drove in the opposite direction. Nothing. We tried again on the road and while passing the Puerto Viejo Cafe and Convenience Store, we saw grackles go into a tree in the parking lot. Sergio had mentioned that the birds also could be seen at a store that sold pasteles, so perhaps this was that place. While I looked into the tree (and found a Eurasian Collared-Dove staring back at me), Shari went into the store to buy some soda and ask about the lumber yard. They didn't know anything about a lumber yard, but the proprietor, when he heard we were looking for birds, said that he'd been feeding them for thirty years. He took us to his side yard and showed us the elaborate bird bath/fountain he'd set up for the birds. There weren't any birds around then, but he said to come back around 4 o'clock and there would be plenty of them.

Yellow-shouldered Blackbirds & SHINY COWBIRD (female)
Photos: Shari Zirlin

We drove back to Guanica, had lunch, hung around the pool for a while, and around 3 o'clock started our drive back to the store. I went in and purchased a can of peanuts--we felt we should at least be paying customers--and joined Shari and the owner on the porch overlooking the side yard. There weren't any birds at first. Then, the woman who was the cash register came out with a couple of loafs of Italian bread and began to break them up in large chunks and toss them into the yard. After a few minutes, the grackles began to arrive, then a few House Sparrows, and then, on the fence and in a small tree I spotted one a grackle without a tail, much more purplish than the other birds, without a yellow eye: SHINY COWBIRD. Soon there were a couple of males and a few much drabber females, picking at the bread with the grackles. The dove landed on the fence but didn't seem to want to get involved in the scrum below. Then we began to see on the fence and on the ground the Yellow-shouldered Blackbirds.

Yellow-shouldered Blackbirds, Shiny Cowbirds, Greater Antillean Grackles & House Sparrow

I didn't say anything to the owner about feeding white bread to birds. He's been doing it for thirty years, he isn't going to stop because I tell him it isn't good for them. But the irony of the situation struck me. The Yellow-shouldered Blackbird is not only rare on Puerto Rico, it is endangered. It's distribution is extremely limited on the island--the great majority of the birds can only be found on the  southwest coast. (There is a sub-species on a couple of small islands off the coast.) There are perhaps 2500 birds. And here is this endangered species that the owner is unwittingly helping to keep extant by feeding it hunks of bread. And it probably isn't hurting them. The little research I've done says that they are omnivorous, eating everything from arthropods to monkey chow! It reminds me of the Brown Jays in Texas--which is not endangered, only rare--that would come to a backyard near the Rio Grande where the owners spread peanut butter on the trees and threw out hot dogs on the ground.

We watched for about a half hour, took the address so Shari could send him some photos. He didn't act as though many birders came to his yard and didn't seem to think the blackbirds were anything special. It's all what you're used to.

Dry Forest 12/13: Puerto Rican Bullfinch

I was determined that we'd go to the dry forest early enough to find some birds. On Thursday we got up to the headquarters a little before nine, not ideal, but still early enough, I thought, to find some birds moving around before it got too hot. We started out on the trail we'd been walking and found nothing. Cutting our losses we went back to the parking lot. The attendant at the sign-in booth suggested we take the Ballena Trail to find birds.

View from Ballenas Trail
Photos: Shari Zirlin

This trail goes south down the side of the mountain, to PR 333 near a point in Bahia Ballena. It wasn't too steep, the trail was fairly wide, allowing you to back up to find a bird in the trees, and there was a decent amount of shade. As we started walking down the trail we heard birds couldn't find them. Fortuanately, by this time we recognized some calls: Gray Kingbird, Bananaquit, Puerto Rican Tody.

We weren't far along the trail when we saw a black bird fly across from one stand of trees into another. I knew, just knew, it was a good one, and when Shari said that she'd seen red on it, I was even more certain. She found it in the back of a tree a little higher than eye level. Fortunately, it moved slightly when I started looking and went into a patch of sunlight. I saw the red on its head and throat and the huge beak and it was what I thought the moment I saw it fly--a Puerto Rican Bullfinch.

It is a 2 km trail but seemed longer. The bay was in sight but we never seemed to be close to reaching it. Once we got down to a flat area and still didn't see the road ahead we decided to turn around. It was a very good walk for endemic species. In addition to the bullfinch, we also had Puerto Rican Woodpecker, Puerto Rican Flycatcher, Puerto Rican Tody and Adelaide's Warbler.

Walking back up the trail I spotted a bird on the ground. (Interestingly, aside from ground doves, you don't see many birds on the ground in Puerto Rico.) It was an American Kestrel and Shari refound it after it flew up into the trees.

Gilligan's Island 12/13--A 3 Hour Tour

Shari Aboard The Minnow

About a mile off shore from the hotel's beach is a mangrove island, Cayo Aurora, nick-named "Gilligan's Island," supposedly for its resemblance. Round trip is $7 for the 10 minute ride out to the island which has no facilities other than rudimentary banos. We left at 2. The ferry runs every hour so we told the captain we'd come back on the 4 o'clock ferry. "No 4 o'clock ferry. 5 o'clock." So it was a 3 hour tour.

Cayo Aurora

Photo: Shari Zirlin

The waters around the island are crystalline in comparison to, we now realized, the rather murky waters washing up on our beach. They are excellent waters for snorkeling. Shari packed her new snorkeling equipment, and while I looked on, she showed me how to snorkle. (And what a great onomatopoetic word that is!)

There was a surprising mix of birds on this little island: Royal and Sandwich Terns roosting on the buoys, pelicans and vultures overhead, a Yellow Warbler in the mangrove trees and even a Green Heron skulking about. 

Ruddy Turnstones
Photo: Shari Zirlin

But it was these guys that cracked us up. Scampering all over the island was a flock of Ruddy Turnstones, acting more like pigeons than peeps. If they saw you had food they came right up to you, begging. They dashed for any crumbs on the ground, pursued by the rest of the flock. They also scratched in the leaf litter like sparrows. They did everything but poke in the sand looking for the small crustaceans, sand fleas and worms that form their diet everywhere else. When we went onto the dock to await the returning ferry, they followed us on to it in a last hope of cadging some food. I don't usually feed the wildlife, but I'd never seen a turnstone eat a peanut before. So we've got blackbirds eating Italian bread and turnstones eating salted peanuts. What a place!

Photo: Shari Zirlin

I guess this is a relatively young iguana, it being green and comparatively small. They at least were shy and avoided people by rushing into the safety of the mangrove trees. 

Promptly at 5 o'clock the ferry returned and that was that ended the last of our Puerto Rican adventures, except for the drive to the airport the next day. 

I couldn't resist putting this in. 

Copamarina 12/14: One Last Look Around

I got up early on Friday to take a look around the grounds. My first stop was behind the tennis courts where I knew a small band of Killdeer had been hanging out and they still were. I saw a couple of Glossy Ibises fly overhead into the pond across the road. Pelicans and Royal Terns in the bay, as at the start of the vacation.

After breakfast and checking out, Shari suggested we take a last look at the pond. We could see that in the last week the waters had somewhat receded, but it would be a long time before anyone could use the path. The usual birds were on the pond. On the post that used to mark the end of parking area Shari photographed a Black-bellied Plover.

The drive back to the airport took 3 hours. Along the 100 mile route we counted 44 broken down vehicles of all sorts--cars, vans, trucks, tractor-trailers--either on the side of the road, or, in the case of the 40 minute traffic jam outside Caguas, a truck right smack dab in the middle lane. Happy we were to find the Hertz parking lot and give them back their car.

Barnegat Light SP 12/4

I've been itching to go to Barnegat Light for a couple of weeks now--Harlequin Ducks! Purple Sandpipers!--but I'm not crazy about rock skipping along a jetty in freezing temperatures with a cold wind in my face. But today, today I wasn't going to get a much better day in the winter to go--warm, windless and sunny (to start). So I went.

Long Beach Island took a hard hit from Sandy, and all along the 8 mile drive north from Rt 72 along the island's main street debris was piled on the curbs--mattresses, cabinets, doors, twisted metal, sodden sheetrock--and I the once grassy median was covered in sand brought in from the beach. The state park survived all right except for one section. What surprised me was the jetty. Apparently, a lot of sand was carried to the beach behind the jetty, because it appears to be much lower than it was and you can easily see inlet walking on the sand beside the jetty. There was also a small inlet cut from the jetty through the beach to marsh a few hundred yards inland.  I suspect this will fill in naturally. It was high tide while I was there and the pools behind the jetty were much wider, and deep than I've ever seen them, possible as a result of the new configuration of the beach. Usually, I walk to the end of the jetty, hop off when I get to the ocean and walk back on the sand. Had I tried that today, I would have needed hip waders. So, while the park superficially didn't look much different, a lot of little things added up to making it feel different.

My two goals when I go to Barnegat Light are the two species mentioned above. Once I see them, everything else is gravy. Naturally both species were far along on the jetty, making my walk just about as long as possible. Usually, I don't take pictures, but this time, the birds were very cooperative:

Harlequin Ducks

Purple Sandpipers

The birds must be inured to humans, because they didn't flinch when anyone walked by them. These Ruddy Turnstones paid me no heed at all.

Ruddy Turnstones

Across the inlet the jetty on the Island Beach side was full of gulls and shorebirds. I was fairly confident they were Dunlins but they were so far away I wasn't going to list them. Then, after I had jumped off the jetty in one of the few semi-dry spots and was back toward the ocean, a huge flock of sandpipers swirled around the end of the jetty and came to roost on its beach side. There were some RUTU and PUSA in the flock, but most of them were indeed Dunlins, a rather drab bird in its winter plumage.

Dunlins

You can see that the jetty looks more like an island in the water than a beach protector.

At the ocean I scanned for ducks and came up with Common Eiders one Long-tailed Duck and Horned Grebes. But the sunny, warm day was quickly changing to foggy, cool one and the mist on the water made it increasingly difficult to pick out anything unless it was practically swimming at your feet, so I made the long walk back, scouted the parking lot a bit, and drove back. Itch scratched.

List:
25 species
Brant  16
Common Eider  20
Harlequin Duck  12   
Long-tailed Duck  1
Common Merganser  1    Inlet
Red-throated Loon  3
Common Loon  6
Horned Grebe  5
Northern Gannet  1
Double-crested Cormorant  7
American Oystercatcher  6
Ruddy Turnstone  21    
Sanderling  3
Purple Sandpiper  19    
Dunlin  500    <
Bonaparte's Gull  2
Ring-billed Gull  2
Herring Gull  75
Great Black-backed Gull  25
American Crow  6
Red-breasted Nuthatch  1    Parking lot
European Starling  30    Parking lot
Song Sparrow  1    Parking lot
Northern Cardinal  2    Parking lot
House Sparrow  3 Parking lot

November Birding in the Wake of Sandy

November just wasn't a very interesting birding month. So much was and is still closed. So much habitat destroyed. We got out and about, trying new places, or else places we don't go to much, but generally, we found little of interest. Frustrating because there is a finch irruption--both kinds of crossbills and Evening Grosbeaks are being reported all over the state. We didn't run into any of them.

Right after the storm we did see the Rufous/Allen's Hummingbird in Shawn Wainwright's backyard. Consensus is that it was probably a rufous, but without the bird in hand to look at the tail feathers, we'll never know for certain.

Our trip to Cape May produced the White-winged Dove, a real rarity in NJ. We finally found an American Tree Sparrow at Whitesbog (a place I'm coming to appreciate more and more--was there today for the 4th time less than a month). And on Staten Island we were able to see Cave Swallows, which I thought was a life bird for me until I checked and found that I've seen them in Puerto Rico. But the excitement of the seeing the Cave Swallows was dampened by seeing the bluffs of Great Kills Park washed away, meaning the habitat for Bank Swallows next year is gone.

And that was about it for November. Admittedly, as the year goes on, it gets harder and harder to add year birds, but even granting that, I felt like our enthusiasm for birding last month was somehow diminished in the aftermath of the storm.