Of course my first step was to set up a
Needs Alert, focusing my attention not only on Baton Rouge and New Orleans but
also on the north side of Lake Ponchartrain.
Several apparently reliable rarities stood out like 2 Western and 1
Couch’s Kingbirds at Fontainebleau State Park, and several Ash-throated
Flycatchers and older sightings of a Brown-crested Flycatcher at Bayou Sauvage
NWR. There were also numerous reports of
Purple Finches and Woodcocks throughout the area, though I couldn’t find what
seemed to be reliable sites for these targets.
And then there were the ever-present, but difficult to spot, Brown
Boobies at the Lake Ponchartrain causeway.
On the waterfowl front, I needed Redhead and Common Goldeneye, but the
few sightings in the area were now pretty old.
Then there are the hummingbirds. LA is well-known for its nice collection of
western hummingbirds that winter at feeding stations. Although I already had 6 hummingbird species
on my LA state list, the eBird report included 2 more that I needed – Calliope
at 4 locations, and 1 banded Allen’s.
Another good resource for information on LA’s wintering hummingbirds is
HUMNET which provides a detailed compilation of species by parish. Although these sources provided general
locations for the birds, I still needed specific addresses, and most
importantly invitations from the homeowners to be able to bird at these
feeders. I reached out to Erik Johnson
who compiles HUMNET to see if he could assist in my searches. Erik was able to get me access to 3 of the
feeders with Calliopes, and connected me with the birder that had the
Allen’s. Unfortunately I found out that
the Allen’s had moved on, so that one was off my target list. Erik also gave me tips for a site for
Redheads, and a spot for both Woodcocks and Henslow’s Sparrows. The Henslow’s hadn’t even been on my radar screen
so that was a nice additional target.
But the observations Erik mentioned were from Christmas Counts, so they
were now getting quite old.
Next I reached out to my LA birding friend
Marty Guidry. Although he couldn’t bird
with me on this trip, he had tips for a couple spots around Baton Rouge,
including a feeding station with both Calliope Hummingbird and Purple
Finch. And if I struck out on the Finch
there, Marty had them at his feeder.
Marty also checked on an older Goldeneye sighting in the area, and
confirmed that that bird had moved on, saving me time to do a search for the
bird.
Chasing after these targets efficiently
would be important on this trip, because as usual I had limited time and lots
of potential birds to chase after. I
would be free a couple hours before work and after work on the first day of the
trip. And given how many targets I had,
I decided to take the afternoon off on the second day. My plan was to bird near Baton Rouge in the
morning of Day 1 to try for the Calliope, Purple Finch and Redheads. Then late in the day near Covington I would
try for Woodcock, Henslow’s and Redheads again (if necessary). Then in the afternoon of Day 2 I would try
for the 4 flycatcher rarities at Fountainbleau SP and Bayou Sauvage NWR. And depending on my earlier luck with
Calliope I could either end the day with another Calliope try, or take a trip
on the causeway for the Boobies. That
itinerary would give me 10 targets to try for.
But there was one additional concern to be
aware of – mid-February in LA isn’t exactly very winter-like. For instance with 80 degree temperatures the
week before I arrived, I had heard that the Purple Finches were now more likely
to be feeding on tree buds rather than at feeders. And the most recent flycatcher posts were all
now at least 2 weeks old. Plus of course
Christmas Count reports were 45 days old.
So I worried that many of the “wintering” targets might have already
started to head north (or west!). So I
tempered my enthusiasm and hoped for maybe 4 or 5 new statebirds for the trip.
Day 1 – Early AM
At dawn I was pulling into Donna Dittmann’s
and Steve Cardiff’s property outside Baton Rouge. Marty had told me that they had purchased the
property years ago and had been managing it to for wildlife, and of course for birds,
ever since. Donna took me on a quick
tour which featured dozens of hummingbird feeders scattered throughout their
amazing “yard”. She described how each
hummingbird has a wintering territory, and pointed out which feeder was
preferred by each of their hummingbirds.
Along the way we spotted a female Ruby-throat, a male Black-chinned, a
couple Rufous, and the first of 3 Buff-bellieds. Then we got to the preferred feeders of their
female Calliope and soon heard the chip notes that Donna recognized as the
Calliope. A few second later there was
the target hummingbird, looking downright tiny compared to the other species
(LA statebird #1). Not only was it nice
to check that one off, but it also meant I would not have to spend time looking
for it at other feeders the next day. LA
is my fifth state for Calliope outside its normal breeding and migration
ranges.
We then headed back to the house to try for
the Purple Finches. Although they had
been seen at the seed feeders the day before, they were becoming less regular
as spring approached. As I stood out on
the deck the feeders had a pretty constant stream of visitors, including
Cowbirds, Cardinals, House Finches, White-throated Sparrows, and a lone
Red-breasted Nuthatch. But no Purple
Finches, nor Goldfinches with which they were frequently associating. Then I heard a short warbling song coming
from high above me in the trees overhead – a singing Purple Finch (LA statebird
#2). I heard it sing 2 more times, then
the bird gave several of its “pik” notes, though I never saw it. Good thing I know its song and call. I just need this species in a couple more
southeastern states in its wintering range.
I waited a bit longer to try to get a
visual on the Finch but with no luck. So
with enough time for one more brief stop before work I thanked Donna and Steve
and was back on the road. The next stop
was a speculative one for Redhead – the Denham Springs wastewater treatment
plant where one lone report 3 weeks earlier featured 20 Redheads. But a quick look from the road yielded only a
small flock of Shovelers. Unfortunately
there was no access to the much more reliable spot for Redheads in the area -
nearby LSU Aquaculture Research Station (which also featured an Ash-throated
Flycatcher). So striking out here left
me with just 1 more iffy spot for Redheads I would try to visit that evening.
Day 1 - Evening
I got out of work right on time and soon was
on my way east to the Lake Ramsay WMA.
After Erik’s tip for Henslow’s Sparrows there, I did some eBird research
and found quite a number of posts with up to 21 Henslow’s reported, though there
were no reports in the last 2 weeks. I
had pretty specific directions to search in one area of wet savannah, and even
more specific suggestions to especially bird areas with scattered small brush
rather than just open grasslands. But it
would be difficult to find these secretive birds on my own. That is if they were still there in the first
place.
With duck boots on I was ready to walk
through the wet grasslands. But on the
first 100 yards of my walk the ground was actually pretty dry, so I wondered if
the area was still wet enough to attract the Henslow’s. Though calling Brown-headed Nuthatches were a
nice consolation. Then I finally reached
some wetter areas, including remains of last year’s pitcher plants among the
grasses. But I was still in open savannah,
so I headed to an area with some scattered bushes as recommended. And as soon as I got to that patch I flushed
a large dark sparrow. It landed in the
bush and just sat there – a most cooperative Henslow’s Sparrow (LA statebird
#3). I don’t know which was more
beautiful – the greenish color to the face or the rusty patterned back and
scapulars. I can’t remember having
better views of a Henslow’s. My statebird map for Henslow’s is pretty spotty for this
bird, where LA is only my third state in its wintering range (hmm – I need it
in TX in winter…).
Later I would flush a second Henslow’s
though this one wasn’t nearly as cooperative.
The next target here was Woodcock that Erik had as a flyby at dawn on
the Christmas Count. I figured a flyby
at dusk was just as likely. And now that
it was later in the year perhaps they could be calling, assuming they all
hadn’t headed north by now. But it was
still more than an hour before sunset, so I had some time to kill. I then though about the spot Erik had
mentioned where Redheads had been reported on a Christmas Count – a small
man-made lake along Ochsner Blvd in Covington.
It was about 20 minutes away so I had just enough time for a short stop there
before heading back to try for the Woodcocks at dusk. But with no Redhead eBird reports from this
spot at all, I wasn’t very optimistic.
I arrived at the lake on Ochsner Blvd and
unfortunately found that it was fenced off.
As a result I could only find one limited viewing spot looking through
the fence, and worse yet I was looking right into the setting sun. I set up the scope and scanned the small
portion of the lake without the sun glare, and only found a couple Pied-billed
Grebes. This was turning out to be a
waste of time and I started to wonder why I didn’t just continue to bird the
Lake Ramsey area. Then I noticed some
waterfowl in the sun glare. I did my
best to look at them in the scope and thought I was seeing red color on the
heads of some of the birds, but couldn’t be sure. Then a few birds swam to the left out of the
brightest sun and they were indeed Redheads.
I eventually counted an amazing 46 birds (LA statebird #4). Boy was I lucky – if they had stayed in the
part of the lake in the sun glare I wouldn’t have noticed them. I only need Redhead in 3 more states to
completely fill in my statebird map for this species.
I made my way back to Lake Ramsay WMA and
stayed till dark but had no luck either seeing or hearing Woodcocks. On a whim I even tried some tape for
Whip-poor-will and Chuck-will’s-widow while waiting in what seemed like good
habitat for these wintering and/or migrant birds, but to no avail. Though I did have numerous Sedge Wrens that
serenaded me during my wait.
Day 2 – Afternoon
My first stop after work was the
Fontainebleau SP where 2 Western Kingbirds and 1 Couch’s Kingbird had spent
much of the winter. After poring through
all the eBird reports I was able to piece together some pretty specific
information on their locations – most often seen near the group cabins and
sometimes at the nearby individual cabins.
And although all 3 birds were often seen together, the Westerns seemed
to be the easiest ones to find. One last
important tip was that they often responded to playback. So although I was optimistic, the last report
(positive or negative) was 2 weeks earlier.
In fact, recent posts on the listserve from the park focused on King Rails
and not Kingbirds.
After arriving at the park I drove right to
the cabins, and first took a slow walk around the entire area where the
Kingbirds had been reported. I decided
to not play any tape at first, hoping to find them without playback. It was a pretty birdy area with many
Yellow-rumps flitting about, and I found a perched Shrike and a couple perched Mockingbirds,
but no Kingbirds. With no success on my first
loop through the area I started to play tape – both of Couch’s and
Western. I had passed through almost all
the area again but still had no luck.
Then at the edge of a clearing I spotted a larger bird fly up from the
ground to perch in a tree what showed quite a bit of yellow. My first thought was it was a Flicker
“anting”, but when I put it in the binocs I realized it was one of the Kingbirds. But which one? It cooperatively perched nearby and showed a
yellow (not gray) chest. With a bit more
time I could see the tail was rusty brown and not black, and lacked white outer
tail feathers. It was the Couch’s
Kingbird .
Or was it?
Once I started to hear it call it didn’t sound anything like the taped
calls I had been playing. In fact the
calls were more like a Western than a Couch’s.
Then I heard it sing and the song was nothing like the tape. Then I looked down at my BirdTunes app and
realized all along I had been playing Cassin’s Kingbird calls instead of
Couch’s Kingbird. When I started playing
the calls of the correct Kingbird species the bird came right in to
investigate. And the song was a perfect
match. So I could finally count it as a
Couch’s Kingbird and LA statebird #5 – only my second state for this species in
addition to TX.
The bird was most cooperative, in view or
calling for most of the rest of my 3 hour visit to the site. I got this picture holding my phone up to my
binocs.
Now I needed to find what had been the more
reliable Western Kingbirds. But despite
2 more hours of walking through the area, and playing the correct Kingbird
calls, I never found them. Although I
wanted to stay longer, I still needed to bird Bayou Sauvage, so I headed out of
the park assuming that the Westerns had moved on. As I drove away I was disappointed to have
missed the Westerns, but I was happy to have found the rarer of the 2
species. [As I write this post, since my
visit there the Couch’s has been reported again on eBird but not the Westerns,
so likely the latter have indeed left their wintering site.]
The key target birds at Bayou Sauvage NWR were
up to 3 Ash-throated Flycatchers that had been seen in the area since November. There had also been a Brown-crested
Flycatcher at the refuge, also with sightings going back to November, but the
last sighting of this bird was 45 days ago.
Then again, a more recent eBird post suggested that the observer may well
have seen the Brown-crested associating with an Ash-throated. In any case it was an additional bird to
watch for.
The next step was to figure out the
locations of the past sightings of these birds.
One might think that with all the many posts on eBird it would be easy
to figure out microdirections for the locations of these birds. But most sightings had few if any details as
to location (remember eBird asks for ID details on rarities and not info on the
locations of these birds). In fact, many
of the posts were associated with the general hotspot for the entire Bayou
Sauvage NWR, which covers a very large area.
And some mentioned locations that might be obvious if you had birded the
area before, but not specific enough to birders who were new to this spot
(e.g., “across from the hog trap”). I
finally figured out that most sightings were along Recovery Road, but then couldn’t
find this road on GoogleMaps. Luckily it
was shown on the pdf map of the refuge that I found online, so that was a
start. And several mentioned the southwest
corner of the landfill, and some mentioned south of the railroad tracks. These features also showed up on the refuge
map – the tracks were about ½ mile south of US 90, and the landfill was another
½ mile south, all along Recovery Road. I
finally felt like I knew where to go.
After a drive around the eastern side of
Lake Ponchartrain I arrived at the Bayou Sauvage NWR and parked at the north
end of Recovery Road. This turned out to
be quite a “seedy” spot, with a number of present and former industrial
activities in the area. In fact,
Recovery Road was a gated road with trash dumped on both sides. And now my research was starting to make
sense – what used to be Recovery Road dead-ended at what was likely a former
industrial landfill built in the middle of a large wetlands. Certainly not a spot anyone would want to
live, but the kind of area that frequently provides some good birding
habitat. (We’ve all birded at spots like
these…)
I started my walk south along Recovery Road
and started to get my bearings. A canal
ran along the west side of the road, likely the source of soil used to build up
the land to make the road itself. And in
between the road and canal was a line of low trees and brush. Most of the rest of the area was marsh and
other wetlands. The “woodlands” north of
the railroad tracks was full of Yellow-rumps, and although I wanted to stop to
check them out, all the flycatcher sightings had apparently been south of the
tracks, so I kept going. After waiting
for a train to pass by, I crossed the tracks and started to bird the brushy
habitat. Again I ran into flocks of
Yellow-rumps, and soon started to find a number of Phoebes, but couldn’t turn
any of them into a Myiarchus of any
species.
I continued walking slowly south, birding
along the way, and soon reached what looked to be the landfill to the
east. (I also found the hog trap
nearby.) Although the road continued
farther south, all the sightings seemed to be no farther south than the
landfill, so I turned around here and slowly starting walking back to the
north. At this point I heard a series of
single notes off to the east toward the landfill that I couldn’t place - sort
of sounded like “preep”. Although I
wanted to turn it into one of my targets, they didn’t really match calls of
either the Ash-throated or the Brown-crested.
In any case the bird soon stopped calling, so I continued my walk
north. Now I was playing tape of both
species, but got no responses. By the
time I reached the tracks I had seen several Phoebes, but nothing new.
I made this round-trip circuit 2 more times
but still found none of my targets. Though
one more time I heard the “preep” calls coming from the landfill in the
distance. And after 2 hours of trying, I
was starting to wonder if these birds had moved on, just like the Western
Kingbirds at my earlier stop. Afterall the
most recent Ash-throated report was now 11 days old, so maybe I was too
late.
I was now on Recovery Road near the
southwest corner of the landfill, and was about to give up. But then on a whim I thought about trying at
the actual southwest corner of the landfill, not on the road near that
spot. The landfill was only 50 yards to
the east, but it was worth the try. I walked
up the berm to the edge of the landfill and played Ash-throated calls. Instantly I started to hear the same “preep”
calls I heard earlier. And just then a
flycatcher flew in – it was a Myiarchus. My first gut feel was that it was a big bird
– too big to be the diminutive Ash-throated.
And then the bill seemed too big.
I started to play Brown-crested calls and the bird became very
agitated. It continued to call, and
although these calls weren’t a perfect match, they were certainly closer to
Brown-crested than Ash-throated. The
bird occasionally came out into the open, and I tried to get phonescoped
pictures of the bird, but with limited success.
At one point when the bird out of view I quickly checked my photos on my
phone and looked at this photo that I initially thought was miserably out of
focus.
But then with a closer look I realized that
I had gotten a good photograph of the underside of the tail – the tip is rufous
red with only dark corners. That confirms
the ID as a Brown-crested. I also was able to get this "video" of the bird calling.
That was my 6th
LA statebird of the trip; LA is my 5th state for this typically
southwestern species.
The bird then flew to the trees along the
road, and slowly made its way north, calling almost non-stop. After 15 minutes with the bird, I parted ways
and started my walk back to the car. I
looked back and could hear the bird still calling in the distance – the same
sounds I heard earlier from the landfill.
I smiled as I realized that I had actually been hearing this bird all
along. And just then I noticed a small
Dove fly from the landfill over the road and out of site to the west. It had red wing-linings making it a Ground or
Inca Dove, and given the short tail, it had to be a Ground Dove. Although I didn’t think much of it at first,
I realized that I might need this one for LA.
Sure enough it was new for my LA statelist, my 7th of the
trip, though not even on my radar screen as a possible target. After the fact I checked eBird and noticed that
there had been a few Ground Doves reported from the landfill area – one I had
overlooked in my research. LA is my 9th
state for this species, and although a rare bird in LA, not nearly as rare as
the one I recently saw in MA.
As I continued back north up Recovery Road
toward my car I realized that, like my experience with the Kingbirds earlier, I
had found the rarer of the two targets, but not the comparatively more common
species. A disappointment, but still nice
to get the rarer one. I was now nearing
the railroad tracks and spotted a flycatcher up ahead perched near the
road. I initially took a cavalier attitude
toward it, and assumed it was one of the many Phoebes I had spotted in that
area. But I put my binoculars on it and
it was an Ash-throated Flycatcher (LA statebird #8). I had been in this area several times over the
last 3 hours without spotting it - wonder where it had been. LA is a nice addition to my statebird map for
this species, which includes 5 New England states where I’ve also seen it as a
rarity.
Ash-throated was my 7th
flycatcher species I had seen in 2 trips to LA this winter – Eastern Phoebe, Say’s
Phoebe, Scissor-tailed, Vermillion, Couch’s Kingbird, Brown-crested, and
Ash-throated. That’s quite a nice
collection of rarities more typically seen in the southwest. And also a nice way to end my stop at Bayou
Sauvage. To think just 30 minutes
earlier I was ready to leave the area without any of my targets.
With a little time to spare, and having
checked off the Calliope Hummingbird the day before, I decided to make a try
for the Brown Boobies on the Lake Ponchartrain causeway. Booby sightings along the causeway go back to
2015, with up to 35 reported on eBird. That
all makes it sound like they would be easy to find. But - these birds roost under the
bridge, and principally only under one short stretch of the bridge. So when looking for them by car, you have to
hope that one or more happens to be flying by along the bridge close enough to
ID while you’re driving by at 60+ mph. And
by the way, there is no stopping on the bridge either. As a result, not surprisingly the 35 birds
were reported from a boat. I made 3 unsuccessful
round-trip attempts for the Boobies last year, so I knew the drill. Alas this one was no different. Best I could find was a few Pelicans, Gulls,
and Terns. It’s frustrating to think
that the Boobies are likely no more than 20 feet below you but invisible as you
pass by overhead. At least the toll is
only $3.
Despite the Booby frustration I was very
happy to have added 8 new birds to my LA statelist, 5 of which were rarities
requiring documentation in eBird. That
brings my LA statelist to 270 – a nice respectable total for a northeasterner.
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