Four Statebirds in Louisiana, Reportable Plus 15, September, 2014

The old ABA state reporting thresholds were calculated as half the total number of species ever recorded in that state.  Those thresholds would slowly inch up over time as new birds were added to statelists.  At least the thresholds used to increase, since the ABA no longer publishes these thresholds.  As a result, to stay comfortably over what would be newly calculated thresholds, I’ve revised my statelisting goals to be at least 15 over the old thresholds.  In other words, as long as less than 30 new birds are added to a given state’s list, my “Reportable Plus 15” goal would keep me above newly calculated thresholds. 

My LA statelist has been over the old ABA reporting threshold for some time, but was only 11 birds over the old threshold.  That meant I needed 4 more to reach my Reportable Plus 15 goal.  My biggest opportunities for new statebirds in LA are migrant passerines and freshwater shorebirds, so a short trip in spring or fall migration could be pretty fruitful.  I had been thinking about a migrant trip in LA for some time, but had never gotten around to it.  Then with a business trip to Houston coming up in September, I decided to add a vacation day and do some birding in southwestern LA, one of my favorite birding areas, in hopes of finally getting some nice migrants.  I contacted my LA birding friend Marty Guidry who knows that part of the state like the back of his hand, and he came up with an itinerary to hit a number of passerine and shorebird hotspots.  Better than that, Marty was available to join me and show me around.

The day was forecasted to be hot and humid, so I was mentally prepared for the 75 degree dewpoint when I stepped out of my hotel room pre-dawn that morning.  What I wasn’t prepared for was the horde of biting insects at our first stop at Sabine NWR.  Although the DEET kept the mosquitoes from biting it had no effect on the deer flies.  We had hoped for Black-bellied Whistling Ducks at this dawn stop, but after just a few minutes we decided to head to our next spot and hopefully less bugs. 

Next we headed to the coast to check out a recent report of two of my targets, Barn Owl and Chuck-will’s-widow, in a patch of woods.  But the directions were not very specific, so we checked out a couple spots before stopping at a homestead surrounded by live oaks.  As we pulled up we flushed a large owl, which got us excited initially, but just turned out to be a Great Horned.  A few seconds later I noticed some movement in the trees and found a female Wilson’s Warbler – statebird #1.  Our first migrant passerine was a new statebird.  If only it continued to be that easy the rest of the day.

In my statebird map for Wilson’s Warbler I’ve seen it throughout the west, but in far fewer states in the east and especially in the southeast where it is less common.

Next stop was Peveto Woods which is well known as a migrant hotspot.  As we got out of the car we were instantly attacked by a swarm of deer flies.  Then the mosquitoes found us.  We could have probably coped with all the biting flies if we were seeing a good number of birds, but instead the woods were dead.  We had exactly 2 migrants – a Redstart and a Magnolia Warbler.  Although we might have found something else if we decided to stay longer, once again the flies caused us to retreat to the car after a short stop.

Our next several stops were along the coast at the southwest corner of the state to try for migrant shorebirds and maybe some passerines.  However, we were not successful on either accord.  The highlight though was an aerial display of a Caracara and Peregrine Falcon chasing each other low over the trees. 

It was almost lunch time and my new statebird total was stuck at a disappointing 1.  After a quick burger, we headed to East Jetty Beach in Cameron to try for Snowy Plover.  There were quite a number of shorebirds, terns, gulls and pelicans on the beach to scan through.  Eventually I found 1 very distant very pale plover that Marty and I both felt was a Snowy.  Statebird #2.  I’ve now seen Snowy Plover in most of its regular coastal states (just missing it in MS), and also in 6 states where it is an inland nester.

 

Marty then took me to several more islands of woods where he’s had good number of passerine migrants in the past.  But we kept striking out on the migrants.  At least the flies weren’t a problem anymore.  At one spot we were walking through the woods a short distance apart and I heard an odd sound of something flying overhead towards where Marty was.  I didn’t see it through the tree canopy, but it sort of sounded like muffled bird’s wings.  A few seconds later Marty yelled over that he just had a Barn Owl fly in, and then fly back my way.  Again I didn’t see the bird – ugh – missed it a second time.  But soon we heard several Blue Jays calling loudly nearby.  Thinking that maybe they were attacking the owl, we tracked down the Jays and sure enough there was the Barn Owl.  Statebird #3.  My statebird map for Barn Owl is really spotty – I’ve mostly only found this species when a local birder knows of a stakeout location.

Our last stop was back at the Wetland Walkway at Sabine NWR, where the flies had been so bad at dawn.  This time they were bearable, and we made a quick loop around the walkway.  As we neared the wooden observation platform I noticed a flycatcher fly up to the railing – a male Vermilion Flycatcher!  A very nice bird, and certainly the rarest thing we saw all day, but I didn’t need it for LA.  We scanned the open water for whistling ducks but with no success.  As we continued around the loop I tried playing some tape for Virginia Rail, another of my targets, whenever we got near patches of cattails.  Several times I got responses from King Rails giving their slow and low pitched grunt calls.  And then finally I heard two responses that were faster and higher – Virginia Rails.  Statebird #4.  I’ve had this common marsh bird in most states, but still have some gaps to fill in the eastern US.

With 4 new statebirds that gives me 251 in LA and puts me 15 over the old ABA threshold for LA – Reportable Plus 15!  LA is my 32^nd state with at least 15 over threshold, and have 13 more that are at least at the threshold though not 15 over.  With a little research I found that the LA statelist as of March 2014was 479.  That would yield a threshold of 239.5, up from 236 in the last ABA report in 2010.  That means I’m 11 ½ over what would be the present threshold.  So I’m safe until there are 23 new birds added to the LA statelist.