Texas April 2017

Sunday 9th April - Wednesday 19th April 2017

The Upper Texas Coast has long been hallowed ground for observing spring migration and is arguably one of the best birding locations in the United States. The coastal woods, marshes, lagoons and beaches provide essential refuge for trans-gulf migrants, many of which leave the tropical forests of Central America to make landfall on the Upper Texas coast. Most of the focus will be on songbirds with sought-after gems like Golden-winged and Cerulean Warblers, and Painted Bunting high on the ‘wish list’ for many. In addition, the rice fields and wetlands play host to scarce shorebirds such as Buff-breasted and Baird’s Sandpipers, and Hudsonian Godwit among many others. Moreover, the marshes support an impressive selection of rails with all six of North America’s regularly occurring species possible on this tour - including the near-mythical Black Rail. North of the coast, deep inside the ‘Piney Woods’ rare breeders include Swallow-tailed Kite, Red-cockaded Woodpecker, Swainson’s Warbler and Bachman’s Sparrow. We aim to begin the tour in spectacular fashion near Rockport where we search for Whooping Cranes, one of the rarest cranes species in the World.

Our guide for this exciting tour will be Massachusetts based British birder James Smith. Many of you will know James from his tours to Israel and his numerous USA tours around California, Arizona and other places. He is one of the best bird guides around at the moment and we are very pleased he has joined the Zoothera Birding team.

To see the full tour itinerary just click on this link - Texas Migration Tour 2017

The coastal flats, marshes and lagoons of the Upper Texas Coast hold thousands of shorebirds, herons, egrets, gulls and terns. The star bird during the first half of April is the Endangered Whooping Crane. With a population possibly as low as 249 mature individuals this is one of the rarest birds in the world and we have an excellent chance of catching site of one or two from our boat ride into Aransas Bay. 

Whooping Crane - not the best photo but....

Black Skimmer is relatively common

American Bittern - Anahuac

The boardwalk on Mustang Island

King Rail

Le Conte's Sparrow is a tough bird to find in the coastal marshes

Least Tern

Lesser Yellowlegs

Marbled Godwit

Piping Plover

Roseate Spoonbill

Royal Terns

And there's a whole kaleidoscope of stunning passerines to be found in the coastal woodlots around High Island and, in fact, any small bit of cover along the coast....

Blackburnian Warbler

Blue Grosbeak

Blue-headed Vireo

Dickcissel

Grey-cheeked Thrush

Hooded Warbler

Kentucky Warbler

Prothonotary Warbler

Red-cockaded Woodpecker

Rose-breasted Grosbeak

Scissor-tailed Flycatcher 

Veery

Swainson's Warbler

Nikon D500

Having broken my Nikon D7200 camera in China last month i've been considering the options available and had a good long, hard look into returning to my old digiscoping ways. However, having been given the opportunity to use the Nikon D500 I have to say that this is undoubtedly the best camera i've ever used. What a camera this is and probably far too good for my limited capabilities! I'm not going to do a proper review as there are many out there on YouTube and other forums (and i'm definitely not knowledgeable enough) but with just a couple field excursions over the Christmas holidays I am very impressed. 

The sharpness and clarity of some of the images i've taken is incredible and is all down to the camera and not me. The tilting and adjustable LCD screen is a good little gadget, as well as being touch screen. And for the first time i'm shooting in RAW although the post-editing procedure that has always put me off shooting in this format is still something i'm getting to grips with. I have also been using back-button focussing, shooting in Aperture Priority and generally tinkered with the tried and tested settings I have been using over the past 8 years of using Nikon SLR's.

So here's a few images that i'm quite pleased with. But there's still more practice needed before I venture to India in a couple of weeks.

And i've tried just one video so far of these Purple Sandpipers, but the 4K is stunning.

China - Nanhui

Thanks to Virgin Atlantic cancelling our return flight we had the whole day to go birding around the Nanhui area and this turned out to be a very relaxed and enjoyable time for all. We picked up several new trip birds and Derek even found what is probably the first record of Grey-sided Thrush for this area! The small wooded area around the Holiday Inn also held several Pale Thrushes, Northern Red-flanked Bluetail and some Pallas’s Warblers. We then worked our way along the road that borders the seawall and found Intermediate Egret, Eurasian and Black-faced Spoonbills, Red Knot, Richard’s and Buff-bellied Pipits and a few Dusky Thrushes. There were several flocks of Eastern Spot-billed Ducks on the sea, mingling with some more familiar ducks, some Tundra Swans and Tundra Bean Geese. 

And whilst we were scoping these a flock of Common Teals flew in and amazingly we spotted a single male Baikal Teal. After missing it a few usually regular sites earlier in the tour it was a huge bonus to finally catch up with this bird. After a while we discovered another drake and two females in the same flock and we thoroughly enjoyed scoping these little crackers. At one point the whole flock took off and flew around in front of us and it was great fun to pick out the Baikals and watch them in flight, with the obvious vertical pale stripe on the rear of the bird making it a relatively simple task. 

We then spent some time trying to locate the reported Long-billed Dowitcher but the area was vast and in hindsight spent too long criss-crossing these huge wide-open plains and fields. But we did see two Oriental Pratincoles hawking for insects over the fields in the process, as well as a Brown Crake, Black Drongo and Eurasian Hoopoe. Returning to the coast after lunch a flock of 12 Swan Geese was a surprise. But by now it was 2pm and we didn’t pick up too much more apart from a Western Osprey, but everyone was pretty relaxed and we just enjoyed watching whatever was around - it was a thoroughly enjoyable way to end the tour. And that was it, the Fat Lady was singing so we headed back to the hotel (playing some cracking tunes....!) for our final evening meal together. And what a tour we had - many thanks to everyone for playing their part and being such good fun. I can't wait to return in 2018...!

Yours truly birding until the end.....

China: Fuzhou Forest Park

We had a really enjoyable day at Fuzhou Forest Park, adding 14 new species to our trip list in the process. We arrived just after 6am and had a picnic breakfast before walking the trails until lunchtime and this turned out to be quite a productive morning as we began with a fine Rufous-faced Warbler in the first flock of the day, followed by a very surprising and very yellowish Hartert’s Warbler picking its way along a branch in nuthatch-fashion. I didn’t expect this species at all. We came across a few more feeding flocks and saw White-bellied Erpornis very well, Red-billed Leiothrix, Fork-tailed Sunbird, Tristram’s Bunting, and both White’s and Pale Thrushes. A male Silver Pheasant melted away into the undergrowth and as we approached the upper car park a pair of Orange-bellied Leafbirds, a flock of Black-throated Bushtits, and a Fire-breasted Flowerpecker were seen.

During a break over lunch an Oriental Honey Buzzard flew over, and we also saw Red-whiskered Bulbul, Grey-sided Scimitar-Babbler for Derek and a Blue Whistling-Thrush. Then we birded along the hillside trail and despite only having a couple of hours before we needed to leave for the airport and our flight back to Shanghai we notched up a few more goodies. A Slaty-backed Forktail was very pleasing for Trish as well. I was surprised how many Asian Stubtails were along this trail and everyone caught glimpses of at least one of them. Then a flock of Indochinese Yuhinas appeared close by, we had very nice looks at Chestnut Bulbul, Barred Cuckoo-Dove, and a Spotted Elachura was coaxed in for repeated views. With time running out we descended towards the car park but still had time to nail a Grey-backed Thrush before it was time to leave for the airport.

China: Emei Feng - Fuzhou

We drove back up to look for tragopans early this morning but a near gale force wind hampered our search and all we had to show was another brief sighting of a female along the road. Another Elliot’s Pheasant and a Silver Pheasant were seen, along with a couple of White’s Thrushes but the wind was really strong and birding here was practically pointless. So we decided to cut our losses and set out on the four and a half hour drive to Fuzhou earlier than we had originally planned.

Along the way we stopped at a couple of service stations and the second one provided us with a very unexpected bonus. Derek and I were checking out the bushes and bamboo behind the buildings when a flock of parrotbills appeared close by, but not the vinous-throated I was expecting as they had black chins and all rufous heads - Short-tailed Parrotbills. Holy cow!! Yes a flock of Short-tailed Parrotbills! 

Short-tailed Parrotbill by Steven An

A previously unrecorded flock of these rare birds methinks. Just goes to show you can never stop birding! Many thanks to Steven An for letting me use his photos above. After a few frantic minutes gathering everyone up we watched them for quite a while before following a trail across some fields and into the farmland beyond, seeing Black-faced Bunting, Chinese Pond-Heron, Greater Coucal, both White-browed and Masked Laughingthrushes, and a pair of Chinese Hwamei. There was a really odd-looking phylloscopus warbler here that i couldn't quite get to grips with. With several rather odd sightings of summer breeding species so far on this tour I couldn't rule out Kloss's Warbler, but it just didn't feel right and the views were inconclusive.

So a good end to the day and it was only another hour or so to our great hotel in Fuzhou.