What a Weekend (2)

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Stewart Road was fairly quiet for birds except for innumerable Great-tailed Grackles, many Loggerhead Shrikes and a few Cattle Egrets. The pond at Settegast Road was empty apart from a Northern Shoveler, but another pond a little further west had a Double-crested Cormorant and a Yellow-crowned Night Heron.

Double-crested Cormorant

Yellow-crowned Night Heron

Arriving at Lafitte's Cover, we were encouraged by finding the right-hand pond busy with shorebirds: Killdeer, Dunlins, and Stilt, Pectoral and Least Sandpipers.

Least Sandpiper

Stilt Sandpiper

Dunlin

The larger pond on the left was even busier and the birds here included Blue-winged Teals, Short-billed Dowitchers and several Wilson's Phalaropes.

Short-billed Dowitcher

Wilson's Phalarope

I was so busy watching the beautiful Phalaropes that I almost missed a Mottled Duck with nine ducklings on the opposite bank.

We asked a birder leaving the cove how the birding was and she told us it had been poor but that migrants had just started arriving in numbers. So was I right to have predicted a fall-out?

I was! We spent the next hour being overwhelmed with bird sightings.

Male and female American Redstarts were everywhere.

Female Redstart

The trees had Magnolia, Prothonotary, Black-throated Green, and Bay-breasted Warblers.

Bay-breasted Warbler

Tennessee Warbler

Prothonotary Warbler

There were Yellow-throated Vireos, and female Indigo and Painted Buntings, too.

Yellow-throated Vireo

The small spring produced particularly exciting viewing by drawing in a succession of birds.

A Black-and-White Warbler bathed and then perched on a nearby branch to preen.




The highlight for me came near the end of our visit, when a Canada Warbler flew in to enjoy the water. This just has to be one of the prettiest of all the warblers.




Tomorrow
Different birds at Lafitte's Cove and then on to Bolivar.
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