Forty Years Ago in the Lower Rio Grande Valley: Day Three


Back in late May of 1983, four members of the Lancaster County Bird Club—Russ Markert, Harold Morrrin, Steve Santner, and your editor—embarked on an energetic trip to find, observe, and photograph birds in the Lower Rio Grande Valley of Texas.  What follows is a daily account of that two-week-long expedition.  Notes logged by Markert some four decades ago are quoted in italics.  The images are scans of 35 mm color slide photographs taken along the way by your editor.


DAY THREE—May 23, 1983

For Russ, Harold, and Steve, this trip would target several bird species each individual had never observed at any prior time in their lives.  Upon seeing a new bird, they could add it to their personal “life list”.  They, like thousands of other “listers”, were dedicated to the goal of having a life list that included over 600 species seen in the American Birding Association (A.B.A.) area—North America north of Mexico.  Harold had traveled throughout much of North America (and the world) and had an A.B.A. life list well in excess of 600 species, thus he had seen nearly all of the regularly occurring birds in the coverage area.  His chance for seeing new species was limited to vagrants that might wander into North America or tropical birds that, over time, had extended their range north of Mexico into the United States.  I don’t recall  how many species Russ and Steve had seen, but I know each had very few opportunities for new finds east of the Rocky Mountains.  For all three of these men, the Lower Rio Grande Valley presented a best bet to add multiple species to their lists.  I had never been south of Cape Hatteras or west of Pennsylvania, so I had the opportunity to add dozens of species to a life list.  Throughout the trip, Russ, Harold, and Steve enthusiastically helped me locate and see new species.  As a result, I saw over 50 new birds to add to my list.

One of the functions of the American Birding Association was to decide which bird species an observer could add to the life list.  The official A.B.A. list was revised regularly to include not only regularly occurring native species, but vagrants as well.  One of the trickier determinations was the status of introduced species.  Back in 1983, a birder could count a Ring-necked Pheasant seen in Pennsylvania on their A.B.A. life list because they were thought to be freely reproducing with a population sustainably established in the state.  Today, they are considered an exotic release and are not countable under A.B.A. rules.

Enter the Black Francolin (Francolinus francolinus), a member of the pheasant family that back in 1983, was countable under A.B.A. rules.  Native to India, the Black Francolin was introduced into southwest Louisiana in 1961 and was apparently reproducing and established.  Russ had a tip that they were seen with some regularity in areas of farmland, marsh, and oil fields south of Vinton, Louisiana.  It was one of this trip’s target species for his life list.

“Ready for Black Francolin.  Up at 5:30 — After breakfast, we went to Gum Cove Road.  No Francolins, but at the end of the blacktop road, we had 5 Purple Gallinules in the scope at one time.  King Rails were plentiful.  We found a dead male Painted Bunting.  Later, we saw a very beautiful live one.  Water everywhere.  Flooded fields everywhere.  The road was flooded for about 50 yards at one point.  White Ibis were abundant.”

Purple Gallinule
Purple Gallinules (Porphyrio martinicus) were common along Gum Cove Road.  In silhouette from a distance, those that were perching atop the shrubs raised hopes that we had located the sought after Blank Francolin, but they were all Purple Gallinules.  We weren’t overly disappointed.  (Vintage 35 mm image)
Painted Bunting
The live male Painted Bunting (Passerina cirus) seen along Gum Cove Road.  (Vintage 35 mm image)

Other sightings of note along Gum Cove Road included: Northern Bobwhite, Common Nighthawk, Cattle Egret, Green Heron, American Bittern, Snowy Egret, Glossy Ibis, Black-necked Stilt (Himantopus mexicanus), Forster’s Tern, Black Tern, Yellow-billed Cuckoo, Eastern Kingbird, Purple Martin, Barn Swallow, Brown Thrasher, Loggerhead Shrike, Red-winged Blackbird, Brown-headed Cowbird, Eastern Meadowlark, Boat-tailed Grackle (Quiscalus major), and Great-tailed Grackle (Quiscalus mexicanus)—a very large and noisy blackbird I had never seen before.

Glossy Ibis
A Glossy Ibis (Plegadis falcinellus) in a flooded area along Gum Cove Road.  (Vintage 35 mm image)

The reader may be interested to know that today, the area between Vinton and the Gulf of Mexico has largely been surrendered to the forces of the hurricanes that strike the region with some regularity.  Cameron Parish* is a sparsely populated buffer zone of marshes, abundant wildlife, and oil and gas wells.  Its population of more than 9,000 in 1983 has plunged to less than 6,000 today.  Hurricane Rita (2005) and Hurricane Ike (2008) precipitated the sharp decline.  The latter hurricane had a 22-foot storm surge that flooded areas 60 miles inland of the coastline.  Following these storms, the majority of severely damaged and destroyed homes were not rebuilt and residents in the most affected areas relocated.  In 2020, Hurricane Laura made landfall at Cameron Parish with record-tying 150 mph winds and a storm surge that pushed flood waters inland to Lake Charles.  Six weeks later, Hurricane Delta followed with 100 mph winds.  For government agencies, the emergency response required by these two storms was minimized by the reduced presence of people and/or their personal property.

* A parish in Louisiana is similar to a county in other states.

Category 4 Hurricane Laura making landfall at Cameron Parish, Louisiana, on August 27, 2020, with wind speeds of 150 mph.  Had this storm come ashore to the east at New Orleans or to the west at Houston, it would have catastrophically impacted a million people or more.  (N.O.A.A./National Weather Service image)

“After a quick stop at the camp grounds, where I slipped and fell in the shower last nite, we headed south.  Larry saw many birds en route.”

Russ took a bad fall on a slippery wet concrete floor and had bruises to show for it.  It worried me; he was 71 years old at the time.  But he was adamant about continuing on and did so with great vigor.

Just hours after a sojourn through the swampy parcels south of Vinton, we were cruising through the metropolis of Houston, Texas, then across a landscape with less cultivated cropland and more scrubland with grazing.  Here and there, but primarily to the east of Houston, blankets of roadside wildflowers painted the landscape with eye-popping color.  Lady Bird Johnson encouraged the plantings soon after she and Lyndon returned to Texas upon leaving life in the White House in 1969.  The sight of those vivid blooms was so memorable and so beautiful.  One couldn’t resist making nasty comparisons to the gobs of mowed grass and mangled trash along the highways back in Pennsylvania.

Birds along the way: Ruby-throated Hummingbird, Common Nighthawk, Black-bellied Whistling Duck, Yellow-crowned Night Heron, Great Blue, Heron, Great Egret, Black Vulture, Turkey Vulture, Red-tailed Hawk, Laughing Gull, Black Tern, Scissor-tailed Flycatcher, Cliff Swallow, Loggerhead Shrike, and Painted Bunting.  I saw my first Black-bellied Whistling Ducks (Dendrocygna autumnalis) and Golden-fronted Woodpecker (Melanerpes aurifrons) near Woodsboro, Texas, and added both to my life list.

“We stopped for the nite at an A OK camp ground 7 miles south of Kingsville.”

Day Three: Vinton, Louisiana, to Kingsville, Texas, a distance of 404 miles.  (United States Geological Survey base image)

Birds at the camp included two Black-bellied Whistling Ducks flying overhead, Common Nighthawk, Golden-fronted Woodpecker, Blue Grosbeak, and another “lifer”—Curve-billed Thrasher (Toxostoma curvirostre).

We also saw a Mexican Ground Squirrel (Ictidomys mexicanus), easily identified by the rows of white spots running the length of its back.

While relaxing at the campsite that evening, we watched the landscape darken and remarked how interesting it was that the glowing red sun had yet to set below the distant horizon—a land so very flat and air so hazy and humid.

Common Nighthawk
We found this Common Nighthawk roosting on a tree limb near our campsite.  During our first few days in Louisiana and Texas, it became increasingly evident that we were in the midst of their peak northbound spring movement.  (Vintage 35 mm image)

Forty Years Ago in the Lower Rio Grande Valley: Day Two


Back in late May of 1983, four members of the Lancaster County Bird Club—Russ Markert, Harold Morrrin, Steve Santner, and your editor—embarked on an energetic trip to find, observe, and photograph birds in the Lower Rio Grande Valley of Texas.  What follows is a daily account of that two-week-long expedition.  Notes logged by Markert some four decades ago are quoted in italics.  The images are scans of 35 mm color slide photographs taken along the way by your editor.


DAY TWO—May 22, 1983

Our goal today was to continue traveling and reach western Louisiana.

“We were on our way at 6:08.  Stopped for a quick lunch in the camper and drove to Vinton, Louisiana, KOA.  Lots of hard rain through Tennessee, Georgia, and Alabama.

Day Two: Sweetwater, Tennessee, to Vinton, Louisiana, a distance of 786 miles.  (United States Geological Survey base image)

As we crossed Mississippi and entered Louisiana, we left the rain and the Appalachians behind.  Upon crossing the Mississippi River, we had arrived in the West Gulf Coastal Plain, the physiographic province that extends all the way south along the Texas coast to Mexico and includes the Lower Rio Grande Valley.  West of Baton Rouge, we began seeing waders in the picturesque Bald Cypress swamps—Great Egrets, Green Herons (Butorides virescens), Little Blue Herons (Egretta caerulea), and Glossy Ibis (Plegadis falcinellus) were identified.  A Pileated Woodpecker was observed as it flew above the roadside treetops.

The rains we endured earlier in the trip had left there mark in much of Louisiana and Texas.  Flooding in agricultural fields was widespread and the flat landscape often appeared inundated as far as the eye could see.  Along the highway near Vinton, we spotted the first two of the many southern specialties we would find on the trip, a Loggerhead Shrike (Lanius ludovicianus) and a Scissor-tailed Flycatcher (Tyrannus forficatus), both perched on utility wires and searching for a meal.

Loggerhead Shrike
Near Vinton, Louisiana, a Loggerhead Shrike was on the lookout for either a large insect or small bird upon which it could prey.  (Vintage 35 mm image)

A Visit to Bombay Hook National Wildlife Refuge

It’s surprising how many millions of people travel the busy coastal routes of Delaware each year to leave the traffic congestion and hectic life of the northeast corridor behind to visit congested hectic shore towns like Rehobeth Beach, Bethany Beach, and Ocean City, Maryland.  They call it a vacation, or a holiday, or a weekend, and it’s exhausting.  What’s amazing is how many of them drive right by a breathtaking national treasure located along Delaware Bay just east of the city of Dover—and never know it.  A short detour on your route will take you there.  It’s Bombay Hook National Wildlife Refuge, a quiet but spectacular place that draws few crowds of tourists, but lots of birds and other wildlife.

Bombay Hook National Wildlife Refuge is located just off Route 9, a lightly-traveled coastal road east of Dover, Delaware.  Note the Big Bluestem and other warm season grasses in the background.  Bombay Hook, like other refuges in the system, is managed for the benefit of the wildlife that relies upon it to survive.  Within recent years, most of the mowed grass and tilled ground that once occurred here has been replaced by prairie grasses or successional growth, much to the delight of Northern Bobwhite (Colinus virginianus) and other species.

Let’s join Uncle Tyler Dyer and have a look around Bombay Hook.  He’s got his duck stamp and he’s ready to go.

Uncle Ty’s current United States Fish and Wildlife Service Duck Stamp displayed on his dashboard is free admission to the tour road at Bombay Hook and other National Wildlife Refuges.
The refuge at Bombay Hook includes woodlands, grasslands, and man-made freshwater impoundments, but it is largely comprised of thousands of acres of tidal salt marsh bordering and purifying the waters of Delaware Bay.  These marshes are renowned wintering areas for an Atlantic population of Snow Goose known as the “Greater Snow Goose” (Anser caerulescens atlanticus).  Thousands of these birds rising over the marsh into the glowing light of a setting sun is an unforgettable sight.
Trails at various stops along the auto tour route lead to observation towers and other features. This boardwalk meanders into the salt marsh grasses and includes a viewing area alongside a tidal creek.  Our visit coincided with a very high tide induced by east winds and a new moon.
During high tide, an Eastern Cottontail (Sylvilagus floridanus) seeks higher ground near the boardwalk and the wooded edge of the salt marsh.
As the tide rises, fast-flying shorebirds scramble from flooded mudflats in the salt marsh on the east side of the tour road.
When high tide arrives in the salt marshes, shorebirds and waterfowl often concentrate in the man-made freshwater pools on the west side of the tour road.  Glaring afternoon sun is not the best for viewing birds located west of the road.  For ideal light conditions, time your visit for a day when high tide occurs in the morning and recedes to low tide in the afternoon.
A view looking west into Shearness Pool, largest of the freshwater impoundments at Bombay Hook.
Bombay Hook has many secretive birds hiding in its wetlands, but they can often be located by the patient observer.  Here, two Pied-billed Grebes feed in an opening among the vegetation in a freshwater pool.
One of Bombay Hook’s resident Bald Eagles patrols the wetlands.
American Avocets (Recurvirostra americana) gather by the hundreds at Bombay Hook during the fall.  A passing eagle will stir them into flight.
An American Avocet, a delicate wader with a peculiar upturned bill.
As soon as the tide begins receding, shorebirds and waterfowl like these Green-winged Teal begin dispersing into the salt marshes to feed on the exposed mudflats.
The woodlands and forested areas of the refuge host resident songbirds and can be attractive to migrating species like this Yellow-rumped Warbler.
For much of its course, the tour road at Bombay Hook is located atop the dike that creates the man-made freshwater pools on the western edge of the tidal salt marsh.  If you drive slowly and make frequent stops to look and listen, you’ll notice an abundance of birds and other wildlife living along this border between two habitats.  Here, a Swamp Sparrow has a look around.
Savannah Sparrows are common along the tour road where native grasses grow wild.
Bombay Hook is renowned for its rarities. One of the attractions during the late summer and autumn of 2021 was a group of Roseate Spoonbills (Platalea ajaja), vagrants from the southern states, seen here with Great Egrets and Snowy Egrets (Egretta thula).
Roseate Spoonbills and Great Egrets at Bombay Hook.

Remember to go the Post Office and get your duck stamp.  You’ll be supporting habitat acquisition and improvements for the wildlife we cherish.  And if you get the chance, visit a National Wildlife Refuge.  November can be a great time to go, it’s bug-free!  Just take along your warmest clothing and plan to spend the day.  You won’t regret it.