"Show me, the way, to the next Fork-tailed Fly"

To call a Fork-tailed Flycatcher (Tyrannus savanna) "stunning" or "exquisite" feels a bit cliché, but as far as New World Flycatchers go, its a pretty spectacular example of evolution.

Riviera, Kleberg Co. Tx

Dec. 7, 2019

"… Oh, don't ask why."

3pm on Friday afternoon saw me clocking out of work for the week and jumping in my car for a marathon of driving. I was able to slip through Santa Fe without to much hassle and dusk found me rolling into Roswell, NM. After quite a bit of aggravation due to a combination of construction on the truck bypass and the city's poorly timed traffic lights, I finally escaped and bombed eastward on Hwy 380 towards the state line and into the flickering, odorous haze of Oil Country.

By about the time I reached Brownfield, Tx I realized that this was the fourth year in a row that I found myself chasing birds in southern Texas. Fittingly, given my chosen soundtrack for most of my bird twitches, it was also the weekend of the late Jim Morrison's birthday. This quirk of coincidence kept me entertained as I navigated through Big Spring, angling ever south and eastward towards I-10. As I entered the northern edges of what used to be proper Hill Country before people shredded the habitat for farming, I began to realize just how much easier these chases were from Las Cruces. I took for granted the convenience of hopping on I-10 for 550 miles to San Antonio. Instead I now had to contend with two-lane highways and lots of deer standing menacingly near the shoulder.

Ironically, my one encounter with a deer happened on I-10, somewhere near Boerne (I think). I drove through what only moments earlier had undoubtedly been an intact, living deer standing in the middle of the interstate but was now exploded viscera. A few hundred feet later I rounded a corner to see a semi with its hazard lights flashing and crawling up the shoulder. Lucky for me (though very unlucky for the poor animal) that semi had found the unsuspecting ungulate just a minute or two before, otherwise it probably would have been the end of my twitch, and possibly my life. A little rattled by the realization of what I had narrowly avoided, I took another gulp of coffee and sharpened my focus on the road.

I slid through San Antonio at 3am (my favorite time to roll through large cities) without any problems and made it to I-37 for the home stretch, or so I thought. The 110 or so miles I had to traverse towards Corpus Cristi were mind-numbing, and seemingly every other driver I encountered seemed hell-bent on leaving their high-beams on to blind me. Somehow I managed to stay awake long enough to get to my exit and head south on Hwy 77.

I arrived at the pond across the street from the Riviera School a little before 6am. This gave me about a half an hour to doze off before starting my search for the Fork-tailed Flycatcher (Tyrannus savanna) that had been hanging out in the area for the past several days. The dawn chorus was full of old friends I hadn't heard in over a year since the last time I was in southern Texas. I was pleasantly surprised to see several Green Jays (Cyanocorax yncas) carrying acorns from the trees around town to an unseen cache. A duo of Olive Sparrows (Arremonops rufivirgatus) skulked and called from some brush, one of which finally popped up and posed for a photo after ample pishing on my part.

Olive Sparrow (Arremonops rufivirgatus)

Riviera, Kleberg Co. Tx

Dec. 7, 2019

After about an hour and a half I was joined by two other birders (Willie Sekula and Kim Garwood) who checked the road on the other side of the pond (adjacent to the WTP) and found the bird briefly low in a bush. By the time I got over there though, the bird had disappeared along with its Scissor-tailed Flycatcher (Tyrannus forficatus) companions. Though I was a little annoyed to have missed it, especially since I had been searching that area since dawn, it was a relief to know the bird was still around. About six hours and innumerable circuits checking the places it had been previously seen I needed a break. It seemed to have been more easily seen in the evening at the water treatment ponds, so for the sake of my sanity I decided to check out the nearby Kaufer-Herbert Memorial Park for an hour and come back. I knew I was breaking "Rule Number One" (never leave), but to compromise I decided to do one more circuit before I took my break. Upon rounding the corner of CR 2335 and CR 1070 I noticed two cars pulled off on either side of the road and I looked up at the telephone lines to see the Fork-tailed Flycatcher perched in all its fork-tailed glory.

Fork-tailed Flycatcher (Tyrannus savanna) 

Riviera, Kleberg Co. Tx

Dec. 7, 2019

As I watched the bird from my car, it inexplicably decided to fly closer to me, until it was perched directly in front of me. I had a harder time than I'd like to admit suppressing my urge to evoke Wayne and Garth upon meeting Alice Cooper, but I too felt unworthy of this cathartic experience, undoubtedly exacerbated by the exhaustion and tension of having driven 14 hours only to then spend another six hours searching in circles. The bird eventually moved on and I decided to start bumping north.

After a quick stop at Kaufer-Herbert for some shorebirds on the mudflats (always a good time), I decided to try my luck with traffic and the inevitable sunset by running up to the sod farms outside of Frio Town for Mountain Plovers (Charadrius montanus). I had originally planned on shooting north to try for the continuing Heerman's Gull (Larus heermanni) on Sunday, but negative reports from today made me decide to switch gears.

Despite a few setbacks due to construction, I managed to get to the sod fields about 10 minutes before official sunset. Lucky for me, a single Mountain Plover was visible a few hundred yards off the road, easily identifiable in the scope, but impossible to photograph in the rapidly fading light. Nevertheless, I was happy to add this as species #452 for my Texas list.

From here I continued north, finally getting to Eden, Tx around 10pm where I pulled into the rest stop just west of town and set up for the night. After being up for 40 hrs straight (not quite a personal record) it didn't take long for me to slip into unconsciousness. I awoke shortly before sunrise on Sunday and checked Lee Pfluger Park in Eden for the Red-naped Sapsucker (Sphyrapicus nuchalis) that had been photographed three weeks earlier. I was interested in seeing what the bird looked like now after presumably completing its molt. The photos of the bird from November appeared to show a thick black malar and the retention of some juvenal plumage, which to me seemed like an indication of some Yellow-bellied introgression. Red-naped typically complete their preformative molts by the end of October whereas Yellow-bellied (S. varius) often don't complete this molt until much later (mid to late winter). At least in New Mexico any Red-naped/Yellow-bellied retaining juvenile plumage after November is pretty safe to call a Yellow-bellied, barring indications of hybridization. This Eden sapsucker's lack of any "bleeding" of red from the throat across the malar also seems to suggest hybrid, along with the incomplete and messy red nape. However, I never saw the bird, and considering it had appeared to have *mostly* completed its preformative molt, I can't say it couldn't be a pure Red-naped, it just seemed a little funny to me.

The horrendous SSW wind put a serious damper on my birding for the rest of the day, and I made tracks for home, pulling into my driveway shortly before 5pm, ending my Texas twitch after 49 hours. As usual, my time in the Lone Star State left me wishing I had more time to poke around and explore the diverse habitats and birdlife. Fortunately, come April I plan on doing just that, but in the meantime there is a Northern Shrike (Lanius borealis) in the panhandle that keeps teasing me.