Sea Rim State Park CBC - 4 January 2009

      The 2008-09 Sea Rim State Park Christmas Bird Count was scheduled for Saturday January 3rd, 2009. Unfortunately, a major traffic accident around 6:30 a.m. on Highway 87 near the Valero Refinery led to the Highway being closed for about five hours. Faced with this, with only three parties already in the Sabine Pass area, and only one other party able to reach its assigned areas, we decided that the best course of action was to postpone the count until the following day. We very much regret that there were six people who had other commitments on the following day and were unable to participate. We do very much appreciate the 18 people who did make the early start two days in a row!

      The weather was more of less cooperative. There was sea fog in the early morning, and a couple of isolated small showers during the late morning. But the cold front stayed north of the count circle until well after sundown, and none of the heavy rain it produced in Beaumont late that afternoon affected the count circle, which is almost all south of the Gulf Intracoastal Waterway. The temperature remained between 60 and 70 degrees all day.

      Again, we received magnificent cooperation from the wildlife areas and refuges. Patrick Walther, the biologist at McFaddin and Texas Point National Wildlife Refuges provided access and transportation along the beach at Texas Point and an air boat to survey the areas inside Texas Point NWR and the part of McFaddin NWR that is in the count circle. Jim Sutherlin of Texas Parks and Wildlife Department (TPWD) allowed us to access the J. D. Murphree Wildlife Management Area, and Justin Rhodes, Director of Region 4 of the TPWD Parks Division gave us permission to enter the otherwise closed Sea Rim State Park.

      Almost all areas within the count circle took brutal blows with Hurricane Ike on September 13th, 2008. The storm surge of that hurricane covered literally the entire count circle. At the shoreline, the surge was 18 feet. The vegetation in the coastal marshes is generally of salt tolerant species, because the areas quite frequently experience salt water intrusion. But higher areas do not, and the salt water top-killed all the underbrush, and probably damaged many trees. Only time will tell how bad the tree damage is. The coastal dunes were leveled, and there was significant erosion along much of the beach. From an ecological point of view, the habitat is currently much changed. It will recover, probably much faster than the man made infrastructure, which, in many areas was completely wiped out.

      Although there can be little statistical significance attached to a single count because of the vagaries of short-term climatic and weather conditions unrelated to the state of the habitat, this count may have been the most important Sea Rim count ever, and will be even more so as we conduct future counts over the next few years as the vegetation recovers. Nevertheless, it is, of course, tempting to draw conclusions from the results of the count. We will confine ourselves to a few generalizations, and point out some of the unusual features. The next few years will indicate whether these are permanent or just short-term temporary changes or something in between.

      Everyone initially wondered about the waterfowl, but, quite frankly, we do not see much in the count totals that is unusual. If anything, the numbers of most ducks are up! We know hunters in many, but not all, areas, are complaining about low numbers of ducks, yet we found at least as many ducks on the refuges and wildlife areas as we usually do. True, they were mostly in areas off-limits to hunting, but after a century or so of selectively killing the less-wary individuals, one surely must expect populations to become more wary of humans, especially those firing guns. Shorebird populations – by this we mean the true shorebirds, the beach birds – undoubtedly suffered massive disruption in feeding and roosting locations during and immediately after a storm, but already there is likely to be near normal food, and, indeed, the beach avifauna was reasonably normal. We did see some localized concentrations and absences, but taken over the entire ten plus miles of beach in the circle, things were not noticeably abnormal. The other shorebirds – the waders – have always been very variable depending on the amount and location of suitable inland shallow water and mud flats. The land birds, especially the Passerine species, were clearly not as numerous as normal. Particularly, many sparrow species were way down or absent. There were sparrows of the species which frequent saline environments, but in significantly reduced numbers.

      The very preliminary tally shows 139 species, but there were a fair number of species that have to be "count week" birds because they were seen on January 3rd while those that made it down that day birded while waiting to get back north. The recent average has been 156 species, so we were down between 15 and 20 species.

      Among the individual species, we would note that the Black-bellied Whistling-Ducks that hang around the waterfowl collection at Keith Lake are, according to the owner of the collection, free flying wild birds coming for free food, and so no different from other wild birds coming to feeders. The beach produced two species of scoter, the fifth consecutive year there have been scoters of some species. The numbers of American White Pelicans were quite low.

      Only two White-tailed Kites is a low number, but we have to consider that rodent populations presumably took a big hit in the hurricane, and will need a few more months at least to recover. American Kestrels were somewhat down, but they eat many large insects as well as small rodents. Loggerhead Shrikes, however, were significantly down. We did see five Peregrine Falcons, all but one along the beach, presumably feeding on shorebirds and gulls.

      We were pleased to see the Whimbrels present again, and good number of Ruddy Turnstones. We found Stilt Sandpipers for the third year in a row. They seem to like ponds very close to the beach, even tough those ponds are very frequently at least brackish in the winter. We had two interesting gull species, a second winter Glaucous Gull on Pleasure Island, and two adult California Gulls on the beach.

      Tree Swallows were missed within the count circle, although there are flocks around, and, indeed, some were seen count day outside the circle. (Perhaps a participants will remember seeing a swallow inside the circle!) The numbers of the Passerine species more or less speak for themselves, and the absence of the "inland" sparrow species has already been noted. Pine Siskin was a new species for the count.

The following species were seen (cw indicates seen count week, but not on the day of the count):

WHISTLING-DUCK, Black-bellied (10); GOOSE, Snow (1131); GOOSE, Snow (Blue) (10); GOOSE, Ross's (19); GOOSE, Canada (1); GADWALL (567); WIGEON, American (3); DUCK, Mottled (15); TEAL, Blue-winged (79); SHOVELER, Northern (263); PIN­TAIL, Northern (46); TEAL, Green-winged (2916); CANVASBACK (3651); REDHEAD (cw); DUCK, Ring-necked (2); SCAUP, Lesser (270); SCAUP, Species (1); SCOTER, Surf (4); SCOTER, Black (2); BUFFLEHEAD (13); MERGANSER, Hooded (5); MERGANSER, Red-breasted (40); DUCK, Ruddy (140); DUCK, species (2350); LOON, Common (cw); GREBE, Pied-billed (35); GREBE, Horned (1); GREBE, Eared (3); PELICAN, American White (306); PELICAN, Brown (136); CORMORANT, Neotropic (315); CORMORANT, Double-crested (135); CORMORANT species (10); ANHINGA (22); BITTERN, American (1); HERON, Great Blue (90); EGRET, Great (545); EGRET, Snowy (93); HERON, Little Blue (26); HERON, Tricolored (63); NIGHT-HERON, Black-crowned (62); NIGHT-HERON, Yellow-crowned (3); IBIS, White (550); IBIS, White-faced (26); IBIS, Plegadis species (108); SPOONBILL, Roseate (192); VULTURE, Black (1); VULTURE, Turkey (26); OSPREY (9); KITE, White-tailed (2); HARRIER, Northern (27); HAWK, Sharp-shinned (6); HAWK, Cooper's (cw); HAWK, Red-shouldered (1); HAWK, Red-tailed (14); CARACARA, Crested (cw); KESTREL, American (12); MERLIN (3); FALCON, Peregrine (5); RAIL, Clapper (11); RAIL, King (25); RAIL, Virginia (1); RAIL, species (5); MOORHEN, Common (7); COOT, American (898); PLOVER, Black-bellied (180); PLOVER, Snowy (17); PLOVER, Semipalmated (59); PLOVER, Piping (9); KILLDEER (47); OYSTERCATCHER, American (2); STILT, Black-necked (10); AVOCET, American (305); SANDPIPER, Spotted (3); YELLOWLEGS, Greater (17); WILLET (34); YELLOWLEGS, Lesser (43); WHIMBREL (3); CURLEW, Long-billed (27); TURNSTONE, Ruddy (39); SANDERLING (316); SANDPIPER, Western (120); SANDPIPER, Least (60); DUNLIN (451); SANDPIPER, Stilt (5); DOWITCHER, Short-billed (1); DOWIT­CHER, Long-billed (16); DOWITCHER, species (151); SNIPE, Wilson's (14); GULL, Laughing (362); GULL, Bonaparte's (36); GULL, Ring-billed (374); GULL, California (2); GULL, Herring (151); GULL, Glaucous (1); TERN, Caspian (9); TERN, Forster's (240); TERN, Royal (104); PIGEON, Rock (49); DOVE, White-winged (3); DOVE, Mourning (13); OWL, Barn (cw); OWL, Great Horned (cw); WILL'S-WIDOW, Chuck); KINGFISHER, Belted (12); WOODPECKER, Red-bellied (6); SAPSUCKER, Yellow-bellied (5); WOODPECKER, Downy (10); FLICKER, Northern (9); PHOEBE, Eastern (31); FLYCATCHER, Ash-throated); SHRIKE, Loggerhead (10); VIREO, Blue-headed (4); JAY, Blue (8); SWALLOW, Tree (cw); CHICKADEE, Carolina (2); CREEPER, Brown (1); WREN, Carolina (3); WREN, House (13); WREN, Sedge (39); WREN, Marsh (5); KINGLET, Ruby-crowned (46); GNATCATCHER, Blue-gray (22); BLUEBIRD, Eastern (8); THRUSH, Hermit (5); ROBIN, American (7); CATBIRD, Gray (1); MOCKINGBIRD, Northern (18); THRASHER, Brown (5); STARLING, European (187); PIPIT, American (30); WAXWING, Cedar (2); WARBLER, Orange-crowned (19); WARBLER, Yellow-rumped (14); WARBLER, Yellow-rumped(Myrtle) (633); WARB­LER, Pine (20); WATERTHRUSH, Northern (1); YELLOW­THROAT, Common (3); SPARROW, Lark (cw); SPARROW, Savannah (43); SPARROW, LeConte's (3); SPARROW, Nelson's Sharp-tailed (3); SPARROW, Seaside (7); SPARROW, Lincoln's (2); SPARROW, Swamp (31); SPARROW, White-throated (44); CARDINAL, Northern (17); BLACKBIRD, Red-winged (723); MEADOWLARK, Eastern (55); GRACKLE, Common (52); GRACKLE, Boat-tailed (100); GRACKLE, Great-tailed (180); GRACKLE, species (10); COWBIRD, Brown-headed (1); SISKIN, Pine (4); GOLDFINCH, American (20); SPARROW, House (1); SPECIES, total (139); INDIVIDUALS, total (21061); Observers (18); Parties (8-10); Party-hours total (69.00); Party-miles total (125.25).

Participants: Jim Armacost, Garrett Gauthier, John Haynes, Harrison Jordan, Rose Ann Jordan, Gary Kelley, Andy Loker, Carol Lynn Loker, Steve Mayes, Royce Pendergast, Sherrie Roden, Christine Sliva, Ken Sztraky, Patrick Walther, Colt Westbrook, Tex Wells, Jana Whittle, John Whittle. Thanks also to those who would have participated had we been able to conduct the count on the scheduled day: Don Fisher, Nancy Fisher, Sherry Gibson, Bill Graber, Don Jeane, Patricia Jeane.