I arrived on time in New Orleans having come through Dallas. I had no need to go via Dallas, but some reason it was marginally cheaper and as I am a bit of a flying geek I got a much nicer seat. I also managed to scrape together a small Texas eBird list as I changed aircraft, with Eastern Kingbird on the terminal roof the highlight. They all count. Bradders was at the domestic exit to meet me, having driven across from Texas that afternoon. He had handed his rental car in and we were to pick up mine. Whereas his had been entirely sensible, mine was anything but, a Dodge Challenger with a 5.7L engine that even to a car agnostic like me sounded really quite extraordinary. I hadn't intended to hire this, I thought I was getting a VW Passat, but I didn't say no......Had we been more than two people I guess it would have been a bit of a issue as I don't remember much of a back seat, and looking at how it sat on the road anything unpaved might have caused problems, but actually it was fine. Not exactly a birding vehicle but it made the trip rather more fun as we had something like 1400 miles to cover without detours.
We stopped overnight in a crappy motel at Lakeland which is about an hour north of Grand Isle. We had not wanted to go the whole way at that time, plus with the Grand Isle birding festival happening accomodation on the island had been at a premium. We were up early the following morning, raring to go, and it was all we could do to not immediately start birding the motel car park and actually head south to proper birding habitat. The road, known as the Gateway to the Gulf Expressway, is quite something. It leaves the land at Leeville and becomes a raised causeway via large bridge, rejoining the barrier island at Fourchon. Ths whole area was devastated by Hurricane Katrina in 2005, and again by Hurricane Ida in 2021. Nothing seemed especially permanent and many of the houses were built on stilts.
Our first stop was at Elmer's Island Marsh, a site we had identified as likely to have Nelson's Sparrow which I needed for my ABA list. Indeed it did, though seeing them was pretty hard and getting a photo even more so. We eventually found three, along with Seaside Sparrow and Marsh Wren. A Clapper Rail ran around and we also had our first Terns - Gull-billed, Forster's and Royal, all before 8am. I love it when a plan comes together.
 |
| Seaside Sparrow |
 |
| Nelson's Sparrow |
 |
| Clapper Rail |
Moving on to Grand Isle itself we birded the Grilletta Tract, part of the Lafitte Woods Preserve. There were plenty of birders here, but actually not very many birds. Having drooled over massive eBird lists we didn't even manage 20 in over an hour. Highlights here were Yellow- billed Cuckoo and the resident Purple Martins at the small car park. With migration not really happening that morning we moved on to Exxon Fields, the oil terminal at the eastern end of the island. This was far more productive from a listing perspective with lots of Waders and Egrets, and Bradders' first Mottled Ducks.
 |
| Purple Martin |
Back in town at around midday we birded another one of the vacant lots - Landry-LeBlanc. This was better than our first attempt, with lots more passerine activity - three species of Vireo, Orchard Oriole, Summer Tanager and a dozen Scarlet Tanagers - clearly recent arrivals. Also present were good numbers of Rose-breasted Grosbeak and Blue Grosbeak, though Warblers were completely absent, we hadn't seen a single one all morning which was really bizarre.
It was time to leave, we needed to get all the way across to Alabama by nightfall, a significant drive. Checking eBird before we left we discovered that a rare Grey Kingbird had been found at Oak Ridge Community Park, about half way back to Raceland, so we stopped in there to see if we could find it. It took a little while, but we did find it along with both Eastern and Western Kingbird.
 |
| Grey Kingbird |
It wasn't until 4.30pm that we got through New Orleans,a nd we didn't help our cause by then stopping before we had even crossed Lake Pontchartrain, parking the car at Irish Bayou and walking down to the Bayou Sauvage levee. This was excellent birding, with the vast wetland yielding Black-bellied Whistling Duck, loads of Coot and Blue-winged Teal, Black-necked Stilt, and Anhingha, a White Ibis and seven other species of Egret, Eastern Meadowlark, Brown-headed Cowbird, and three species of Swallow. We spent about an hour here and now we really had to make some ground. I think Bradders drove whilst I birded out of the window, and we made a token stop at Henderson Point just after we crossed into Mississippi. This was another new State, and as we would be crossing into Alabama before the day was over we felt it was important to at least add something. Even though it was nearly dark we managed a few Gulls, lots of Nothern Mockingbirds, Carolina Wren and an Eastern Bluebird, before continuing east to Mobile. Our first day had been pretty monumental with 81 species, but still not a single Warbler. We very much hoped this would change!
No comments:
Post a Comment